THE BEST SHOW

A weekly review of The Best Show On WFMU, Tom Scharpling’s call-in/comedy/music show broadcast every Tuesday night from Jersey City. The three-hour program is available for free download at iTunes. As previously mentioned, WFMU is a listener-sponsored station, and two weeks a year are dedicated to the fundraising marathon. So the past two episodes of The Best Show (3/3/09 and 3/10/09) are completely dedicated to that effort and consist largely of reading off pledges and trying to keep the phone lines busy with donations. Why bother downloading these podcasts? A few things come to mind: Philly Boy Roy returns! Whenever PBR has an extended absence from the show, we like to start rumors of a new Superchunk album. Turns out we're almost correct—there's a new EP and some live dates happening next month. Comedy guests include Paul F. Tompkins (host of VH-1's Best Week Ever) and John Hodgman (the PC in the Apple commercials). Musical guests include Ted Leo and Aimee Mann. I was going to complain about Leo being a little too omnipresent on The Best Show, but he proved his worth by composing a Mike Show theme (Mike is the call screener whose antics threaten to usurp Tom) and a really solid version of "Timorous Me." Tompkins joined Mann for a jokey version of Magnolia hit "Wise Up," which went off the rails early and often. The show should've closed with Mann revisiting the song by her lonesome because, you know, it's not going to stop. (The second show actually ended with a kinda-terrible group singalong of Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," apropos of nothing except that it uses the term of endearment "sugar bear," which is funny.) Worth visualizing: Tom commandeered the phone room in a yachting outfit inspired by Ted Knight's Judge Smails character from Caddyshack. And finally, you have to be the cynic of the century not to appreciate the ideas behind WFMU and the need for the fundraising marathon. Hearing Tom thank each and every caller who pledged money as their names are read is a nice touch. Let me know when he's done stirring the Kool-Aid.

A weekly review of The Best Show On WFMU, Tom Scharpling’s call-in/comedy/music show broadcast every Tuesday night from Jersey City. The three-hour program is available for free download at iTunes. It's The Best Show Awards show! Scharpling announces the winners in various categories, including Saddest Caller, Most Delusional Caller, Worst Caller, Best Guest, Lifetime Achievement Awards and Best Scrivener. As to the last category, Tom declared that "the dude from MAGNET, who hasn't done a recap in a while" placed second! What a thrill! Second place is an honor, except there were only two nominees: me and Omar, who recaps the show at recidivism.org. This has my blood up a little bit. I have to do better. Dig deeper. Show up for work once in a while. Tom brings it for three hours every week; I was too busy converting MAGNET's library of Chokebore vinyl to microcassette. (Really, you wouldn't believe how much Chokebore product we have around here.) Regarding awards that were actually won, Ted Leo was honored for "The World Is In The Turlet," a composition penned during a Best Show episode, with lyrics contributed by callers. Laurie from Miami won Best Caller, inexplicably. And no awards show is complete without someone crying; Tom broke down in remorse and ended the show abruptly without presenting the final trophy for Best Call. We also have some catching up to do. Without further a dude [sic], here are the (mostly music-oriented humor) highlights from the past few weeks: *Bernie Taupin's Music Tarp: an inspired call from Jon Wurster posing as Elton John's lyricist. Love the foundation for this sketch, mainly because it takes the two facts everyone knows about Elton John/Bernie Taupin (namely, that Elton sells a lot of records and nobody really cares about Taupin) and bats them around. *A musician from upstart band the Psychedelic Sitting Room calls in to cajole Tom to play the group's latest song, only to be duped into introducing a cover of Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping." Does the caller not listen to the show? Saw this coming a mile away. *An acute observation (and kind of scary even to the MAGNET staff): One caller's Chewbacca impression apparently reminds Tom of the drop-out/screaming part in Dinosaur Jr's "In A Jar." The song is promptly cued up and the results are in: It's a match. Big news: There's a new podcast called Best Show Gems—a biweekly greatest-hits mini-version of The Best Show. The first episode is available now. It's the place to start with The Best Show (besides the beginning). Big speculation: Tom keeps playing songs from Ram, the 1971 album by Paul and Linda McCartney. Something is afoot with Ram and the upcoming WFMU marathon—maybe a compilation of artists covering songs from Ram? A Ram jam? Stay tuned!

A weekly recap of The Best Show On WFMU, Tom Scharpling’s call-in/comedy/music show broadcast every Tuesday night from Jersey City. The three-hour program is available for free download at iTunes. Tom fields a call from a local proprietor of a chain of hot-dog carts; the entrepreneurial fellow has to be talked down from inking a distribution deal with Merge Records to sell a Scruffy The Cat five-CD boxed set at all his carts. Already in the works, however, is the hot dog vendor’s cassette release from a supergroup called MickNickPickMickNick: Mick Mars from Mötley Crüe Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran Pick Withers, former drummer in Dire Straits Mick Box from Uriah Heep Nick Hogan, Hulk Hogan’s son The band is described as “a total democracy” in which each guy sings and plays at the same time. It reportedly sounds “like a herd of goats eating a rubber raft.” Spike = Seymour Stein? Came across this interesting theory on fotpedia; is caller Spike actually legendary Sire Records president and WFMU listener Seymour Stein? We met Stein, briefly, during Sire’s late-‘90s courtship of the Apples In Stereo but can’t recall anything about the man other than his certifiably Cosby sweater. Music-biz friends, unmask this man: tips@magnetmagazine.com Tom welcomes Paul F. Tompkins, comedian and host of VH-1’s Best Week Ever, as his studio guest. Tompkins is always a welcome addition to the show: He’s got a great laugh, and he somehow makes Tom leaner and meaner toward meandering callers. Speaking of meandering callers, here is the Fredericks from New Port Ritchey soundboard Tom has been using. Careful, friends: It’s a slippery slope from this to morning-zoo "Yeah, baby!" soundbites from Austin Powers. Have not previously mentioned Fuel Dump, the novel Tom is writing, 140 characters at a time, on his Twitter page. Mostly because I don't know what to make of it. Seems like a lot of effort.

A weekly recap of The Best Show On WFMU, Tom Scharpling’s call-in/comedy/music show broadcast every Tuesday night from Jersey City. The three-hour program is available for free download at iTunes. In this week's episode, our host makes the uncharacteristic move of allowing the inmates to run the asylum. Tom lets certifiable nutjob callers such as Charlie the Addict and Fredericks from New Port Richey babble. At least it's more interesting than the nice-guy listeners who called in just to extend holiday wishes. Instead of wasting air time, next year just send a Christmas card. A call-in topic from last week is carried over: Who’s the dumbest member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young? There are a surprising number of cogent calls, and it illustrates the Best Show's demographic spread: callers range from high-school kids to guys in their 40s. (And sometimes there's even a real, live female.) David Crosby gets the nod as CSNY's dimmest bulb. Jon Wurster returns! Philly Boy Roy calls in. By the way, the "unmasking" of Wurster as Philly Boy Roy in these recap posts is very intentional: We're pretty sure his background as a famous indie-rock drummer (Superchunk, Robert Pollard, Bob Mould, et al) earns some cachet with the MAGNET crowd. We should've realized this before disaster struck at our 10th anniversary party. Wurster told the story to The Onion: "I emceed the MAGNET magazine 10-year anniversary party last year, and that was just insane. I don't want to say I overestimated the audience's ability for discernment... I thought it'd be funny if I did characters, almost like the radio-show thing, so I grew a full beard and came out before My Morning Jacket as a morning DJ named Bobzilla, and the gist of the bit was that Clear Channel had purchased MAGNET and I was announcing changes that were going to be made, like that Zakk Wylde was going to be on the cover. People sort of got it, and then I shaved the beard in between sets so it was an Amish beard the second time. I came out as a guy named Jarrett McKinney, the "Don Rickles of Indie Rock," with cut-off dress pants, black socks, a trucker hat, the Amish beard, and a record-store T-shirt, and just made jokes on MAGNET and Guided By Voices. Good-natured, but a Don Rickles approach, like "How adventurous that MAGNET put Radiohead on the cover!" Those guys thought it was funny, but the crowd—oh my God, they thought I was a real guy, and they were booing. It was kind of a thrill to ride the wave of negativity that 800 people can generate. Then I came out before GBV as myself and people cheered. They had no idea that I was the guy that had been out there before." But this week's best bit was Tom's deconstruction of the Neil Diamond song “Hell Yeah,” which we will let speak for itself: [audio:HellYeah.mp3]