Guest Blogger: Boston Grassroots Comedy in Full Bloom

Guest Blogger Lucas Lewis

Starting today, I'm declaring this "Lucas Lewis Week" on the Boston Comedy Blog. Why? Because Lewis is recording a set for the first time Friday at The Gas, he's going to be leaving town shortly, and he's written this fine, multi-part piece on Boston Comedy. He's gotten into quite a few corners of this scene, and there is a lot to explore. He also interviews me. So in a very lazy way, I am posting something I said, too. Lewis was not lazy, though. And you'll see the fruits of his efforts today through Friday, including an extended Q&A with Mehran, who will be putting up Criscoteqhue 2 at Oberon Friday. Enjoy! -- Nick
By Lucas Lewis

CAMBRIDGE — Rhys Thomas paces nervously in front of the Middle East Corner on Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square. The 22-year-old Beverly native and student at North Shore Community College is preparing to perform standup comedy in front of a crowd for the first time, at the weekly Corner Comedy Open Mic, and he’s, well…

“I’m a wreck,” he says matter-of-factly.

Thomas has been taking a standup class at nearby ImprovBoston with Josh Gondelman (joshgondelman.com), a young but seasoned comic thought by many to be among the city’s best. Gondelman won Atlanta’s Laughing Skulls Comedy Festival last year, and in June he’ll record his first CD.

But Gondelman is also a preschool teacher who’s widely considered “Boston’s nicest comedian” — a persona he plays with on his website — and his soft-spoken demeanor is no doubt a comfort for fledgling comedians like Thomas.

The impetus for Thomas to actually pick up a mic, however, came as a result of another show put on by tonight’s host, Rob Crean of Anderson Comedy.

“It’s been something I’ve always enjoyed, but I never thought I could actually do it,” Thomas says. “I went to see Rob’s show kind of by accident, ‘The Gas’ (a showcase that takes place every Friday Night at Allston rock club Great Scott), and that’s the first time I ever saw local comedy.”

Boston’s local standup comedy scene is experiencing a second renaissance, producing shows at the rate — if not the profit margin — that made it known as a comedy hub in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, when the likes of Denis Leary, Lenny Clark and Steven Wright patrolled the stage.

The Middle East Corner’s Tuesday night show is just one of many comedy open mics around town; Boston comedians regularly go on to appear on Comedy Central and, sometimes, the major network late night shows; and alternative shows are cropping up all around the city, from rock clubs in Allston to cramped living rooms in Jamaica Plain.

Not all of this is new, of course, but the manner, scope and character of these independent comedy ventures are unique, according to more than a dozen comedians, club owners and journalists interviewed for this series.

Thomas aside, the cast of characters at the Corner Comedy Open Mic doesn’t seem to veer dramatically from those comedians showcased elsewhere on Friday and Saturday nights. In this respect, it's similar to the other main comedy open mics around town: Sally O’Brien’s in Somerville’s Union Square (Monday), Grandma's Basement in Fenway (Thursday), and The Banshee in Dorchester and Rosebud in Davis (Sunday).

You quickly start to see a lot of the same faces.

This is one of the things that sets Boston apart — it's small enough that there is a real sense of community. There are Facebook groups as well as the Boston Comedy Softball League. Instead of stealing material, Boston comedians have a reputation for suggesting “tags,” or additional punchlines, to one another.

When Myq Kaplan, a finalist on the last season of Last Comic Standing, got started in 2004, “I didn't realize how welcoming and supportive and encouraging the Boston comedy scene was,” he says. Kaplan, who has released a comedy album (Vegan Mind Meld), now lives in New York — a place that, because of its size and scale, lacks the camaraderie of the Boston comedy scene.

“To me it was just incredibly supporting,” adds Shane Mauss, who within months of starting standup upon moving to Boston in 2004 was getting prime gigs and invaluable advice thanks to other comedians. A lot of that had to do with the fact that he was good, of course, but it's a sentiment echoed by most of the comedians interviewed.

Perhaps when Rhys Thomas conquers his nerves a little more, he might find the same thing. Despite being petrified, he gamely delivered his material, which was based on the premise that he's worried about people who are telepathic because he feels like his brain is a messy apartment. A line about there being “porn everywhere” got a laugh.

Ultimately, Thomas was pleased with how his first show went. Contacted a few months later, Thomas hadn't performed again aside from the graduation show for the class he was taking. But he was resolved to change that.

“I’m still terrified,” he says, “but in the past two weeks I have started writing out bits that I like, that I’m laughing at, instead of just premises.”

Even with his somewhat peculiar, alternative brand of comedy, Thomas can expect to find a warm reception.

Video: Shane Mauss's exit interview

By the time you read this, Shane Mauss's six-year stay in the Boston comedy scene will be over. The La Crosse, Wisconsin native left the Hub and headed for Austin last week after having found his voice here at clubs like The Comedy Studio, where I caught up with him for what was supposed to be his CD release party, if only the pressing plant actually pressed his CDs.

Mauss did go out on a strong note, releasing Jokes To Make My Parents Proud and his half-hour Comedy Central special in March. I spoke with him about his recent projects, his style of comedy, and leaving town (complete with fire engines and babies).

Out Today: Shane Mauss, Jokes to Make My Parents Proud

Shane Mauss often paints himself as “the dumb guy” – someone who doesn’t know a lot about sex and women, someone who likes to drink a bit too much. Someone who, let’s say, might be fooled by the future version of himself coming back after a sex change to fool him into having sex, just to gross his past self out.

You can already see, though, that Mauss’s mind works a little differently. Beneath the sarcasm and the somewhat flattened, Midwestern tone, there’s a nimble imagination, which is all over his first comedy album, Jokes to Make My Parents Proud.

The time-traveling bit is a prime example, based on something Mauss says he had heard about sex changes being more convincing and complete in the future. Mauss could have found an easy target for that premise in some gender-bending celebrity or bashing someone’s sexuality. But he turns the joke on himself, twice, with a time machine thrown in (time machines are a recurring subject on Jokes).

Mauss also has a great bit about wandering into a Best Buy when he was stoned on mushrooms. He thought it was the future. He wound up in the camcorders section. “So for about an hour,” he says, “I watched a movie about me watching a movie about me.”

At times, Mauss brings to mind Louis C.K. for his penchant for telling self-deprecating stories about his sex life (see the last few tracks and his story about trying anal sex with his girlfriend). He’s perfectly willing to show himself being led by his libido and inexperience in a situation where the joke is on him. And he knows how to pepper his stories with one-liners (“I already play with myself so much in the shower that now I get hard when it rains”).

And there’s also a withering wit at work. He talks about being from Wisconsin originally (he’s been honing his craft in Boston for the past six years), and people asking him if there’s a lot of cheese there. “You bet there is!” he says, gleefully. “I can go into a grocery store, get all the cheese I want!”

There’s also his bit about his accidentally leaving an electric blanket on all day, to the frustration of his girlfriend, who says he could have burned the house down. “We’ve been sleeping in a blanket that just randomly bursts into flames?” he says. “Can we go back to the blanket that doesn’t spontaneously combust?”

With the new album up for download on Amazon.com and iTunes (you can only get physical copies at his shows), a Comedy Central Presents coming up on Friday, and a thriving touring career, Mauss is leaving Boston at the end of the month. He’s taking a somewhat non-traditional path, spending some time in Australia before heading to Austin.

It has been fun to watch him develop the material on Jokes for the past few years in Boston, and I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of him, in Boston, on TV, and on the Web, in the future. Where Mauss will be reunited with his female self. Mauss’s future is a weird, funny place.

Boston Comedy TV Notes - Myq Kaplan and Shane Mauss

Shane Mauss and Myq Kaplan both taped their half hour Comedy Central Presents... specials in November, and both specials now have official release dates. Mauss's special will air on March 12 at 11:30 PM, and Kaplan's airs April 30 at 11:30 PM. Both have CDs on the way.

Mauss, who is at The Comedy Studio tonight, will also be on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien on March 9. Kaplan appeared on the show December 16. Here's the video of the appearance.

Boston Comedy News - Beantown Riots, a date for Shane Mauss, The Walsh Brothers on Funny Or Die

Last week, Roxbury's Jason Cordova won the 1st Annual Beantown Comedy Riot for Amateur Comedians after a six-week competition at Dick's Beantown Comedy Vault. He bested a field of 60 comedians and took an $800 prize. Portland, Maine's Erik Gunderson took second and Rhode Island's Brian Beaudoin took third.

Also, Shane Mauss will tape his Comedy Central Presents... half hour special November 4 in New York City. Watch this site for more details.

And The Walsh Brothers have posted the first Ramada Brothers videos on FunnyOrDie.com, so go vote!

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