Looking for something interesting to tease your brain as it titillates your ears? Look no further!

The basic premise is this: Henry Svec, of Peter Mansbridge and the CBCs (which Canadian readers will recognize as a fantastic band name), has released a “live” album called Lives the Part, where he tells stories and plays songs under the guise of Henry Thomas, the actor who played “Elliott” in the movie ET. It’s a tough concept to do justice with just one sentence (not to mention without my brain exploding). Thankfully, Svec himself explained the motivation behind the new persona in a recent interview with Until Monday, where he states:

“I have always wanted to create a character to perform and write songs through. Also, I’d always toyed with the idea of doing a one-person sort of fringe theatre play. I guess I just found a way to do both at once as “The Boy from ET.”

He goes on to detail just how much of the character is based on the real Henry Thomas (essentially nothing aside from the fact that he was a child actor known for having starred in ET) and furthermore that Thomas himself is not at all happy with the concept (read the entire interview here).

High concept aside, Lives the Part has Svec proving himself to be a great storyteller who can weave an interesting and entertaining yarn. Of course, this is to say nothing of his skills as a songwriter, as he’s got some charming chops as a vocalist with a knack for witty and comedic lyrics that are still touching when it counts. Take “A Stompin’ Tom Cover” for instance, which is put forth as a supposedly unrecorded Connors tune (the claim being that Thomas learned this song from Connors himself—whom is said to be Thomas’ uncle):

“I loved a girl once, but she only loved rockstars/I caught her one night getting filled by April Wine’s guitar player so hard/the whole town could hear it…”

Which ultimately culminates in the maxim: “It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you can see the stars”—a line that fits nicely as a potential Connors refrain. In fact, you feel for “Thomas” during this track, as he urges the audience to participate and is instead greeted with silence. Actually, the curious twist on this “live” album is that the audience never participates—not a clap or a holler is heard throughout, just whispers of conversation being held in spite of the “performance.”

All told, Lives the Part is definitely one of the more inventive releases I’ve gotten my ears on in a while, and it boasts some excellent songwriting from a Canadian talent. The lengthy stories mean that you might not listen from start to finish every time, but the songs themselves will keep you coming back—if your head doesn’t explode first.

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Here’s a particularly charming track from Lives the Part for your own personal bewilderment (right-click, “Save Link As” to download):

The Boy from ET - In Quebec (Fuck You, Gerrard Depardieu)

You can listen to a bunch more at The Boy from ET’s Myspace Page, or buy a digital copy of the album here.