That is weird, that is bi-Sklar

On one of my favorite podcasts, the Sklar Brothers' Sklarbro Country from the incredibly prolific Earwolf comedy podcast production company, the sports-loving twin brothers poke fun at the batty behavior of sports celebrities and their often equally deranged fans with the same biting and wonderfully rapid-fire delivery they brought to their much-missed ESPN Classic sports clip show Cheap Seats. Randy and Jason Sklar are also huge boosters of indie bands like The Morning Benders and The Henry Clay People, so the beds and mid-show musical interludes in between the Sklarbitrations, Quick Hits, visits from Racist Vin Scully and Sklarson impressions (a.k.a. the Sklars' Johnny Carson impressions) are often indie rock tracks. An occasional hip-hop joint gets thrown into the mix because fortunately, the brothers' musical tastes aren't limited to the "flaccid, smarmy, girl-pant, bearded, fixie bike rock" that one Sklarbro Country fan amusingly complained about in the Earwolf site's comments section (he's right about the stupidity of guys wearing girl pants though).

You know how TV shows like The Sopranos, Grey's Anatomy and more recently, Breaking Bad have replaced terrestrial radio and MTV as a place to discover sounds by new artists whenever the shows utilize existing songs as either source music or "needle drops" for montages or action sequences (which led to several newspaper and music magazine articles declaring that "scripted TV is the new radio")? The beds and musical interludes on comedy podcasts are turning into another great place to unearth new sounds. Sklarbro Country was where I was first exposed to terrific tunes like The Morning Benders' "Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)" and Those Darlins' "Screws Get Loose."





When an ill track I've never heard before like Ana Tijoux's "1977" gets airplay on a series like Breaking Bad, I have to play detective and hunt for it online (that is if Alan Sepinwall doesn't ID the track on his blog, but he usually does so). Fortunately, the Sklar Brothers ID each tune for the listeners (and the guest comedians who are sometimes curious about a tune's title) as it's being played by their sound engineer, so I don't have to play detective, although I wish the brothers posted the track titles on the Earwolf site. Many Sklarbro Country listeners like myself have wondered where they could find playlist information. A few days ago, I discovered the Sklars have been posting playlist info, but on their WhoSay site (and in Twitpic form instead of as text for some bi-Sklar reason).

In addition to being a standout installment (I love the Sklars' takedown of Japan-bashing WNBA guard Cappie Poindexter, as well as special guest Kumail Nanjiani's takedown of "Crappy Henderson... what's her name?," whom he'd take more seriously "if the WNBA used regular-colored basketballs"), Sklarbro Country episode 34 is a good example of the show's inspired choices for existing songs. What other show goes from J Mascis to Warren G and the late Nate Dogg?

Asians not playing violin

(Photo source: SFGate)

Because it's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, here are five recordings from my laptop's various playlists that are all by Asian American musicians who don't play the Tiger Mom-enforced violin.

The Morning Benders, "Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)"
I first took notice of this terrific little timpani-driven cut about relationship disagreements during Sklarbro Country, of all shows. Good lookin' out, St. Louis Sklardinals. My only beef with "Cold War" is that it's way too short.



The Morning Benders, "Cold War (Star Slinger Remix)"
This dope remix Kanye-ifies Morning Benders frontman Christopher Chu's voice and is part of the Bay Area band's Japan Echo EP release to aid Japanese disaster relief.



The CounterParts, Appetizer EP
It's cool to see T-Know's hip-hop career take off. I knew T-Know briefly when we were UCSC students.

The Skyflakes, "sci-fi as lit."
This is a pretty clever Star Trek-inspired song. The Fil-Am indie rock band's "sci-fi as lit." refers to events from the Next Generation episode "Tapestry," in which Q grants Picard his wish to go back in time and change a pivotal moment from his days as a vert-around-the-gills Starfleet Academy cadet. You don't have to be a Trekkie to dig "sci-fi as lit." because unlike the music of Trek-inspired novelty bands like No Kill I and Warp 11, the track never mentions any Trek characters by name, so it could refer to anyone who's ever wanted to redo a key moment in their past--something everyone can identify with.

Blue Scholars, "John DeLorean"
Another Pinoy musician expresses an obsession with time travel. This track, which contains Back to the Future references (hence the title "John DeLorean"), arose from a discussion Blue Scholars beatmaker Sabzi once had with Scholars MC Geo in which they wondered, "If you could have just one super power, what would it be?" Geo picked time travel because with that ability, "you actually have the capacity to secure any other super power you wanted. For example, if you wanted to fly, you could just travel to a future time where personal flying technology was developed and bring it back."

Has Geo ever considered writing sci-fi or superhero comics as a second career? What Geo said about powers in the "John DeLorean" single download's liner notes had 10 times more clarity and sense than the writing in last Friday's Smallville series finally.