The Sounds of Summer, with Fred Armisen

The comedian Fred Armisen has a thing for sound: he’s a former punk-rocker who gets a lot of comic mileage from doing accents, and he released an album of sound effects—a modern update of a novelty genre from his youth. “100 Sound Effects” came out last year, on the venerable indie label Drag City. The track titles are themselves little punch lines: “Guitar Tuned but Still Somehow Out of Tune,” “Supportive Booing at a Speech,” and “Terrified Audience at an Authoritarian Nation Official Event.” Armisen talked with the staff writer Michael Schulman about sound effects and the origins of his love for accents, and they went out to do some sound recording of their own on the summer streets of New York.   

This segment was produced with assistance from John DeLore. 

This segment originally aired on August 29, 2025.

Further reading: 

• “Fred Armisen Goes Bang! Zip! Zoop!,” by Michael Schulman
• “Shakespeare, Off the Cuff,” by Mike O’Brien and Fred Armisen

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Join host David Remnick as he discusses the latest in politics, news, and current events in conversation with political leaders, newsmakers, innovators, New Yorker staff writers, authors, actors, and musicians.

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