Photo by Graham Tolbert Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Straight off the release of new album Punching the Clown , Lambchop have shared a deadpan comedy short, Joke Country , depicting a fictional radio interview. Steve Marsh plays the host interviewing Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, portrayed by Henry Phillips, who led the cast of a 2009 film also called Punching the Clown . The 10-minute short, directed by the real Kurt Wagner, packs in a barrage of dry riffs, meta gags, and pinwheeling semi-sequiturs. Watch it below.
As Sam Sodomsky notes in Pitchfork’s review of the album, the movie Punching the Clown , which Lambchop have cited as an inspiration, “centers on the trials and tribulations of a comedian-musician making his way to Los Angeles”; in that case, “turns out [the title is] a euphemism for masturbating.”
Revisit Larry Fitzmaurice’s 5-10-15-20 interview with Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner .