The HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER 100th episode musical extravaganza “Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit,” written by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, arranged and orchestrated by myself and John Swihart, was just nominated for the Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics Emmy! Congrats to Carter and Craig for the well-deserved nomination! Was truly a privilege to get to work on the project.
FINDING BLISS, a romantic comedy set in the porn industry starring Leelee Sobieski, Matt Davis, Kristen Johnston, and Jamie Kennedy, will be opening this weekend at West Hollywood’s Laemmle Sunset 5 theaters and is currently playing at City Cinemas Village East in New York.
The score features additional music and thematic material by me.
Sometimes I fall upon weird gigs. Like BACKWASH, an upcoming web series from Sony’s Crackle.com, written by Joshua Malina (Will Bailey from The West Wing) and directed by Danny Leiner (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle). Co-composing the score with John Swihart. Said score includes moments like this:
Steven Weber and Jamie-Lynn Sigler in STICKY WICKET: The Nougat Musical
Cast includes Michael Ian Black, Allison Janney, Sarah Silverman, Robert Sean Leonard, John Cho (seriously), Michael Vartan, among many others. Check out photos at Josh Malina’s TwitPic here.
The feature writing and directorial debut of Josh Radnor (Ted from How I Met Your Mother), HappyThankYouMorePlease, just premiered at Sundance. The film follows the lives of six New Yorkers as they discover their own definitions of love, family, adulthood, and stars Josh Radnor, Malin Ackerman, Richard Jenkins, Kate Mara, Peter Scanavino, Pablo Schreiber, and Zoe Kazan. I wrote the string arrangements to accompany the [lovely] acoustic guitar score by recording artist Jaymay. The score was produced and supervised by HIMYM music essentials Michael Brake and Andrew Gowan, respectively.
And here it is, the final version in all its glory, just aired on CBS tonight. So proud and honored to be a part of it — thanks to all for your support and kind words. And props to Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for writing a kick-ass song.
And congrats to HIMYM for 100 amazing episodes. Here’s hoping for 100 more!
Second, there are two very, very important and very, very awesome things you must watch over the next ten days. To prove the goodness of humanity in these dark times.
1) YOUTH IN REVOLT, starring Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Zack Galifianakis, Fred Willard, Steve Buscemi, Justin Long, Jean Smart, and Ray Liotta — opening January 8th. I’m excited, you’re excited, worshippers of C. D. Payne are skeptical and excited. Score by John Swihart, featuring some keyboard playing and arranging, as well as a musical doorbell, by myself. It’s funny, go see it.
2) HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER 100th episode, airing Monday, January 11th (CBS, 8:00p), featuring a full-blown musical number to close the episode. Song written by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas; orchestration, music direction, piano/keyboards, and backup vocals by yours truly. This is the project from that past year that gives me the most pride, and the one which most clearly proves that all that bizarre musical stuff I did in college (i.e., Yale a cappella) resulted in a strange yet useful set of skills. I’ll hopefully be able to post a video of the number after the airdate, provided that CBS posts one for the public. But here’s a photo from filming:
Oh, and Tim Gunn is in the episode. Tell your friends.
