On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a legendary musician in conversation with a guy best known as a cartoon voice—what they have in common is friendship and a love of the absurd. It’s Robyn Hitchcock and Eugene Mirman.
Hitchcock came to prominence nearly 50 years ago as co-founder of British band The Soft Boys, whose 1980 album Underwater Moonlight is rightfully considered an all-time classic by music fans everywhere—it was a stated influence by bigger bands that came right after, including REM and the Replacements. But Hitchcock didn’t stop there: The Soft Boys’ split led straight into an incredibly prolific solo career that found him everywhere in the ‘80s and ‘90s with more classics, including Globe of Frogs. The throughline in Hitchcock’s music has been a dedication to classic pop sounds and a streak of weirdness: He’s always been called psychedelic, but it’s a word that only tells part of the story. Speaking of stories, Hitchcock just released his second memoir, Stranded in the Future, which covers some incredibly fertile ground in the history of punk. The book came hot on the heels of his 25th solo album, The Confuser, which has met with critical acclaim. Check out the song “My Dead Astronaut” from The Confuser right here.
The other half of today’s chat is comedian Eugene Mirman, who’s been telling weird and wonderful jokes since the early 1990s, but who broke out along with a bunch of his friends and colleagues in the early 2000s—guys like Aziz Ansari, Patton Oswalt, and David Cross. He ran a comedy festival for a decade, toured with your favorite indie-rock band, starred on Flight of the Conchords and more—and if you don’t recognize him from anything yet, he’s been the voice of Gene Belcher on Bob’s Burgers for 15 years and 300-ish episodes. He continues to perform weirdly wonderful stand-up as well: You can watch his latest special, Here Comes the Whimsy, for free on YouTube, but it’s also worth checking out prettygoodfriends.com, where you can purchase the special and some truly unique merchandise to go along with it.
It’s no surprise that this conversation between Mirman and Hitchcock got a little weird and rangy: Prepare yourself for a fun and lengthy diversion about which animals are most likely to kidnap you, among other things. Enjoy.
0:00 Intro
02:44 Start of convo, Comic Con, and bootleg Legos
04:45 On generations loving their work
07:24 On Robyn’s European tour, and Eugene’s trip to Helsinki
11:23 Visiting the Smithsonian, The Space Race, short astronauts, and Laika
15:19 Robyn’s story about a drunk Finnish man, and Finnish trams, bars, markets, and restaurants
20:14 On the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Robyn’s Scottish and Irish tour dates
22:26 On Florida, new comedy festivals, and Eugene’s new special and working on new material, and “LA/New York Years”
25:11 On New York and how distance changes perspective
26:36 On It’s A Wonderful Life, Scrooged, and “Frisbee the Dog”
30:15 On Eugene’s shows, calling with bad news, and animals that would be good at kidnapping
37:21 On David Cross telling them about the “fungal network,” if mushrooms have souls, Murfreesboro, and not being approached by oligarchs
39:43 On winter plans, sharks, and plugs
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Eugene Mirman and Robyn Hitchcock for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
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