Back in May 2021, Fountains of Wayne guitarist Jody Porter organized a tribute to his late bandmate Adam Schlesinger. Adam Schlesinger, A Music Celebration featured, among many others, Courtney Love, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Squeeze’s Glenn Tilbrook, Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, Sean Ono Lennon, and a reunion of Schlesinger’s supergroup Tinted Windows. At the time, it was a paid livestream to raise money for musician charity MusiCares and then-closed NYC venue Bowery Electric, but now the full thing is up on YouTube. It’s a tribute to the depth of Schlesinger’s catalog that it’s two hours long and no one even covered “Stacy’s Mom”!
Highlights are many, from Chris Carrabba’s mournful acoustic “Mexican Wine” to The Still Out’s dream-pop “Sick Day” to Nicole Atkins and Wilco’s Pat Sasone’s outdoor “Laser Show.” Not everyone picked Fountains of Wayne songs either; Michelle Branch and The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney tackled a song from Adam’s pre-Fountains band Ivy, as did Dean & Britta. Tinted Windows’ Taylor Hanson, James Iha, and Bun E. Carlos performed one of their old songs, and Eddie Baranek covers a song Adam wrote for The Monkees (Micky Dolenz pops up to pay tribute too). There were of course multiple covers of “That Thing You Do” by both Mike Viola and Bambi Kino, and Rachel Bloom, star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, for which Adam wrote the music, performed that show’s “Settle for Me.” The deepest cut of all, though, might have come from Butch Walker, who unearthed a hidden gem: “Guitar Center,” a song Adam never released but sounds like a coulda-been Fountains classic.
Watch the full video below, with the tracklist as well. (Of Courtney Love‘s “Hey Julie,” we’ll just say it was nice of her to participate and leave it at that.)
00:00 Survival Car – Fountains of Wayne
02:39 Rickie and Ruben – Fountains of Wayne
07:07 Sink to the Bottom – Jody Porter and the Berlin Waltz
10:36 Hey Julie – Courtney Love and Jenny Plant
14:35 That Thing You Do – Mike Viola
18:17 Hackensack – Ben Lee
21:31 Fire Island – Sean Ono Lennon
24:50 I’ll Say It – The Minus 5
27:16 The Summer Place – John Gallagher Jr.
31:20 Laser Show – Nicole Atkins, Pat Sansone, Pat Creamer
34:10 Its the Best Thing – Patrick Carney, Michelle Branch, Nicole Branch
37:36 Mexican Wine – Chris Carrabba
44:00 Guitar Center – Butch Walker
48:39 Bright Future in Sales – John Brodeur
51:47 Everything’s Ruined – Robert Schwartzman
1:00:27 I Hate To See You Like This – Kelly Buchanan
1:05:33 All Kinds Of Time – Peter Himmelman
1:09:01 Settle For Me – Rachel Bloom & Jack Dolgen
1:11:08 I Was There (And I Was Told I Had A Good Time) – Eddie Baranek
1:13:55 Better Things – Fountains of Wayne
1:16:50 I-95 – Diane Gentile
1:20:52 Denise – Ben Kweller
1:25:17 Utopia Parkway – Joe McGinty
1:29:19 Never Do That Again – Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham
1:33:57 Back In Our Town – Matthew Caws
1:37:20 Traffic and Weather – Eszter Balint
1:41:52 Sick Day – The Still Out
1:46:06 Back With You – Tinted Windows
1:52:12 It Must Be Summer – Geoff Sanoff, Justin Pierre, Eli Janney, Mark Plati, Fred Armisen
1:57:08 Hey Julie – Jesse Malin
1:59:45 Hackensack – Glenn Tilbrook
2:03:10 That Thing You Do – Bambi Kino