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.

 

MarsCon Dementia Track and Logan Awards

MarsCon, which features the Demetia Track the world’s longest running fandom convention comedy music concert series, will be is coming up on March 4th thru the 6th at the Hilton Minneapolis/St. Paul Mall of America in Bloomington Minnesota.

The music guest of honor this year is the Great Luke Ski.  He created the MarsCon Dementia Track over a decade ago, the most requested act of the 21st Century on the Dr Demento Show, won two Logan Awards for Outstanding Song Parody, and currently works at Cartoon Network on Mighty MagiSwords.

Other comedy music acts performing through the weekend are Steve Goodie, Carla Ulbrich, Dino-Mike, Katie Goodman, Devo Spice, Schaffer the Darklord, Raymond & Scum, TV’s Kyle featuring Lindzilla, Power Salad, Insane Ian, Carrie Dahlby, Feng Shu Ninjas, Beth Kinderman, DJ Particle, Brett Glass, and Karl Brown.

Events, besides concerts, through out the weekend include Dementia Smackdown Wrestling with commentary by J.P. Tuesday and Duke ‘Flyboy’ DuJour, Kyle & Luke Talk About Toons live podcast panel, The FuMP Jukebox concert, and Space Oddity Music Club & Brew Pub.

The Logan Whitehurst Memorial Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music, the Logan Awards, will be awarded at MarsCon as well.  This year’s nominees are:

Outstanding Comedy Music Video

• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (feat. Pete Gardner) – I Love My Daughter (But Not in A Creepy Way)
• Insane Ian – Benedict Cumberbatch
• Rhett & Link – Just Being Honest
• The Nerdist (feat. Whitney Avalon) – Comic Con The Musical
• They Might Be Giants – All the Lazy Boyfriends

Outstanding Original Comedy Song

• Carla Ulbrich – Joe’s Ex-Girlfriends
• Insane Ian – Benedict Cumberbatch
• Katie Goodman – You’re A Feminist
• Schaffer the Darklord – Sex Rhymes
• Steve Goodie – I Dropped My Phone In The Toilet

Outstanding Parody Song

• Carla Ulbrich – Cheek to Cheek
• Carla Ulbrich (feat. Steve Goodie) – Dr. Pepper
• Devo Spice – Put It Away
• Dino-Mike (feat. Bonecage) – Urban Dictionary
• Glove and Boots – Shaolin Monk

 

 

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

MarsCon Results

The winners of this year’s Logan White­hurst Memo­r­ial Awards for Excel­lence in Com­edy Music announced at MarsCon earlier this month are:

Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video: Beauty and the Beat — Todrick Hall

Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song: 29/31 — Gar­funkel and Oates

Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song: When You Wish Upon A Death Star — the great Luke Ski

Which means I only got one out of three right this year in my picks.

You can watch both the con­cert and cer­e­mony on Jered Perez’s YouTube account or Power Salad’s Ustream in two parts.

Also at from this year’s opening ceremonies at MarsCon, instead of doing the usual live comedy sketch Luke Ski and other FuMPers created a 20 minute Muppet Show parody video, the FuMPept Show.  The video stars some of the stars of the FuMP as puppets (voicing themselves) doing a tribute to MarsCon itself.  It contains a few bits of songs from them and plenty of nerdy humor.  I feel it is both well made and really good Muppet parody as well, feeling like it could have been written for the original show, complete with Kermit arm flail.  Features songs by Possible Oscar, Flat 29, Rob Balder, Carla Ulbrich, and Luke Ski with something new, plus appearances by Devo Spice,  Shoebox, Insane Ian, Carrie Dahlby, “Claudia Christian”, and more.

A few podcasts have done their post-con reviews and here are some of them to enjoy.

Luke and Carries Bad Rapport – Episode 80: Retainer Container

The Flopcast – Episode 44: Mars Con 2013, Part 1: The Flop of Destiny

The Flopcast – Episode 45: Mars Con 2013, Part 2: Bad Flopport

The Scope – Episode 138: How Does Johnny Hot Dog’s Beet Garden Grow?

Pros and Cons Podcast – Episode 25: Mars Con vs. MadiCon

MarsCon Dementia Track and Logan Awards

MarsCon is home every year to a gathering of comedy, novelty, and filk musicians from Dementia Radio and the FuMP called Dementia Track. MarsCon is March 1-3, 2013 in Bloomington, Minnesota at the Crown Plaza Hotel & Suites with the theme “Ctrl/Alt/Del… Thriving Into The Future!”  This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Dementia Track.

The Music Guest of Honor is Flat 29 from England.  Which I talked about before.

Other main stage acts are comedy rock band Possible Oscar, nerdcore-esque Insane Ian, professional TV animator and comedy musician TV’s Kyle, Dementia living legend Great Luke Ski, Max DeGroot know for his work with furries, Power Salad with 30 years of sketch audio and comedy music, comedy rock star Mikey Mason, and FuMPer Kobi Lacroix.

Performers of the FuMP Jukebox this year are Carrie Dahlby, DJ Particle hose of the Dementia Fan Showcase at the con, Dave Stagner of Feng Shui Ninjas, filker Beth Kinderman, Jeff Reuben, and Brett Glass who both perform in the Dementia Fan Showcase every year.  Other performers there will be Earl Luckes the bass-playing robot Wyngarde.

Previous announced guests Worm Quartet and Steve Goodie have had to cancel their appearances.

Besides just all the performances, other events of the track include a live recording of Flat 29’s podcast “Big book of Everything“, water aerobics with Kornflack co-host of “The Flopcast“, Space Oddity Music Club & Brew Pub, Dementia Fan Showcase, and The Dementia Smackdown.  Karaoke, drumming, and theremin workshop will be part of MarsCon as well.

To raise money for the Dementia Track to bring in guests, party, and other expenses they create a Fund Raiser Album every year.  Three disc of four hours of live music from MarsCon 2012 which you can buy as CD or download at their shop and past albums as well. You can also order your own Dementia Track shirt with all the participants as computer related character of fandom and pop culture.

This year MarsCon is also the home of the 3rd Logan Whitehurst Memorial Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music. The ceremony will be on Saturday at 4pm.

The nominees, with some of my thoughts, are:

Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video:

Baby Mario & Papa Yoshi — brentalfloss;

Beauty and the Beat — Todrick Hall; I am not going to say this is racist like some people, just that it is promoting negative stereotypes and the song keeps splitting between being parody and just doing the song straight which is not what a good parodist does

Dumb Ways to Die — Tan­ger­ine Kitty; my favorite, catchy tune, cute animation

Rize of the Fenix — Tena­cious D; good, but tries to pretend that it is really the unfinished project but parts of it do not work that way

Rub Some Bacon On It — Rhett & Link; fun, but certain scenes turn me off

Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song:

29/31 — Gar­funkel and Oates; good idea, execution not so much

I Don’t Mat­ter — Worm Quar­tet; too long and repetitive

In the 80s — Devo Spice; full of great 80s reference, but kind of whiny, good chorus though

Kyle, Are You Ian? — Scooter Pic­nic; inventive plus inspired and encouraged parodies of it

Write Like The Wind (George R.R. Mar­tin) — Paul & Storm; on one had it sings about a love of Game of Thrones, but on the other it makes some jokes about it too, I love it, my pick

Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song:

Carol of the Meh — Smashy Claw; good parody having some fun with the original song, just not all that exciting

Devo, Are You Shoe­box? — Devo Spice, fea­tur­ing Worm Quar­tet; parody that is not as good as the original

The Ped­dler: A Half-Assed Trans­la­tion — Kobi LaCroix; love the music style on this, but really kind of dumb lyrics

We Were Never Ever Actu­ally Together — Eric Schwartz aka Smooth-E, feat. Michael Yo

When You Wish Upon A Death Star — the great Luke Ski; Stars Wars and Disney melody, total fun, my favorite

MarsCon Dementia Track for 2013

MarsCon, the one in Minnesota not the one in , has announced their headlining music act for 2013.

MarsCon is March 103 at the Crown Plaza Hotel & Suites in Bloomington, MN.  It is a sci-fi/fandom convention with media stars, authors, artists, costumers, and more.  They are known for having the Dementia Track, sponsored by Dementia Radio and run by the Great Luke Ski.  It is a weekend long party and music festival of comedy music.  Tons of acts from Dementia Radio, the FuMP, and elsewhere come to play

This year’s headliner for the 10th year of the track is the group Flat 29 from the UK, playing their first concert in the USA.   Also for the first time at MarsCon is comedy rocker Mikey Mason.  More acts will be announced as time goes by, but check the site for past guests to get a feel for who might be there.

Events for the track include: Space Oddity Music Club & Brew Pub which is three nights of music circles, snacks, drinks, and games in an laid-back environment with an open mic.  Dementia Smackdown Wrestling with DJ and proe wrestling fan Jered Perez creating avatars of appearing acts for a wrestling video game then has them fight in a 30 minute Battle Royal for the Dementia Championship; commentary along with the fight.  The Dementia Fan Showcase hosted by DJ Particle gives you the chance to perform your own songs or someone else’s.     The FuMP Jukebox which gives acts who did not make the Main Stage a chance to perform one of their songs for everyone.  The Dementia Smackdown (no wrestling this time) features the weekend’s performers performing cover versions of each other’s songs.

The con will also be the home to the 3rd Annual Logan Whitehurst Memorial Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music.

Logan Award Winners

The Logan Awards for this year were announced this past weekend.  The winners are as followed:
Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video went to The Mup­pet Show Theme Song by OK Go and the Muppets which I picked to win due its great visuals without being disturbing like Weird Al.
Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song went to  It’s Not Just For Gays Any­more by Neil Patrick Harris from the opening of last year’s Tony’s, which I also picked to win.
Finally Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song went to Snoopy The Dogg by the great Luke Ski, which I also picked cause how do you beat the combination of gansta rap and Peanuts.

Man I should have made bets.  Only thing to do now is start thinking of nominees for next year.

Logan Awards Nominees

The Funny Music Project (FuMP) every year awards excellence in comedy music every year with their Logan White­hurst Memo­r­ial Award for Excel­lence in Com­edy Music or just Logan Awards for short.  They present awards in three categories: Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song, Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song, and Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video

The awards are named after Logan White­hurst.  A comedy musician whose songs were a frequent and popular part of the Dr. Demento show.  He passed away in 20006 from a cancerous brain tumor.

The awards are selected this way.  Anyone can nominate a song or videos from the past calender year; re-treatments of old songs are eligible but not re-releases.  The awards chairperson, new one selected each year, picks three people from comedy music fandom and three active comedy musicians for the jury.  Jurors can not participate in the open nomination process.  The jury select from the nominees their top fives from the song pool and give them to the chairperson who tallies the votes.  The five with most votes are announced as nominees and the one with the most votes wins.

The physical award itself was designed by Jamie Noguchi in honor of Logan Whitehurst’s song “Robot Cat” and can be seen above.  Funding for the whole thing comes from fans of comedy music.  So give if you can to this thing so it can keep going.  Comedy music does not get a lot of respect.

Now for this year’s nominees, with my own personal faves mark with an *.

Out­stand­ing Com­edy Music Video

Grandma Got a Face­book – Your Favorite Mar­t­ian
Jack Spar­row — The Lonely Island (f/Michael Bolton)
Per­form This Way — Weird Al Yankovic
The Creep — The Lonely Island (f/Nicki Minaj)
The Mup­pet Show Theme Song — OK Go and the Muppets *

Out­stand­ing Orig­i­nal Com­edy Song

Athe­ists Don’t Have No Songs — Steve Mar­tin and the Steep Canyon Rangers
Hulkulele – Nuclear Bub­ble Wrap
I Am The Doc­tor — Devo Spice
I Can’t Wrap — Scooter Pic­nic
It’s Not Just For Gays Any­more — Neil Patrick Harris *

Out­stand­ing Par­ody Song

Char­lie Sheen — Power Salad
If I Could Be Weird Al — Mon­eyshot Cos­mo­nauts
Party in the C.I.A. — Weird Al Yankovic
Per­form This Way — Weird Al Yankovic
Snoopy The Dogg — Luke Ski *

The win­ners this year will be announced at Deep­South­Con 50 in Huntsville, AL on June 16th at a special concert.

Check out each of them and pick your favorite.  I will post the winners after the con.