FuMPFest 2017

The Funny Music Project‘s (FuMP) comedy music festival/convention, FuMPFest, returns this Friday June 16th to Sunday June 18th at the Holiday Inn Chicage-Elk Grove in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

The Guest of Honor for this year is Henry Phillips.  Henry is a comedy musican and actor who has appeared on Comedy Central Presents, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Billboard magazine, worked with Moby, his YouTube channel “Henry’s Kitchen” and his own film “Punching the Clown.”  Featured Guests are Bad Teenage Moustache, chiptune-rock band Boy Meets Robot, Carla Ulbrich, Insane Ian, Nuclear Bubble Wrap, Peter Wildman, Reformed Whores, Smashy Claw, The Gothsicles, Tom Tuerff, Worm Quartet, and the great Luke Ski.  Also appearing this weekend but with no featured concert are Carrie Dahlby, Devo Spice, Holy Bongwater, Lauren Mayer, Power Salad, the Library Bards, and TV’s Kyle.

Events for the con will be several concerts throughout the weekend, but there is more to the event then just them.  The Opening Ceremonies will screen the entries this year’s Video Contest, karaoke, Q&A and autographs with Henry Phillips,  State of The FuMP, Live Podcasts, the FuMP Showcase, and special showing of Punching Henry, Henry Phillip’s latest mocumentary.  Friday will host the Logan Whitehurst Memorial Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music ceremony, all the nominated songs will be performed or presented at the ceremony.  There will be a dealer’s room for shopping as well.

Pre-registration is opened until June 12th, tomorrow.  Registration at the door is the same price.  Adult weekend is $50, Friday or Sunday only $20, and Saturday only $30.  Children twelve and under can get in for $30 for the weekend or any single day for $15.  Children three and under are free.

Fans of the FuMP, Dr. Demento, and comedy music in general should keep the FuMPFest are their list of events to try to hit up some time to see and hear their favorite acts and hang with fellow fans.

 

FUMPFest 2016 Info

FuMPFest is a weekend of comedy music presented by the Funny Music Project.  This year’s event is this August 26-28 at the Holiday Inn Chicago in Elk Grove, Illinois.  There will performances, panels, interviews, parties, and much more.  There’s plenty of ways to be part of it even if you do not make it out yourself.

They are taking pre-orders on FuMPFest 2016 t-shirts until July 31st.  You do not even have to go to the con to pick up, they will ship it to you.

You can become a sponsor of FuMPFest for only $75.  You will get your logo in the program book, on each of the banners at the event, on the website with a link back, and company’s name once per day on the main stage.  You can also get discount on program ads, gift bag items, screen time, or more if you want.  Or you could donate so Nerdy and Geeky Music Blog can be a sponsor.  We would also need a logo design too.

They are holding a Video Contest for anyone to create an original video for any FuMP song to win two free badges to FuMPFest 2017 with two nights in the hotel.  Second place gets a free six month subscription to the FuMP and third place gets one free item from the TheFuMP.com store.  The entries will be shown during Opening Ceremonies on Friday and the winners announced at Closing Ceremonies on Sunday.  You do not even have to be at the con to win.

You can shoot, animate, or legally acquire your own images and videos for use in the video anyway you want.  Put your video on YouTube as “unlisted” and send them the link by August 15th.  The FuMP does not assert any ownership to your video beyond the original Creative Commons license for the song you chose which still applies. The FuMP may or may not link your video on our Videos page and/or feature it elsewhere on their website

 Fans of comedy music and the FuMP here is your weekend.  Check the website for performers and activities.

Time for Logan Awards Again

The 5th annual Logan Whitehurst Memorial Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music (Logan Awards for short) nominations have been announced for this year.  The award was started in 2011 to recognize those who work in the comedy music industry and to pay tribute to Logan Whitehurst a musician who died at the age of 29 in 2006.  The three categories are Outstanding Original Comedy Song, Outstanding Parody Song, and Outstanding Comedy Music Video.  Nominees are chosen from songs from the previous calender year in an open nomination process then Jurors chose the finalists and winners for each category.  Winners receive a robot cat statuette, inspired by Logan’s song Robot Cat, designed by artist Jamie Noguchi.  Jurors for this year are fan jurors Kristi Avery, Tim and Margie Winslow (the Poohs), and Angela Brett; musician jurors Seamonky, Jared Ringold, Chris Waffle, Paul Sabourin, and permanent juror Dr. Demento.

The finalists for this year’s Logan Awards are:

Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song

• The Boobles — Have Nat­ural Es
• Car­rie Dahlby feat. Wyn­garde — Almost Par­ent Time
• Devo Spice (feat. Power Salad) — Snack Bar
• Kyle Kall­gren & Tony Gold­mark — Kill the Mouse
• ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic — Word Crimes

Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song

• the great Luke Ski — Fake Adult
• Mikey Mason — Last Day at Work
• Mikey Mason — Settle
• Power Salad — Ama­zon Drone
• Worm Quar­tet — Fueled by Angst

Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video

• CBS Fol­lies — Bitch in Business
• Epic Rap Bat­tles of His­tory — Sir Isaac New­ton vs. Bill Nye
• Rhett and Link — I’m on Vacation
• ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic — Tacky
• ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic — Word Crimes

The awards ceremony will be held at FuMPFest in Wheeling, Illinois on June 5th to the 7th at the Westin Northshore.  The ceremony will two hours with performance from some of the nominated artists (just do not expect Weird Al to be one of them) and others to cover for those who will not be there.  Come and dress up for that proper award show feel.

 

What is Happening at the FUMP

A FuMPFest fundraiser CD is available for purchase.  It is $20 for a two-CD set of over 40 live performances from last year’s FuMPFest.

Two new acts have been announced for FuMPFest as well: Drew Jacobs and TV’s Kyle.  Full list of guests on the site.

Pre-registration for FuMPFest goes up from $35 to $45 on April 1st and the room block for the hotel closes May 19th.

The great Luke Ski joins TV’s Kyle new show on Cartoon Network Might Magiswords as a Storyboard Revisionist.  Here about it on Kyle and Luke Talk About Toons.

Nuclear Bubble Wrap released a video for their song The Agenda.  A little song poking fun at those who fear a “gay agenda.”  It was animated by ThePivottsXX.

Luke Ski released a video for his song The Twilight Zone too.  It is about the TV show Twilight Zone, nothing about sparkling vampires.

Bonecage has done more on his YouTube channel as well.

Carla Ulbrich is using Indiegogo as a pre-sale to fund her next album.  The album is written and mostly recorded already.  Reward levels include skype guitar lesson, handwritten lyrics, concert in your living room, your name in liner notes, and a video of Carla singing, dancing, and raving about how great you are.

Marc Gunn has a Kickstarter campaign for new steampunk album Dragons vs. Pirates.

During February’s Album Writing Month TV’s Kyle wrote an entire album, recorded it, and now has it available for purchase.  You can download it for only $5.

Harmonix announced the release of Rock Band 4 and is requesting song.  Now Devo Spice is trying to get his song The Dumbest Song on Rock Band on there, so he is asking for everyone’s help in requesting it.   Go to the request page, put in “The Dumbest Song on Rock Band” for the title, “Devo Spice” for the artist, and then click Submit.

Logan Awards Nom­i­nees and Kickstarter

In 2010 the FuMP (The Funny Music Project) created the Logan Whitehurst Memorial Award for Excellence in Comedy Music to celebrate the best funny songs of the year and to pay tribute to Logan Whitehurst. Logan was a prolific, talented, and hilarious comedy musician, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 29.  Dr. Demento called Logan’s album “Goodbye My 4-Track” the “Sergeant Peppers” of comedy music albums. The Award celebrates funny songs in three categories – Outstanding Original Comedy Song, Outstanding Parody Song, and Outstanding Comedy Music Video – and the winners receive a statuette of a robot cat, inspired by one of Logan’s most popular songs, “Robot Cat”. In the past they have given awards to OKGo, Neil Patrick Harris, Todrick Hall, and Garfunkel and Oates, among others.

The Nom­i­nees for this year are:

Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video

“After Ever After” — Jon Cozart (“Paint” on YouTube)

“DiG DuG” — Insane Ian

“Noth­ing to Prove” — The Doubleclicks

“That Doesn’t Make Sense” — Whit­ney Avalon & Jonathan Hurley

“The Loop­hole” — Gar­funkel & Oates

Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song

“Auto­com­plete” — Devo Spice, fea­tur­ing Worm Quartet

“Mwa­haha” — Ookla The Mok

“Shut Up, Ian!” — Insane Ian

“The Guy Who Yelled Free­bird” — The Doubleclicks

“The Loop­hole” — Gar­funkel & Oates

Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song:

“After Ever After” – Jon Cozart (“Paint” on YouTube)

“I’ll Lose Weight” — Max DeGroot

“JoCo Got Jacked” — Devo Spice

“Let­ter From a Cruise Ship (Hello Mud­duh, Hello Fad­dah! 2013)” — Power Salad

“The Devil Came Up To Boston” — Adam Ezra Group

For the first two years of the award, Rob Balder, the award’s creator, paid for production of the statuettes himself.  Last year’s chair was Luke Ski, and he paid for them that year.  The statues cost $400 each to produce, meaning that each year they need to spend $1200 on them to keep the awards going.  Since there is a different chair each year it’s not practical to expect the chair to continue paying for production of the statues, but they need paid for somehow.  That’s where Kickstarter comes in.

They have raised, as of this writing, $3,071.  Meaning they have not only paid for this year’s statues, but also next year and part of the year after that.  It goes till May 14th if you to get in on it.

Help them out, and you can get some cool rewards such as:

– An album of live comedy music performed at my LukeSkiCon last year

– A video presentation of highlights of Live comedy music performances from the first three Logan Awards ceremonies

– A official Logan Awards T-shirt

– An appearance on the FuMP’s weekly chat show ‘The Funny Music Podcast’

– A comedy song created for you by one of the artists of the FuMP

– House concerts performed by one or more of the artists of the FuMP.

This year’s Logan Awards ceremony is taking place at FuMPFeST on June 21st in Wheeling, IL, and Dr. Demento will host.

 

 

4th Annual Logan White­hurst Memo­r­ial Awards for Excel­lence in Com­edy Music

The 4th Annual Logan Whitehurst Memorial Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music is currently looking for nominations for this years awards.

Only songs released in 2013 are eligible for nomination.  If you can send a link or MP3 of the song, legally, do so.  Already nominated songs can be found here, multiple nominations does not help its chances.  Nominations close on April 3rd, so get in your favorites in Outstanding Parody, Outstanding Original Comedy Song, and Outstanding Comedy Music Video.

The awards will be given out this year at FuMPeST on June 20th at the Westin Chicago in Wheeling, IL.  The ceremony and following concert will be MCed by the legendary Dr. Demento, the Guest of Honor of the con and who is a permanent juror of the Logan Awards.  Pre-registration is currently $35, but goes up to $45 on April 1st.

FuMPFeST 2014 is the first con­ven­tion being put on by the Funny Music Project web­site, also known as ‘The FuMP’ dot com, and is chaired by Tom Rock­well, who is the web­mas­ter of the FuMP, as well a com­edy music per­former who under the stage name ‘Devo Spice’, and is a sta­ple act cur­rently heard on “The Dr. Demento Show”. Our mas­ter of cer­e­monies for the week­end will be Insane Ian, another reg­u­lar FuMP / Demento artist.

At FuMPFeST 2014, Dr. Demento also be giv­ing pre­sen­ta­tions, play­ing funny music, sign­ing auto­graphs, and join­ing in all the fun that we have planned. We’ll also have live com­edy music con­certs being per­formed all week­end by such artists as Devo Spice, the great Luke Ski, Worm Quar­tet, Power Salad, Car­rie Dahlby, Insane Ian, Tony Gold­mark, Pos­si­ble Oscar, Tom Smith, Ray­mond & Scum, Sea­mon­key, Gar­den Fresh, Dan Hart, and more! For infor­ma­tion on reg­is­tra­tion and book­ing a room in our hotel block, visit the FuMPFeST web­site.

 

FuMPFest Announcements

More information about the Funny Music Project’s own convention FuMPFest has gone up.  So you can now start make plans.

First, they have figured out a date and a location for the weekend.  It will be at the Westin Northshore in Wheeling, Illinois on June 20-22, 2014.  The group rate for the hotel is $109 a night, mention “FuMPFest” for the rate.

Second the Guest of Honor for the event has been announced.  It is the one and only Dr. Demento, hows of the Dr. Demento Show which has inspired many a comedy musician and helped to make the careers of several of them, including Weird Al Yankovic.  His show has been around since 1970 broadcasting the funniest, weirdest, most demented music around, first as a radio DJ and now online.    During the weekend he will be giving presentations, playing funny music, signing autograph, and any other silly things he can think of.

Register for the con is $35 for the entire weekend; registration at the door will be $45.

This will be a great chance to spend a weekend listening, learning about, talking about, and surrounding yourself with some of the best comedy musicians out there.

 

News From The FuMP

First big news from the Funny Music Project (FuMP), is the announcement of FuMPFest for 2014.  Inspired by the recent LukeSkiCon, they have decided to make the idea of a FuMP music festival a reality.

So far they are in the very early stages of planning, like so early the have not picked the hotel to hold the event at yet.  It will be in the Chicago area though, so if you have any suggestions they would like to know.    They are planning concerts, panels, funny music related activities, and any other fun things they can think of.

Pre-registration for the event is set at $35, at door price will be $40.

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A tribute album to Luke Ski and his work has been released, a combined effort of the FuMP artists.

Worst Tribute Ever is two disc long with Worm Quarter, Devo Spice, Insane Ian, Flat 29, TV’s Kyle, Consortium of Genius, Carrie Dahlby, and more doing covers and re-imaginings of various Luke Ski songs from all parts of his career with an intro Dr. Demento.  The album is available at Luke Ski’s store for just $15 plus shipping or $9.99 as a download.

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And finally, Nuclear Bubble Wrap has launched a Kickstarter for their next album.  

Nuclear Bubble Wrap is indie rock band who does comedic songs from Nashville, TN.  they are working on their second studio album, Psycho Delicacy.  They have finished writing it and now want to mix their songs at a studio, have it professionally mastered, and produce a physical CD.  They are estimating a need of 40 hours studio based on previous experience.  They are looking at a November release date.

If successfully funded all backers will get to see one of the band doing a performance of a Disney classic while wearing pretty clothes and all backers will also get a monthly update on the progress.

So far (as of this writing) they have $1,175 of their pledge $3,300.  The Kickstarter goes till August 3.  Rewards start at $10 for a digital download of the album.  Other rewards are physical copy of the album, invite to private streamed concert over the internet, demos of new songs, name added to the album’s booklet, digital download of their entire discography, get drawn into an animated music video, a song written on subject you like, private concert up to an hour away from Nashville (unless you pay for travel), or get a chance to perform with the band.

Nice chance to get some music from a very unique sounding band.