Producer by day, parody musician by night

[Dr. Whiplash]

Radio producer's love of word games makes him a natural at parody
By Gary Budzak
The Columbus Dispatch Weekender

Blend a current event with a play on words, add a catchy tune, and you have a song parody. Master parodist Dan Orr has released five albums containing ditties such as Nights in White Castle, Heartbreak Modell, All Along the Mayflower, Jumpin' Rick Nash and Where the Sheets Have No Stains.

He and his band, the Dan Orr Project, will play Friday at Gatsby's and open for REO Speedwagon Aug. 16 at the Lifestyle Communities Pavilion.

Even the group's name was a joke: "I had to come up with a name, and I picked something ridiculously pretentious," Orr said last week from the High Street studios of WLVQ (96.3 FM), where he produces The Wags & Elliott Morning Show. For about 15 years, singer-guitarist Orr has been writing parodies; the past 10, he and his Project -- bassist Bob Watts and drummer Mike Brown -- have performed.

"Our biggest audience was a sold-out Nationwide Arena -- but it was the intermission of a Blue Jackets game, and people were (in the bathroom)," Orr, 40, said.

The parodies started as an accident, Orr said, but it seems inevitable that his on-the-job exposure to stand-up comedians and classic rock would lead to concoctions such as Cheney's Got a Gun.

"My mind is always playing word games, and I've got a jukebox in my head."

When he heard that Billy Joel married a much younger woman, Orr parodied the song She's Always a Woman as She's Almost a Woman, rhyming AARP and 23.

As the Marc Dann scandal swirled this spring, Orr wanted to parody the soon-to-resign Ohio attorney general. At first, he wasn't sure what tune to use, but after hearing the Police play Roxanne in concert, he finished his parody the next day.

"Dan Orr has a great feel for what makes a hot parody topic at any given moment -- and what classic-rock song will make the perfect vehicle for it. Plus, he and his band can execute," wrote Barret Hansen in an e-mail. Hansen has played two dozen Project songs on his syndicated radio show Dr. Demento.

Orr said when his "party band" plays a bar date, some don't get the parodies at first. To confuse matters, the Dan Orr Project also has 10 original songs to draw from and recently has thrown in a straight cover song or two.

"It's interesting watching people's reactions to what we're doing to their favorite song. But if you listen to it, you'd know we love this music we're playing. We're really making fun of ourselves. They're there to meet with friends, not to figure out what we're doing. But then a line might click in, and we'll win them over. We might play (parodies of songs by) the Monkees and Rush -- that would make us Mush."