HOOPER PICCALERO

By David Day

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Hooper Piccalero is Matt Plummer on bass trombone, Lauren Strobel and Danilo Henriquez on trumpet, and Derek Beckvold on baritone sax. They play experimental music and prank call radiohosts. We talk to Matt Plummer to ask WTF? is with that.

IS HOOPER AFTER MR. HOOPER, OF SESAME STREET?

That's a trick question. There was this show on Nickelodeon called Are You Afraid of the Dark?—where they'd tell ghost stories. So one of those ghost stories, there's a character in it called Hooper Piccalero.

IN YOUR WORDS, WHAT IS THE SONG "WTF?"

Basically what's happening is we're repeating three words: What the fuck? We're really concentrating on that whole, "What the fuck?" We're thinking about "what the fuck?" we're feeling it, and then we just sort of break out into ... uh—then we start playing.

I CAN SEE THAT HAPPENING.

We have another piece where we phone Steve Inskeep, from NPR. It used to be pretty easy to get to his office number—and then he actually listed his cell phone number. So we have his cell phone number [and] every time we play this song we call him and leave the cell phone on throughout the piece, and it's really short and repetitive, so we hope it picks up all of it.

HIS VOICEMAIL?

Yeah, he's never actually answered, for some reason.

HE'S NEVER CALLED YOU BACK AND BEEN LIKE "STOP PLAYING IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC?"

No, I mean, who knows. Maybe his assistant has deleted every single one. It's hard to say, but we're totally down with that. The piece is called "no vignettes," and it's just a quick, angry statement against the use of vignettes in NPR news.

[Hooper Picalero with Ronald Reagan and Batter Recharger. Fri. 3.7. 3496 Washington St., Jamaica Plain. 617.524.9038 8pm/21+/$5. midwaycafe.com]