The Spoon

Last time we had Kelly Murphy on the show, we kept the fact that she is Chris's significant other on the down low, but in this episode their love is both acknowledged and celebrated. And when assailed by killer storms, relentless robo-calls, traumatic celluloid, and confusing joke boundaries, we think everyone could use a little more love. Especially if it's accompanied by food. Not in that way. O...

When we asked musician Karen Basset to visit The Spoon, she was warned of its cat-with-a-laser-pointer aspects, and prepared herself accordingly. Ironic, then, that this turns out to be an unusually focused outing, largely concerning the nature of cool, the alchemy of pop, and the and the arc of the show business curve. Plus, kitties on Roombas! Music by our esteemed guest, via The Pandoras, The R...

What do we want? Respect! When do we want it? Soon! How do we get it? Uh... we'll get back to you on that. In the meantime, Seth Gordon and Tony Leventhal of The Mockers are here with a flurry of New York stories and impossible dreams, documentary defenses and copyright conundrums. Plus, a little pre-Christmas backlash to counter the pre-Christmas hype, and at least one well-timed bikini joke. Mus...

Joe Armstrong of Independents Day is our guest, and with a fellow musician and radio man in the room, it makes sense that issues of creativity, identity, and media modeling in the 21st century crop up and take center stage. Fortunately, sidetracks into fetish culture, Disney propaganda, and chaos theory, not to mention a couple of left-turn phone calls, keep the baseball from getting too inside. P...

If there is a point to this week's show - and, as regular listeners know, that's a one hell of a big "if" - it's the semiotics of nomenclature. Names have power, whether given at birth, chosen for porn, used as verbs, or applied to fictional plumbing tools. This week's holiday-themed SAL only confuses matters, so we're glad to have Eric Dean Boydston on hand to help us hack through this tricksy li...

It's not often the case that all three men of The Spoon can be so easily hoodwinked, but guest Jimmer Podrasky sweeps in tonight like a comedic Keyser Soze and practically breaks the show in twain with the greatest of ease. Musical musings, dating drama, the proper preparation of monkey meat... no matter the topic being tossed out, it comes back with one hell of a topspin. Enjoy the ride! Music by...

Bill Funt's latest round of thrills and spills as the show's favorite frenemy is augmented by the arrival of musician/TV host/restauranteur Bobby Bognar, and the rising conversational tide lifts boats right, left, and center, with talk of unlikely media heroes, unfortunate cartoon voices, the My Way Murders, the Spoon as Beatles metaphor, and the ever-mysterious question of where meat comes from....

With Chris away on adventures both amorous and aeronautical, Rob and Thom navigate the maturity curve of world religions, the fractal nature of social groupings, the telltale portents of Christian pop songs, and, perhaps most importantly, whether a remake of Red Dawn is workable in 2012. Plus, unexpected visitors, backward backbeats, and what Thom really does while everyone else is talking. Music...

There are things we love too much, things we could stand to love more, things we want to love but are forced to fear, and things which should never be approached in the first place. In this episode, Michele Ivey, Timmy Cupps, and a grip of callers help the men of The Spoon cover all these bases and more with tales of songbird stalkers, hellish houses, TMNT traitors, and adventures in our nation's...

Rob, Chris, and Thom are reunited for the first time in six weeks, and balance is restored to the Spooniverse! In between the catch-up, our heroes turn their attention to the history of pagers, metal bands, and zombie flicks, and still find time to praise Cab Calloway, eulogize Michael Clarke Duncan, research Burt Reynolds, and herald the glorious return of Sodomizing A Legacy. Beat that with a (v...

Where conventional wisdom fails, The Spoon prevails! Rob, Allen Lulu, and Johnny Dam explain how politics are more than sport, how sports are surprisingly political, the upside of steroids, the downside of childlike enthusiasm, and why unusual attraction is often the most potent. Plus, the tsunami of crazy that is the Republic National Convention meets a real-deal hurricane, and Chris and Thom che...

With so many cooks in the kitchen this week (Rob welcomes Dave Berges, Johnny Dam, and Bill Holmes to the mic, not to mention a boatload of callers, including Chris & Thom) you'd think the resulting dish might be unpalatable, but somehow the wheels stay on the wagon -- barely -- while topics fly past the windows with great velocity and ferocity, including the curse of Oliver, the idiocy of Akins,...

For all of those who argue that the Spoon is not educational, prepare to be proven wrong. While Thom vacations, Robbie, Chris and guests Dave Shalansky and Johnny Dam ACTUALLY cover all of the following topics: the art of pooping in cups, diarrhea and foreign medical care, anus tattoos, the refreshing taste of Coors Qatar, shameless Nice Guy Eddie promotion, 25 Years of Shark Week, abused wanna-be...

Rob & Chris are both away this week, but as it was decided long ago that The Spoon is bigger than any one man (or two men, for that matter) Thom finds himself alone at the wheel, wrangling a rogues gallery of guests (including Allen Lulu, Bill Funt, and Fletcher Rhoden) and teeing off on the news of the day. A Spoon episode unlike any other, yet tinged with the eerily familiar. Music by The Mocker...

Set momentarily adrift without their overhost, Chris, Thom, and special guest Eric D Boydston attempt to fill the Robbie-shaped hole in the show -- and our hearts -- with excursions into beverage science, apnea analysis, further tales of nerdy con culture, and a scintillating expose on... weather in the Midwest. How much more badass could things get? The answer is none. None more badass. Music by...

This week, we bring you grievous bodily harm, alarming collisions with total strangers, and revolting imagery that will haunt your dreams for all time... and that's just Chris & Thom recapping Comic Con. (Ba-dum!) Also, learning to draw, scary books gone by, the lost art of the fade-out, and thoughts on changing the show's theme music. Music by Pride Of The Garage, Kyle Gray Young, and Let's Activ...

As the title suggests, it is with no disingenuity (that's a word, right?) that we applaud Circe Link and Christian Nesmith for being delightful guests in a conversational capacity, bringing to the show new games to play and a wealth of topics ranging from to the underrated appeal of bodily musk, all while managing to share the same microphone in an example of adorable couplehood. They even go to t...

Travis Randall joins the show this week, and despite a touch of ennui, the topic-hopping quotient spikes considerably, from extolling the virtues of beef salads and fan-owned bands to warning of digital tissue and energy vampires. Also, medical advice that you absolutely should not follow, advice on pruning the un-awesome from one's life, and, just to spice things up... a last minute caller! Music...

We here at The Spoon (a joint venture of NDR and BobCo) live by a cardinal rule: the key to entertainment is to jump up and down on the tightrope until it snaps. What happens afterward... ah, that's the prize! As you'll hear in this episode, we tend to lead by example, while our guest Eric Dean Boydston absorbs the lesson and throws out a few choice kernels of his own wisdom along the way. Heads u...

Chris is back, Bill Holmes is in the 4th chair, and... ya' know folks, there are times when so much comedy and conversation gets packed into this show that it can't be detailed in a single paragraph description without collapsing on itself and becoming a gravitational singularity which would threaten the safety of all lifekind. This is one of those times. So do the universe a favor and just make w...

Chris is off-duty this week, leaving the show feeling more Sporky than Spoony, but Regent St Clair gamely steps into the breach and helps us to navigate the conversational waters from nitpicky nerdfights (mild spoilers for Prometheus) to Craigslist conundrums, with a brief salute the lascivious 70s in between. Plus, multiple calls, including The Couch Report! Music by The Pills, Something Happens,...

Guestless for the first time in months, the men of The Spoon start out with a mission statement spot check before moving into discussion of group dynamics in situations ranging from rock bands to superhero teams, then cap things off with a rousing chorus of Stuff That Used To Be Cool (Before They Tried To Make It More Cool, Which Wound Up Making It Embarrassingly Uncool) augmented by a hilariously...

You know, perhaps it's time to retire this whole hazing ritual that we put Bill Funt through when he appears on the program. Perhaps the approach is losing steam. Perhaps it's played out. Perhaps it's unfair to Bill himself, and we ought to just admit that his caustically witty presence and deep well of pop culture knowledge are the true reasons we welcome him back time and again, and stop perpetu...

As they say in jazz, "it’s more about the notes you don’t play, man." This week, the men of The Spoon - self-admitted projectile word vomiters, all - make an attempt to streamline their style and cut down on audible pauses, but the cure proves worse than the disease. Fortunately, Kelly Murphy is on hand to step in and fill the verbal gaps with aplomb, dropping adventurous anecdotes on everything f...

We don’t want to say that this episode is carried by the guests and callers, but... well, we can’t think of another way to finish that sentence. After a few minutes of quality trio time, the men of The Spoon are joined by Anny Celsi and Carl Hanni, who bring the show yet another dose of "real radio" chops, as well as a gorgeous musical soundtrack which generates more phone buzz than usual for any...