The Boston Comedy Interview: God's Pottery

According to the bio on the back of their new book, What Would God’s Pottery Do? The Ultimate Guide To Surviving Your Teens and/or Being Successful, God’s Pottery is Gideon Lamb and Jeremiah Smallchild, international television stars touring the United States. Last Comic Standing brought the Christian musical duo national attention last summer, but before that, they played Great Scott in 2006 when the Allston venue tried to form a partnership with the Upright Citizens Brigade to bring regulars from their New York stage to Boston.

Tonight, God’s Pottery is back at Great Scott, this time as part of Anderson Comedy’s regular Friday night show, The Gas. I caught up with the duo, who are played by Wilson Hall and Krister Johnson, by e-mail this week and tried to get them to break character (I know that Johnson, who plays Gideon, is originally from Newton, and asked about it, but other than a Joey McIntyre reference, they didn’t take the bait).

This is the interview, with a couple of clips from GP’s new prank web series, Christ’d, which is featured on FunnyOrDie.com. In the first episode, they get Mike Birbiglia.

How did you guys meet?

Jeremiah: Well, we first met as kids in our small town in the Midwest. I was riding my bike past the Great Pines Lumber Museum when I saw a boy lying prostrate outside the gift shop. It was Gideon, and he had eaten too much Captain Humely’s Lumber Fudge with Sawmill Sludge (fudge logs with caramel) and a whole jar of Mighty River Log Jam strawberry jam straight from the jar, no bread! I saw that this boy needed a friend to guide him through the misery caused by his overindulgence. he friend I had in mind was Jesus. A couple days later, things really clicked for Gideon and he began to see the importance of Jesus when he fell on his head after attempting to fly off his roof like Superman. He called me, and we became fast friends.

Gideon: So I made two friends that day!!!

Do your siblings come to your shows?

Gideon: Not as often as we’d like. My younger sister, Princess, has come to some shows. (Her real name is Vicki, but everyone calls her Princess because when we were kids she was really into princesses—and still is!)

Jeremiah: I keep trying to get my brother, Brent, to come on out whenever we play the Quad Cities, but he’s always tied up with his responsibilities with the Jaycees. It’s weird though, he always has time to go to the gun range, and he’s invited us every time, but we don’t like guns.

Gideon: “Hugs not guns,” as the saying goes.

What led you to perform in comedy clubs? Aren't they mostly dens of sin and unhappiness?

Gideon: We have to go wherever we’re needed! Jesus didn’t say “Oh, I’ll just let the lepers figure out how to heal themselves while I hang out at the arcade and blow my allowance on video games.” No, he went out to where the problem was—just like we do—and did his part to make a change. Of course, what Jesus did is much more important than what we do…

Jeremiah: …Yeah, but we’re getting there. You know, something we’ve learned is that addressing all the issues out there is a lot like driving in the snow: you have to steer into the problem.

How did Last Comic Standing help you spread your message?

Jeremiah: This one’s easy.

Gideon: Yeah, you have to realize that by being on national TV—and we’re talking about NBC here—we were seen by literally hundreds of viewers, and just the exposure alone helped us spread our message.

Jeremiah: And then add to that the fact that most people are sitting around thinking “I wish someone would tell me more about Jesus and the Bible, and I wish someone would tell me more about what I’m doing wrong and ways I can change that, especially in the middle of a prime time comedy TV show that is otherwise pointlessly secular.” It’s the same reason that religious politicians keep getting elected—people love to have someone making decisions for them based on the Bible.

Christ’d Episode One: Mike Birbiglia

Christ'd! Episode 1: Mike Birbiglia - watch more funny videos

In your new book, you sometimes mention rock bands like the Rolling Stones, and you sometimes play songs that could be construed as rock songs. Have you read The Devil's Disciples by Jeff Godwin or Why Knock Rock? by Dan and Steve Peters? Are you concerned you might be leading impressionable kids astray?

Jeremiah: Hey, listen, we like to rock out every now and then…

Gideon: Sure, we listen to a little Ronnie Milsap, or maybe some Christopher Cross…

Jeremiah: Yeah, we’re not against “hard rock,” it’s just that some of the harder stuff—The Spin Doctors, REM—should be avoided for various reasons. We address this in our book.

Gideon: Look at Fergie, talk about a dangerous character: she was once a nice girl on Kids, Incorporated, and then she grew up and now sings hip-hop, and recently urinated herself on stage. You have to be careful whom you listen to!

Jeremiah: We haven’t read either of those books you mentioned, I’m sure they’re terrible.

What can you tell me about Newton, Ma?

Jeremiah: Newton is famous for two things: fig-based cookies and Matt LeBlanc (Joey from “Friends”)! That’s all we know about Newton.

Gideon: We had a friend from Newton named “Krister” (at least that’s what he claimed his name was), but we had to sever our relationship with him after Krister boasted about spiking his Pepsi with lemon extract at his High School dance to get high and/or drunk. We have no time in our lives for drug addicts, let alone boastful ones. And ESPECIALLY ones who misuse baking products.

Christ’d Episode Two: John Roberts

Christ'd Episode 2: John Roberts - watch more funny videos

Why write a self-help book? Was the Bible not enough?

Jeremiah: We feel that reading is the language of learning, and learning is the gateway to knowledge. All the famous teachers have written books, including Bill O’Reilly, whose book “The O’Reilly Factor for Kids” really inspired us to write our own book for kids.

Gideon: And one thing that’s cool about a book compared to writing songs is that a book doesn’t have to rhyme! We actually started writing the book trying to make everything rhyme, but we gave up pretty quickly.

Jeremiah: Notice how all Dr. Seuss books are very short.

Gideon: As for the Bible not being enough, well, the Bible is like the best piece of food on your plate—like a hot dog—but it’s still helpful to have some other food, like potato salad or a pool of ketchup to eat along with the hot dog.

Jeremiah: And that’s where we come in.

Gideon: Think of us as a pool of ketchup.

Jeremiah, if you're jealous of Gideon for always wearing his orange "Virginity Rocks!" t-shirt, why not get a "Virginity Rocks!" t-shirt in a different but complimentary color?

Jeremiah: I wasn’t jealous of the shirt itself, I just didn’t like that everyone thought of Gideon when they thought of virginity, and not of me! I’m just as big a fan of virginity, if not bigger!

Gideon: Yeah, but I have it on my shirt, so…

Jeremiah: See? That’s why I was frustrated. But I’ve found a way to work through my frustration, and that’s just that I vow to be a virgin longer than Gideon.

Gideon: Ok, well, you better be prepared to wait a long time then.

Jeremiah: Oh, I am. And you see that? That’s an example of a good contest, a good game that the Youth can play, instead of “Who can get pregnant the fastest?” or “Whose shirt is the most see-through?”

What other projects can people look for from God's Pottery?

Gideon: We’ve got a brand new web series called “Christ’d!” where we prank our comedian friends with goodwill and concern.

Jeremiah: It’s like the show Punk’d, but the pranks are good-natured.

Gideon: So far we’ve Christ’d Mike Birbiglia and youtube star John Roberts, and we’ve got plenty more to come!

Jeremiah: Plus we’re on the road these days performing all around the US, and when people come to see us, they’ll hear songs they’ve never heard before, including on TV and the Internet!

Gideon: We hope you’ll come say hi!

Quiet Desperation at Great Scott, Coxen's "The Camaro Whisperer"

Very few people would have ever thought of putting Bigg Nez and Joe Wong together as a hip-hop duo called Tin Tin Buffet, as Robby Roadsteamer has done in Episode 7 of Quiet Depseration, a faux reality show about the Boston arts and entertainment scene. It's those sorts of combinations that have made Quiet Desperation so appealing, throwing a couple of dozen of Boston's talented comics together in one story and seeing what happens.

Friday night at Anderson Comedy's show, The Gas, at Great Scott Roadsteamer celebrates Quiet Depseration with some of the show's contributors -- Mehran, Chris Coxen, Tom Dustin, Erin Judge, Shaun Bedgood, Ken Reid, and Joe Madaus.

Here's Episode 7, introducing Boston's newest hip-hop comedy team, Nez and Wong.



Coxen is one of Boston's most reliable character comics, and has a considerable collection of whackjobs and goofballs (there's a very fine difference, I would have to cite sources) including Ripps McCoxen. McCoxen has just added the title "Camaro Whisperer" to his resume, as demonstrated in the latest video from Coxen.

Christian Finnegan is having the... well, you know.

Acton native Christian Finnegan is best known for four-year stint lampooning pop culture on VH1's Best Week Ever. But his new special, Au Contraire!, shows who he really is as a stand-up comedian, which is to say, on the bubble between personal and observational comedy. He can talk about his father-in-law, in prision for attempted murder, or about his old purple gym shorts, or how awful he thinks Chihuahuas are as dogs, with the same measure of lightness.

Since he's coming to The Gas tonight at Great Scott with Anderson Comedy, Ken Reid, Chris Coxen, James Laurence, and Laura Burns, it was a good time to catch up with Finnegan. We spoke last week by phone.

How has the reaction to the special been?

You know, it’s been great. I don’t know if it wasn’t good if I would know. I haven’t gotten any hate mail yet, which is oddly a tiny bit disappointing. I thought I made a concerted effort to offend at least a few different groups of people. But to date, no one has burned me in effigy.

Who are you most disappointed at not hearing from?

Well, there are a couple of Catholic jokes in there. I was hoping to maybe get that William Donahue jerkwad on my case, that guy from the Catholic League. He is just the worst person in the world. But unfortunately, no attention from them yet. Chihuahua owners might possibly take to the streets. I do talk a lot about my wife’s father who is in jail for attempted murder, so I’m hoping it doesn’t get back to him.

That seemed like a bit of a calculated risk on your part.

Well, I’m lucky in a couple of ways. One, I have a few years before it’s an issue, before he’ll be back. And even then, he’s stuck in Texas, unless he violates the conditions of his parole. Secondly, I don’t address this in the special, but he’s also deaf. He would have to see a transcript.

So not quite as brave as it may seem at first glance.

Well, I don’t really get into the deafness thing because I find it’s too much, too much info. It’s a big enough sort of a conversation stopper, even in terms of a stand-up show, for me to talk about him being in jail for attempted murder. To also bring up that he’s a deaf-mute is just too… much information and it stops being a comedy show, and it starts being more just people asking me questions that I have to answer.

I know people are always curious about this sort of thing, but do you think of any sort of personal fallout you might have, just from the family, for saying things like this onstage, much less saying them on a nationally broadcast special?

I certainly got permission from my wife. And my wife is actually writing a book about her crazy life, she’s writing a book for Random House right now, a memoir, so she certainly is not shy about sharing the intimate details of her life. Neither of us are. I think that’s one of the reasons we get along so well, is we’re not shy about exposing the worms underneath the rock.

But I was sensitive about it at first, with regards to my wife’s mother, but she’s fine with it. She loves it. She’s come see me probably five times and had a great time. I don’t really talk about him personally. I’m not really discussing him as a human being, it’s more that one little personality quirk. [laughs]

It’s a weird fine line I guess, because it’s attempted murder and not…
You’re right. It would be a little stranger if he had succeeded, but at the end of the day, it’s the life I’m leading. And at a certain point, that’s what I want to talk about. I suppose that I could spend the rest of my life saying, “Okay, what’s funny about salt shakers?” and that would be fine. A lot of comedians do that. A lot of my comedy is observational, but not the entirety of it. The stuff that really gets me excited is the stuff that has some sort of personal aspect to it. Some of the best comedy involves someone potentially being offended or hurt in some way.

Are people surprised to find that your comedy isn’t really isn’t what it is on Best Week Ever? It’s safe to say that’s where most people know you from.

It’s certainly informed my comedy, maybe as a juvenile thing, but I kind of refuse to do pop culture material in my set because I don’t want to pigeonhole myself, to use the easy word. I don’t want to get locked into that too firmly. I enjoy that kind of stuff. I really like deconstructing pop culture more than I do, like, doing pop culture zingers. Of course, I learned how to write those doing Best Week Ever over, I think about four years. But it’s not really what fascinates me.

I’m working on a bit now that’s not on the DVD, that really deconstructs how uncool Fonzie really was, when you really watch enough Happy Days, just what a pathetic, sad figure he really is. That’s not the same as going, “Hey, what’s up with Lindsay Lohan’s vagina?” It’s a slightly different take on it.

But I don’t really enjoy doing topical humor onstage. First of all, it requires way too much context. When you see on Best Week Ever, there’s always a voiceover set-up. Here’s what happened, now here’s the joke. And I just find that sort of in-jokey, like, “Oh, we all know about Adam Lambert, don’t we?” Well, no. Not necessarily.

Do you think this special is a way for you to transition away from being known for Best Week Ever? IS that any part of the equation?

That would be great if that were to happen, but make no mistake, you’re lucky to be recognized for anything. There’s a lot of white noise, and if people like what you do – I don’t feel the need to disown myself from Best Week Ever. I actually think a lot of the stuff we did on Best Week Ever was really smart and funny. Even the stuff when we were talking about dumb things, I think they gave us a lot of leeway to make smart jokes about those dumb things.

And I got away with saying things on that show that were much more bizarre and idiosyncratic than I might be able to get away with on a Friday night late show in Dayton. There’s jokes we did on Best Week Ever that are among the just I am most proud of ever having written. They might not all be stand-up jokes, some jokes just don’t work in a stand-up context, in the same way that some jokes that work onstage wouldn’t necessarily work on a clip show.

But I don’t feel the need to bury that part of my quote unquote career, but it’s not necessarily all I want to do, and it’s not really a full representative of who I want to be as a live performer, that’s for sure. And so I do look at the DVD as a way to make people see me more as a live performer who has things to say that are not pop-culture related. That is important to me.

The special is an interesting mix because it’s storytelling, but not necessarily in a straight, narrative sense, and it’s observational material and not necessarily in that sense of, “Hey, isn’t breathing weird?”

Right. That’s kind of what I was alluding to before. I do a lot of observationalist material, but it generally starts from an idea, or it generally starts from an opinion that may or may not be funny on its face, but it doesn’t necessarily start with kind of random, “Hey, here’s a chair, what’s a joke I could say about a chair?” Well that’s not really interesting to me. There’s a line I say at the beginning of the special, where I say, “It’s a night of awkward personal revelations hypocritical assaults on your character,” which really does encompass probably seventy-five percent of the special, and even more so the DVD, which is a third longer.

And a lot of stuff that is on the DVD is definitely that awkward personal revelations stuff. There’s a long segment where I talk about the experience of buying my wife a sex toy. It’s not observational in the strictest sense, but it’s observational in the sense that it is a weird experience, going into a sex shop. I’m sort of rambling slightly. But you’re right, it’s not like, “I could do a joke about anything.” It all kind of comes from me.

A long time ago, I stopped trying to write jokes just to write jokes. What I’m trying to do now is to take things that I actually think and make them funny, as opposed to come up with things that are funny and pretend I really care about them. Which is what I feel like a lot of what I did in the first maybe ten years of doing stand-up, is, I would come up with a joke just kind of in conversation, or, “oh that’s a really funny angle,” and I’ll try to imbue it with a lot of passion that maybe wasn’t real.

Where did that come from? Did you have particular models for your comedy when you first started?

It takes a while to find your voice, as ridiculous a phrase as that is. I think it’s kind of like when you’re a painter – and I realize there’s never been a non-pretentious sentence that started with something like that, there’s no way to not sound like an asshole when you say, “But when you’re a painter” – but you want to become an artist. You want to become a cartoonist. You want to draw for a living. You start by learning how to draw. You draw the bowl of fruit, you draw the nude model, you learn how to represent what’s in your head, or what you’re able to see, and that’s the way it has to start.

Most comedians don’t come out of the womb fully formed with their own angle and their own persona and things like that. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with just being funny for a few years and getting laughs. But then the goal becomes to be funny in your own way. How can I be funny in a way that people will remember me? Because I see a lot of comedians go up, and they’re hilarious, and they kill every night, and people walk our of the theater or the comedy club and they’ll say, “Eh, that was fun. What a fun birthday party for Kim,” and they will never remember who that person was.

It’s tempting to kill all the time. It really is. And I think if you’ve been doing comedy for ten years and you’re headlining clubs, you know what you need to do in order to kill most of the time, barring some sort of drunken incident or something like that. But that’s not the goal, at least not to me. That’s not the end. The end, for me, is to kill in a way that only I could. And that’s not something that happens every night. There are moments where you really feel you tapped into it, these people understand what I’m trying to do, and sure, maybe you’re only really getting half the audience. The other half are enjoying themselves, but they’re just out because it’s Kim’s birthday or whatever. But half the people really get what you’re trying to do, and those are the people who are going to become your fans. Not just come out because they got free tickets.

How close are you to doing what you want to be doing? There’s that tendency, I guess, if you want to grow, that you’re always setting the goalposts back a little bit.

I feel like I’m maybe halfway there. But I’m completely open to the idea that what I want might radically change. Right now, I’m really getting into the idea of doing something more narrative, less observational. Either something narrative in terms of being autobiographical, or narrative in terms of having a thesis and setting out to prove it over an hour. Either going in a John Leguizamo way – although people don’t think of him as a comedian, which is bizarre, because that’s how he became famous, is basically doing one-man, autobiographic stand-up shows. Or going in a Bill Maher way where you really have [things] you want to address. But I like the idea of being more theatrical with what I want to do.

Robby Roadsteamer creates a comedy monster

Robby Roadsteamer has created a franchise in Boston with his Greater Boston Alternative Comedy shows, gathering his favorite comedians and a band or two and putting on shows at venues like the Paradise and the Middle East (see my interview with Roadsteamer from the first show in December). Tonight, he brings the Greater Boston Alternative Mayday! Mayday! Comedy Show to the Middle East Upstairs with Joe Wong, Mehran, Erin Judge, Ken Reid, Chris Coxen, Anderson Comedy, and Sean Sullivan.

The shows have fostered a sense of community, which Roadsteamer immediately looked to showcase in a new YouTube-based sitcom called Quiet Desperation (see the first three episodes below). I caught up with Roadsteamer last week to talk about the shows and the Boston comedy monster he’s creating.

How have the Greater Boston Alternative shows been going?

Personally, for me, they’ve been a blast, just because it’s definitely an audience that doesn’t normally go to a comedy club. I, with the exception of shows at the Comedy Studio, have been burned out by conventional comedy shows. It’s nice to have a crowd that’s just open to anything. A lot of times, crowds at comedy clubs are, “make me laugh,” there has to be much more give onstage to win them over before you can actually enjoy doing your set.

These last couple of shows have been people who don’t normally go to comedy shows. A lot of them usually go to music shows and like that. There’s a much looser [feel to] the audience. You can tell it’s going to be a good show. And the comedians, I’ve seen some unique performances at these things, because they just open up a little bit. They don’t have to be delivering every ten to twenty seconds. They can take their time telling stories and developing other things onstage.

How are you pulling those audiences into the shows?

I’m pullign them a lot from basically the music side of the tracks. At WBCN, I built up a fanbase of people from all walks of my creative life. I usually do a lot Facebook blasts and things like that. But I know these people are all… it’s very hard to get people to shows these days. Everybody always flyers and stuff, but really, even shows I’ve seen a lot of flyers for, I can still name everybody in the audience at a lot of these shows.

People’s time is very valuable apparently now these days. You’ve got to fight for them to not go home and update their status and all that. The only way to get to those people is to go on their little thing and be like, “Hey, I know you’re on Facebook right now, why don’t you go out to a show? I know that comedy shows sometimes suck, I know sometimes you have to be quiet for two hours, but there’s a bar right in the room and everybody’s going to have fun and it’s all a bunch of people that you know.” It’s turned into a thing where, yeah, people see great comedians, but it’s also a social group, too. It’s people who normally are awkward, people who are kind of withdrawn, I mean, myself indictable.

I’m having a lot of fun with these shows, and I know these shows are gaining a lot of momentum. We’re, after this, doing a three-night stand in Provincetown this summer at the Arthouse Theatre. They’re bringing the whole show down there. And I actually just opened for Jon Lejoie last week at the Wilbur Theatre –

How was that?

Oh, I absolutely crushed. I was not nervous and I realized I feed better off of, when I know there’s a lot of people in the room. It made me step it up. Bill, the owner of the Connection came up afterwards, he wanted me to bring the Greater Boston Alternative Show there for September. So we’re negotiating that now.

I’m really starting to enjoy the vibe, because the first time I did it at the Paradise, I don’t know, I think a lot of people were wondering what it was all about. I think comedians are starting to realize that, yeah, it’s not about the term “alternative comedy,” it’s just about the idea that there can be a different sort of platform for people to go to a show and not expect a typical comedy show.

Do you have an overall plan of what you’d like to see happening as you do more and more of these shows?

There’s already some comedians from this sort of vein starting to get breaks here and there. Maz Jobrani for Mehran, had him open up at the Berklee Performance Center. And that’s because one of the talent scouts came to the Paradise show. And in return for that, Mehran opened up for him in Washington D.C. and crushed in front of 1600 people, and they want to bring him on tour. And it’s like, what I’d like to see is comedians I’ve seen rough it out in the trenches of the Emerald Isle and all these crappy open mic nights have their chance to shine and have their breaks, because I feel they’ve got so much to offer, but they need the right opportunities.

This goes beyond just doing the comedy shows for me. It’s like that show I sent you this morning, Quiet Desperation. I’m using the same pocket of comedians to show how they would be in an outside of the box TV show that pretty much lampoons the whole Spinal Tap meets the D.I.Y. scene and stuff like that. I want it to be across the board, because these people, I don’t just talk about comedy with. We’re all sort of intertwined with other things, too. It could be philosophies, the way we enjoy life. It’s so weird how, accidentally, all these comedians turned out to be really close friends. I could tell you stories on everybody who does these shows. Like, how I met them and what I’ve shared with them. And it’s weird that I also happen to find them amazingly brilliant onstage.

I just actually last week closed the deal, I guess MTV’s putting together another Beavis and Butthead type of show, and it’s going to be based on YouTube videos and stuff like that, and one of their people approached my publishing company and they’re paying us a thousand dollars per episode, I mean, it’s one right now, but if people like the videos, they’ll purchase for other episodes for permission to use all the YouTube videos on each episodes.

Going back to Quiet Desperation, is that just made for friends and people in the scene? It seems like a lot of stuff would fly over people’s heads if they’re not into the local comedy or music scenes.

My opinion is this, I think you show it to anybody in terms of the type of character Tom Dustin is, the type of character Mehran [is]. Yeah, we’re using local locations and stuff, but I don’t expect somebody to gut laugh when they hear somebody performing at Great Scott. And I don’t expect people to gut laugh when they see Erin Judge is reporting for the Boston Globe, but somebody performing at a sports bar in front of five people after I’ve just explained how much that sucks? There’s not, I fell, a lot of inside.

It’s the type of show, it’s like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Arrested Development. I think on its own as a YouTube video, I don’t think it holds its own, because those types of shows, you need to watch them. That’s going to be our only handicap. I mean, I know it’s not going to be a five to eight million hit video because people just want stuff on YouTube to make fun of, the retarded kid who can’t sing Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” the right way.

With a video like this, I feel like if it were budgeted it would be perfect for something like MTV. You’re looking at ten to twenty fake bands of all different genres doing really close to the bone reality comedy songs in each of those genres in that Spinal Tap meets D.I.Y. mode. How many people are struggling musicians trying to pretend they’re bigger than they are in this country? How many people eon the comedy side really have these dreams and visions, too? It’s a lampooning of how a lot of us are living this life of, “Oh god, I really don’t care about the break, but I need it!”

I feel the jokes and the humor, if you give it a real, unbiased watching, I feel the talent is top of the line, the delivery’s top of the line, you don’t feel stupid for watching it. I think the acting is very convincing. And I think more and more, now that we’re getting episodes out and telling the story a little bit more fluidly, there have been a few bites and breaks. The Phoenix is going to host all the newer episodes, including the ones we’ve already got printed up.

Quiet Desperation Episode one



Quiet Desperation Episode Two



Quiet Desperation Episode Three

Robby Roadsteamer: I Solved Every Miniquest

Robby Roadsteamer has officially come through his Nebraska period, recording his new album, I Solved Every Miniquest, with a full band. And that’s not the only change. Miniquest also leaves behind the hard rock mustache rock for a more poppy sound, still heavily influenced by his troubadour shtick for the past four solo albums (released within the space of a year and a half). There’s even a hand-clapping sing-along (“Two Week Maine Vacations”) danceable folk rock (“Silverspoon Artist Girl”).

Don’t worry, there are still plenty of Tekken references, and some songs that reference the music industry, although Roadsteamer (and his need to work menial day jobs) is the main target. The best of these is Roadsteamer’s self-penned Wikipedia entry – “Bury that timecard right in the clock/Go clean up dress shirts at Sears.”

Miniquest has a bit more of the party atmosphere that made Roadsteamer’s earlier band albums so much fun (see especially “When We Hang Out”). Which might have something to do with the camaraderie Roadsteamer has worked to engender in the comedy community for the past several months, resulting in a string of comedy/music shows at rock venues.

The latest of these shows, The Greater Boston Alternative Spring Comedy Fling, happens tonight at the Middle East Upstairs with Mehran, MC Mr. Napkins, Chris Coxen, The Steamy Bohemians, Renata Tutko, Anderson Comedy Group, Ken Reid, and emceed by Shane Webb, with musical guest Chris Keating. Doors at 8PM, cover $8. Roadsteamer has also been giving out copies of Miniquest at the shows, so you may be able to snag one there.

You can see a bunch of ths Spring Fling folks in this video for “I Guess It’s All About” (note Mehran’s performance as “stressed out man on phone”).

Who Are The Whitest Kids U'Know?

What exactly is the Whitest Kids U’Know? We know they have a TV show that airs Tuesdays at 10PM, now in its third season on IFC (the first season was on FUSE). We know they are a comedy troupe that is coming to Great Scott tonight to play a show with Anderson Comedy. Then there are the viral videos like “Hitler Rap” that spread through YouTube, and even a movie called Miss March (out March 13)written and directed by Whitest Kids Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, who also star.

The Whitest Kids U’Know, then, is a five-person comedy troupe (rounded out by Darren Trumeter, Sam Brown, and Timmy Williams) with experience making short films and producing a weekly live sketch in New York City. Their show in IFC looks mort like a collection of short films than a traditional live sketch show. That may be splitting hairs, but it’s a distinction of which the troupe is aware.

“The funny thing is that when we first started as a troupe, we were pretty much at our very early stages, trying to make a TV show for a live show,” says Brown, a Sandwich native whose brother tends bar at Miracle of Science and the Middlesex in Cambridge. “And then eventually, once we started doing the weekly shows, we realized we’re making a live show. We started writing to that, writing stuff to work with a room. And yeah, second or third season, we had to shift our minds back to making a TV show again.”

“Sketch has changed. It’s like SNL doing ‘Digital Shorts,’” says Trumeter. “We still think of them as sketches but the format has kind of changed, because we’re not playing in front of an audience.”

Cregger, Moore and Brown all had experience with film studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Williams studied film at Brooklyn College, and Trumeter brought a depth of theater experience when he joined the troupe, and had also made a short film. That experience was a tremendous help when they were transitioning from the live show to television.

“Us being able to produce out own stuff is how we got going,” says Brown. “We all just knew how to edit, spoke that language of how things are laid out with cuts and things like that. We were able to speak to the finished product.”

Running a weekly live show was also a boon, giving the group a lot or material from which to create the first season. “The first season of the show, 90 percent of the sketches we had that season were written before we got the show, from doing the live show for so long,” says Brown. “The second season we had some [material] from doing stuff live. But then doing the third season was all new.”

The troupe has a taste for scatological, potentially controversial, and sometimes even mean material. They have featured sketches about miming workplace masturbation and a spiteful grade school teacher who tells a student his mother died in a car wreck. Probably one of the least controversial is the “Hitler Rap,” which shows the former fuehrer reformed and battling MCs instead of leading a holocaust.

When they started with IFC, the network told them they would have pretty much free reign for content, they took it as a challenge to push boundaries. “They really let us do whatever we want,” says Brown. “But the interesting thing is that this season, we weren’t as compelled to just push the boundaries, we were more like, all right, let’s just make the funniest stuff we can make. And it still ended up [with] more animal sex sketches than ever. Like, oh, we just are really weird people, aren’t we?”

The Kids are still waiting to hear if they will have a fourth season with IFC, and are working on a Whitest Kids movie. But in the meantime, they’re happy to be able to get back on the road and play in front of a live audience. “The tour has been amazing because we kind of threw it together last minute, and the turnout has been insane,” says Trumeter. “We had no idea that we had this many fans.”

Anderson Comedy's The Gas presents The Whitest Kids U'Know at Great Scott. 18+. 8 p.m. $15. 617.566.9014.

"Deer Sketch"



“Slow Jerk”



Classroom Sketch



"Hitler Rap"

Shows This Weekend

Three shows this weekend deserve a special highlight. Tonight’s line-up at The Gas at Great Scott is solid from top to bottom – Anderson Comedy hosts Chris Coxen, Josh Gondelman, David Grabiner, Lamont Price, Robby Roadsteamer, MC Mr. Napkins, The Steamy Bohemians, and Mehran. Not bad for five bucks… You may not have heard much about it, but there’s a benefit show with a great line-up tomorrow at the Wilbur at 2PM, with Ira Proctor, Jim Lauletta, Tony V., Jon Lincoln, Dan Boulger, Mike Hanley, Jon Porch, Ahmed Bharoocha, and Roman Pierce. Proceeds benefit a family that lost their father to suicide… Also Saturday, at 7PM, is a great show for comedy and rock and roll fans. Jimmy Tingle is emceeing a show with Mission of Burma and the Neighborhood at the Somerville Theatre. Proceeds will benefit the Center for Arts at the Armory.

Flight of the Conchords Preview, Anderson Comedy

Anyone who showed up at Great Scott tonight hoping to see Anderson Comedy perform sketch would have been disappointed to see their role in the Flight of the Conchords preview reduced to a quick plug of their usual Friday night show, Gas, after the preview of the second episode of the new season. The troupe was told earlier in the evening that they would not be performing, but that Rob and Matt could mention the show.

The preview itself was a mixed bag. People were waiting on the sidewalk in single digit temperatures in a line that stretched about 30 feet around the corner. A few people came back out disappointed, apparently not on the RSVP list. Those who did get in were treated to free drinks and food and a preview of the second episode from the new season, which premieres on HBO Sunday at 10. The episode was funny -- the Conchords hit a new financial low and have to consider prostitution to get their instruments out of hock and turn their lights back on. But an open bar and free TV are two good things that don't necessarily go well together. Tough to hear the dialogue over some of the folks socializing near the stage.

Still, everybody will get a second chance to see the episode next week, and got free beer and snacks. And hopefully, some of that capacity crowd will come back to see Anderson Comedy on some other Friday night. Something about a gift horse comes to mind...

Review: The Rob Crean Show at O'Brien's 1/13

O’Brien’s Pub in Allston might rightly be described as a “joint.” It’s at the end of Harvard Ave, down where most people pass on their way to the Thruway, and the neighborhood is a jumble of hip boutiques, cheap eateries, and car rental shops. It’s a place you’d expect to hear college bands blasting indie rock against the stinging weather outside, or warming up with some more sensitive folk rock. At least that’s the feeling on a cold January night.

But the second Tuesday of every month, O’Brien’s belongs to The Rob Crean Show, a talk and variety show hosted by Rob Crean of the Anderson Comedy sketch troupe. It’s a laid back, late night show. The start time is listed as 9PM, but the show’s audience is more into fashionably late. So by the time Crean starts his monologue around 9:40, there are only a few bodies mingling, glancing occasionally at the TVs behind the bar to check on the Bruins score. The crowd really starts to grow after ten, and everyone is still there at midnight when things are winding down.

Crean is an amiable, self-deprecating host. His monologue is surprisingly traditional for a room full of hipsters, a survey of news about President Bush’s last press conference and the type of offbeat items (a man sells his daughter for meat and beer, a wedding ruined by locusts) that late night talk show hosts love crack wise on.

The monologue is interrupted by Ripps McCoxen (character comic Chris Coxen, who seems to be on every underground comedy show in Boston), a 2-by-4 toting workout maniac who is looking for the band that’s playing next month’s show. Crean is game, and fine with playing the straight man as McCoxen explains how his flexing arm (his “gun”) is often mistaken for Cape Cod.



Crean and Anderson Comedy have put together a satisfying mix of sketch and stand-up (this month’s there was a DJ between sets instead of the usual band, so any judgment on that element is deferred for another time). The women of Anderson comedy perform a monthly parody of “The View” called “The Vagenda” (again a surprisingly traditional approach to sketch parody), which allows them to be catty in character.

Crean also interviews the acts when they’re done, which is where the self-deprecation comes in. Which you can see in this clip with MC Mr. Napkins.



Rhode Island comic Tim Vargulish, a relative newbie, has a promising set of sarcastic geek comedy. Mike Dorval previewed his funny, personal one-man show, Death By Chocolate, which premieres next month at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (more on that in February). And MC Mr Napkins (also fast becoming a staple of any cool indie show in this town) hit his usual hip-hop homeruns, even if he stumbled once or twice (on raps about pneumonic devices, no less).

Anderson Comedy hosts several shows around town, including Gas, which is every Friday at Great Scott, just down the street from O’Brien’s on Harvard Ave (they’ll host a Flight of the Conchords premiere party this Friday). They are aiming to create a new scene for themselves and other like-minded comedians and musicians. Here are Rob Crean and Lucas Lewis of Anderson Comedy, explaining it in their own words:

Robby Roadsteamer's Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival

The Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival with musical guest Campaign for Realtime
December 17, 8 PM.
Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave, Boston.
www.ticketmaster.com

Robby Roadsteamer knew he was asking for trouble by naming his latest production “The Greater Boston Alternative Comedy Festival.” Having worn a path between Boston’s music and comedy scenes over the past several years, he’s aware of the problems the term “alternative” presents. In the music scene, everything not Top 40 or hip hop became “alternative,” crowding the field until the term became useless.

In comedy, the description is often a dividing line between comics who view themselves as more traditional comedians (a definition that’s almost as useless) and comics who see their work as edgier or more original. But there’s little in the mechanics of what happens onstage, in structure or set-up, that could provide a definite line of demarcation.

Andy Kaufman did character work, but so did Sid Caesar. Jackie Martling does set-up and punchline material, but so does Steven Wright. Margaret Cho and Patton Oswalt may tell stories, but so did Andy Griffith (and if you’re suspicious of dragging out Matlock as an example, dig up a copy of his “What It Was Was Football.”). The structure of doesn’t define the genre, and none of those comics stick strictly to those structures.

“It’s like anything abstract,” says Roadsteamer. “It’s like describing art or love or anything. It’s like, you get to a certain degree where you have an idea of what the differences are, but to even try to define very stripped down – ‘alternative comedy is a comedian who goes up and doesn’t…’ – that’s stuff where you’re going to find a lot of contradictions.”

What you can say about the show is that it is packed with eclectic, immensely talented comedians. The Walsh Brothers put an indelible stamp on this scene with their mix of personal storytelling, rooted in their Charlestown upbringing, and absurdist sketch. Shane Mauss can write a standard joke as well as anyone, but will stretch talking about the strange things he’s experienced with his sudden popularity after his success at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and his Conan appearances.

Chris Coxen has been developing a set of characters, including the plastic-haired “Future Queer” and lounge singer Barry Tattle for the past several years, and they’ve recently started to mingle in more integrated shows. The Anderson Comedy Group has a taste for bizarre and sometimes tasteless sketch and short film. Shane Webb (who will MC the evening), Bethany Van Delft, and Mehran all mine their personal lives, from very different perspectives. And then there’s Roadsteamer himself, who has moved from a fake-mustachioed hard rock troubadour to something closer to his everyday self with an acoustic guitar.

What they do have in common is that they all come from the Greater Boston – Allston/Brighton/Cambridge – comedy scene. “All these amazing, talented comedy acts are coming from that area,” says Roadsteamer.

If this show is successful, Roadsteamer would like to organize more of them to spotlight what he sees as underappreciated acts. He doesn’t see a place for acts like this to grow and make a living in the current club scene, and he hopes this show will help the cause.

“There is an underground scene going, but it’s always nice to see what you can do with it, and maybe you can bring it to the next level,” he says. “Maybe one day, which obviously seems like a pipe dream at this point, but maybe more comedians of this type can make a living in the area in the area they enjoy living in.”

A sampling of Festival talent.

GBAC Festival Promo


Shane Webb


The Walsh Brothers


Shane Mauss


Anderson Comedy Group


Bethany Van Delft


Mehran
Mehran, 5 tight, 10.25.08