Exclusive video interview with Doug Benson

by Punchline Magazine

Doug Benson, just today, released a new album through Comedy Central Records. It’s called Hypocritical Oaf. And it is filled with what you’d expect– stoned out ruminations on the mundane facets of life.

To celebrate the release of Oaf, his third album, Punchline Magazine’s Matthew Gill — become a fan of his on Facebook! — chatted with the man a few weeks ago at his management’s office. So, you should probably check that out right about now. Enjoy!

And make sure you pick up a copy of Doug’s new album. Just click the image below.

Glenn Wool: Let Your Hands Go

by Heather Height

While anyone can point out hypocrisy, and maybe even get a laugh, it takes a special kind of mind to mix the sardonic with the silly, the way Glenn Wool does on his album, Let Your Hands Go (Stand-Up! Records.)

Wool doesn’t just touch on heavy topics, but rather dives, full force and unapologetically, into religion, his many past and current experiences with drugs and alcohol and homosexuality. He continues, his voice and topics ascending in a crescendo the likes of which you might hear in a tent revival, about economic conditions and how much “big car people” suck.

When first hearing Let Your Hands Go, some may be tempted to try to compare Wool to other comics, asking themselves, “Who does this guy sound like,” as they flip through their respective mental stand-up Rolodexes. His sound and delivery are reminiscent of the many stoners and malcontent heretics of comedy before him. Combine that with the earthy quality of the recording, and it brings one back to basement make-out parties, huddling around a turntable with your friends, trying not to laugh too loud so your parents don’t catch you listening to George Carlin’s Toledo Window Box again.

The high honor of likening him to Carlin notwithstanding, any comparisons do not diminish the fact that Wool is a true original, yet deeply rooted in the traditions of pure stand-up.

Wool tells his audience, “You can’t change the name of Christmas… All right, if you’re gonna change the name of Christmas to some ambiguous description of what it is, then you have to change the name of all the religious festivals. Yeah, Ramadan– that becomes Uncle Tubbie’s Midnight Pigout!”

Turning a mirror on society and all of us in it is what comedy is all about. Nothing should be above reproach. When delivered with goofy intelligence the likes of which can be heard on this album, it allows us to slip into that guilty pleasure of laughing despite our better judgment.

To buy Glenn Wool’s Let Your Hands Go (and we highly recommend you do), just click the image below.

Kevin Camia: Kindness

by John Delery

Hate to agree with Grouchy Old Pinheads Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, but it really is time to “take back America” — from them and the rest of their oilier-than-the-Gulf-Coast ilk.

Apparently Kevin Camia agrees, because he amusingly pierces the pompous and ostentatious, the humorless and clueless, the cloyingly cute and annoyingly hip on Kindness (Rooftop Comedy Productions).

Laughing as he minces his myriad victims doesn’t make Camia callous; his chuckling merely means he’s enjoying his incisive, caustic comedy as much as the audience at The Punchline in San Francisco.

That natural joviality, though, merely camouflages Camia’s gleefully diabolical onstage demeanor. “I’m nice,” he announces early. “I’m all Asian-y and shit,” he continues, cleverly ingratiating himself before slyly and most times hilariously mocking racial stereotypes (“We almost have enough Filipinos here to make one of those [prison] dance videos”) and ambushing an array of reactionaries and yokels with his original brand of, well, snarkasm.

The main targets of his comical contempt appear to be anyone born in the shallow end of the gene pool: dim teens and dumb racists (the subjects of the spotlight track (listen above) “Working With Kids and Celebrating Diversity”), Pretenti-us Prius drivers, and really anybody ass-holier than thou.

To buy Kevin Camia’s album Kindness, just click the image below!

Video interview: A Tight Five with Nick Thune

by Punchline Magazine

The new installment of our video interview series A Tight Five brings us to comedian Nick Thune. Recorded while we were at the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival earlier this year, this may go down as the interview recorded latest in the day in the three year history of A Tight Five. Very exciting. Also, exciting? The interview itself.

We get to chatting about where Thune’s career is headed now that he’s got a stellar debut album in stores (Thick Noon); we get deep about life and shallow about Google Chrome. Check it out and pass it on!

To buy Nick’s album Thick Noon on Comedy Central Records, just click the image below! And to check out some videos of Thune in action, go here.

Video interview: Mike DeStefano

by Punchline Magazine

Just before the finale of Last Comic Standing, Punchline Magazine’s Matthew Gill had a great chat with comedian Mike DeStefano, who landed in the final five of the NBC competition show. But honestly, his appearances on the show had nothing to do with us wanting to meet up with the man.

We’ve been quietly following his career for the last few years, mostly in New York, and were delighted when we heard Stand Up! Records would release his first album OK Karma. And the album doesn’t disappoint. It’s filled with everything you’d expect from the cringe-worthy comic: ruminations on our too-fragile society, rants about our evolving language and simply put, raw, honest emotion. We highly recommend you pick up a copy. Just click the image below the video.

For now, you should probably watch the video, though. Enjoy!

Ok. Ready, set… buy Mike’s album! And become a fan of Punchline Magazine’s Matthew Gill on Facebook.

Margaret Cho: the Punchline Magazine interview

by Emma Kat Richardson

When Eddie Murphy first crooned of a lady fair whose primary ambitions lay within the realm of “partying all the time,” he may just as well have been speaking of Margaret Cho. Already raucous, fun, and thrill-seeking, there seems to be no territory left to be unturned by the formidable stand-up star.

And as if a plethora of wildly successful stand-up specials, more TV projects and film roles than any length of stick could be shook at, and the type of explosive comedy career most club-rat upstarts would swallow crude oil just to have a percentage of weren’t enough, the notorious Ms. Cho is preparing to add musical comedy to her list of achievements.

But fear not, Cho-devotees. Let not your sequined spandex wither in frightful dread of a Murphy-esque kitschy embarrassment. With the release of her first musical/comedy hybrid album, Cho Dependent, on Aug. 24, our favorite mistress of the mic has enlisted the help of musical A-listers like Ani DiFranco, Andrew Bird, Fiona Apple to bring a credible melodic gloss to the album’s silly lyrical snark.

Indeed, it’s an extravaganza of Cho-ian proportions, and thankfully, Punchline Magazine was able to catch up with the fabulous diva du jour for a little rap session on Bonnaroo, the songwriting process, and the blood-chilling inspiration behind one of the album’s most memorable tracks.

How did you go about choosing your collaborators for Cho Dependent?
Well, I wanted to work with the people I loved best, and also, there were a couple of people in there who I’m very old friends with. Jon Brion, in particular, is someone I’ve known for 18 years, and I’m just a huge fan of his work. He’s someone I’ve really, really loved, and I’ve known him for a long time.

Also, Ani DiFranco – I actually worked with her years ago. A lot of people I had kinships with and wanted to work with, and some people, I was just blown away by them musically that I really sought them out to be a part of it. These were people like Andrew Bird, or Brendan Benson. There were a lot of different types of people who I really admired.

What was it like working with Brendan Benson? I’m a Detroit girl, so I’ve gotta know.
He was great. He and I actually performed together at Bonnaroo, which is a really big music and comedy festival out in Tennessee. He is such a tremendous musician. He brought his wife with him, and his new baby, who was born in April, so that was a really exciting thing. He’s phenomenal – he’s just a great guy, and a great person. We wrote great songs together; we really rocked down and hard, and I love it.

Was there anybody you wanted to work with whom you weren’t able to get?
Um… I would have loved to [have] worked with Jack White. If I do another album, I definitely want to try and get him on board. Or David Bowie, who I like a lot. So those are two people who I’d love to work with, at some point.

Conversely, was there anyone who signed on to the project who you didn’t originally imagine being involved?
Well, everybody who came through with it was kind of immediately fantastic. I was surprised at the response of people, like, “Oh yeah, I’d love to do that.” There were a lot of people who had never collaborated before, and a lot of people who had never done anything comedic before – who had never thought about doing comedy before, or were pretty serious musicians.

Do you see that there’s a lot of natural kinship between music and comedy? How do the two work together?
I think that a lot of comedians want to be musicians, and a lot of musicians want to be comedians. There is crossover at times, and also, if you look at like lyrics from Bob Dylan or Morrissey, there’s a lot of humor and comedy in those songs. There are people out there that have always been comedic but serious. I think that comics doing music is kind of an old-fashioned approach: if you look at like Steve Martin, he always incorporated banjo into his comedy before. You have people like Eddie Murphy, too – there was always this relationship.

What do you think this album has to say about your growth and development as an artist?
Well, I think the album is really great. I think the album is a great, stand-out album; musically, it’s so great in that it’s all your favorite bands playing different kinds of songs. It’s definitely a very interesting collaborative effort, and also I think it’s very funny, too, so I feel like it’s succeeded on a lot of levels, which I’m very proud of.

How instrumental – get it, instrumental? – were you in composing music for the album?
I did very little in terms of composing music. I left that to all of the very, very accomplished musicians. I would bring them the lyrics and we would discuss different songs that I liked of theirs, sometimes different songs that I enjoyed in general, and I’d try to explain to them what I envisioned. But ultimately, I let the musicians take that over, because I don’t really… I mean, I can play guitar, but I don’t know how to compose music and certainly [don’t know] how to produce. I asked each artist to produce their own tracks, which was cool because a lot of them hadn’t before. That was a neat thing, too.

What sort of genre would you put the melodies of the songs into?
I dunno, like indie rock, basically. I don’t know if that’s a genre. I mean, it’s definitely unique in the same way that a lot of these artists are, but it’s comedy so it’s also, it’s got it’s own thing happening. Yeah, I don’t know.

Were the lyrics written first, with the comedy elements drawn out, and then the music composed around it?
Yes, that’s how it always would work. Every once in a while, like Ben Lee was good at this, Ben Lee, who I worked a lot with, would write the music first, and then I would come up with lyrics around the music. So that’s how we worked. But in general, I would write lyrics, and then I would meet with the artist, and we would kinda talk about it and then figure it out from there.

What sort of source material did you tap into for the lyrics? Was it sort of your usual comedic material?
No, there was different stuff. Like, there was one story about like… well, I used to go out with this guy, and I really loved him. He worked on All American Girl, which was my first TV show. He really didn’t like me back, and it was a horrible experience; I still liked him for 17 years. Still liked him, like, loved this guy, and I never found out about him, because I didn’t want to know that he was going to be successful and happy and have children and married [sic]. I just didn’t want to know that he could be happy without me, but after 17 years I thought that I should find out what he’s doing.

So I Googled him and something came up that had his name that said like “American screenwriter and producer on All American Girl with Margaret Cho,” and then in 2007, he was convicted of the murder of his wife. He bludgeoned her to death, and then stuffed her body in the attic, and left it there until it had partially mummified.

Are you kidding me? That’s horrible!
Yeah, I was really upset, and I didn’t know what to do.

That could’ve been you. That thought must’ve crossed your mind.
I know. Like, it’s really horrible. So I wrote a song about it. That was like the only thing I could think of doing. I wrote it with Andrew Bird, and it’s called “I’m Sorry.” It’s from his perspective. He never really apologized, through all the court stuff that I read about the case. He never said he was sorry, so I felt like it was my duty to say “I’m sorry” for him.

There’s a deeper inspiration [behind that one]. There are still jokes in it, even though it’s so dark. I think that’s where the best jokes actually can come from – from a very dark place.

Was that the guy you mentioned in I’m The One That I Want that left you while you were peeing blood?
Oh no, that was a different one. [Laughs].

Do you have a favorite track on the album?
“I’m Sorry” I think is probably my favorite. I also love the opening track, “Intervention,” which is all about the nature of an intervention. Or about that TV show, maybe, but it’s not about the TV show – it’s about the reality of having an intervention. It’s about Tegan and Sara intervening with me. That’s good; I like that a lot. I mean, I love all the songs. They’re all really the products of a lot of work and a lot of luck.

You’re touring in support of this album. What can your fans expect from this tour? Will it be a blend of live music and straight-up stand-up?
Yeah, it’ll probably mostly be stand-up, I think. It’s hard to turn away from that [style of performing], although there’ll be music in there, too. For me, it’s going to be mostly a stand-up show, although the music is part of the stand-up, too. To me, it’s all kind of the same.

Are you going to bring any of your collaborators along with you?
I hope so. I hope that some of the people will come out. Garrison Starr is going to be joining me for a bit – we collaborated on a song called “Gimme Your Seed” on the record, so that’s great.

You probably haven’t thought this far ahead already, but do you think you’ll be doing anymore musical comedy albums in the future?
I would like to. I mean, I have a bunch of songs that didn’t make it on the album that are great, that I still wanna release. There’s definitely be another one in the works, and I’d either be working with some of the other people I didn’t get to work with this time: people like Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene, Linda Perry, and just people that I love that I really want to get involved in it. Maybe another one with Jon [Brion]. We’ll see what happens, but there’s definitely another one in the works.

What would you say are some of your ultimate goals with both the album and the tour?
I just want to expand what I do as a comedian, yet not leave it. I just want to diversify, grow; do something different and new. I’d like to get better on my instrument, too. I saw Conan at Bonnaroo, and he was so great – he just sings so beautiful and funny. I want to be a better musician.

For more info on Margaret, check out margaretcho.com. To buy Cho Dependent, just click the image below.

Carolines breakout artist: Veronica Mosey

by Punchline Magazine

Print this page out to get $5 off admission to Veronica Mosey’s headlining show at Carolines on Aug. 24. Get more ticket info here.

World famous comedy venue Carolines on Broadway and Punchline Magazine have joined forces to present the Breakout Artist Comedy Series. Each Tuesday, at Carolines in New York City, an emerging stand-up comedy star will headline their own show and prove just why they’ve been quietly building a name for themselves in the national comedy scene.

And since we here at Punchline Magazine are all about exposing the best comedians – well-known or not – we’ll be profiling each comedian taking part in the Carolines series each week. So let’s get to this week’s headliner: Veronica Mosey!

Veronica Mosey is a high-energy comedian with a lot to say. Her no-holds-barred style earned her the title of one of “Five Comics to Watch” by Rolling Stone and she is one of only a handful of female acts appearing regularly at the top clubs in New York City including Caroline’s Comedy Club, The Comedy Cellar and Gotham Comedy Club. She has been seen on Comedy Central, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Huckabee, The Dr. Phil Show, HBO, Last Comic Standing and TBS’ Las Vegas Comedy Festival and Oprah.

Internationally, Veronica has performed in Montreal, Canada as well as Stockholm, Sweden. She has also been heard on Martha Stewart Radio and appeared on Fox News Channel on The Strategy Room. Veronica prides herself on being able to turn female-comic haters into fans.

Who do you think are the breakout artists of the next few years?
Pretty much all of the acts featured in the Breakout Artist Series. Unfortunately, the people who will probably actually “break out” will be a couple of idiots from reality TV who decide to do stand-up and write lots of fart jokes. If it were up to me, nobody would get famous except those who actually have the skills to, oddly, make people laugh.

You’ve racked up your fair share of daytime TV appearances – Oprah, Martha Stewart, and Dr. Phil just to name a few – do you think your stand up translates well to the daytime format? Are people really ready to laugh at 11am?
I believe people are ready to laugh any time of the day. Now, I had to tailor my usually blunt and sometimes dark material for daytime, but perhaps its time for there to be a new format where everyone isn’t so damned nice all the time. Frankly, I get sick of the same thing over and over. Crafts, reunion shows and psychics who talk to dead relatives who are always “doing fine”. Wouldn’t it be cool if we found out they were actually burning in hell? Just once?

What do you think is behind the public’s obsession with stand-ups?
I believe the public has always had a fascination with stand-ups because we tell the truth. We are the voice of the disgruntled employee, the unhappy spouse or the bitter anyone. In a way, I consider my routine to be a kind of public-service-announcement for everything from child-rearing to sex. Just not at the same time.

What’s next for Veronica Mosey? Where will you be in a few years?
I am working regularly at all of the major clubs here in New York and will be working behind the scenes on The Marriage Ref coming up in the fall. In a few years I hope to be working on a bigger platform (hopefully my own sitcom or talk show) to spread my brutal honesty and inner rage across the universe. All with a wink and a smile, of course.

Jokes.com
Veronica Mosey – Juicy
comedians.comedycentral.com

Print this page out to get $5 off admission to Veronica Mosey’s headlining show at Carolines on Aug. 24. Get more ticket info here.

Exclusive video interview: Whitney Cummings

by Punchline Magazine

We’ve been following the bubbling rise of Whitney Cummings’ career for the last few years. An East Coast transplant living in Hollywood, she’s made a name for herself writing for the ultra popular Comedy Central roasts and then getting in front of the cameras for the first time at a roast last year, where she barbed icon Joan Rivers– and to rave reviews. She’s done it again, most recently at the roast of David Hasselhoff. And now, the world will soon be exposed to a Cummings’ relationship-heavy material in her one-hour comedy special Money Shot (Aug. 21 at 11:30 pm EST) on Comedy Central.

Add to that Emotional Ninja, her debut album, her presence as one of Chelsea Handler’s main comedian panelists on E!’s nightly chat show Chelsea Lately and her work behind the scenes and in front of the camera on Showtime’s Live Nude Comedy series and you’ve got… well, frankly you’ve got a comedian worthy of a fun and enlightening 10-minute video interview on Punchline Magazine.

Our own Matthew Gill (become a fan of his on Facebook) caught up with Whitney recently to chat about said special, her craft, her many photos of herself that adorn her walls and much more. Check it out and pass it on!

Need more Whitney? Check out some previews from her special, Money Shot, premiering Aug. 21 on Comedy Central.

Jokes.com
Whitney Cummings – The Pump Fake
comedians.comedycentral.com

Jokes.com
Whitney Cummings – Balls Are Disgusting
comedians.comedycentral.com

Jokes.com
Whitney Cummings – Copying Porn Moves
comedians.comedycentral.com

Video interview: Chris Fairbanks

by Punchline Magazine

In a new installment of our interview series A Tight Five, we sit down with LA-based comedian Chris Fairbanks in the green room of the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, CO, where he performed earlier this summer, part of the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival.

We get into Chris’ unique joke-telling style, a story of redemption involving Cyndi Lauper, his wardrobe choices for the cover shoot for his album and much more. Check it out!

Check out our review of Chris’ album here; we highly recommend you purchase it. Just click the image below.

Carolines breakout artist: Harrison Greenbaum

by Punchline Magazine

Print this page out to get $5 off admission to Harrison Greenbaum’s headlining show at Carolines on Aug. 17. Get more ticket info here.

World famous comedy venue Carolines on Broadway and Punchline Magazine have joined forces to present the Breakout Artist Comedy Series. Each Tuesday, at Carolines in New York City, an emerging stand-up comedy star will headline their own show and prove just why they’ve been quietly building a name for themselves in the national comedy scene.

And since we here at Punchline Magazine are all about exposing the best comedians – well-known or not – we’ll be profiling each comedian taking part in the Carolines series each week. So let’s get to this week’s headliner: Harrison Greenbaum!

Harrison Greenbaum is one of stand-up comedy’s hottest rising stars. A Harvard graduate and writer for MAD Magazine, Harrison has been featured on SPIKE TV, the Science Channel, and on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Most recently, Harrison headlined two sold-out shows at TBS Just for Laughs Chicago and was the official co-host of the Times Square New Year’s Eve World Wide Webcast, seen by over 250 million people around the globe.

He’s also received several honors for his comedy, including being named a finalist for the Andy Kaufman Award (2009), a finalist in the New York Comedy Contest (2010), and a semi-finalist in the Boston Comedy Festival (2009). From colleges to comedy clubs, from talk shows to theaters, Harrison continues to bring his unique style of comedy to audiences across the country!

Who do you think are the breakout artists of the next few years?
I hope everyone who took part in this series will be the breakout artist of the next few years (if they aren’t already). I feel really honored to be included amongst such amazing artists and I hope for a ton of success for all of them!

You hosted the Times Square Alliances New Years celebration last year. Was it tough to be funny for six hours of broadcast TV? How was it trying to work amongst a million drunken revelers?
Hosting the ball drop in Times Square was definitely one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life. There’s so much positive energy in the air that you can’t help but feel excited and in the zone. I was joined by some incredible co-hosts and backed by an incredible crew, so staying on top of my game, both in terms of hosting and in terms of being funny, was easy.

The revelers were all so incredibly happy and, as I soon discovered, often had amazing stories to share, that working with them was actually quite a joy. In terms of running up and down Times Square, I had a VIP pass and a crew with me, so navigating back and forth from the red steps of Duffy Square to the marquee of the Hard Rock Cafe wasn’t too difficult (though it was quite a work out!).

You’re known for incorporating magic into your act. Where are the areas of over lap between magic and stand up?
On a basic, technical level, both stand-up comedy and magic rely heavily on surprise and misdirection. On a deeper level, I think magic and comedy have the same goals: both a really good joke and a really good magic trick inspire an audience to step back, think for a moment, and question their current conceptions about reality.

You’ve also got a B.A. from Harvard: how do you think such a prestigious pedigree has effected your act?
Other than help me recognize that “effected” should actually be spelled “affected”? (Oh crap, I think I just confirmed every Harvard stereotype there is.)

I think the Harvard experience was a really unique and interesting one, so I definitely address some of the issues I had (and still have) because I went to Harvard in my act. I think my education also affected my worldview and perspective, which is turn affects my comedy.

What’s next for Harrison Greenbaum? Where will you be in a few years?
Good question! I have no idea, which is part of the fun of being a comedian. I hope that there’s some TV in the future, maybe a cool writing job, but who knows? I’m so happy right now – I mean, I’m making my living doing what I love, so what more can you ask for? (I know, I know: it should be “for what more can you ask.”) I’m going to keep writing, performing, and bringing my comedy to as many people as possible, so in the next few years, I’ll be wherever that takes me!

Print this page out to get $5 off admission to Harrison Greenbaum’s headlining show at Carolines on Aug. 17. Get more ticket info here.

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