MUSICOMEDY

I listen to a lot of music while I write. Usually lyric-less, usually not too obtrusive. I have a few personal favorites that I've listened to so many times they simply become a heartbeat in the background that I barely notice. The main selections:

Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Chopin's Nocturnes

Mogwai

Christopher O'Riley doing piano version of Radiohead and Elliott Smith

Considering I write mainly comedy, I've found myself thinking lately about bands that are funny. Bands that do the music version of what I do, to a certain extent. I realized some of my favorite bands are those that could be considered "comedic".

Maybe not everything they do is funny, and maybe none of it is laugh-out-loud funny, but lots of it is witty, tongue-in-cheek, absurd. Bands like:

Ween

Warren Zevon

Steely Dan

Beck

Even the Smiths are pretty witty and sometimes even funny.

They Might Be Giants is an obvious one

Bob Dylan is very funny sometimes.

Faith No More, Mr. Bungle and pretty much anything Mike Patton does is usually funny

The Flaming Lips

Frank Black's solo stuff

Jethro Tull

Pink Floyd

The Magnetic Fields

The Mountain Goats

Neutral Milk Hotel

Phish

Primus

Roxy Music

Talking Heads

All witty. Many funny. Most from a very similar musical genre (or at least from the same iTunes: mine). There are tons more I'm sure I'm not thinking of and I won't waste any more time trying to list them all. Feel free to add in the comment section though.

Then there's the bands that focus on being funny. I grew up on Weird Al Yankovic. Obviously there's Tenacious D. Flight of the Concords. I even had a comedic rap group for a while called The Trilambs.

Then I started playing around with comedy-music equivalents. Like who's the Led Zeppelin of comedy? George Carlin's a good fit. Edgy. In your face. Influenced nearly everyone that came after. Timeless. Badass. Honest. Dangerous. Legendary.

Who's the Beatles of comedy? This one is tough. Who appeals to nearly everybody and created a large percentage of the best comedy ever made? The Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy. I'll go with Laurel and Hardy.

Who's the Ween of comedy? Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job Guys!

Who's the Radiohead of comedy? Stephen Wright obviously.

Or the other way: Who's the Judd Apatow of music? How about the Wu-Tang Clan.

Who's the Jerry Seinfeld of music? Paul Simon.

Who's the Dane Cook of music? Limp Bizkit.

The Woody Allen of music? Miles Davis works. Possibly Bob Dylan.

Who's the Chevy Chase of music? Van Halen (w/ David Lee Roth)

Okay, I have to get back to writing now. Add yours below...