Arthur 007

My goodness! A new episode of Arthur! How long has it been? What year is this? Is Avatar still number one at the box office? The answer to the first question is "June". I don't know about the other ones.

But what I do know is that, yes, Arthur is finally back! After a long summer hiatus we return with yet another all-English-speaking episode, this time with the drummer who puts the "super" in Superchunk, the comedian who puts the "best" in The Best Show - Jon Wurster!

Jon is a veteran on the American indie rock scene - he's a long-time member of Superchunk, bangs the drums for The Mountain Goats, and has played with everybody from Bob Mould to The New Pornographers. But Jon is also one of the funniest guys around - for years he's been responsible for some of the best comedy the world has seen, together with his partner-in-laff Tom Scharpling. Together they are Scharpling & Wurster, a comedy duo born out of The Best Show on WFMU, a weekly radio show hosted by Tom. And if by this point you're unfamiliar with The Best Show, I don't know what to tell you.

So, Martin dusts off the ol' Skype and asks the switchboard operator to put in a call to North Carolina, where Jon dwells when he's not on tour or in the studio doing tons of blow and recording rock albums. Jon and Martin talk about documentaries, rock biographies, REM, forgotten Best Show calls, and much more. It's a good time!

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The intro music is composed by Carl E. The outro music is the song Detroit Has a Skyline by Superchunk, recorded by the Free Music Archive at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, May 2010.

Recommendations

Martin recommends Louis Malle's 1960 film Zazie dans le métro, the Sofrito record label and its offshoot Sofrito Super Singles, and The Todd Glass Show. 

Jon recommends the documentaries Overnight and Towncraft, and the Don Rickles memoir Rickles' Book: A Memoir.

Plugs

Follow Jon on twitter. Listen to The Best Show on WFMU. Learn more about The Best Show over at Friends of Tom. Watch Jon play a valet and a car's GPS in a Funny or Die short.

Follow Martin on twitter. Listen to Best Show Gems.