Z-Rock: Flight of the Conchords-meets-Spinal Tap

Music and comedy is a tough mix; very few television series and movies about bands are very funny. I don’t know whether this is because rock n roll is, itself, one giant parody or we all take ourselves too seriously.

There are some moments of obvious genius – Spinal Tap is one of the funniest movies of all time, Adult Swim’s heavy metal cartoon Metalocalypse is devilishly amusing and Flight of the Conchords has reinvented the game with its Bowie-songs-versus-radio2-gallows-humour.

However, Z-Rock looks pretty damn funny too. The series, which will air later this year on IFC, follows a band of Sabbath worshipping heavy metal guys who moonlight as a Wiggles-esque Saturday morning kids party act. The party has, in fact, played for the kids of Robert DeNiro and Michael J. Fox.

In the show the band members play fictionalized versions of themselves, exaggerating their actual experiences — including a pitched rivalry with other New York-based children’s musicians — pursuing the recording contract that long eluded them.

“There were always hot moms,” Mr. Cassata, 30, the band’s drummer, said wistfully over a recent lunch of steamed broccoli and seared tuna, alongside his bandmates at a theater district restaurant.

Paulie Z, 28, interjected: “They were all wealthy, good-looking and in shape. I don’t speak for anyone in the band but myself, because I don’t know what skeletons are in their closets. But I definitely took advantage of some of the nannies.”

NY Times