You are Lindley Armstrong Jones, and by 1940 you are one of the top studio drummers in the business. The work is plentiful, the work is profitable. But you are dissatisfied. The pop hits of the day are pleasant enough but lacking something in the way of imaginative vitality. In your off hours you've been leading a band that specializes in turning the standards inside out, the public response to which inspires you to take a hard left and make a full-time occupation of following your own muse, which is unlike any other. This is because where others hear strings and woodwinds, you hear chickens clucking, tires screeching and 38-caliber pistols discharging or people belching and farting. You are, as it happens, not merely Lindley Armstrong Jones but, by nickname, Spike Jones, a man – nay, a giant – busy assaulting and subverting the quotidian on a daily basis.

Destined to go down in history as the Master of Musical Mayhem, whose feats of sonic anarchy link him with the likes of Harry Partch and John Cage, Jones and his music are now featured anew in two well-considered collections. Spiked! – with cover art by Art Spiegelman and an impassioned essay by card-carrying Spikophile and reclusive Great American Novelist Thomas Pynchon – offers a broad overview of Jones' career through rare and obscure tracks dating from one of his first recordings, "Red Wing" (1941), to his final studio effort, "Frantic Freeway" (1961), part of an unfinished album still awaiting vocals and additional effects at the time of the artist's death in 1965. Spiked! also features Jones' unexpurgated rethinking of The Nutcracker Suite, from 1945.

While Spike-type humor abounds throughout these releases, those new to the Jones oeuvre will discover sterling musicianship informing the band's amiable disassembling of pop, country and classical forms. Of the gifted City Slickers, trumpeter George Rock cast the most imposing shadow. Peter Schickele (himself, as P.D.Q. Bach, something of a child of Spike) asserted that Rock "drove the band the way great jazz drummers drove theirs." As with most of Jones' troupe, Rock's talent was multidimensional: He supplied the child's toothless, whistling vocal on the Christmas classic "All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)" (included on the Rhino set) and is heard to poignant effect on Spiked! during the Nutcracker Suite extravaganza.

As the selections on both volumes attest, the essence of Jones' mayhem lay in control and logic – the belch at the end of "Pal-Yat-Chee" (from Spiked!) is impeccably timed, as are the clucks, the sneezes, the gunshots and even the riotously corny Doodles Weaver jokes punctuating other songs. The two-CD Musical Depreciation Revue, with intelligent annotation by Cub Koda and Dr. Demento, is recommended as a grand introduction to the master's best-known recordings, encompassing social commentary (Jones' mockery of Hitler in "Der Fuerer's Face"); deflation of the snobbish in "Cocktails for Two"; sendups of sentimental pop fare ("I Went to Your Wedding" finds vocalist Sir Frederick Gas in full flower); and a tender heart, apparent in the jovial spirit of "All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)." It's a splendid setup indeed for the unusual wonders awaiting listeners in Spiked!, such as the Billy Eckstine-style vocalist falling asleep during his lugubrious rendition of "Deep Purple." Those so inclined are advised to spend some time with other important Spike titles, namely Spike Jones Is Murdering the Classics!, It's a Spike Jones Christmas and Dinner Music ... for People Who Aren't Very Hungry!

In his essay Pynchon refers to Jones' music as "his maniac's blessing and gift." But Pynchon best defined its allure in 1973 when he penned the opening sentences of his labyrinthine (Spike-influenced?) novel Gravity's Rainbow: "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now." Ever suspicious of such encomiums, Spike's retort would doubtless be a belch in E flat, supplied by the City Slicker hired solely to perform this task on cue and always in key. What a blessing; what a gift. (RS 691)

DAVID MCGEE