The Twin Cities’ own Chris Maddock, host of Stand Up! Records’ Death Comedy Jam for nearly a decade, red-faced winter-biker, devoted husband and probably-gonna-be-fine dad, and little brother to the confoundingly-named Linus, is about to give the Seventh Street Entry, First Avenue’s less-famous ‘round the way girl, its own Purple Rain. That’s right, we’re calling it:…
Chris Porter s first live performance DVD, Screaming from the Cosmos, might be misnamed. Instead of screaming, Porter rolls into his performance, a little closer to the cosmos with the help of some pre-show merriment. Oh yes, folks, he did inhale. Pot, for Porter, is like Tang for astronauts or steroids for Barry Bonds a…
He’s a dad. He’s a monster. He’s technically a pilot. Hell, he might still be a member of the Scorpions south of 184th Street. He’s doing his goddamned best. Dave Williamson is back with his second release from Stand Up! Records, “Trying My Hardest,” having saved all the best tales of life as a road comic,…
The deeper the truths, the deeper the laughs: it’s a truism that applies to most of the roster here at Stand Up! Records, especially so with David Heti’s new release, “It was ok.” Not the set—the set is exceptional—but the experience of Heti’s life, of telling jokes he writes at 4am in a cloud of…
Listening to Doug Stanhope’s “Deadbeat Hero” is a lot like playing a game of “Would you rather…?” with yourself. There are tough questions. You might discover larger truths about your own psyche. You’ll probably be disgusted. You might put your fingers in your ears and sing “la la laaaaa!” Because, as he puts it, a…
Eddie Gossling is a singular, unfortgettable comic with festival credits and comedy specials and late night appearances under his belt… which makes it all the stranger that he’s best known as a behind-the-scenes man in his role as a writer for Comedy Central’s hit Tosh.O. This isn’t to say that his writing there isn’t stellar,…
Glenn Wool is haunted by the sex that got away… or did it? He’s a master of transitions: “Don’t worry, I’m right!” “Allow me to fire up the mind-blowing machine!” “You played a hell of a game, ma’am.” And he’s a bit of a “bird-lover,” if you catch our drift. Wool’s also an 18 year…
2010 CD DVD release from the Canadian comedian. Glenn Wool avoids swearing. But he s no soft-bellied sap. It s simply that he doesn t find swearing shocking or offensive enough for his first CD, Let Your Hands Go. In fact, with talent like Wool s, it only takes one tightly-woven stand-up record to insult…
In a famous story, a terminally ill comedian is visited by Death, who comforts the performer, pointing out, “Hey, dying is easy. Now comedy… that’s hard!” Well, Jimmy Shubert sure ain’t dead yet. With his new DVD set “Alive & Kickin’,” this one-time “Outlaw of Comedy” and more recent resident of both the small and…
When Johnny Taylor met the Devil at the crossroads, he made an unconventional trade: his potential for romantic stability and lifelong happiness for comic talent. Trailing failed marriages and tubesock coffins, he grabbed the mic, golden handcuffs dangling from one wrist. Taylor looked out over a world of hipster brawls, anal selfies, and zesty orange…
“There’s a lot of f*cking weirdos out there on the old Internet, and I just assumed he was one of those guys.” It’s been countable hours since he met JT Habersaat, and Mishka Shubaly already has his number. “He’s absolutely a weirdo, but JT hustles like nobody else. He under-promises, and he over-delivers. He cares. And I don’t…
Social scientists have found, time and again, that atheists are one of the least trusted groups in North America. They rank lower than most ethnic and racial minorities, lower than convicted rapists. People would rather elect politicians who have done drugs or had affairs than those who might admit they just can’t quite get on…
When Keith Lowell Jensen started a Twitter account for his daughter, he didn’t expect @MaxTheTiger to gain an international audience. Then again, he probably never pictured having the “death talk” with li’l @MaxTheNecromancer as his ardent little tiger tried to Lazarus a froglet. And even that one wasn’t as odd as learning a thing or two from the…
In 2016, Lashonda Lester was finally named Funniest Person in Austin. She’d been nominated damn near every year since she transplanted herself south out of Detroit (a transition she likened to leaving jail), and now she was, as The Austin Chronicle put it, on the brink of stardom. And then, just a few months later, she died. She had…
Mike Stanley is back in the Rust Belt, deciding the promise of post-earthquake California looting had nothing on the beauty of late-afternoon Detroit sunlight glinting off the poverty. Even better, he’s got a present for you: an hour of audio, an hour of video, and a lifetime of wondering, “What if alcohol wasn’t his real…
Mike Stanley is a bald, whimsical huckster. No, wait. Mike Stanley looks like a Sears mannequin without the wig. No, wait. Mike Stanley could be mistaken for Popeye’s drunken nephew. No, wait! Oh, who are we kidding? Despite all the self-deprecating humor this Tough Luck Chump sends flying his own way, you can actually see Mike Stanley…