Al and George

Al & George were a Toronto-based musical comedy duo formed by George Westerholm and Al Rae (later known as Lara Rae), whose offbeat blend of absurdist humour, original songs, and satirical performance made them a distinctive presence on the city’s alternative comedy and underground music circuit in the 1980s. Emerging from the same broader creative environment that produced acts like Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and The Kids in the Hall, the duo developed a cult following through live shows that mixed sketch-like concepts with deliberately eccentric pop and spoken-word material.

Their only known standalone release, The Al and George Story (1989), remains the principal recorded document of their work. Issued as a seven-track EP, the record functions as both parody and pseudo-retrospective, presenting an invented mythology of the duo’s “career” through mock-biographical liner notes, fabricated studio lore, and knowingly absurd track annotations. The result is less a conventional comedy album than a carefully constructed conceptual artifact, one that captures the peculiar intelligence and deadpan sensibility that defined Al & George’s live act.

The record also connects directly to Toronto’s independent music underground. Tracks 1 and 2, ‘Route 601’ and ‘Brain Operation,’ feature Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet as the backing band. Other contributors included Ted Husband and John Lynass, while production was credited to Anthony Mancini and Al & George, with engineering by Andi Charal.

Although Al & George never built a large commercial discography, their reputation endured through their association with Canada’s alternative comedy boom and through the later accomplishments of both members. George Westerholm went on to a long and varied career as a musician, writer, and comedian, while Al Rae became one of the most respected figures in Canadian comedy before later transitioning and becoming known as Lara Rae. In retrospect, The Al and George Story stands as a rare surviving artifact from a moment when Toronto’s underground comedy and independent music scenes overlapped in unusually inventive ways.
-Robert Williston