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.