Robbie Fulks: Fountains of Wayne

Fountains of Wayne is the highly anticipated headliner of the Kellogg Global Arts Festival held this Saturday, October 4, at Fountain Square. Why are Fountains of Wayne playing at the Kellogg GLOBAL ARTS Festival, anyway?

It turns out that Fountains of Wayne has captured the imagination of more than just the Kellogg School of Management entertainment booker! (and the Northwestern marching band, as Lauren pointed out last week)

Robbie Fulks, Starlight 08 performer extraordinaire and certainly one of Chicago's cultural heroes--but not in the "apparently-Christie-Hefner-is-a-cultural-hero-and-that-makes-me-very-sad" kind of way--has written a witty little jingle about the catchy if systematic songwriting techniques of Fountains of Wayne. Perhaps it is the now-universal tropes found in "Stacy's Mom" that have made Fountains of Wayne a particularly significant landmark of the Global Arts? Or maybe Fountains of Wayne will incorporate the fountains at Fountain Square into a site-specific musical performance sculpture celebrating the history of water as the fertile beginning of civilization and as a conductor for transportation, trade, communication, and innovation that led to the global society we now inhabit. (Fountains of Wayne, if you're reading this, DO IT!)

More likely I'm just missing the point on what the Kellogg Global Arts Festival really is, as Michael McDermott rounds out the schedule.

You can listen to Robbie Fulk's take on Fountains of Wayne here: http://www.spinner.com/2007/06/07/iflts-fountains-of-wayne-hotline-robbie-fulks/

There is no denying the Fountains of Wayne performance at Fountain Square will be a fantastic highlight of the outdoor performances in Evanston this fall. And that hotline of theirs is a tremendous service to struggling songwriters everywhere.

xo Laura