Jeff J.J. Star Duran

Duran should be a household name by now ala Chelsea Lately, Russell Brown-instead he is 39 years old and lives in a trailer behind his mother 25 miles outside Los Angeles. Despite almost twenty years as a stand-up comedian and radio personality, Duran is a mere blip on the showbiz radar and in recent years a faint memory to anybody who knew him in the past. Shows are rare and his long awaited ‘How Embarrassing’ film is still being worked on to this day. Duran insists he will emerge again on commercial radio and on stage better than ever. Few care about Duran except for a handful of Britney Spears fans who know he penned Britney’s most notorious unreleased track “Rebellion”. When Duran broke his silence early in 2013 he had fans wishing death on him for not leaking the full track which is said to be in his archives with thousands of other songs he’s worked on for years. Musically JJ Star is harder on the palate then his outrageous stand up and few have praised to his free downloads released in recent years. My attention to Duran was given when I saw his “I Sold My Soul To The Illuminati” mix tape getting the same downloads as T.I. and Soulja Boy on Datpiff.com. Here was a middle aged comedian nobody cares about getting over 75,0000 downloads on a hip hop music site. Although Duran copped to boosting those figures, I listened to the mix tape and was fairly impressed. Whether it was spoken word or the Av-ant garde nature of his compositions, Duran struck me as a cat who marched to his own beat. Further mix tapes like ‘The Sicilian Incident’ and “Dr. Zavago’s Law” made me want to contribute to the liner notes of his fifth official release. Picking up where 2012’s “Cursed Left Birth” left off, Jeff JJ Star Duran is a less experimental comedic tour de force. All his insane characters return like Evis T (The Illegitimate son of a Elvis Impersonators Daddy), Dr. Deth (A Dr. who treats patients problems by killing them) and Danny Banali (The Gay pop singer this time crooning the bombastic “Grand Mall” ditty). We also get the raw stand up of JJ Star recorded last November 2012 at Jon Lovitz in North Hollywood. The two people who tuned into Duran’s podcast will recall the backlash against his decision to direct the film about late Warrant singer Jani Lane. The latter is represented nicely in this collection. Musically Duran goes for laughs as an old rapper and horror core artist, eventually giving way to an XXX rated country jam ala David Allan Coe. This 70 minutes plus opus is packed with spoken word, skits, stand up and songs. Although this will unlikely bring mainstream success, it is a poignant entry into the career discography of a misunderstood comedy genius. D.C. Lacroix (Music Plus Entertainment)