Brooklyn's Eugene Mirman is a brilliant actor, author, festival organizer and stand-up comedian. He's a star of the hit animated Fox show Bob's Burgers, where he voices the character Gene, the only son of the Belcher family.
He is also a beloved, surreal and prolific multi-platform comedian whose latest release is the hilarious I'm Sorry (You're Welcome), a nine-volume/seven-LP box set that's available on vinyl, digital, chair and robe now on Sub Pop.
"I've always wanted to release things in a weird format," Mirman tells Exclaim! of his new set's unorthodox format options. "I made a joke in college talking to a teacher that I thought you could make anything funny, including a chair, if you just did it the right way. And there's been so much discussion of how formats are changing and the music industry's collapsing, I thought it'd be funny to say, 'Here's the future. The future is a robe.'"
Mirman explains that at least one chair will be available for sale for $1,200 (it's already been sold) and he hopes at least 40 embroidered robes featuring a sewn-in MP3 player will be manufactured. Though his hopes for the set to be available as a shoe were dashed, he hints that, if all goes well, the new set may also be available in dog.
"I think it's important with the changing way of everything," he explains. In an exclusive, Mirman also took time to discuss each of the records that make up I'm Sorry (You're Welcome):
LP1 Live in Seattle at the Columbia City Theater
"I wanted to make sure that when I was releasing my weird album, it came with a solid, long stand-up set."
LP 2A A Guided Meditation For The Thoughtful Body
"I wanted to make a very soothing meditation that is also ridiculous. So, when you listen to it, it's quite tranquil but also very silly."
LP 2B Fuckscape
"It's the perfect way to set a sensual mood."
LP 3 Eugene's Comprehensive Sound Effects Library
"I think it would be unfair that I felt there was a need for any of these things, but part of me hopes that people do use these sound effects in videos they make. I just wanted to make a comprehensive sound effects library."
LP 4 Digital Drugs
"If you Google 'Fear Channel 9 Digital Drugs,' you'll find a video of people who are terrified that children are listening to these binaural tones that are supposed to mimic drugs. There're countries that have banned them. I think they're probably wrong, because I can't imagine that listening to something could ever have the same effect as taking a drug, otherwise people would do that for cures. So, I made ten digital drugs, each of which has the binaural tone and also words and other stuff that not all digital drugs come with."
LP 5 Over 45 Minutes of Crying
"I largely think this was necessary so that there could be a sticker that says 'Featuring Over 45 Minutes of Crying.' To do that, to have that sticker, it has to actually feature over 45 minutes of crying. So, I had to do it and then we had to listen to it several times and make sure it worked. So, this thing I did as a joke, I had to listen to at least five times."
LP 6A Introduction To Spoken Russian
"Everything in there is fairly accurate and you would learn a fair amount of Russian from it, but it might be conjugated wrong, so who knows?"
LP 6B Ringtones & Outgoing Voicemail Messages
"It's ringtones and outgoing messages you can use, so you can change those on your phone. Every version will include a digital download of them. So the chair or the robe will come with a digital download of these things."
LP7 195 Orgasms
"I don't know if I want people to listen to them, but I definitely wanted it to have existed. It's one of those things that goes from being funny to then horrifying to then funny again to probably upsetting. We had 206, but then a few of them didn't totally work. We listened to them a lot and arranged them in a way that flowed well. Though it's ludicrous when you hear 195 of them; maybe there were some that are unnecessarily similar."
Listen to this interview with Eugene Mirman via Kreative Kontrol with Vish Khanna.
He is also a beloved, surreal and prolific multi-platform comedian whose latest release is the hilarious I'm Sorry (You're Welcome), a nine-volume/seven-LP box set that's available on vinyl, digital, chair and robe now on Sub Pop.
"I've always wanted to release things in a weird format," Mirman tells Exclaim! of his new set's unorthodox format options. "I made a joke in college talking to a teacher that I thought you could make anything funny, including a chair, if you just did it the right way. And there's been so much discussion of how formats are changing and the music industry's collapsing, I thought it'd be funny to say, 'Here's the future. The future is a robe.'"
Mirman explains that at least one chair will be available for sale for $1,200 (it's already been sold) and he hopes at least 40 embroidered robes featuring a sewn-in MP3 player will be manufactured. Though his hopes for the set to be available as a shoe were dashed, he hints that, if all goes well, the new set may also be available in dog.
"I think it's important with the changing way of everything," he explains. In an exclusive, Mirman also took time to discuss each of the records that make up I'm Sorry (You're Welcome):
LP1 Live in Seattle at the Columbia City Theater
"I wanted to make sure that when I was releasing my weird album, it came with a solid, long stand-up set."
LP 2A A Guided Meditation For The Thoughtful Body
"I wanted to make a very soothing meditation that is also ridiculous. So, when you listen to it, it's quite tranquil but also very silly."
LP 2B Fuckscape
"It's the perfect way to set a sensual mood."
LP 3 Eugene's Comprehensive Sound Effects Library
"I think it would be unfair that I felt there was a need for any of these things, but part of me hopes that people do use these sound effects in videos they make. I just wanted to make a comprehensive sound effects library."
LP 4 Digital Drugs
"If you Google 'Fear Channel 9 Digital Drugs,' you'll find a video of people who are terrified that children are listening to these binaural tones that are supposed to mimic drugs. There're countries that have banned them. I think they're probably wrong, because I can't imagine that listening to something could ever have the same effect as taking a drug, otherwise people would do that for cures. So, I made ten digital drugs, each of which has the binaural tone and also words and other stuff that not all digital drugs come with."
LP 5 Over 45 Minutes of Crying
"I largely think this was necessary so that there could be a sticker that says 'Featuring Over 45 Minutes of Crying.' To do that, to have that sticker, it has to actually feature over 45 minutes of crying. So, I had to do it and then we had to listen to it several times and make sure it worked. So, this thing I did as a joke, I had to listen to at least five times."
LP 6A Introduction To Spoken Russian
"Everything in there is fairly accurate and you would learn a fair amount of Russian from it, but it might be conjugated wrong, so who knows?"
LP 6B Ringtones & Outgoing Voicemail Messages
"It's ringtones and outgoing messages you can use, so you can change those on your phone. Every version will include a digital download of them. So the chair or the robe will come with a digital download of these things."
LP7 195 Orgasms
"I don't know if I want people to listen to them, but I definitely wanted it to have existed. It's one of those things that goes from being funny to then horrifying to then funny again to probably upsetting. We had 206, but then a few of them didn't totally work. We listened to them a lot and arranged them in a way that flowed well. Though it's ludicrous when you hear 195 of them; maybe there were some that are unnecessarily similar."
Listen to this interview with Eugene Mirman via Kreative Kontrol with Vish Khanna.