Do you know Longmont Potion Castle? If you don't, you should—he's hilarious. He's hard to describe—he's a comedian of sorts who calls people and carries on absurd conversations complete with weird feedback, buzzing noises, and other strange electronica. He continues talking and asking questions until, typically, people hang up on him, often after cursing at him. He's been recording and releasing these phone calls since 1986. His Wikipedia page describes his work:
The anonymous artist has himself described the albums he has made as "phone work" or "absurdist" art rather than the less sophisticated label of "prank phone calls",[1] and has also said, "They may be dumb, but they're not stupid".[1] Those on the receiving end of a Longmont Potion Castle call are often left confused and/or extremely angry, as the calls frequently involve complaints about noise, requests for money or offers to "whoop" somebody. However, his calls are rarely very mean-spirited in nature. His recordings combine prank calls with sound collages and his own musical compositions, the majority of which are thrash metal instrumentals. Occasionally, Longmont Potion Castle filters his voice through a Digitech RDS 8000 rack-mounted digital delay unit to produce odd sound effects, thus making whomever he has called even more confused.[3]
One of my favorite LPC calls is when he phones up Sidney Poitier to ask about the millipedes he insists Poitier has ordered. The bit is called "To Sir With Millipedes," which the LPC fan website describes this way:
"To Sir With Millipedes" (stylized "tosirwithmillipedes" on some releases) is the twelfth track on the album Longmont Potion Castle Vol. 4, released in 2001 on D.U. Records.
It features two calls from Longmont Potion Castle to actor Sidney Poitier (February 20th 1927 – January 6th 2022), in which LPC attempts to deliver fifteen hundred live millipedes in a tank. The title refers to the 1967 film starring Poitier, To Sir, with Love.
During the calls, Poitier is at first confused, and then amused, and then just gets angry, ending the call with a hearty "Fuck you!". Listen here, and enjoy!
