“Sleep deprivation, it’s one of those things, it shortens your life and also makes you make horrible decisions,” Gulman said. Maron interjected: “But here’s the thing, when he gets loopy, it gets interesting. Come around 4:30, that’s the time to listen.”
“Look, he’s one of the great broadcasters of our time,” Maron said. “Not unlike a Jerry Lewis telethon, I think Tom’s going to be entertaining all the way through. And I don’t think this benefits anybody. A telethon for no reason.”
Four hours into the broadcast, Scharpling was joined in the studio by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and Chris Tomson. The trio talked about growing up in New Jersey, their first concerts, and pressed for a scoop, Koenig and Tomson said the new 10-song Vampire Weekend album is “close to done” and will arrive before the next presidential election.
Koenig, who hosts Time Crisis on Apple Music 1 every other week, said he’d never attempt anything like Scharpling’s marathon. “Oh, I can’t even imagine,” he told Pitchfork. “I don’t have those kinds of radio chops. He’s a legend of the game. Maybe one day if I really trained, I could pull off like 12 hours.” Tomson called it “impressive,” the physical task of being awake and “on” while broadcasting for that long. “I wish him peace.”
The show featured musical performances from King Tuff, Shannon Shaw, Fat Tony, Maylee Todd, and Generacion Suicida. Late into Tuesday night, Scharpling performed a “Sound Collage Symphony”—a chaotic marathon of soundboard drops—with Vic Berger IV and DJ Douggpound. It was followed by a call where What We Do in the Shadows star Matt Berry pretended to be Graham Nash. “That was about a half year in the making,” Scharpling told Pitchfork about his chat with Berry. “We’d been joking about that for a long time.”
