I’ve already mentioned the freeform radio station WFMU a few times on C.H. and I surely will again. Based out of Jersey City, this listener-supported outpost of obscure music and culture has been a constant source of delight to me since the mid 90s. Before then, I had no idea that kind of integrity or diversity existed in radio.

Today I’d like to make specific mention of Tom Scharpling’s modestly titled “The Best Show on WFMU”, a comedy segment that often features indie-rock luminary Jon Wurster masquerading as various call-in guests. I can’t think of anything more entertaining to listen to on this chilly Sunday evening than their mind-blowing gaff “The Music Scholar”. The Music Scholar

We all know at least one real-life Charles R. Martin: that elitist snob propped up at the end of every single hipster dive bar in the universe, oozing condescension and pretentiousness, a dismissive amateur musicologist given to Cooler-Than-Thou histrionics and compulsive one-upmanship. Wurster cranks these characteristics up to 11, reducing the most elitist Pitchfork writers or Bedford Avenue disputants to fleecy wee lambs by comparison.

“Music Scholar” is a decidedly guilty pleasure as well. My oft-quoted friend and mentor Douglas put it best in an article for CityPages:

“he’s not just awful because of his attitude; he’s awful because he knows all this stuff: Part of the genius of the piece is that it implicates listeners simply for getting the jokes. There’s no other art form where an analogous piece would be anywhere near as funny.”

I highly recommend Scharpling and Wurster’s double-disc collection Chain Fights, BeerBusts and Service With A Grin, which, along with Charles Martin, features such memorable characters as Mark Healy, “the least-forgiving man on planet earth” and Roland “The Gorch” Gorchnick, author of “The Real-Life Fonzie’s Guide to Real Life.”

• listen/donate to WFMU
  
• WFMU crapola central
• Stereolaffs
• Douglas Wolk’s “Kill Rock Snobs” assessment of Chain Fights

Posted by Meredith Yayanos on December 2nd, 2007
Filed under Geekdom, Music, Podcast, Radio