The Bob and Tom Show has always been a great show for comedians, and it has hosted its share of comedians with Boston roots in the past. And since there is no station carrying it in the Boston area, you'll have to check the show out online to hear Chance Langton when he's on Tuesday.
Chance's act is pretty radio-friendly, and you can listen for yourself on his Web site. If you go to the Bob & Tom site and don't recognize the photo of the guy nest to his name (above left), that's probably because you've seen him in the past fifteen years. He hasn't changed too much, just a little less hair, which is a slightly different color (above, right).
Veteran Boston comedian Chance Langton is what I would call an ellipses comedian (that’s right, I just made up a category of comedian). His jokes aren’t technically one-liners, but he has that same quick punch – a line or two of set-up, pause, then punchline.
It’s an act he’s been honing for 30 years, and the stand-up on his album, I’m Better Than Them, newly available on iTunes and Amazon.com, is a lean, efficient set.
It’s all in the timing for Langton, and you can almost count the beats until the punchline:
“I was in Vermont once… that was enough.”
“I drove 100 miles for this show, which is… stupid. Cause I live down the street. There were three accidents on the way… I was in each of them.”
“Remember that song by Gloria Gaynor, ‘I Will Survive?’ … Whatever happened to her?”
It doesn’t quite do justice to Langton’s delivery to print the jokes, but you can get a sense even from just reading them how they land. It’s a classic format, one that you could have heard half a century ago, but Langton sets it off kilter. At his best, Langton’s comedy is inspired silliness. It’s a bit puzzling, but immediately funny.
One of my favorite bits has a longer set-up, but Langton’s standards, but it’s still only a few seconds from start to finish:
“The first time I fell in love, I fell in love with Shirley Temple. I saw her on TV. I was five and she was five. I couldn’t believe. I met her at a mall when I was six… she was 50.”
Langton is also a musician (he was courted by Epic Records in the 70s as a singer/songwriter), and there are four songs on the album in addition to the half-hour stand-up set (“Live at the Capitol Center for the Performing Arts”). The title track, “I’m Better Than Them,” is a list of celebrities that Langton brags about being, well, better than. John Belushi, J.F.K., John Holmes, Jimmy Hendrix. If you’ve spotted ther trend there, you’ve also spotted the joke – they are all dead. Which is how Langton comes off better.
It’s a simple gag, and unlike Langton’s quick-hit jokes, it wears out its welcome after a minute or so. The same is true for “The Laugh Factory,” which seems like a goofy commercial for the Los Angeles comedy club of the same name.
Langton is much better with the loonier “One of the Elves,” a waltzing folk ballad sung by Langton in a helium-tinged voice. There’s an inscrutable kind of melancholy to it, as he sings, “Maybe I’m the monster who’s afraid of himself/Because when the end comes I’m just one of the elves.”
And then there’s the somewhat more straightforward “I Want to Make Money,” a midtempo acoustic rock song about a working stiff daydreaming through the job and hoping for something better. It’s the best song on the album from a musical standpoint, with an assist from “Weird” Al Yankovic’s band (bass player Steve Jay, drummer John Schwartz, and guitarist Jim West).
On a regular folk album, “Elves” and “Money” would be more conspicuous in their oddity. But next to Langton’s stand-up, they seem a bit more subtle.
The best way to hear this stuff is live (Langton is at Nick’s Comedy Stop tonight and tomorrow), but I’m Better Than Them gives you a good idea what you’re in for.
Chance Langton called my Monday afternoon with some news, but not the news I was expecting. He did not win the Comedy Album award at this past weekend's Just Plain Folks Awards, but his I'm Better Than Tem did come in fourth. But he did land something that should be a big boost for him -- he signed to Oglio Records (they've released albums by Red Peters and George Lopez). Oglio will rerelease I'm Better Than Them.
Also congratulations to Jim Colliton, whose Stories from the Suburbs won the Just Plain Folks Comedy Album Award. Boston was well-represented, good to see two Boston acts in the top four.
And congratulations also to Myq Kaplan, who is in a series of promos for Comedy Central doing a few bits, including the one posted below about Scrabble. You can see all four here.
A month ago, Chance Langton would have been hard pressed to tell you about the Just Plain Folks Awards. Now, with his album I’m Better Than Them nominated for the music organizations Comedy Album award (along with fellow Boston comedians Jim Colliton’s Stories from the Suburbs and Paul Nardizzi’s Sucking A Cow’s Udder During A Solar Eclipse), Langton is heading down to Nashville for the Just Plain Folks Music Awards.
“I didn’t know it was happening,” he says. “In fact, I got the e-mail from Just Plain Folks about three weeks ago, I’m going to the ceremony in Nashville next week.” Langton uses CDBaby.com for his distribution, and they submitted their comedy CDs to the group.
So what does it mean to Langton to be nominated? “I would say at least a pat on the back,” he says. “The good part is that I know they screened a lot of CDs before they picked it so I’m just honored and flattered to be nominated. We shall see what happens.”
JPF describes itself as “the world’s largest grassroots music organization” and boasts it “the world’s largest independent music awards.” Langton will appear at the ceremony, but declined to perform. “They asked me to,” he says, “but they’ve got a lot of musicians performing and I didn’t think it would be the right setting.”
In other Chance news, Langton is also in the new indie film Boston Psychiatric starring Rich Gustus, Raj Jaiswal, and Harry Gordon, which premiered at the Coolidge Corner Theatre last week. Langton was impressed with the final product.
“I thought the film far exceeded expectations to me, because when you’re making a film, you can’t quite see what’s going on,” he says. “But they really put it together well. It moves right along. I think it has great potential as a sitcom.”
The Bob and Tom Show has always been a great show for comedians, and it has hosted its share of comedians with Boston roots in the past. And since there is no station carrying it in the Boston area, you'll have to check the show out online to hear Chance Langton when he's on Tuesday. 
