Difficulties of Guitar Comedy

Where have all the guitar comics gone?

Remember the Smothers Brothers? How about Tim Cavanaugh? Have I lost my mind, or was there a time when just about half the comics had a guitar at some point in their sets?

I submit that guitar comedy, while not dead, is definitely coughing up blood.

By far, the greatest active guitar comic of today is Stephen Lynch. His style is most like what Matt and I do -- just straight original songs. His punch lines are fantastic. His one weakness is that his set is incredibly blue. He had his own Comedy Central special, but I don't think he has a single song that is appropriate for network TV.

Why aren't there more guitar comics? Because it's so damn difficult to compete with traditional stand-ups, for the following reasons:

1. Punchlines Per Minute. In a comedy club, you need a high PPM rate, and musical comedy, which is restricted by its musical tempo and lyrical structure, is by nature slower.
2. Improvisation. An audience likes to be paid attention to. Some of the best moments in a comedy club happen while a comic is interacting with an audience, not necessarily planned material. It's much harder to adapt during a song (although I have seen it done on occasion).
3. Prejudice. I believe there have been so many bad guitar comics, that club owners and bookers are reluctant to put new ones on the stage. (Sam Cox, who taught me just about everything I know about stand-up in his weekly seminar, Comedy Gym, originally clued me in on this.) There are exceptions -- I talked extensively with the staff of Loonee's in Colorado Springs, and found them very helpful and informative, and I believe they would give a chance to guitar comics who can successfully negotiate the other difficulties.
4. Fan Base. Music fans go to see thier favorite artists over and over again. Comedy fans don't -- they may go twice or so, but then they've heard all the jokes. (Unless the comic writes all new jokes, which is nearly impossible with the difficulty of musical comedy.) Musical comics get the short end of both sticks.

In order to be successful musical comedians, we need to find ways to circumvent all of these difficulties. Matt and I got on the radio, but that's just not enough to make it in the comedy circuit.

I had a great conversation with a guitar comedy duo, Hard 'N' Phirm, when they were featuring at Cap City. Hard 'N' Phirm is comprised of Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman. Chris Hardwick went up on the Velveeta Room's open mike night, and freaking rocked. Not an easy thing to do. Very funny guy. Mike is a graphic designer and all-around technical expert and musician.

When Matt was in town for our gig in April, we both went to see their act at Cap City. They have a very innovative answer to the PPM problem -- during their songs, the audience is shown a background video, which contains additional punchlines. It's an awesome effect. You can see for yourself on their media page, where they have video from two appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Great stuff!

After their show, Matt and I had an extensive conversation with them. One thing they advised was playing music venues in addition to comedy clubs. They discovered (and I agree) that while music in a comedy club can be unwelcome, comedy in a music venue is almost always appreciated.

Another guitar comic worth mentioning is Rodney Carrington. He has some truly hilarious songs, and is often featured on Bob and Tom. But he's a shining example of the "Fan Base" problem. I went to see his live show. His stand-up is very good, and he ended the show with some songs. But the songs, even though I loved them, were anti-climactic. It's just so hard to get into musical comedy once you know all the punchlines, especially when the rest of the audience has also heard them many times and, while they're having a good time, they're not audibly laughing.

There's another difficulty I'm having trouble putting into words. I think the music industry is very fragmented now. There is no "Michael Jackson" phenomenon going on. Eminem was close for a while (and Dr. Demento had a veritable onslaught of Eminem parodies at the time). But guitar comedy gets easier when you have a musical thread that everyone in the audience has heard a lot. It doesn't necessarily have to be a parody, but really, all musical bits parody, maybe not a specific song, but definitely a genre or cliche. Think I'll need to elaborate on this topic in another entry. I don't think I'm making much sense.

There's another guitar comedy style I need to mention, and that's using the guitar to accentuate quick bits. J. R. Brow is a touring headliner from Austin who uses this technique. He's hilarious. It's not really what Matt and I do, although we've been moving in that direction by writing quick songs that last between 45 seconds and a minute, and have only one major (and perhaps one minor) punchline. It's a very effective technique for comedy clubs, and I would like to see Matt and I do more of that. Stephen Lynch's Smashing Pumpkins song is a great example, and J. R. has some better ones. (Check out his song, "Wait". And go see him live.)

Guitar comedy does have some advantages, however. Most notably, it fills the senses and is more emotional than just someone speaking. It can be a great way to wake up a tired crowd. When you've got hold of an audience, you can get them into a great frenzy (yes, I did that once at Flipnotics, of all places).

You just have to overcome a lot of adversity.