Flight of the Conchords SLC-Bound!

[Music] That's right: Kiwi comic-folkies Flight of the Conchords are coming to Salt Lake City! Abravanel Hall, to be exact, on Sunday May 17. If manager Murray doesn't screw up the tour, that is ...

If you're HBO-free, here's a taste of some Sugar Lumps:



(Bill Frost)

What Songs Did FOTC Parody?

[Two musicians, one cup] For non-viewers, Flight of the Conchords is HBO's brightly sardonic half-hour series conceived as a vehicle for an eponymous band comprising a pair of Kiwi "digi-folk" musicians. A typical episode features two music videos; the Conchords are brilliant parodists, and half the fun of the show is recognizing which song, band or genre are parodied.

Season 2, episode 2 "The New Cup" aired Jan. 25.

Bret's purchase of a $2.49 tea mug prompts Jermaine to explore a new career path.

Song 1: "Sugar Lumps"

Most obviously, it's a parody of "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. Yes, everybody hates "My Humps" now, but you've got to admit, it was a catchy tune (and apl.de.ap is seriously hunky). Still, I have the feeling there's some other influence here--I doubt the Conchords would parody such oldies as Robert Palmer, but there's definitely something going on, isn't there? (Jonah Flicker of Spinner.com says it's Timbaland--and, craggy ol' dude that I am, I'll have to take his word for it.)

Song 2: "You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute"

It's a male-prostitute twist on "Roxanne" by the Police, right down to Sting's faux-reggae Jamaican accent. (You know, despite Sting's inexplicable foray into the somnabulistic adult-contemporary genre, I sort of liked him—until that unbearably arrogant and pissy performance on Spectacle: Elvis Costello With .... OK, listening to Stewart Copeland, the eternally precocious 57-year-old child, crying "Me, too! Me, too!" 16 hours a day would make anybody irritable. But could even the most Anglophilic and punctilious of viewers really care whether Sting's chivalric order is that of OBE or CBE? He was so quick to point out the difference. (Neither honor ascends to the rank of full knighthood.)

Insisting upon such distinctions doesn't seem entirely chivalrous.

(Brandon Burt)

But Where Was Bret?

[Celebrity Sightings] Or non-sightings: Last week, a film crew took over Sam Weller's Books downstairs from the City Weekly offices, shooting interiors for a 2009 feature called Gentlemen Broncos, by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess.

No big deal; we didn't think too much of it. Until today, when someone in the office revealed that, on a java run to the Coffee Garden within Weller's, she was told that Flight of the Conchords co-star Jemaine Clement (the tall one with the glasses) was among those being filmed downstairs!

Deep-voiced and somewhat robotic, Clement is a geek-chic sex symbol 'round these parts--had the female (and some male) contingent of the City Weekly office known he was so near, there would have been a riot. Seriously. Crisis averted. (Bill Frost)