Reviews: Funny Music
January 27, 2008 – 10:21 am by Mur LaffertyFunny musicians (filk, parody, satire, etc) have long seen the Internet as a way to distribute their music to gain a larger following, and as a longtime fan of “Weird Al”, I’ve been expanding my knowledge of several musicians through open media.
Favorites: Throwing Toasters- Grant Baciocco’s band (podcast fans will recognize him as the brilliance behind The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd) is one of my new favorites, with hysterical, non-swearing songs (he doesn’t swear but he does get mildly suggestive in his songs. Still, I play his stuff for my kid and she loves it as much as I do.) In an attempt to write a sentence without a parenthetical, I will say that Throwing Toasters music is not officially Creative Commons licensed, but during an interview Grant told me that the only thing he was adamant about re: his music is that it’s attributed to him, as any non-attributed funny song online usually ends up as a Weird Al attribution.
Favorite songs: Debbie, ScrewU, The R.A. Song, Patrick the Spoiler
The FuMP- The Funny Music Project is a podcast set up by some of the biggest names in funny music: The Great Luke Ski, Tom Smith, Worm Quartet, Sudden Death*, Rob Balder, Raymond and Scum, Robert Lund and Possible Oscar. They post two news songs a week, many of them new, and are totally podsafe (in fact they encourage podcasters’ use). You can download the songs for free at a lower quality, or buy higher quality songs. You can also get a subscription that includes all the songs at high quality, and a compilation CD mailed to you. The songs are also released via podcast (RSS feed here). This is an excellent way to learn about the hottest bands in funny music these days.
* Tom Rockwell of Sudden Death has his own weekly funny music podcast called Manic Mondays.
2 Responses to “Reviews: Funny Music”
I wonder if we can talk Grant into a CC-BY license at some point? Regardless, Grant and several podcast fiction authors do illustrate that you do not need to specifically use CC licenses to get and contribute to the idea of open media. In my opinion, all that is required is a willingness to share and that the more widely available your works are, the better in terms of increased opportunity.
In Grant’s case it helps that he is brilliant at what he does.
By Thomas on Jan 27, 2008
The FUMP guys are great. I love Tom “Devo Spice” Rockwell. His podcast Manic Mondays is one of the few shows that I make certain I listen to as soon as it comes out.
By Rick Stringer on Jan 28, 2008