Music Monday with PLC is a weekly feature written by my husband, Pat.
Find out the back story + check out the full archives HERE .
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John Mulaney
[photo by jennifer; review by pat]
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The year was 1978, and I used to have one of those Panasonic tape recorders. It was the kind with the little simultaneous play/record button and the sleek black microphone that plugged into it. It was the best. And even better was the fact that I had ended up with a copy of Steve Martin’s “A Wild and Crazy Guy” tape. I would listen to it all the time; from the think jokes club guy at the beginning, to the wild and crazy arena guy at the end. At that point, I even knew all the words to “King Tut”. The tape was hilarious and really made me appreciate the comedy album. There was something so awesome of being able to press play and hear the jokes coming right at you without all that laborious reading and the pesky distraction of video getting in the way. Pure comedy.
This week we turn to comic John Mulaney and his new album “New in Town” (Jan 2012 Comedy Central Records). Mulaney is a great comic out of Chicago who now lives in New York and writes for Saturday Night Live. He sets up the comedic premise and then has the talent to write a nice tight set of jokes around it. Stick and Move all the way.
He is a clean cut and dapper enough performer to put him somewhere between Mary Poppin’s era Dick Van Dyke and the Music Man’s Robert Preston. I am not sure whether I would rather see him break into a song and dance, or appear on stage in front of his name spelled out in giant light up letters. And he thankfully works just blue enough to keep him out of the Brian Regan ghetto.
In an era of lazy comics who can’t construct a solid set of jokes, Mulaney is a throwback of sorts and a true craftsman. So check him out now before they hire him to voice a Disney Character and he becomes bloated with all that Mickey money.
- PLC
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MORE:
- last week - The Golden Dogs
- a while back - Toro y Moi
- full archive of Music Monday with PLC - HERE
