The Sounds of Summer, with Fred Armisen

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the New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC and the New Yorker.

Adam Howard

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard sitting in today for David Remnick. Fred Armisen has a thing about sound. You might have heard his bit where he claims to be able to imitate every accent in American speech.

Michael Shulman

Pittsburgh.

Fred Armisen

There Yins go there to Pittsburgh and then down to Baltimore Motor Oil. I always think motor oil, Baltimore Motor Oil. Then down Virginia and on Saturday Night

Adam Howard

Live he co wrote the recurring sketch about how people talk in Los Angeles.

Fred Armisen

Get back on San Vicente, take it to the 10, then switch over to the 405 north and let it dump you out into Mulholland where you blah.

Adam Howard

Armisen even made an album called 100 Sound Effects. The track titles are like little punchlines. Glass Falls but Doesn't Break. Music Store Around Christmas. Last summer, the New Yorker's Michael Shulman met up with Fred Armisen and they went out to do some sound recording of their own on the summer streets of New York.

Michael Shulman

Well hi.

Fred Armisen

Hi.

Michael Shulman

So I played this album for myself and my cat last night. She was confused.

Fred Armisen

Uh huh.

Michael Shulman

There are no birds on it. I don't think so. She was not that interested.

Fred Armisen

That'd have to be a separate album for Animals cause they're a different audience.

Michael Shulman

Okay, let's start with the basics. Like what is this thing and how did you come to do it? 100 sound effects it was kind of

Fred Armisen

like I was lamenting that there aren't sound effects albums in our lives as much or in my life I feel like they just used to exist more or they were more present. Like, there'd be, like, a Halloween one. You just see them everywhere. It was like, a thought. I was like, oh, I should make one. Just like, the titles of the ones that used to exist were always, like, you know, door closing. You know, there'd be, like, some street sounds, sirens, like airplane sounds and stuff. So it was just from that I was like, well, what would a new version of it be like? And instead of just, you know, taking out my phone and just recording stuff, I wanted to treat it properly. Like, let me go to a recording studio and really do it. Let me try to mimic some things that I've heard before. And it really kind of took about a year of booking more time at a studio and then a few things out on the street, but it was mostly studio stuff.

Michael Shulman

Well, when you picture people listening to this album, what do you picture? Are people, like, sitting and listening very intently, or is it background noise or is it.

Fred Armisen

I picture someone in reality. I picture someone playing it for their friend.

Michael Shulman

Oh, that's fine.

Fred Armisen

It's more like, hey, look what just came out. And so not going through the whole thing, but just playing little parts of it. And then it looks good in the record collection. So it's like, not in the music section. It's like, oh, then here's a sound effects record that actually came out more recently.

Michael Shulman

Right.

Well, I mean, it's like a novelty item kind of. But also maybe practical.

Fred Armisen

That would be a dream.

Michael Shulman

I mean, you mentioned the sort of classic sound effects albums.

Fred Armisen

Yeah.

Michael Shulman

That you used to see. Did you, like, own them growing up? Did you own these at Ocean?

Fred Armisen

Only Halloween ones? I remember ghoul sounds, you know, And I guess they'd be used for, you know, Haunted Mansion amusement, you know, like during Halloween. Oh, actually, I had a GI Joe single, the Toy GI Joe's. And I think those were heavy on sound effects. They weren't advertised that way. But there was a lot of, like, crawling through the dirt kind of stuff.

Michael Shulman

War sounds or adventure sounds. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Fred Armisen

Gotta grab this rock. Almost got it. And that kind of thing.

Michael Shulman

Wow. It is a lost art form, truly.

Fred Armisen

Yeah.

Michael Shulman

So the sounds are subdivided. Was that you started kind of like thinking about different scenarios in life, Like a plane or a music store, stuff like that.

Fred Armisen

Yeah. Like, I started with all the music stuff. I was like, that's easy. I wanted to do someone tuning a guitar and it's in tune, except for when they strum it, it's out of tune. That happens sometimes. To guitar players, we're like, I just tuned it. Why is it still out of tune?

Michael Shulman

Okay, well, let's hear that one.

Fred Armisen

Yeah, it's just something that happened. So it started there, because those are easy to record. Just, you know, set up an amp and everything. So the music ones were just. It was a good starting point.

Michael Shulman

Well, yeah. And you. I think before you were in comedy, you were in a punk band.

Fred Armisen

Yeah.

Michael Shulman

And people know you're a drummer. You were in Trench Mouth, a punk band starting in the 80s. So I imagine that you just lived a lot of your life around the sounds of bands doing their work.

Fred Armisen

Yeah. And there's so much sound checking. So much of your life is just sound checks.

Michael Shulman

So this is the sound of a New Yorker writer writing down what you're wearing. Flannel shirt.

Fred Armisen

And this sound is my reaction as I look down to my shirt.

Michael Shulman

Black pants. Okay, I got it. So you also did things out in the field. Can you tell me about sort of where you went out to record more organically?

Fred Armisen

There were. I spent some time in Ireland working, and there were sounds of parts of the kitchen, you know, the washing machine, the dryer. That, to me sounded very European.

Michael Shulman

Oh, really?

Fred Armisen

Like opening doors. Like, there's this different sound to even a front door. There's like a. It's like a lever, and it's like hardwood. So there's no way to recreate that. So with that, I used a portable recorder and just did, you know, front door opening fob. Opening the building door. And then I recorded the washing machine and the dryer. Because I think their dryers are just very different to ours. Like, there's usually one unit that does the same thing. It's way at the end.

Michael Shulman

Oh, yeah. European small dryer with some confusion.

Fred Armisen

Yeah.

Michael Shulman

Okay, let's listen to that, because now I'm really curious what this dryer sounds like. Oh, that's an interesting little beep thing. Yeah.

Fred Armisen

Yeah. What does that mean? What is triangle?

Michael Shulman

That's you giving up. Like, what's going on?

Fred Armisen

No, I. This really happened where. I mean, I was recreating it, but I couldn't figure out how to unlock it. I was like, it says, it's done. Why won't it open?

Michael Shulman

Huh?

Shopify/Mint Mobile Advertiser

Whoa.

Michael Shulman

What was that?

Fred Armisen

No idea.

Michael Shulman

The dryer just making a.

Fred Armisen

No idea. And these things, these are new machines.

Michael Shulman

That is mysterious. Oh, my God. That was like an alien landing. That was really unsettling.

Fred Armisen

That's something I wouldn't be able to do in a studio. It's just so specific to being There. Things like that I had to do there.

Michael Shulman

So you grew up in Long Island. Are there particular sounds that you associate with where you grew up?

Fred Armisen

Yeah, definitely. There were a lot of delis and pizza places and opening those doors, there was a jingle. Usually sound.

Michael Shulman

No, it's like how the Sopranos ends.

Fred Armisen

Oh, that's right.

Michael Shulman

Spoiler alert. But, like, the last thing you see is Tony looking up and the door jingles.

Adam Howard

Right.

Michael Shulman

Are you, in general, like, someone who is sensitive to sound more than other people, do you think? I mean, are you always that aware of it?

Fred Armisen

I can't compare myself to other people, but I would say that it's like a major part of my life and maybe my career in a way that, like, what, you know, got me. There is, like, more about sound. The sound of an accent.

Michael Shulman

Mm. Like, which chicken and egg is it? Is it. Do you think that you were sensitive to noises and that got you interested in listening to how accents sound, or was it.

Fred Armisen

Yes, definitely.

Michael Shulman

Being a actor who had to do accents got you more sensitive?

Fred Armisen

No, no, no. It's the first version. My parents weren't American. They became American, but my dad's from Germany and my mom's from Venezuela, and we lived in Brazil for a little while. So there was a lot of sort of relearning of how people talk, especially moving to New York. Like, New York has a very specific way that the people sound. So it was like, it was easier to notice. Because of my life, it was easier to notice that people sounded different.

Michael Shulman

What were the sounds of Brazil?

Fred Armisen

God, it was so different. First of all, as cliche as it might sound, the sound of the music in the streets. Because they had samba schools, not educational schools. Samba being like a school, meaning a group of percussionists. And we lived right near Copacabana beach, and somewhere around December, so they'd start rehearsing. So that's one sound you would hear is, like, the sound of drums. TV sounded really different. And the Brazilian kids. So we spoke English and we went to an American school.

Michael Shulman

How old were you when you lived in Brazil?

Fred Armisen

I was like, 7 and 8 or something. But the kids, not in a mean way, would make fun of kids who spoke English, the Brazilian kids, and they would mimic us. And so we'd be talking, they'd be like. They would say, like, chala, barchalla bar, shadda chabala GRA barscha, barcha bar. Like, that was their version of what we sounded like.

Michael Shulman

Huh? Right.

Fred Armisen

And, yeah, it just. Everything sounded different there.

Michael Shulman

What about snl? Does SNL have particular sounds like sets moving and stuff that stuck with you.

Fred Armisen

SNL has such a specific sound that it's what I picture most with the cause I love SNL with the cold open. There's like this hiss right at the cold open. I don't know it's the sound. I don't know what it comes from the mics being on or something. So you hear the audience giggle a little. But then there's this like. And it's only SNL where you're like, they're about to start the cold open. It's a must be half a second. But there's a sound that's like, it begins this way, right?

Michael Shulman

Right.

Fred Armisen

Fred Armisen talking with the New Yorker's Michael Shulman. More in a moment.

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Fred Armisen

on Consider this NPR's afternoon news podcast. We cover everything from politics to the economy. But every story starts with a question. At npr, we stand for your right to be curious to make sense of the biggest story of the day and what it means for you. Follow Consider this wherever you get your podcasts.

Michael Shulman

Well, Fred, I'm hoping that we can head out and do some fieldwork right now. If you're up for that. You up for that?

Fred Armisen

I'm up for it.

Michael Shulman

All right.

Fred Armisen

And sometimes elevator conversation sounds like this. New York is, like, almost too easy in that there's so many sounds going on at the same time. But I think maybe we could do a good job of, like, maybe finding some specifics. So we're in a deli, and this is the sound of a busy deli. So we're at an atm. We're getting the hitting of buttons and numbers. This is getting out cash. This is looking through a cooler for a soda that isn't there. Like a drink that you can't find. You're going through. You're like, oh, they're out of whatever. So this is someone looking through it.

WNYC Studios Announcer

Good.

Fred Armisen

We could do. I found what I was looking for.

Progressive Insurance Announcer

Oh, yeah.

Shopify/Mint Mobile Advertiser

Let's do that.

Michael Shulman

Let's do that. Okay.

Fred Armisen

So that'll add a vocal quality to it.

Michael Shulman

Okay,

Fred Armisen

there we go. This is someone from Philadelphia and they're ordering crepes.

Progressive Insurance Announcer

Hi, can I just get the lemon crepe, please?

Fred Armisen

So we're going into a tunnel, one of those, like, sort of overpass things in Central Park Park. So what you hear is violin or fiddle player in the distance coming closer. So we're passing a fiddle player.

Michael Shulman

Okay, so we're coming up on something very particular to Central Park South.

Fred Armisen

Right.

Michael Shulman

What do we have here?

Fred Armisen

We've got a horse and carriage. Now, I don't want to do anything to alarm the horse, but the horse is just being really quiet.

Michael Shulman

Yeah.

Fred Armisen

So there's.

Michael Shulman

Should we ask this guy?

Fred Armisen

Ask him. We wanted to get a sound of a clop, but I don't want to affect the horse. Okay. Okay, great. That's okay. It's okay.

Michael Shulman

Horse, do you have anything to say? Okay, okay, we'll leave him alone. Very quiet, horse. We have nothing from this horse.

Shopify/Mint Mobile Advertiser

Let's see.

Fred Armisen

Let's maybe wait here a moment in case some horses do go by, because now I'm dead set on it.

Michael Shulman

Can we. We're just getting some sound effects around New York. What about clapping his hoof? Is that okay? Okay.

Fred Armisen

I think it's a no.

Michael Shulman

It has to know. Yeah, no, that's all right. We don't want to bother you. It's fine.

Fred Armisen

I wonder if we could fake clopping

Michael Shulman

sounds

Fred Armisen

just as a sense of it might fail. Right. Like maybe we won't get it.

Michael Shulman

Oh, I have something.

Shopify/Mint Mobile Advertiser

Yeah.

Fred Armisen

Let's say that we had.

Michael Shulman

Sunglasses case.

Fred Armisen

This is great. So let's say I'm gonna go on that wood over there. Let's say we had, like, a directive that we had to get copying noises, and we're not allowed back unless we get something. So let's fool our boss, so to speak. Maybe I'll go slower. That's pretty good. That's not bad, right? Layer it with a little, like.

Shopify/Mint Mobile Advertiser

Yeah.

Fred Armisen

Or maybe I have this. That'll. Yes. Yeah. But okay, so let's start at the top. So this is horses clapping in Central Park. And I'll try to mimic that one.

Michael Shulman

That was. That was amazing because right as you were doing that, we should note an actual horse and carriage went by and you just mimicked the exact rhythm of what you were hearing.

Fred Armisen

Yeah.

Michael Shulman

With a couple of glasses cases and equipment cases on this piece of wood. Wooden banister thing.

Fred Armisen

You never know.

Michael Shulman

Okay.

Fred Armisen

Could be used at Bus looked over. Yeah.

Michael Shulman

The horse was like, is that my

Fred Armisen

wife or are you making fun of me? Do you think I'm a joke?

Adam Howard

Comedian Fred Armisen talking with staff writer Michael Shulman. Last year, Armisen's album 100 Sound Effects came out on Drag City Records.

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Adam.

Adam Howard

I'm Adam Howard. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for listening. David Remnick will be back next week.

Michael Shulman

Oh, should we maybe just get this?

Fred Armisen

Sure.

Michael Shulman

Is this horse going by? Excellent.

Fred Armisen

Now we can compare.

Michael Shulman

Yeah, we can compare how we did with the glasses case.

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The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer. And we had assistance this week from John Delor, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Parish, Victor Gwan and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.

Michael Shulman

Do you know about these stories? In 1933, Huey Long invented a holiday to prevent a bank from collapsing. In 1960, years before he was assassinated, someone tried to kill JFK with a car bomb. And in 2014, remember this, there was a whole news cycle about President Obama's tan suit. On the podcast this Day in Esoteric Political History, we talk about the forgotten stories that may teach us a lot about the very strange moment we're living in right now. Check it out. This day in Esoteric Political History from Radiotopia.