How Fred Armisen Turned Comedy Into Punk Rock
Punk musician Jens Hannemann is famous for his “Complicated Drumming Technique” instructional videos, which, back in the late ’90s, you could find in music stores (they’re now available on YouTube). He is not famous for offering aspiring drummers anything close to helpful: At one point, the superserious, bizarrely accented Hannemann explains how to pull off an elaborate rhythm by endlessly repeating the words left and right, often at the wrong time. He sits behind a ridiculously elaborate drum kit, looking vaguely like late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, but also resembling the wide-eyed, just-left-of-handsome Fred Armisen.
And that’s because it is Armisen. Before he joined in 2002, becoming one of the show’s strangest.” In that one, he shoves a mic into a couple of punk musicians’ faces, then refuses to ask a question until they laugh or get angry. He can effectively spoof the indie rock world because he is part of it: Armisen is a talented drummer who spent time playing with, among other punk outfits, Chicago’s Trenchmouth, in the late ’80s. (He was also married to one of the genre’s great singers, Sally Timms, of the Mekons, from 1998 to 2004.)
