Ty Watches Gorburger

Recently I have become more and more engrossed by the show "Gorburger"  on Comedy Central. I knew of the character of Gorburger prior to the show, but the show was my gateway. TJ Miller, of whom I'm a very big fan, had this blood thirsty, alien monster that hosted a talk show on Tokyo television. I saw some of the old clips online, but when the show was announced, I was very much on board. I like the idea very much, and I love when younger comedians spoof old time television.

So naturally, I tuned in to the series premiere 4 weeks ago. I did not know what to expect, but what I saw for 22 minutes kept me onboard. The show starts out as a game show in Tokyo, but then Gorburger gets blasted down to the set, quenches his blood thirst by devouring almost everyone on stage, then walks up to the 2 hosts and tells them that this is his show now, and he says that he will keep the very few people that you see standing on stage. One of those people is the announcer, and the other is the pop duo, Tokyo Fever, who whenever you say their name, they have to repeat in Japanese, "We are Tokyo Fever!". It is so bizarre, but I laugh every time.

The pilot episode features Reggie Watts, another guy that I am a big, big fan of. The whole plot is based on vaping. Gorburger even has a buddy of his, some guy that is famous on YouTube for the things he can do with vapor smoke, named Trevbone, that just sits there, vapes and does weird shit with the vapor smoke. It was distractingly weird, but it was also fun to see Reggie Watts looked just as confused as everyone else seemed to be. Reggie Watts was a good sport though, and he went along with all the weird stuff that Gorburger wanted him to do, including some absurd games. There was also a pre taped segment where Gorburger visited a real doll factory. It was disgusting, but also very funny, because TJ Miller, dressed as Gorburger, was given a full tour and got the whole spiel from the owner. It was wild. The episode ended with Reggie Watts and Thundercat doing an improvised song together, which was dope as hell. But, to keep it crazy, poor Trevbone was delivered a fatal blow to the head with a brick.

Like I said, the show does not make a whole lot of sense, but I found myself thinking about the pilot a few days after watching it. The more I thought about it, the more it was like a full sitcom version of an Adult Swim show. "Gorburger" was like watching a 22 minute long episode of "The Eric Andre Show" or "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", or even "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast". I love all those shows, so a 22 minute version of one was a great surprise.

Since the pilot, I have obviously watched the next 3 episodes. The second episode had Dr. Drew as the guest, again, being a very good sport, and the central plot was Gorburger's obsession with smooth jazz. The entire episode had Kenny G, who was literally wearing cement shoes, playing music anytime Gorburger wanted, because if he didn't, he would be hit with a brick, a la Trevbone. During the show, Gorburger visited a "twerking" class. That segment was nuts, but also very funny. "Twerking" is such a thing of the past, but to see this enormous alien try to "twerk", and the teachers really trying to teach him was a thing of comic beauty. Before the episode ended, Dr. Drew helped cure Gorburger's bloodlust, and played another absurd game. But, poor Kenny G had to keep playing jazz, Gorburger couldn't stop, and he met the same fate as Trevbone at the end of this episode.

Episode three had one of my favorite comedians, Tig Notaro, as the guest. Throughout the entire episode, little "gorbabies" keep showing up because it was shedding season for Gorburger, and they have been known to only give bad advice. During the interview segment, Notaro played a hilarious game called "Christian Bale or Christian Male", where she had to guess a quote Gorburger gave her as to if Bale, or a Christian male said it. It was laugh out loud hilarious. Later, Gorburger visited a wild life zoo, and again, it was bizarrely hilarious. The fact that these people want to be on TV so bad that they will let a guy dressed as an enormous blue alien monster come to their place just to get exposure. The interviews are always weird, but that is the point. The end of this episode was like the first 2, with Notaro playing another game, but it coming to a terrible demise for her and another gentlemen, when she took a Gorbaby's advice to smash herself through a brick wall. I'm sure this will be a running theme for the rest of the season.

The most recent episode featured Zach Woods and Johnny Pemberton, two of my favorite improv comedians/actors. They were game for all the weirdness that was "Gorburger". This has been, by far, the best episode to date. It was Grizzlebub's Day, which is like Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa for wherever in the hell Gorburger is from. They sang carols and played games and did other nonsense for the whole 22 minutes. The interview was very funny, playing another name game that immediately went off the rails. There was another death because Gorburger thought that Grizzlebub was coming due to a loud clanking sound, and the only way to appease him is a human sacrifice. It was disturbing, but dammit, I was laughing. The show ended with a performance from Portugal the Man, and the song was pretty good. We also come to find out that the clanking noise was the air conditioning guy fixing the AC unit, so the sacrifice wasn't needed.

I know this all sounds very bizarre, but for fans of absurdist humor, "Gorburger" is a homerun. I'm pretty sure season one is only 6 episodes, and they're already 4 in. I hope the people at Comedy Central keep this show going because I will watch the hell out of it, if it comes back for a second season. "Gorburger" is great. Weird, but great.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. One time he hot a guy in the face with a brick just for playing jazz. Ty does not fool around when jazz is being played. 

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The Greatest American Band Debate: LCD Soundsystem

SeedSing is filled with music lovers. We can not agree on who is the best band from the States. The Greatest American Band Debate will be a regular feature where we discuss and compare bands who started in the good old USA. If you have any suggestions of bands we should debate Contact us seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

My nomination this week for the Greatest American Rock band debate on our website I'm going to make the case for LCD Soundsystem.

I'm a huge fan of this band. They only made three albums, but dammit, they're three great albums and James Murphy is an alt/electronica/rock god. This band is so good, and they quit at the peak of their popularity, making their story about a thousand times cooler. I usually talk about albums during my debate, but with LCD Soundsystem, I'm going to talk more about their many, many awesome songs and people that they played with regularly. I'm also going to touch upon why James Murphy is so great. And I'll close everything out talking about the fantastic concert film, "Shut Up and Play the Hits".

So, let's get to the songs. Some great tunes from LCD Soundsystem's catalog include, "Daft Punk is Playing at my House", "Sounds of Silver", "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down", "Dance Yrself Clean", "Us V Them", "Never Tired As When I Wake Up", and "Drunk Girls", among many, many others. These particular songs just happen to be my favorites, and the reasons why I'm nominated them today. "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" is a great introduction to the band. The song has a pretty cool guitar groove with some great drums and vocals. The song is about setting up for a Daft Punk show at James Murphy's home. This song is LCD Soundsystem at their criticizing peak. The song is a joke and it's awesome. Let "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" be your guide to all the great, "silliness" that is LCD Soundsystem. "Sounds of Silver" is a pretty awesome, pretty straight forward rock and roll song. It starts out with some acapella singing from Murphy and then morphs into a traditional rock song, that totally works. While it is a traditional rock song, LCD Soundsystem adds their twist to it, and it works to perfection. It's a great opener to the album of the same name. "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down" is such a sad, yet sweet song about the state that this band formed. It's a beautiful song, accompanied by some eloquent, sad piano playing. when the guitar comes in, it's such a cool change of pace. The song is slow, for the most part, but when the two guitars come in, distortion heavy I might add, it transform into an excellent rock song. I love this song. It makes me feel like I'm in New York, although I've never been there, and I feel their pain about longing for the city that New York used to be. Lyrics like, "your millionaire mayor is now convinced he's a king", or "New York I love you, but you're freaking me out", are so beautifully poetic and at the same time sad. I love this song. "Dance Yrself Clean" is LCD Soundsystem at their absolute best. The song starts out with a 2 and a half minute quiet opening with only Murphy's vocals and what sounds to be either a single bass or piano note. The lyrics are almost unintelligible and you keep waiting and waiting for what's going to come next. After the intro, the song bursts into a heavy electronic/rock song that is so groovy, you can't help but dance to it. There's awesome keyboard, guitar and drums in this song. Murphy's vocals, as you get further and further into the song, get better and better. This is my favorite song of theirs by far. The song goes back and forth between the quiet intro and heavy verse and chorus. I love everything about this song. Stop reading this, go listen to this 7 and a half minute epic, and come back and finish this blog. Best LCD Soundsystem song by far. "Us V Them" is so heavy and fast, I thought it was a punk song the first time I heard it. It's heavy on the guitar and the solos in this song are so awesome. In the live version, this song lasts about ten minutes, and it's so great. Once again, Murphy crushes the vocals, at one point basically screaming the words. This is the heaviest sounding LCD Soundsystem song in their entire catalog. "Never Tired As When I Wake Up" has the band doing another slow song. It's got sweet, quiet, soulful vocals from Murphy and the band playing behind him plays very slowly and sweetly. It's almost like a lullaby. The song is about being tired of life and the things going on around you. But, the worst part is how tired you are when you awake from a deep sleep. They posite the thought, that, at least when you're sleeping, you can dream away the bad feelings. But, in the end, you wake up and go about your day, no matter how tired you are. This is actually a very sad lullaby. "Drunk Girls" has the band back at their punk rock core. Fast paced with lots of bass and drums. It's another "silly" song from the band. It's about how stupid all people get when they're drunk. The title is meant to be satirical. This is a good, short song from the band. These are all great songs and anyone thinking about listening to the band, use these songs as your gateway.

Next, James Murphy's awesomeness. James Murphy is, in my opinion and a lot of others, an alt rock god. He's so cool and confident and great at what he does. He even wore full, three piece suits when the band performed live. He had and has a style that is all his own. People don't compare him to anyone else, because there's no one else like him. He's unique. His contemporaries adore him as well. The band Arcade Fire loves James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem. They were influenced by him and the band in my opinion (ed note: James Murphy did produce Arcade Fire's last album Reflektor). Reggie Watts and James Murphy performed live a bunch of times. Murphy has even gotten into acting lately and made friends with alt comic geniuses Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Basically, James Murphy might be the coolest person on the planet. He's an awesome dude.

Which brings me to my last point and reason they belong in the debate, the concert film, "Shut Up and Play the Hits". This movie chronicles their last concert they ever performed as a band at Madison Square Garden. This might be the best concert film ever made. That's right, I think it's better than "The Last Waltz" or "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" or any other concert movie you put up against it. This is a phenomenal portrait of what it's like to put on a show and how hard it is for a band to quit. There's so many emotions running through everybody in the band, the performers that played with them and even the fans. The fans are so excited for the show, but they also don't want it to end, because they know, this is it. They have never performed live or in the studio as LCD Soundsystem since this show. The movie moves seamlessly from the band back stage being emotional, to them performing their hits, to the crowd cheering and dancing and crying. They close out the show with "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down", and the song lasts forever. They don't want the show to end and neither do the fans. The house lights come up, but the band is still playing and they even drop balloons on the sold out crowd, that's still there. This movie is enough for me to put them in the greatest American band debate, but all the other reasons I've mentioned make my case even stronger.

So, these are the reasons I nominate LCD Soundsystem for greatest American band. Tell me why I'm wrong or right in the comment section, and go out and listen to the awesome band known as LCD Soundsystem.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor and co host of the X Millennial Man podcast. The head editor suggest Ty give Reflektor a listen, he can borrow the editor's copy. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Goodbye Reggie Watts, this fan of Comedy! Bang! Bang! will miss you

Last night marked the end of the Reggie Watts era on The Comedy Bang! Bang! TV show.

They gave him a pretty fitting send off. The episode opened with an aged Scott Aukerman giving an interview in the future about his old best friend Reggie Watts. Flash back to present time and the show started like it always does, with the theme song, intros and the guest coming to the couch. Judd Apatow was the guest last night, but he was only in the first five minutes of the episode. I appreciated this because this episode needed to be about Reggie and Scott's friendship and what it's like for a close friend to leave for higher profile job(Reggie Watts is the band leader for the new Late Late Show with James Corden).

Throughout the time Apatow was being interviewed, many jokes were made about how great a comedy team Scott and Reggie are and how it's great that they will always work together. During the interview though, US Army soldiers raid the stage and say they were sent to capture Reggie Watts because he's an alien and his race was coming to destroy Earth. I felt this was a good way to send him off. It wasn't sad or corny, it was a typical CBB bit. Reggie's alien race, made up of three different versions of himself, proceed on Earth, but Reggie and Scott come up with a plan to film a video saying that Earth was covered with water and this is very poisonous to their race. The video worked and the aliens retreated. Everyone was very happy and you thought that things would go on as normal.

Oh the contrary my friend. The Army was still planning on capturing Reggie and taking him away. Scott refused to let them do this, saying that they'd have to kill him if they wanted Reggie. Well, the lieutenant said okay and fired at Scott. Reggie stepped in front of the bullet and was hit in the chest and yellow goo oozed out of him. Seeing that they had taken care of Reggie, the army felt they did their job and left Scott to grieve over his friend. After the soldiers were gone, it was revealed that Reggie was okay, stating that bullets are like Viagra to his race. Seeing that his friend was alive Scott was relieved and thought the show would go on as it always had, with Reggie as his band leader.  Reggie pointed out that when the Army found out he was still alive they'd come back for him and he didn't want to put anyone in harms way. Scott asked him what he would do and Reggie said he would roam the Earth like a nomad. Scott and Reggie hug, say their good byes and Reggie walked out the stage door. Flash forward, back to old Scott Aukerman and he's doing a crossword puzzle and the clue is, someone who misses and loves his friend Scott dearly and they pan to a picture in the paper and it's an aged photo of Reggie Watts, the crossword puzzle author(a call back to a joke earlier in the episode). This was a great way to say good bye to a guy who's been with the show since its infancy. Very goofy and silly. Exactly what you'd expect from CBB. Reggie Watts wrote the theme song for the podcast, he wrote and performed most of the songs that are used for games and segments in the show and podcast. He did pretty much all the music stuff for Comedy Bang! Bang! He was an integral part. Kid Cudi will be the new band leader when the show comes back on July 9th and while I enjoy his music, he's no Reggie Watts. It will be interesting to see if Kid Cudi has the comedic chops Reggie Watts has.

You will be missed Mr Watts, but you are on to bigger and better things. And for all the alternative comedy fans out there, I'm sure he will still show up from time to time, so he's not really going away, he just got a new opportunity.

Good for him.
 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for Seed Sing.  He thinks one day people will leave network late night shows to join Comedy Bang Bang as a better opportunity.  Give him a twitter follow @tykulik.