Adam Goren revived his beloved one-man synthesizer punk band, Atom & His Package, last week on The Chris Gethard Show. His guitar didn’t work properly, he had to edit out that reference to “Take Me Home Tonight” for legal purposes, and a lot of people, including the show’s main guest John Mulaney, had no idea who he was. But in the spirit of Chris Gethard’s show, which prides itself on losing well, it was perfect.
“One of the the great compliments for me is when people tell me this show made them feel better about being an awkward kid in high school and early college,” Gethard told the audience. “This artist tonight is the person who did that for me, one of the few artists that made me feel normal in my own skin.”
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And Goren reciprocated. “This show and all the people who help create it, it is encapsulating almost all the things I love about humans and humanity,” he said between songs. “I mean that in terms of it being inclusive, positive, creative, funny, clever, all these wonderful things.”
Though only part of one song made it to air on TruTV, Goren played “Punk Rock Academy,” “I Am Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy with Just a Hammer,” and “(Lord It’s Hard to Be Happy When You’re Not) Using the Metric System” (which he mentioned was written at a time when we had the luxury to worry about such trivial things) for the studio audience.
Aside from a Fest appearance in 2008, the Package has been dormant since 2003. We caught up with Goren last year to see what he’s been up to. (SPOILER: Teaching physics in Philly and raising two kids.) His two children, who were in attendance at the New York taping, were impressed that people were grabbing selfies with their dad.
Check out the entire wonderfully imperfect performance via TruTV above. Atom and His Package will also be playing The Fest this October and The Chris Gethard Show airs every Thursday at 11 PM.
