Comedy Review: Rob Cantrell's 'Dreams Never Die'

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Rob Cantrell
Rob Cantrell’s second album features seven songs.

Comedian Rob Cantrell has been a longtime supporter of the marijuana cause. His second album consists of seven funny songs, including the stoner favorite, "Coffee and Weed."

Cantrell is not your usual standup. He'd rather sing and rap than crack jokes. Take "Babies n Shit" off of Dreams Never Die. A father of a one-year-old, Cantrell is pretty direct about conception: "Wifed up my chick, gave her the dick, nine months I got babies n shit." Caroline Castiglia chimes in as a clever keyboard jingles the tune.

Channeling George Carlin's "hippie-dippy weatherman" on the intro to "Heavy Weather," Cantrell's more like the rap-daddy prognosticator as a metal guitar offers some heft and crunch to the track. Similarly, Big Rob hovers over the big city on "Helicopter," with its beeps, steel drums and thick guitar chords.

But it's "Coffee and Weed" that really hits home. "Welcome to Club Pelican," he jokes at the start. "This goes out to all the birds and trees and bumble bees, and people that love them." After the opening verse Cantrell funky raps the chorus: "Coffee and weed, that's what I need / Yes indeed, yes indeed / Coffee and weed, that's what I like, when I rock the mic."

Asked about the album's cover art and many references to pelicans, Cantrell tells CelebStoner: "They're funny, awkward and badass (from 500 feet in the sky they dive for their goal, a fish). I like to play on the absurd and not do the played-out stuff. The pelican eventually kills me at the end of the album, hence we all have to die. What can I say, I'm English major."

He's probably also a big fan of the NBA's recently renamed New Orleans Pelicans.

Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom

Publisher of CelebStoner.com, former editor of High Times and Freedom Leaf and co-author of Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness.