The Strobe Light Was My Mind

Andrew Earles & Jeff Jensen “My Friends Call Me Ditchweed. Don’t Ask. Okay, Go Ahead and Ask.” – Andrew Earles and Jeff Jensen’s prank phone calls are very seldom mean spirited. Instead of making a fool of the person on the other end of the line, they build depressing little character studies out of the detritus of pop culture, and attempt to nudge them into someone else’s reality. Andrew Earles — a former Best Show On WFMU regular — specializes in portraying clueless sad sacks, and his best bits find his characters hitting absurd depths of misery and desperation while clinging to some unlikely hope for salvation. He and Jensen are both obsessed with grounding their characters in extremely specific cultural details, to the point that many of the calls are entirely incoherent without a frightening depth of knowledge pertaining to American junk culture circa the mid-to-late 80s. That said, they are most successful when they don’t lean so hard on trivia, and focus on vivid imagery — for example, Earles once had a character stave off boredom and loneliness by chewing on a scented candle while sitting on a wharf. I can barely recall the context, but that image is stuck in my mind forever.

Like a lot of the calls on their new deluxe Just Farr A Laugh compilation, I first heard a variation of the Ditchweed/Extreme Dad character on the Best Show. I think that in general, I’m partial to the Best Show versions, mainly because Earles was allowed to develop the character and stagger the punchlines with Tom Scharpling as a straight man in a way that is impossible when he or Jensen is dealing with a stranger who could hang up at any moment. There’s certainly excitement in that, and the satisfaction of hearing reality collide with fiction, but I miss the slow, steady build up of details, and the more gradual slide into despair.

Nevertheless, “Ditchweed” plays very well in this style — they were able to quickly sketch out his ridiculous character, and the duo had the good fortune of dealing with a hilariously gullible and curiously inept mark at a Chrysler dealership. There’s a great moment near the end of this call in which he seems to test the belief of his unwitting straight man by flat-out stating the emotional subtext of the joke, and he barely gets a response even though he’s basically spilling hit guts over the telephone line. (Click here to buy it from Matador Records. You really ought to buy the actual cd — the packaging and liner notes are terrific.)

Mudhoney “I’m Now” – Here’s a perfect mantra for the 2008s: “The past made no sense! The future looks tense!” Mark Arm starts shouting “I’m now!” immediately after that, but it sounds less like some bit of “be here now” wisdom, and more like a guy getting backed into a corner. Mudhoney have a tendency to come across as a bit too thudding and turgid, but they sound wiry and spry on this song, which is kinda necessary to pull off the right mix of anxiety and bitter humor. (Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)