Stereogum » Fred Armisen

Watch St. Vincent & Isaac Brock On Portlandia + Fred Armisen’s 10 Favorite Portland Bands

tom — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:09:50 +0000

Portlandia is a show by, for, and about indie rock types, so it’s no surprise that indie big dogs show up in sketches every so often. This past weekend’s episode featured two. St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, who first collaborated with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein back when they were the online sketch duo ThunderAnt, played a model who showed off a proposed police-uniform redesign. Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, meanwhile, played someone attempting to donate records to the local elementary school. Watch both of their sketches below.

Also, we asked Fred Armisen to name his 10 favorite Portland bands. Here’s what he gave us.

Carrie Brownstein, Fred Armisen, Thao & Mirah Cover “Push It”

tom — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:49:17 +0000

At a recent San Francisco stop on the Portlandia tour, Thao & Mirah joined the show’s two stars, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, to cover Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” basically one of the most perfect songs in the history of the English language. It’s impossible to tell whether they’re joking, but everyone seems to be having fun, so whatever. Watch it below.

Pearl Jam – “Chinese” (Previously Unreleased Demo)

amrit — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:55:47 +0000

At 1:30 in the embed below, you hear Cameron Crowe DJ a Stone Gossard composition called “Chinese,” a ’90s-era Pearl Jam demo, on Sirius/XMU’s Pearl Jam station. Crowe says a bit of it made it to the DVD of Pearl Jam 20, his PJ documentary that is both streaming on Netflix and every bit as good as your friends old enough to form adolescent memories about the “Hunger Strike” video tell you it is. So about “Chinese”: it’s got EdVed sat back in the mix, the jangly chord-inversions that typified ’90s-era Gossard, and “Alive”-styled drum fills, and it’s weird that such seemingly basically elements can be so thoroughly owned by and identified with one particular band, but here you go. PJ in the ’90s below, 2012 ahead, let’s do it. (UPDATE: Also below, the frist episode of Portlandia, which features Eddie Vedder. Because of the dream of the ’90s is alive.)

SNL Sends Up Thom Yorke, M.I.A., Kanye In “Bublé Duets”

amrit — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:27:13 +0000

SNL‘s writers and former champions made this weekend’s holiday episode a must see. Between Jimmy Fallon hosting, and the consequent cameo-returns of Weekend Updaters Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the ever-absurd Tracy Morgan, and some charitable outreach for the less fortunate (Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz, and Chris Kattan) — and the fact that it was the last ep before Christmukkah — it was a particularly inspired, nostalgic 90 minutes of ’90s/early-aughts memories with old characters (the Nomar-loving Massholes) and winter traditions (Sanz, Fallon, Kattan, and Tracy singing their Casio-keyboard “Christmas Time Is Here” under fake snow; Rockefeller ice skating finalé, etc.). Jimmy even reprised his classic Mick Jagger-in-the-mirror bit, this time playing himself with Samberg playing Fallon. Explaining the premise to those who never caught it the first time was weirdly, sadly, a weekend highlight.

It wasn’t solely a late ’90s/early aughts nostalgia reel, though: this sketch with music guest Michael Bublé, owner of the country’s #1 record in his Xmas LP, brought some contemporary laughs via blog-bait music impressions. Hence, we were baited. There’s Fred Armisen as latter day, formalwear-twitcher Thom Yorke singing “Silent Night” (it’s all about the handclap as he shimmies over to Bublé); there’s Nasseem Pedrad as post-”Paper Planes” M.I.A.; Fallon goes cute as Bieber and squinty as Sting; Jay Pharaoh as Kanye stomps baby Jesus; and finally there’s Kristen Wiig, playing the surprised Taylor Swift memorialized forever in the blog post “Taylor Swift Is Surprised” by my friend, the great Rich Juzwiak (and later stolen by Jay Leno).

Check Out Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein’s iTunes Celebrity Playlists

amrit — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:35:51 +0000

It’s poetic that after roasting everyone’s DJ nights, the Portlandia stars sorta DJ for us. Well, for iTunes. I hope nobody is surprised that they are very good at this.

“Wanna Come To My DJ Night?” Preview Portlandia Season 2

amrit — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:40:24 +0000

Portlandia, the nominally Portland-specific but essentially all-purpose alt-culture-skewering sketch comedy show from the wonderful minds of fellow lifechampions Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, is returning for a second season.

There’s a new preview clip available, titled “Wanna Come To My DJ Night?” It documents the tyranny of everyone you know and your mother having a DJ night, through the zeitgeisty lens of the impending zombie apocalypse that is queued up for 2012. Cinéma vérité, basically. To watch it, you must “Like” Portlandia on Facebook. Up next: A Portlandia sketch about artists forcing you to “Like” things on Facebook.

UPDATE: Here’s another preview of the season, where Fred & Carrie take on dog parks.

Portlandia Goes On Tour

tom — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:34:47 +0000

Portlandia, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s PDX-centric sketch comedy show, returns for its second season in January. And around the same time the show comes back, Armisen and Brownstein themselves will hit the road on a quick Portlandia tour. At the shows, they’ll play music, present clips from future episodes, and talk about their unexpected TV careers. Below, we’ve got the dates.

Also below, watch Inside Portlandia, a 24-minute behind-the-scenes documentary about the show, directed by Brownstein’s extended Sleater-Kinney family member Lance Bangs. Keep your eyes peeled for Joanna Newsom.

Joanna Newsom, St. Vincent To Guest On Portlandia

tom — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:46:54 +0000

The first season of Portlandia, the IFC sketch-comedy show from Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, had a ton of cameos from indie-ish celebs; consider, if you will, last year’s segment “The Deuce,” which starred Corin Tucker, James Mercer, and Colin Meloy. From the look of things, season two of the show will feature even more musician cameos — a Coachella main stage’s worth, really. According to Rolling Stone, the next season will include appearances from Joanna Newsom, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, Eddie Vedder, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, Johnny Marr, and the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones. How many of these people are actually funny? I guess we’ll find out! Below, check out a quick preview for the season.

Fred Armisen’s Guide To Music And SXSW 1998

Scott — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:25:08 +0000

A few years back we hosted Fred Armisen’s comedic five part video guide to SXSW 1998. Then we switched video platforms and the clips were swallowed by our system. Whoops! We’ve finally rescued them and promise not to delete them. This “guide” is generally viewed as Fred’s official transition from being the drummer in Chicago punks Trenchmouth to being a comedian who also played drums in Chicago punks Trenchmouth. The plot’s simple: Armisen poses as various journalists (blind, German, mentally challenged, deaf, a college kid from Hofstra, a dude with rabbit teeth and great hair, etc.) and interviews or shouts questions to band folks and industry types including Steve Albini, Janeane Garofalo, members of Pavement, the Aluminum Group, and the Mekons, etc. After you watch, check out clips from Fred and Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia if you haven’t yet. It is the best sketch comedy show on TV.

Watch Portlandia, Indie Sketch Show With Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, And A Washed Out Theme Song

brandon — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 22:13:16 +0000

“The dream of the ’90s is alive in Portland,” the place where young people go to retire. Or so goes the opening musical sequence of Portlandia, the new sketch comedy of Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney, aka ThunderAnt. After they put away the flannel, piercings, and surprising flash of leather, you should recognize Portlandia‘s main theme song: Using South Carolina “chillwave”-r Washed Out suggests it’s not just Portland they’re teasing, hipster, indie-rock yuppie, annoying locavore, anonymous commenter, chillwave-r, Twitter addict, art-school non-artist, middle-aged slacker, clown school grad, Dan Deacon, know-it-all blogger, etc. The show debuts 1/21, but you can watch all 22-minutes of it now, courtesy of Hulu. It’s funny.