Category Archives: Tuneage

TomThon 2011 is Go!

The annual WFMU Pledge Marathon has begun, and The Freeform Station of the Nation needs you. Yes, you. And you. And even you. If you can swing it, please use the handy dandy WFMU Pledge widget to your right to donate today.

Just in case you are not aware: WFMU (91.1 on your FM dial in the NYC area, streaming at WFMU.org) is a 100 percent listener-supported radio station that broadcasts out of Jersey City. None of their funding comes from the gubment. Very little (if any) comes from corporate entities. None of the DJs are paid. The vast majority of the labor needed to keep the place up and running comes from volunteers.

Why? Because it is one of the only radio stations in the tri-state area–and America–where people can play pretty much whatever they want. In a world where most frequencies are programmed, and in many cases DJ’ed, by robots, WFMU remains a bastion of The Human Element.

Perhaps the very idea of a radio station seems quaint to you, in our world of MP3 players and fax machines, but I strongly disagree. I have been introduced to so much awesomeness thanks to WFMU, whether it’s music or comedy or just plain talk (although nothing they do could be described as “just plain”). Things that I never would have heard of otherwise, and wouldn’t even think to seek out. And I know that I would not have heard any of it on any other radio station. On any other thing, period.

My love for The Best Show on WFMU is well documented. What Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster do on that show would be impossible to do anywhere else. No other station would give them the amount of time needed to make their “mayhem” happen. Not NPR, and certainly not Clear Channel-dominated commercial radio. And The Best Show is just the tip of a very deep iceberg. That is why WFMU needs and deserves support.

Continue reading TomThon 2011 is Go!

Tom Scharpling + New Pornographers = Video Greatness

So Tom Scharpling directed a video for the New Pornographers for their song “Moves,” and it is jam-packed with so much awesomeness, I think the sheer weight of it might affect the earth’s axis. See?

I don’t even know where to begin. Todd Barry as a harried Other Music employee. Ted Leo in drag. Jon Wurster inhabiting the role of “A.C. Newman”. Mike Lisk (aka @APMike) turning in a truly deranged performance (though I’m not sure how much of it was performing and how much was Mike being Mike). “Independent Spirit Award winner” Kevin Corrigan, looking very Kevin Corrigan-y. Horatio Sanz, Julie Klausner, Wyatt Cenac…hold on, let me catch my breath…

Plus cameos from many other comedy and musical giants, and enough Best Show-related easter eggs to delight sharp-eyed completists (like me).

Oh, and it starts with a trailer for a fake movie starring Paul Rudd and Bill Hader (Expectant Dads). If you want more than this video can give you, you must eat diamonds for breakfast, pal.

Minimal Effort Theater Presents: Carly Simon

Speaking of slapped together songs, I believe I may have discovered the worst end credit song in history.

Let me amend that statement, because obviously I’m speaking in hyperbole here: There are many, many terrible end credit songs. The 1980s contained nothing but hideous tunes that played over the end credits of movies, usually coke-fueled hair metal that sounded like outtakes from Dirk Diggler’s studio session. The song I’ve discovered is, truth be told, not even close to being as bad as any of these. It does, however, have all the Nose Candy songs beat in the category of Sheer Lack of Effort.

It comes from the 1999 filmic adaptation of Madeline, which The Baby has been obsessed with lately. The movie itself is thoroughly meh; certainly not awful, but nothing to write home about either. It takes place in a vague De Gaulle-ian Paris, and yet nearly all the participants have English accents. (Except the cook; she has a French accent for some reason.) It does not have the simple charm of the source material, although I admit that’s a difficult thing to achieve.

No matter. I’m not here to comment on the film. I am here to comment on the song that plays over the film’s end credits. It is called “Two Straight Lines” and is written and performed by Carly Simon. Musically, not horrible. Lyrically, ew boy.

It sounds like she watched the movie and took notes on the action. But then, rather than flesh those notes out into actual lyrics, just sang the scribbled shorthand. I think there’s one complete sentence in this entire song. She couldn’t have put any less effort into this if she were asleep when recording it. I’m not sure she wasn’t.

This is what I do now. I write critiques of songs in movies made for little girls. Proud moments, folks.