Illustration by Alex Fine

Stereotypewriter

Prank phone calls are given new life.

by Brian McManus

The prank phone call—much like the rubber chicken and the fake pile of dog doo—has lost its ability to make us laugh over the years. What started out as an innocent way to amuse bored friends (“Is your refrigerator running?”) has devalued into a crass, louder-is-funnier form of unfunny that’s often cruel.

Enter Earles and Jensen Present … Just Farr a Laugh. Two men, Andrew Earles and Jeff Jensen, may just save the entire genre as we know it. Through a LOL combo of rich character study (a man nicknamed “Midlife” by co-workers seeks to purchase a PT Cruiser) and absurd gimmicks (a man attempts to sell a Teddy Ruxpin doll to an antiques dealer), the two have crafted some of the funniest phone calls ever captured on tape. Stalwart indie label Matador (Interpol, Pavement, Cat Power) is now releasing those calls—which have been circulating in underground circles for years—along with new material.

I caught up with Earles, a one-time PW contributor, to talk with him about the new release (available April 22) which you can hear in part at www.matadorrecords.com.

What makes most prank calls so painfully unfunny?

“The fact that most of the people creating them are painfully unfunny. The history of the high-profile prank phone call [Jerky Boys, Crank Yankers] is scarred by bad direction. Screaming at people or the threat of bodily harm is rarely funny. Otherwise, the humor is just so obvious. Midgets, fecal humor, the morbidly obese—these things aren’t funny to begin with, and especially unfunny when watered down for a mainstream frat-boy audience.”

What makes JFAL different?

“Jeff and I never imagined we’d have an audience of any note. We were just doing what we found funny, and what we thought our friends would appreciate. For the most part we don’t yell at call recipients, and cruelty is an unspoken no-no. We don’t want to ruin someone’s afternoon. For better or worse, we enjoy making obscure references and creating situations that might go in any direction. It’s really hard to get a good call out of the unsuspecting public, and we’re sticklers about what makes the cut. The hit-rate is so low that the practice can be quite laborious and frustrating. We’d like it to be viewed as a couple guys who came up with some funny ideas and characters, rather than prank- calling guys, if that makes sense.”

You talked about Matador releasing JFAL quite a long time ago. Some of the liner notes are written in March ’07. What’s been the holdup?

“The finished liner notes date from 2002 until December 2007. The booklet has taken a lot of time to put together. It’s more than 60 pages of writing, drawings and photos, so it had to be created, edited and laid out like a small book, and that takes time. Jeff and I have a lot on our respective plates, so we could focus on it only during certain blocks of time. Postproduction on the second disc took place in 2007 as well; it wasn’t a finished ‘album’ yet. Also, all parties involved were, and still are, entering new and unknown territory.”

File under random: I hear freak-folk king Devendra Banhart is a huge JFAL fan.

“He’s a big fan of the first album [disc one in this set] and contributed art to the booklet.”

Switching gears—How did you get your start writing your Where’s the Street Team column for Magnet ? You basically shit on every band they covet. Who over there agreed to that, and how many death threats from sexless, overserious indie fans have you received?

“I wrote an initial piece that squared me up against another writer who was praising that year’s releases. They wanted me to try that tone in a stand-alone column. Plus, I used to co-write a zine that thrived on said tone and brought me to the attention of Magnet’s editors in the first place. I was sent a padded envelope full of overhyped or generally awful new music with the instructions, ‘Make fun of this—1,000 words.’ The column has worked to pigeonhole me in terms of writing style, but that no longer bothers me. I think most people now understand it’s more of an act than anything else. I always try to inject some heart and genuine self-doubt into it. Again, I’m not a fan of straight-up cruelty. As you know, it’s hard to make a name for yourself in the music writing game, a place choked with academic tedium and sycophantic circle jerks. The column provides an opportunity to do something that gets people’s attention, and in the process, flex that humor muscle. Someone did write in to say, ‘It’d be funny if Andrew Earles was hit by a car,’ but overall the indie demographic—or whatever you want to call it—is loosening up a bit. A few years ago they took themselves very seriously, and most of the older ones still do.”

What’s the difference between you and your partner Jeff Jensen, and what makes the dynamic work?

“He’s funny 100 percent of the time, and I run at about 22 percent.”