Thanks to world’s fastest pen Len Peralta for the following illustration, in honor of the new "head-to-head" Masters Challenge round of Song Fu between Coulton and us. We don’t say it often enough, Len, but you’re the bestest-best. (That’s us on the left)
New York State is our territory this weekend; Friday at the tippy-top, and Saturday at the bottomy-bottom. Care to join us?
Friday, June 20 at 8 pm
The Lookout – Massena, NY
Ages 21+
Go to the 101.5 The Fox website for details and ticket info
Saturday, June 21 at 7:30 pm
Highline Ballroom – New York, NY
With Jonathan Coulton – All ages
tix (SRO only at this point) – http://xrl.us/bmf2g
Round 2 of the Masters of Song Fu Songwriting Challenge has officially begun, and it’s going to be a fun one…
Coulton and we are going head to head this time around in a special "Masters Challenge:" each of us is tasked to write a song in the style of our opponent. We’re not sure what we’re going to write yet, but we bet it’ll involve monkeys somehow. Stay tuned…
THANK YOU to everyone who voted for our theme song in round one of the Song Fu challenge at Quick Stop Entertainment, earning us the privilege of moving on to the second challenge! You have our eternal gratitude.
It was neck-and-neck-and-neck all the way, and though his Fu was strong, we are proud to have edged by the esteemed and nefarious Doc Hammer. Doc will have to comfort himself with the fact that he co-creates one of the best shows on television. (Seriously; it’s awesome. And Season 3 just started; go watch it, and buy the DVD sets of Seasons 1 and 2, and join their t-shirt club.)
The Round 2 challenge will be announced Monday, June 16. We shall be deep in training until then—most likely, pounding on a board over and over and over and over again. Or possibly carrying a Muppet on our backs. Hope it helps.
Here’s what’s on the slate this month:
Thursday June 5 at 8 PM
20th Century Theater (Cincinnati, OH)
With Jonathan Coulton, All Ages
Tickets: at box office or (513) 731-8000
www.the20thcenturytheatre.com/
Friday June 6 at 9 PM
CBR’s (Columbus, OH)
With Jonathan Coulton, 18+
Tickets: at box office only
www.cbrbar.com/
Saturday June 7 at 7 PM
Club Cafe (Pittsburgh, PA)
With Jonathan Coulton, 21+
Tickets: xrl.us/bmf2a
www.clubcafelive.com
Saturday June 21 at 7:30 PM
Highline Ballroom (NYC)
With Jonathan Coulton, All Ages
Tickets: xrl.us/bmf2g
www.highlineballroom.com/
Many of you have e-mailed, texted, posted, teletyped, smoke signaled or flapped your arms around willy-nilly to tell us about the latest food industry hero to leave us. Yes, we’re talking about Dr. Fredric J. Baur, inventor of the Pringles can. Of course the most salient detail of the story is not the breadth of his life’s achievements (considerable though they were), but the manner of his final resting:
Dr. Frederic J. Baur chose to have a portion of his remains buried in the brilliant potato chip* can that he conceived.
Now you can call us crazy, narcissistic, egotistical, or any number of other unflattering things, but maybe–just maybe–his choice of interment vessels was influenced by our fictitious account of Nugget Man Robert C. Baker’s parting voyage.
Regardless, we’re certain that he’s up there in the Good Place (?), alongside Dr. Baker, Momofuku Ando, J. Robert Cade, Herb Peterson, and Mike Yurosek.
Someone really should put together a tribute page for them all. Someone…
*that’s "crisps" to our friends in the UK
UPDATE: Check out this video of Tim Roske’s tribute to Dr. Baur…a home-crafted Pringles can rocket. Okay, he didn’t do it as a tribute, but it’s still pretty damn cool.
During our time at New York Comic Con a few months ago (where we recorded our Superfriends! video), we sat down for an interview (well, technically, we stayed standing, but that’s not the vernacular) with the Geeks with Issues podcast. At long last, they’ve posted it…here’s the link. The segment about our panel and the interviews with Coulton and us start around 29:30. Are we interesting to listen to and/or look at? You decide…
Well, it’s in the can and submitted: our first entry in the Quick Stop Entertainment Masters of Song Fu contest. (Click here for an explanation of the contest) Our task for this opening round was to write a theme song for ourselves, in the style of a classic television show. (That is, as if there were a song from the 1960s-1980s about us) And we have come up with this:
Paul and Storm – Theme Song
Catchy title, yes? Could use a few more whip cracks, maybe, but heck, we only had a week to make it.
So now our work is done, and yours begins. This is, after all, a competition; and the winners are determined by your votes. So please go to this link and vote for us. And vote wisely, because you can only vote once. (Or at least, once per IP address) Because as we’ve mentioned, in addition to the 20-odd challengers we face, we’re also up against the nefarious Doc Hammer and the agile Jonathan Coulton; and in the battle of the fan bases, we fear they hold superior numbers. So we must marshal our forces and show them we have greater spirit. We’ll do the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V, if it’ll help*. Voting begins today and ends in a week (Wed., June 4th).
Also, you’re welcome to download the song for free (just do that right-click-command-tab-num lock-whatever “Save As…” thingy on the link above); but it’s also available for purchase, in case you wanted to, say, reward the goofy songwriting duo with a dollar for their efforts. Your choice. No pressure. Really.
Oh, and our most heartfelt apologies to Warren Zevon’s “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner“, with which our song inadvertently shares many, many chord changes.
*we will not do that speech from Braveheart, though we will consider reciting some of Sean Connery’s rough-hewn and motivational quips from The Untouchables.
UPDATE: For clarification’s sake: you may vote for one (1) challenger, and the top 5 vote-getters move on; you may also vote for one (1) master, and the top two vote-getters will move on.
UPDATE 2: Thank you to everyone who’s deemed our Fu to be worthy and voted for us so far, keeping us in the hunt! We’re aware that some computers/OS’s/browsers aren’t compatible with the voting page–you also have our eternal gratitude.
The Associated Press reports that Earle Hagen, composer of the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show"—and also the man whistling the melody in the opening credits—passed away this past Monday night at the age of 88. Hagen wrote many other memorable TV show theme songs, including the themes for "That Girl", "I Spy", "The Mod Squad" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.", as well as the jazz classic "Harlem Nocturne".
All kidding aside, this man wrote some of the catchiest songs of the past century. We completely respect that, and our hats are off to him today.
A number of new pictures are up on our flickr photostream lately. To wit:
– New Set: Snack Foods That Sound Like Sex Acts. We came to this realization in a gas station convenience store somewhere in Wisconsin a couple weeks ago, and now we’re obsessed with it: lots of snacks are given names that, when taken out of context, are pretty filthy. (And delicious) We’ll be updating this regularly, hopefully. If you know of any particularly dirty snacks, point us in their direction.
– Panties, Panties, Panties Redux. More additions from this past weekend to the Gallery of Thrown Panties. We’re now at 114 and counting, and now including our first pair made out of foodstuff.
– Internet Muckity-Muck and Secret Lair Owner Ken Plume sent us this great shot of Animal, who seems to approve of our Gumbo Pants CD. At least, we think so; he said "AaaaaaaaGAAAAAHHH!", then ate it. Thanks, Ken! All those things they say about your hygiene habits are mostly untrue, or at least very exaggerated.
