McSweeney’s will host a radio drama on Los Angeles’ KCRW during two broadcasts on November 24 and 25 at 5 p.m. PT. You can listen to the broadcast live at this online link.
The drama will feature a huge list of musicians and writers, including Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips, Will Sheff from Okkervil River, Eleanor Friedberger from Fiery Furnaces, author Jack Hitt and Edward Droste from Grizzly Bear. Check it out:
A long time ago, McSweeney’s commissioned Richard Parks to make a one-hour radio show starring Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips. Richard disappeared for months and came back with something from another time—a continuous-play radio drama in the style of Mercury Theatre’s War of the Worlds, but mixed with contemporary music from bands like Bill Callahan and Okkervil River, with the musicians appearing in it as themselves. We listened to it, and didn’t know what to make of it, but the music was great, and there was all kinds of crazy sound design—car crashes and helicopters and murmuring tumors (yes, murmuring tumors). We’ve been playing it since then from time to time, and people seem to like it—so we thought we’d finally make it available to listeners.