Who becomes a legend most?

Classy dudes, that’s who.

When our Technical Producer, Jim Brunberg, suggested Dave Frishberg as a musical guest for Live Wire, it was daunting. Terrifying, even. He’s got the word “legend” attached to him. And rightly so. He’s Cole Porter-esque. He’s Woody Allen with a piano. He’s Dave Frickin’ Frishberg.

But we worked through that fear, and decided that as long as we had the man who wrote “I’m Just a Bill,” why not write some Schoolhouse Rock songs for a new millennium? And why not ask Dave to accompany us on one of them? Oh, but he’d never do that, right? He’s all important and stuff so there’s no way he’d...HOLY CRAP HE’S GONNA DO IT!!

And he did. And you should listen to the show on OPB on Saturday night to hear how it all came out. Tyler Hughs and Ralph Huntley wrote some stellar lyrics (and like the girl in the Shake ‘n’ Bake commercial, I helped). Ralph—whose skills as a sketch writer, songwriter, Faces For Radio Theater member and house band leader makes us think he might be an alien from The Planet of the Overextended Creative Types—learned a squillion Schoolhouse Rock songs in a couple minutes, and the whole thing was pretty cool. From what we understand, it may be the only time Dave Frishberg has ever played “I’m Just a Bill” in front of a live audience. We felt pretty honored to be there to see it. Not to mention his other two songs – the hilarious “Quality Time” and “I Wanna Be a Sideman.” He is one cool cat.

Oh, and if you want to see him in action again, he’ll be one of Susannah Mars’ special guests for Mars on Life: The Holiday Edition on December 16th at Artist’s Rep.