(04.03.08) Recommends:

The LA64.
#54: Spaceland.
1717 Silverlake Blvd.

(explanation of series here.)




Spaceland (background reading here and here) is one of the most important and influential indie rock clubs in the country. We remember growing up -- the end of high school and through college -- when a band we liked would release their touring schedule, we'd breathlessly check the list to see how close to home they'd be coming. More often than not we'd see the name Spaceland on the itinerary. So seeing a show here was one of our first priorities once we moved down.

We've seen probably a half-dozen rock shows here since. But we've gotta say. The most memorable shows that we've seen have been the random Sunday night Neil Hamburger comedy shows. Neil Hamburger is a modern day Tony Clifton. And we keep coming back to Neil Hamburger becuase, in the back of our minds, we have this feeling that one random Sunday it will be revealed, on that tiny Spaceland stage, that Neil Hamburger is, in fact, the long rumored re-surfacing of Andy Kaufman.

(02.23.08) Recommends:

Six Degrees of Comedy.

1. Paul F. Tompkins performed down the street from us last night at UCB.

2. Paul F. Tompkins regularly performs in Comedy Death Ray at UCB.

3. A Comedy Death Ray album has been released.

4. Ian Edwards contributes a track on the album.

5. Part of his contribution is a bit on shark attacks.

6. And it's among the funniest things we've ever heard.

Here's the bit, in a slightly different form, that we found on youtube. [Starts at 1:44]

(10.01.07) Recommends:

Comedy Is The New Indie Rock?

People smarter than us have been saying this all year. This blog's been dark for a while because we've been dark for a while because we've been driving up and down the western coast of the country getting a sense of the land that we have come to conquer. We're settled now. Kinda sorta settled. And it just so happens that we're kinda sorta settled right down the block from the Upright Citizen's Brigade's west coast base. So we recently had the chance to again test this "comedy is the new indie rock" theory. The night we stopped in Lauren Weedman -- who you might know as a one-time correspondent on the Daily Show -- was reading from her recently published book. And although parts of the show were awkward and didn't really work and had us somewhat skeptical of this new-fangled CITNIR theory, we've gotta say: the tickets were cheap, and the drinks were on the house -- seriously! -- and the crowd was hanging on her every word and ate the whole show up, and we don't know, but it felt like something was happening.

Is something new afoot? Our economy has been acting wacky lately, and digital distribution has made the music industry wacky lately, and it occurs to me now that I recently blogged about an experience that led me to question whether the Indie Rock Epoch is waning. Which very well might mean Indie Comedy is waxing. I did horribly in astronomy and as such am not capable of taking metaphors regarding lunar phases any further, but I'd like your thoughts on this issue. I'm still far from convinced and still think it's not even an appropriate question to be asking. But please write in and give your input.