Filed under: Charleston, Comedy, Doug Stanhope, Live, The Mattoid, Village Tavern
Comedy and music make fantastic bedfellows. In case over 30 years of Saturday Night Live breaking up the laughs with blockbuster performances isn’t enough proof, I’d like to present Tuesday night’s Doug Stanhope show at the Village Tavern as exhibit A.
I’d steeled myself for another Robbie Fulks/Chow Nasty/Sunburned Hand of the Man/”insert-band-name-here” wafer-thin crowd and was shocked to see a fairly full room (150-175 people) when I arrived at the VT in time to witness the wacky, “cock”-filled exuberance of The Mattoid, who take a refreshingly un-serious approach to making a joyful noise (see exhibit B below).
If that picture doesn’t sell it, this winning Mattoid lyric might: “Crap your craps and fuck your fucks, it’s party time.” (Please, go to the Myspace page and listen to the song. It will all make sense.) The solid epicenter of The Mattoid is Ville Kiviniemi, who’s rockin’ a badass samurai triple (quadruple?) ponytail these days, and he’s played with a mile-long list of Nashville’s indielluminati (Lambchop’s William Tyler, multitalented producer Loney John Hutchins, etc.). He (along with drummer/singer Vanessa Scholle) was quite adept at engendering the aforementioned “party time” prior to Doug Stanhope’s stream-of-consciousness, slacker stand-up.
If you live here, you know about the fabled 5:1 girl-to-guy ratio in Chucktown. If you don’t live here, don’t worry: it’s not totally true. The real ratio is probably 55% to 45%. But that’s only relevant because the Doug Stanhope show was a freakin’ sausage party! I haven’t seen so many dudes and so few girls in a room together in Charleston since…well, ever. Maybe the fact that Stanhope used to be on The Man Show (in its last-gasp, Corolla- and Kimmel-free 2003 season) was part of it, or that he’s got a wee bit of a misogynist streak. But give me a comedian without an “-ist” streak and I’ll give you a nap.
Stanhope recently shaved the top middle part of his head, because, he explained, he’s planning to grow it out into a hillbilly mullet on the sides until it’s long enough to comb over (“I’m going to create the hairstyle that men spend thousands of dollars to avoid”), and his shabbiness only lent cred to his ribald stories and decidedly nonlinear narrative joke-telling. The Mt. Pleasant show was their first of the tour and Stanhope didn’t try to hide that he was still working out the kinks, telling the enthusiastic crowd that we were getting all the jokes before they were actually funny.
As people deposited shots on the stage for Stanhope, the fourth wall came down further and further until he had to take a smoke break outside and The Mattoid came back on. When Stanhope returned to the stage after The Mattoid’s hilarious, punky Eurotrash version of Lionel Richie’s “Hello”, he had a handful of yellow legal-pad paper in one hand and a beer in the other and picked through his notes for bits (“Did I do the dominatrix healthcare bit already?” He hadn’t.). He closed with a ripping good dirty sex joke and the crowd gave him a nice long standing O — which he deserved, unrehearsed bits or not. Hell, if he’s that hilarious without polish, why not let the scuffs show?
The music-comedy-music-comedy thing worked brilliantly — whether it was the pairing of The Mattoid and Doug Stanhope or just the natural order of things, I’m not sure. But I hope that Tuesday night’s success translates into the VT booking more comedians (preferably with awesome bands to sweeten the deal).
~sm
(Non-Charlestonians: Find out if Stanhope and The Mattoid are coming to cock — uh, rock your city here.)
they have played with everyone from !!! to mc hammer, and on thursday they come to the village tavern for your booty shakin’ pleasure. fun and quirky, with excellent samples and energy to bring out the punky funky party rock fan in all of us, this trio from san fran comes all the way to the east coast this week.
listen to “thick shake” and go see their show. 6 bucks, plus white boy crazy. how can you pass that up?!?
–lv
A brief break from Piccolo! (But let me just say that The Cody Rivers Show, which I saw tonight, is one of the most unique, inventive, straight-up brilliant live productions ever. The aquarium bit alone is worth the price of admission.)
So last night I went to see Robbie Fulks at the Village Tavern; he played with just himself and another guitarist (Robbie Gjersoe) and it was easily one of the best performances I’ve seen in Charleston, much less at the Tavern. They played for over two hours, these two finger-pickin’ wondermen, singing their hearts out…to an empty room. I could’ve counted everyone watching them play on two hands. In fact, there were 10 people watching. Now, there were more people THERE, but they couldn’t have cared less that this man, who’s been playing music for over THIRTY YEARS and who regularly sells out venues in Chicago and San Francisco, was ripping shit apart onstage. No, chatted up potential one-night-stands at the bar or played pool in the back so loudly that you could hear the constant *crack* of the pool balls over the music. The two Robbies took it all in stride like professionals, taking requests from the faithful few and making the occasional witty remark about playing in a strip mall.
When they played “Georgia Hard,” the title cut from Fulks’ fantastic 2005 album, I went all fangirl and took a video. I mean, this is what technology’s for, right? To capture the moments you wish could go on forever?
The concert was amazing, but I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for my city and regretful that I hadn’t written a better article, something that would’ve possibly maybe lured some of the people who helped sell out the Charleston Music Hall last time Ryan Adams came to town. These guys are 10,000 times the musicians Ryan Adams is (and listen, I luuuurve me some Ryan Adams), and I guarantee that anyone who enjoyed either of Ryan’s recent shows here would’ve fallen in love with Robbie Fulks and his aw-shucks, unapologetically authentic old-school twang. And not only did he have an incredible voice and mad guitar skills, he turned the evening into something of an Opry-style variety show, but brainy and sarcastic — between songs, Fulks became a smiling, world-weary stand-up comedian, rapping with the audience (well, one guy in the audience) and doing impressions of Merle Haggard (Right after playing his song “Sleepin’ on the Job of Love,” Fulks improvised a hilarious little ditty called “Fixin’ to Quit” that was spot-on Haggard), Willie Nelson, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
Despite how awesome the show was, I left feeling just awful. The Robbies didn’t seem upset about it — like I said, they’re professionals, I’m sure they’ve played some crazy empty honky-tonks in their days — but I fully understood last night why Trey (the owner of the VT) sometimes breaks down and rails against the world at poorly attended shows. Because these really talented musicians, they come to Charleston, they see that NO ONE GIVES A SHIT, and they leave with a bad taste in their mouths and probably tell other people to avoid this town full of apathetic assholes who just don’t care if they haven’t seen a mention of the band on Pitchfork or whatever the heck it is that gets people to head to Mt. Pleasant and take in some lifeblood — I mean live music.
–sm
