2021 Jurors
Jurors for 2021
Fan Jurors
Kristi Avery
Kristi has been a fan of comedy music for many years, being raised with such classics as Dead Skunk, Purple People Eater, and The Streak. Love for “Weird Al” soon followed and exposure to many other artists happened with that fandom, culminating with hosting shows on dementiaradio.org, as well as being a vocal supporter of comedy acts during live shows. Being a juror is a responsibility that Kristi takes very seriously as a second time juror.
Mark Hehir
Mark Hehir is better known in the demented music world as Professor Incubus. For over 10 years now, Mark has broadcast his own comedy music internet radio show on dementiaradio.org. Over the last several years,he has also written and recorded several of his own parody songs, as well as recorded songs that other talented parody writers have given him permission to do. Mark’s interest in demented music extends back to the 1980’s, when he used to listen to the Dr. Demento show on Sunday nights.
Natalie Rosen
The first music purchase Natalie Rosen ever made was a “Weird Al” Yankovic cassette. She considers her life to be currently in a transitional phase, but her past includes stints as an actress, a telephone surveyor, a singing pirate, a horror impresario, a graphic designer, and an immigration paralegal. With her latest nascent project, Minsky Pickup, she and her bandmates hope to reintroduce the songs of American vaudeville, British music hall, and old Broadway to a whole new generation of audiences. She lives in Baltimore with her wife and cats.
Musician Jurors
Rand Bellavia
Rand Bellavia is a singer, songwriter, guitarer in the bands Ookla the Mok and Via Bella. Ookla the Mok’s songs “Mwahaha” won the 2014 Logan Award of Outstanding Original Comedy Song. Ookla’s songs have appeared on Dr. Demento’s Basement Tapes 7 (“Stop Talking About Comic Books or I’ll Kill You”) and 12 (“F. People”). Ookla the Mok also had the most requested song on Dr. Demento for two years in a row: “Tantric Yoda” in 2012 and “Mwahaha” in 2013. Rand co-wrote the theme to Disney’s Fillmore and his voice is the first thing you hear on the Gym Class Heroes hit single “Cupid’s Chokehold.” A longtime member of the filk community, Rand has been nominated for 21 Pegasus Awards, winning 4. His most recent project is the 2021 solo album The Tips of My Fingers.
Rachel “Quirky” Schenk
Rachel “Quirky” Schenk is a pop culture podcaster (The Infinity Podcast, Screen Snark), twitch streamer (Chez Goober), cat parent to Champion: the People’s Kitty, and performance artist (back when we did that kind of thing in the meatspace)Musically, they form 1/2 of the comedy musical duo, Afterbirth Monkey and make up 1/6th of the nerdy a capella group, Choirfly. Rachel has S rank support with animation, puppetry, TTRPGs, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and is deeply food motivated.
Kobi LaCroix
Kobi LaCroix is a sporadically active artist and musician whose comedy “hits” include the Viking song in which he shouts a lot, the Tuba song in which he shouts a lot, and a series of knockoff energy drink commercials in which he shouts a lot. His current big project is a concept album about monsters and monstrosity (in which there will probably be more shouting). Most of his current work can be found at ZenCavern.com and kobi-lacroix.bandcamp.com, and his previous comedy work can be found on his page at The FuMP.
Permanent Juror
Dr. Demento
Dr. Demento is the on-air name of Barret Hansen, the longtime host of The Dr. Demento Show, a syndicated radio show in the U.S. that features novelty and comedy records. Hansen studied music at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and at the University of California at Los Angeles. He first used the Dr. Demento moniker in 1970, in his early days as a Los Angeles disc jockey. By 1974 he was nationally syndicated, playing rare novelty songs from the past and present, from Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer to Frank Zappa and Weird Al Yankovic. Hansen is also an avid record collector and expert on the history of recording who has produced several compilations, mostly for Rhino Records. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2009. (from Infoplease.com)
The Dr. Demento Show is radio’s weekly two-hour festival of “mad music and crazy comedy” available for streaming on the internet. It is a free-wheeling, unpredictable mix of music and comedy. Along with legends like Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Monty Python, and Frank Zappa, the Doctor plays new funny songs sent in by amateur and professional singers and comedians. (from Dr. Demento.com)
A documentary film about Dr. Demento, “Under the Smogberry Trees,” is currently in production.
Chairperson
Ian Bonds (Insane Ian)
Insane Ian is an active member of the comedy musician collective known as The Funny Music Project (aka The FuMP) as both a performer and fan of comedy music.
As a comedy musician, II loves video games. He plays them, he reviews them, he collects them, he even writes comedy songs about video games (among other nerdy subjects). Just one look at Ian’s Bandcamp page makes it obvious that Insane Ian is a comedy music juggernaut that cannot be stopped. Very recently, Ian hit a milestone in his career a long time in coming, as he had the #1 most requested song of 2015 on “The Dr. Demento Show”, the name-mangling Brit-tribute, “Benedict Cumberbatch”, sitting firmly atop the Doctor’s year-end Funny 25. With a sharp wit, sarcastic smirk, and a bit of self-deprecation, he’ll bring his unique sound to anyone who won’t tell him to shut up…and even a few that will.
As a comedy music fan, Ian is the admin of the official Dr Demento fan group on Facebook, as well as running all the press things for the FuMP. Double I has been nominated for several Logan Awards over the years but has yet to win one, which has earned him the nickname “Rap Game Susan Lucci”. Ian is now the permanent chairman of the awards.
