How do you spell success?

Been spending the last couple of weeks with OHO disks on the CD changer, and I can safely say that a trip to OHO Land — emphasis on “trip” — is a journey to the place where progressive meets psychedelia meets general Ralph Records dada weirdness.

 Though OHO and various offshoots, such as Food For Worms, date back almost three decades, these are no dusty museum pieces. Granted, the sound often betrays its vintage — I haven’t seen any ads for Mellotron players in the classifieds since, oh, 1976 — but there’s little of the excess that caused the first punks to rant about BOF (boring old farts) and their music.

 No 20-minute magnum opuses — opi? — based on children’s nursery rhymes. No aimless noodling designed to show that every button on a mini-Moog does something. (Speaking of which, what could be funnier than people spending hundreds of dollars to make their gee-whiz digital synthesizers sound just like mini-Moogs and ARP 2600’s? What’s next, “bands” eschewing drummers for cheesy sounding drum machines? Oh, never mind.)

 So OHO, a band which once sang “We’ll All Be Famous When We’re Dead,” is neither, and certainly not likely to become famous any time soon. The reason why is a simple question with a complex answer.

 Certainly, the band in its many incarnations has the chops: there may not be any Frippertronics, but the musicianship is as strong as anything you’ll hear on a Happy the Man or Jade Warrior disc, though with weaker cover art. And anyone who ever liked King Crimson in any form, middle period Captain Beefheart, early Genesis or the Residents will find something to like. (Yes, kids, there was life before Linkin Park.)

 The answer, really is two-fold...maybe three-fold.

 First, the band has never pandered to the Gods of commercialism. While a Randy Newman can remain true to his art and still rake in the cash — the take from “Momma Told Me Not To Come” alone should keep him in beer and skittles ad infinitum — the refusal to make the music accessible in any way, shape or form until very recently hasn’t exactly attracted the star-making machinery.

 Second, and most obvious — hey, I went to college in New Jersey, so waddaya want from me? — is that the band has consistently played progressive music, a genre that isn’t exactly tearing up the charts. Radio friendly, as that term is understood today, it ain’t.

 Thirdly, the band is often having TOO MUCH FUN, and that fun has a tendency to sometimes spill over into self-indulgent spoken word weirdness, lyrics that would be head scratching under the best of circumstances, and singers who vocalize as if the lyrics were something to be dispensed with as quickly as possible, so they can get back to their complex multi-key chord progressions. (Still, I’d rather have that than Jon Anderson setting his acid-tinged dreams to music.)

 (The band apparently recognizes that last point, as the latest disk, Up, utilizes hired hand female singers with strong voices.)

 So, what to make of OHO? (The name is a take-off of the A-ha! of sudden recognition/enlightenment/surprise.) If you’re ready to venture a little farther afield than the latest rap/dance pop/tortured artist whine, you might be ready for OHO. Or not. It all depends upon your answer to the question once posed by the late Frank Zappa: Does humor belong in music?