"White Trash Wins Lotto" is very hard to describe. It's a musical about Axl Rose coming to LA and becoming a rock star. But the music is anything but rock: it's Broadway by way of Gilbert and Sullivan. And it's hilarious and audacious and grandiose, full of wraiths, Eurotrash kids, record execs, heavy metal stripper chicks, and drugged-out rock stars, alive and dead.
It was created by Andy Prieboy in the late 90s, and performed with the help of talented musical and comedic friends, it grew to become a cult favorite, at the Largo and Roxy Theater in LA, the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, and finally P.S. 122 in New York City in 2000.
Now Prieboy, the piece's composer, librettist, and director, is giving away a restored digital cast recording, and you can download it here for free. I recommend also downloading the Lyrics/Backstory and Program pdf booklets, for context and so that you can better follow the lyrics, which are very quick and very clever.
My favorite song is "We Can Do What We Want," in which "a record executive, an attorney, and a rock manager are conspiring to steal the band away from Vicky Harrison, the woman who discovered and is now managing [Guns N' Roses]." Included among the performers happen to be two of my favorite comedians, Dave Foley and Blaine Capatch. As the male suits gleefully plan to cheat a woman from her just reward, their profane frat-boy misogyny soars to operatic heights in a tornado of sexist epithets and clever rhymes.
Here is Prieboy and the cast performing one of the songs on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2000.
Gorgeous album artwork posted with the permission of Andy Prieboy and the artist, Lee Moyer.
Previously: Watch a clip of Queen and Axl Rose`s tribute to Freddie Mercury
