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THE BEST SHOW

Listening To “The Best Show”: 12/16/08 Episode

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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. Shameless plug: Best Show caller Philly Boy Roy wrote a piece for MAGNET’s Philly scene report in our latest issue, which you can purchase here.

Cheers:
Live set from the reunited Boss Hog! On a list of hoped-for reunions, this band ranked just below Gigolo Aunts, but now that Cristina Martinez, Jon Spencer and Co. are back, we’re plenty thankful.

Tom’s hilarious breakdown/impersonation of Elvis Costello and Lou Reed on the former’s TV talk show Spectacle (a.k.a. your source for breaking news on the Rilo Kiley split). Reed isn’t simply a jerk to journalists; we prefer to say that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. That’s the nice thing we’re going to say. The not-so-nice thing? We saw the TV broadcast. Lou looks like a sack of crushed walnuts.

It dawns on Tom that longtime caller Spike needs to go. It’s time. “Dead wood” isn’t a strong enough epithet for this guy—dead wood is lighter and generally doesn’t give people the creeps.

Jeers:
We understand why the Kinks and ABBA songs can’t be played on the podcast due to whatever broadcast/copyright limitations. It’s doubtful, however, that the Teenbeat label would be upset if the Best Show podcast audience got to hear all the Unrest and Versus tracks Tom plays. How about a handshake agreement on that one?

It’s been a few weeks since Jon Wurster has called in. This is going to spark furious rumors about a new Superchunk album.

Comedian Andrew Daly (Semi-Pro, Mad TV) was an entertaining interview guest; the clip from his latest stand-up CD, however, was five minutes better spent amid the armpit stench of an Earth Crisis show, watching the roadies set up.