After two big months of specials and albums, March was a little quiet. The big story closing out the month was the controversy surrounding the inclusion of a truly mean-spirited slam on an unknown comic during Ari Shaffir’s second one hour special of the year airing on Comedy Central.
Enough has been said about it by people more eloquent than myself. The strangest part of this is that this special sat on the shelf for two years. It was filmed in 2013 and nobody who saw it in the time between taping and its eventual airing as part of his deal with Comedy Central to air his new special Paid Regular and his Comedy Central storytelling series This is Not Happening, thought to say, “Dude, just cut that bit out.” I haven’t watched or listened to this special and even the controversy surrounding it is not enough to make me check it out.
My guess is that by the time this gets published this story has already been forgotten. Even two days later after it started picking up steam on social media, we’d all already moved onto picking apart the announcement of Trevor Noah as the new host of the Daily Show with people digging up four year old jokes from Twitter. All of this points to the permanence of everything in the digital age. Whenever you record an album or special, its there. In the future, there’s not going to be any uncovering of a lost recording.
Everything is going to live forever, so it seems like it would be doubly important to make sure you can stand behind anything that you put out. Its a lesson I’m just learning myself.
Top Five for April
(via rhapsody.com)
1. Andy Woodhull, “Step Parenting”
2. Hampton Yount, “Bearable”
3. Aziz Ansari, “Live at Madison Square Garden”
4. Sara Schaefer, “Chrysalis”
5. Michael Malone, “Thirty One”
March was a weird month. I wasn’t able to check out as much I would have liked but everything I did give a listen I enjoyed. You can’t really go wrong with any of those albums or specials. I don’t really have a lot to say this month. Lucky you.
The Who? Album of the Month: Andy Woodhull, Step Parenting
(via teamcoco.com)
I would however like to direct your attention to Andy Woodhull, who I think is great. I first heard him when I randomly listened to his album Lucy and was a fan right away. There’s an energy to his performance and his material is relatable but unique. Maybe I’m being informed by my own living situation and comedy career but there is something about comedians who live outside New York or LA who have found that balance between comedic success and also normal domesticity that really makes them stand out. I would put Andy Woodhull right up there with Chad Daniels and Tommy Jonaghin at the head of the next class of regular guy comedy.
