Art imitates life, and man there are a lot of intense, cynical and downright depressing stories out there right now, real and imagined. Why anyone would want to see Stanley Tucci play a pedophile, for example, is beyond me. Not my idea of entertainment.
After searching the listings for live music, theater and movies on Saturday night and failing to be inspired, my husband suggested we check out the comedy clubs.
It never occurs to me to go to a comedy club, it has been years and years since I've seen live stand up. I thought it was a brilliant idea. We went online and bought tickets to a show at the Punch Line with absolutely no idea who was performing.
The warm up comic was funny; fairly traditional fare mocking politicians and his own dysfunctional family. But the headliner was an absolute genius.
About now you might be wondering where the Music component of this Music Monday post comes in.
Reggie Watts is not your traditional comedian. He spent over ten years as a musician before becoming, as his website says, an "interdisciplinary comedic performer". His comedy is absurd stream-of-consciousness observations that are delivered in pseudo-intellectual babble, interspersed with improv music performance. He uses a loop pedal to create his own backing beat box grooves, then sings over the layers on a number of topics, ranging from the contents of a woman's purse to telekenesis, and many other colorful subjects not appropriate to include here.
I laughed for an hour straight, tears running down my face on several occasions. And his music has been in my head for two days now. The many videos on YouTube don't do this guy justice, though I picked one of the music pieces for today's post for your viewing and listening pleasure below. It's not comical and somewhat unintelligible, but you get a sense of his talent, and to paraphrase the many online comments from viewers, the groove is sick. I highly recommend seeing him live.
Which brings me to a question for all of you. We host events in the winery's outdoor amphitheatre all summer long, from the Mozart Festival to Indie Rock, movies and more (stay tuned for the 2010 calendar announcement in a few weeks). I don't think we've ever done a comedy night. What do you think, would a comedy night be of interest?
PS - I am not clever enough to know whether there is a way to capture this audio on playlist.com so I can add it to the ongoing Music Monday Archive playlist, but if any of you can help, let me know! Thanks.
