Kate Willett is another one of those cases where she is so damn funny and has been for such a long time and having plenty of specials and TV sets under her belt that we kind of can’t believe this set on last night’s Colbert was her first time on network television.
Yet, here we are. So, please enjoy another round of Kate’s smart, sex positive humor right here.
The fearsome and hysterical comedy stylings of Sam Jay are coming back to LA for one special night at Dynasty Typewriter.
Jay currently writes at (and occasionally pops up on) SNL, but her stand-up is something to behold as it’s fiery as it is meticulously crafted.
Tickets are $15 right now and $20 on the day of. Save a few bucks and snag tickets here.
Faded, one of LA’s favorite indie stand-up shows, especially on Fridays, is back for 2020 with a whole new location. They started in the supply room of an art supplies story, then moved to a belly dancing studio, and now, are moving to their most “conventional” venue thus far, the speakeasy-ish The Lounge on Melrose (7551 Melrose Ave.).
So, join Mike Mulloy, David Gborie, Sean Jordan, Bri Pruett, and Zak Toscani and their always stacked secret line-ups for a nice price of $5 in advance (limited quantities available) and their normal cost of $10.
The first Faded @ The Lounge on Melrose will be this Fri. Jan. 10th at 8PM (doors at 7:30PM). Go get tickets here.
It’s truly hard to put on a festival in LA proper as there’s so much comedy that happens every night of the week that’s worth checking out. As such, Los Angeles only has a big festival every now and again.
Thankfully, the Southland Comedy Festival is kind of leaning into the wealth of talent in the LA comedy scene by not only having SCF shows at many of the major clubs around town, but also some of our favorite indie spots as well (including The Blind Barber, The Comedy Bunker, and Bar Lubitsch). There will be plenty of great shows, and, if you can manage it, you can capture a good cross-section of what stand-up comedy is like in LA.
Here’s a small promo for the festival that slickly shows you what they’re up to.
This inaugural edition of The Southland Comedy Festival is happening across several venues in LA from Tues. Jan. 7th-Sat. Jan. 11th. and passes are going for just $49-$59. If you’re digging this, get more details, passes, etc. here.
OK, enough of this holidays non-sense. Let’s get back into the swing of things (your regularly scheduled great live comedy all around LA that is).
The first Hot Tub with Kurt and Kristen @ The Virgil (you know, one of the best shows in LA) of 2020 is this Mon. Jan. 6th and, per usual, they have a stellar/stacked line-up (Hari Kondabolu’s in town and The Cooties are making the rounds for this edition) and, per usual, it’s at 8PM sharp and, again, per usual, it’s $5 right now and $8 cash at the door.
Go get your tickets (and show up at or before 7PM if you want a seat) here.
As 2020 has officially arrived, we think the perfect show to first hip you to for this year (and decade) is the run of shows that the one and only Gary Gulman is doing at Largo at the Coronet Theatre next week.
Gulman is on his Peace of Mind following his beautiful HBO special The Great Depresh and continues to be one of the best examples of what a comedian should be these days.
The Jan. 10th date is sold out, but Wed. Jan. 8th and Thurs. Jan. 9th still have tickets available. You can get them for $37 a pop here and here, respectively.
All of those dates were all around the country, but didn’t quite have an LA date.
Well, that is until now.
Rory, Nick, and Freddy will be doing an exclusive preview show at the Virgil on Mon. Jan. 6th at 10PM (following Hot Tub with Kurt and Kristen). Tickets are $5 in adv., $8 at door (cash only) and you really ought to go and see what sort of tomfoolery these three got planned for the rest of the country’s Tool fans.
Get tickets here.
Most love letters don’t come in the form of a comedy album. In fact, it’s hard to think of any hour of stand-up comedy being a love letter to anything (save for Blake Wexler’s album of voicemails from Todd Glass).
Leave it to Chris Gethard, the comedian who likely wears his heart on his sleeve more than anyone else in comedy, to dedicate an album something he loves deeply, his home state of New Jersey.
This album, Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese is indeed chock full of Jersey intricacies, references, and name checks greeted with hollers and applause. Gethard flexes the depth of his Jersey identity here, but, to the Jersey uninitiated, you don’t feel lost throughout. The sheer love that he has for the place, the people, and the way his experiences with the two shaped him into the punk rock sweetheart comedian that he is today emanates through every bit and becomes the core of the humor. No one really loves Jersey quite like Gethard and he shows how beautiful of a thing that is.
If you’re looking for some sweetness in your comedy, please listen to and enjoy Chris Gethard’s Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese here or on Spotify.
The idea of recording an hour of comedy has greatly evolved over last handful of years, whether it be a special or an album. Nick Youssef has opted to take a more personal, more raw take on it by recording and releasing material more frequently at ease in the form of EPs under the title “White Hot Fire”.
White Hot Fire 3: Into the Gray represents the third in this series that really has a feel of a comedy bootleg, so to speak. As such, you get a real satisfyingly gritty performance full of asides and riffs and crowd work to the point where you kind of feel immersed in Youssef’s detailed, colorful observations. Also, Nick gets real into the thick of his own psyche, warts and all, and digs up some real gems. On top of all of that, Nick is so good, as always, at weaving together his material pretty seamlessly that makes the record run so smoothly.
White Hot Fire 3: Into the Gray dropped this week and is available on Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you listen to comedy albums.
Stuart Goldsmith has spent so many years over in the UK with his terrific podcast The Comedian’s Comedian that dissects the creative process of so many great comedians while also honing his own skills, that he makes quite the impressive debut with his first late night set in America.
It’s clear that he’s absorbed plenty of the knowledge and skills of the craft of comedy from the hundreds of hours he has recorded for The Comedian’s Comedian as this set is both carefully constructed, yet undeniably seamless and very fun.
So, please enjoy Stuart Goldsmith’s U.S. stand-up TV debut here.
It seems like eons ago that we had one Eric Dadourian on our handpicked compilation album, Comedians of Interest Vol. 1. Yet, Dadourian is as spry and mischievous as ever in his first full length comedy album Nebraska 2 and we absolutely love him for it.
Eric not only dives head first into the notion of tall tales made taller for comedic effect (it is being sold physically as a cassette tape w/digital download FYI), but he sells all of his stories, asides, riffs, etc. with such fervor that it’s a really jubilant ride the whole way through (no matter if you believe him or not). Truly, life is so damn short and Eric relishes every fraction of a second of it with abandon in his comedy as showcased in this hour.
Also, Nebraska 2 has one of our favorite closers to a comedy album/special this year (and probably in recent memory).
So, get Eric Dadourian’s Nebraska 2 fresh off the A Special Thing Records presses here.
When it comes to a grouping of comedians going on tour, all sorts of angle that depend on style of comedy, status in comedy, ethnicity, class, etc. etc. have been tried.
Yet, a very, very solid comedic trio of Rory Scovel, Nick Youssef, and Freddy Scott are diving into new territory by doing a whole tour for the expressed purpose of seeing legendary prog metal band Tool on their current tour.
Literally, this is following your bliss to the nth degree and we applaud them for it (and think it’s a comedy tour that you’ll want to catch across the country if you can). Go snag your tickets now at the wonderfully named tour site: https://www.nottoolband.com/
Set List is and has been in rarefied air playing almost every big time international comedy festival and airing as an original TV series on opposite sides of the planet.
It’s such a special show as you get to some of the best comedic minds actually at work conjuring up material from thin air (well, thin air and a never before seen topic).
So, don’t miss the return of Set List to LA at the Hollywood Improv this Friday with some of their personal favorites. Tickets are $10 (plus 2 item min.) Go get your tickets here.
Sean Patton is pretty much an unparalleled master of blending stories with riffing into beautiful flights of fancy. He has maintained such a status for us for several years now and, as such, his name really should be showing up way more when it comes to those “best of” lists and on the line-ups for specials at networks/streaming services. Set-by-set, Patton never fails to have us bust up laughing as he did with this latest hour.
Scuttlebutt, his brand new album and follow-up to the brilliant Standard Operating Procedure, furthers all such notions as Patton takes everyone down a winding river of his imagination and his deepest, most vulnerable parts of himself for some truly beautiful, wildly colorful comedy. As with any Sean Patton set, Scuttlebutt is a breathtaking, hysterical journey that you almost won’t believe you went on once it’s over.
So, go get Sean Patton’s Scuttlebutt, fresh off the presses from Helium Records here.
Tiffany Haddish’s latest hour special, Black Mitzvah, dropped on Netflix earlier this week and it’s perhaps the perfect holiday treat as far as comedy specials are concerned.
Though not specifically aimed at the holiday season, the hour captures a still vibrant and unapologetic Haddish through finding her place in being Jewish as well as dealing with her rocketing to genuine stardom (all while being the same she-ready Tiffany you’ve known and loved for years now). In fact, she even gets truly vulnerable in examining that one off-night she had for New Year’s that got blown way out of proportion (cough cough, double standard against female comics, cough) with her signature mirth and levity.
Yet again, Haddish does a rare thing that you see thing in stand-up these days by celebrating life and celebrating yourself, even at life’s inevitable low points. Her closing “dance” number is a pretty great illustration of this. If you haven’t given Tiffany Haddish’s Black Mitzvah a watch already, make your holidays better by doing so soon.
HBO Max Announces Stand-Up Specials from Tracy Morgan, John Early, Rose Matafeo, and Ahir Shah
Well, well, well.
As Netflix announced today that it beat out HBO to keep Ali Wong in the fold, HBO swings back with their own exclusive stand-up special offerings that will be coming to their streaming service HBO Max next year. It’s a pretty intriguing slate thus far that includes comedy superstar Tracy Morgan, comedy star on-the-rise John Early, New Zealand comedy star making-her-way-stateside Rose Matafeo, and up-and-coming political English comedy star Ahir Shah.
We were actually wondering what would happen to this sort of segment in stand-up comedy as Netflix is currently in the business of doling out hours for comedy’s biggest stars and then giving who they think are up-and-comers (but are somewhat established, certainly enough for an hour special) 30 min. or 15 min. specials. Our hunch was that Amazon and other streaming services/networks like HBO Max would fill in this niche and it is certainly coming to pass. Amazon’s already put out hours from Alice Wetterlund and I Mom So Hard and, from the looks of this announcement, HBO is getting in while the getting is good.
NYC’s Doug Smith serves up a terrific debut album here with Barely Regal. Smith has carved out his place in NYC comedy as a stand-up and co-created one of favorite things awhile ago in the experimental stand-up show, See You in Hell.
There seems to be a very classic feel to Barely Regal with Doug’s myriad of stories and observations of his life and straightforward, low key delivery. Also, Smith’s debut album still feels current, modern, and relevant as he makes that “classic feel” work for these times that we live in. There is an undeniable earnestness throughout this hour and careful, pinpoint consideration as to where get silly (including his amazing This Is Not Happening story included at the end).
So, please go get and enjoy Barely Regal, out now from 800 Pound Gorilla Records., here.
The magic of Tiffany Haddish’s verve, charm, and unapologetic positivity that has shot her into undeniable stardom is coming around once again with her brand new hour special, Black Mitzvah.
Are you ready? Even though Haddish has a joke about what having “She Ready” as a catchphrase really entails for her, she indeed still ready.
Get a taste of Tiffany Haddish’s Black Mitzvah with this trailer, then look for it to stream on Netflix on Tues. Dec. 3rd.
Man oh man, the many voices and asides (literal asides from herself to herself) from Jessica Kirson are such a delight in this set from this late night set on last week’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. It’s the perfect preview for her special Talking to Myself premiering on Comedy Central on Dec. 6th at midnight.
Please watch and enjoy Jessica Kirson on The Tonight Show here.
For us, Chase Bernstein just has irresistible understated charm and it is clearly emanating throughout this whole set, that just happens to be her late night debut (also, glad to see that A Little Late with Lilly Singh is having stand-up).
Enjoy Chase’s set here.
Hannah Gadsby is returning to the Ace Hotel in DTLA for an exclusive engagement and bringing her latest hour Douglas along with her on Sat. Feb 22nd for two shows 6:30PM & 9:30PM.
Normally, tickets for Gadsby sell out almost instantly here in LA, but, lucky for you, these dates don’t go on sale until tomorrow morning 11/22 at 10AM PST with pre-sale code “COMEDY”. Tickets will run you $39.75-$59.75.
Set a reminder/alarm/etc. for tomorrow and go get those Hannah Gadsby at the Theater at the Ace Hotel here.
Giulia Rozzi so expertly gets away so much innuendo on her latest late night set on Conan and it really should be commended. In fact, she might just have our favorite joke about baby wipes (that is also probably one of the dirtier ones we’ve ever heard).
So, go please enjoy her set here.
Anytime Sean Patton rolls into town, really anywhere in the Greater LA area, we feel obligated to notify you of his presence as his mastery of stand-up and storytelling should never ever be missed.
So, such is the case now with Sean having a date at the Irvine Improv just before Christmas rolls around (and we bet he’ll be playing shows in town around that town too).
For now, if you want to guarantee that you’ll get to see him do an hour, nab a $15 ticket (plus 2 item min.) for this Irvine Improv date on Dec. 19th here.
So, Lights Out with David Spade has worked in stand-up into their late night slot at Comedy Central and, it would seem, really letting the comics go blue.
Rachel Mac offers up a really great, hysterical set here that definitely wouldn’t make it past censors on nearly any other late night show that would feature stand-up.
Mac herself dives into the nightmare that can be teaching affluent kids for some real comedy gold.
So, please watch and enjoy Rachel Mac’s set on Lights Out with David Spade here.
Not that there’s a real traditional road to and through stand-up comedy these days, but Daniel Van Kirk’s road there has certainly been circuitous and he’s all the better for it. Thanks Diane, his debut comedy album, is the great summation of Van Kirk’s years of comedic excellence in playing characters (including one of the best Mark Wahlberg impressions around), podcasting (Pen Pals, Dumb People Town, Hindsight), and incredibly earnest storytelling.
This hour (derived from his Together Tour) is a magnificent, fully realized piece of postmodern comedy. As opposed to a stitched together hour of bits that make up several comedy specials/albums (including some very good ones), there’s a clear intentional thematic and formalistic arc on Thanks Diane that is very satisfying and unlike nearly everything we’ve listened to or seen in recent memory. Daniel does weave through stories and experiences in his life, as he is a spectacular storyteller, but he also has such a great feel for oscillating in front of and behind the fourth wall with the crowd. It’s an immersive, trenchant, and hysterical journey topped off with a touch of lovable chaos.
Daniel Van Kirk’s debut album Thanks Diane comes out this Friday, Nov. 15th, but you can (and absolutely should) pre-order it now (and get a track in advance) here.