It seems like the more popular "Portlandia" gets, the more mythic its co-star Carrie Brownstein becomes. Brownstein -- a founding member of the nineties grrrl rock outfit Sleater Kinney -- is more or less a creature to study in the wild now, having pulled off the rarely-seen successful career switch after countless intermediary jobs (one journalist compared her past ten professional years to the yearbook montage scene in "Rushmore"). She isn't just an amateur comedienne helping carry a hit sketch show, she's a rock and roll mini-legend in a past life, one who topped all those respectable lists people don't actually read.
Along for the mythologizing is Brownstein's more experienced co-star and longtime friend Fred Armisen. He is Brownstein and Brownstein is him -- one, a comedian who knows a lot about music, and the other a musician with comedic talent. Type in "Carrie Brownstein and," in the Google search bar, and the first suggestion that pops up like a breathless Jewish mother is, "Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen dating." (They're not, according to interviews. But they may as well be.) If Brownstein is your way cool older sister, Armisen is her way cool best friend whom she talks to about way cool music, comedians, and maybe sleeps with. Who knows! It's their business, y'know? They're grown-ups.
And so we get to the point of this preamble, which is the greatness of the video below. Brownstein and Armisen interviewed each other for Rolling Stone, and the result is a meandering, thoughtful dialogue between two friends who love music deeply and equally. It's intimidating and alienating in the way such videos can be, but it's also great fun to watch Armisen tell Brownstein that his introduction to Sleater Kinney came with the question, "Do you want to hear the best music ever?" And then to watch Brownstein squirm a little. Does it make us lame that we thought Brownstein said "Almant Khan," when she actually said "All Mod Cons" (title of a seminal album by a seminal British punk band, apparently, called The Jam)? Yes! Of course! That is the point of this video -- we get to listen in on an interaction we'd never have been invited to. It's nothing to feel bad about. As cool as your older sister and her cool best friend who happens to be male are, sometimes they're also a little too cool.
WATCH:
[via Rolling Stone]