I have a joke that I open with whenever I'm performing in front of a particularly small crowd (as in less than 15 people): "You are here on a very special evening, because I am recording tonight's show for a live stand-up comedy album.  It will be entitled Riley Fox, Live In Front Of Fuckin' Nobody.  So you'd be on the album, if you were here."

Whenever I do that joke, I'm always quick to thank the few people who actually DID show up, because it's just a little throwaway bit meant to poke fun at the circumstances of the show as well as a self-referential jab towards the idea of recording a live stand-up comedy album in front of an audience of no more than 14 people.

The first comedy album I ever heard was Lewis Black's Rules Of Enragement. It's by no means his best, but at the time it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.  That was until I was a sophomore in high school, when I listened to Bill Hicks' Rant In E-Minor for the first time.  It's been several years since that night when I put those headphones on and Hicks' voice came through ("I'm here to sing some songs for my mama..."), and I'd venture to say I still haven't laughed as hard as I did then, even to this day.

When I was in high school, that was my drug of choice.  Other kids spent their money on albums by artists whose work was mostly ephemeral--pop stars who became irrelevant before the school year was over, and bands that kept putting out the same song every three months, just with different lyrics.  Or they spent their money on actual drugs.  I spent my money on comedy albums, comedy DVDs, comedy books--anything and everything in the realm of stand-up.  My favorite thing to buy was a comedy album (keep in mind, when I say 'album,' I really just mean CD--I'm not that old).

To me and my young ears, the comedy album represented the ultimate success: to release a recorded live performance of a full set of material in front of a packed audience.  In the most romanticized sense, it's an artistic statement.  In the most practical sense, it's proof you're actually a professional comic.  Musicians can write and record a CD in a home studio in three days.  Comics can't do that.  They have to spend years writing and honing material in front of live audiences.  Even if a comic records it himself or herself, they still have to build it up over a long period of time before hitting that button with the red circle on it.

Ever since the seed was planted in my brain to do stand-up, one of my very specific career goals was (and still is) to put out a professionally-recorded live stand-up comedy album at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN.  The reason for that particular venue is because:

1. It was the place where I saw my first live comedy show at 14. (The headliner? George Carlin.)
2. It is historically one of the most well-known live performance venues in the country (and boasts some of the best acoustics as well), and I get sentimental about shit like that--even though I don't care about country music.
3. It is located in the same city where I started performing stand-up.

Well, that goal is still a bit of a long-term pipe dream for me, and I'm nowhere near accomplishing it, but I will soon be taking a huge step towards that goal with this HOLY CRAP OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

I am releasing my DEBUT LIVE STAND-UP COMEDY ALBUM later this year, independently.  The project is still very much in-progress, and some of the details have not been determined yet (title, tracklist, etc), but I am currently shooting for a May release, with a month-long tour across the Southeast to promote the album to follow in July.  The album was recorded at my headlining gigs at Out Front On Main in Murfreesboro, TN last December.  I'm doing everything myself (or with the help of generous friends), so it's going to have a very DIY/indie/borderline-bootleg feel to it--the shows were recorded myself using a Zoom H2 audio recorder from the stage.

It will be available on iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon.com, and whatever other outlets I can get.  I never thought I'd be at the point in my career where I'd be able to say that, but here we are.  Jesus, this is exciting.

Y'know, unless people don't buy it...

DIG IT.

RF

“My name is Riley, and I’m an independent comedian…”

I moved to Knoxville from Nashville in August 2010.  At the time, I had been performing relentlessly for the last two years multiple times a week, but now that I was moving to a new city, I was unsure of what I would find in terms of opportunities in comedy (mainly because the move was prompted by educational reasons—finishing college—and not reasons specifically related to comedy).  I had already developed a relationship with the local comedy club in Knoxville, so I had my foot in the door there, but it wasn’t enough.  I wanted more.

At the end of my first paid booking as an emcee at this comedy club in the fall of 2010, I approached the owner following the last show of the weekend for feedback on my performance.  At the time, I was a young 21-year-old comic with barely two full years of experience under my belt, and I was eager to get some helpful tips and advice in order to improve myself as a comedian, especially as a recent transplant to a new city.  The owner said, point-blank, “You need to dumb it down.” Instead of a critique, I received a criticism.  I knew it was inevitable in this business that I’d get knocked down a few—several—MANY times, but this was the first one of substantial weight.  This was an actual club owner telling me the same thing other comics would jokingly call out during my sets at open mics (“TOO SMART!”) for months prior.  It obviously wasn’t the answer I was looking for at the end of my first paid weekend as a comedian, and I struggled with it afterwards for a few weeks.

At this time, the only open mic available in this area was the one at this comedy club, which ran every two weeks.  However, I still struggled with the feedback I received from the owner, so I then had a dilemma on my hands: do I continue performing at the comedy club open mic, where I needed to “dumb it down,” and continue that uphill battle of trying to win over essentially dumb audiences?  Or do I just give up comedy altogether because of the lose-lose situation I saw in front of me (either killing in front of dumb audiences with dumb material, or bombing in front of dumb audiences with my “TOO SMART!” material)?

Another factor in this dilemma was that the open mic at this club was a pay-to-play format, which meant that everyone had to pay for a ticket to the show—including performers.  I had conflicting feelings about this rule (I’ll go into this more a little later).  I ultimately decided to keep doing the open mic because I didn’t want to stop performing completely, so I spent the next month or two paying this comedy club to bomb every two weeks.  I had gone from performing 3-4 times a week, to twice a month.  My rate of development barely had a pulse, I was stuck in a rut, and fucking miserable.  The bottoming out occurred when a comic-friend of mine from Nashville called me one night, and I broke down.  He patiently listened to me go off the rails for hours, offered his own response, and he and I spent the entire night talking back-and-forth until he fell asleep on the phone at sunrise. (Adorable.)

The following week, I met a local comic who was starting a new weekly open mic at a theater on the other side of the city.  I was only going onstage once every two weeks, so OF COURSE I wanted to check this place out and get more stagetime.  The first night I went, I had a blast—the audiences were smart, the comics (some of whom I knew from the club open mic and some I hadn’t seen before) were funny, and I really enjoyed myself.  And, best of all, it was free to attend AND to perform!  Rejoice!  I was excited to have a new place to workshop my material with no pressure or consequence regardless of whether I destroyed or tanked.  It was liberating, and I went back every week until the show was ended due to financial disagreements between the venue owner and the comic who organized the show.  However, despite losing that open mic, the comic who organized the show and I became friends and colleagues, and it’s a relationship that I still maintain today and likely would not have if I had not gone to this open mic.

When I began to align myself with this comic, he and I worked together for months trying to get other shows going locally in town.  We weren’t looking to compete with the comedy club, obviously—we just wanted to create more stagetime for local comics to improve themselves, with the idea that they could use the DIY open mics to workshop new material, and then go do the club open mic to showcase that material after it had been polished and perfected.  It wasn’t intended to make enemies, but rather to make a community.  This process of setting up shows began at the beginning of 2011, started to furiously pick up steam in summer 2011 and has progressed thru the present-day.  Even as I write this, there are currently FOUR weekly independent open mic comedy shows, along with one bi-weekly comedy club open mic.  The amount of stagetime has quadrupled itself in a year.  The audiences are growing and showing themselves to be much more savvy (I haven't had "TOO SMART!" yelled at me in over a year).  Comics are getting really good really quick.  Creatively, I am constantly inspired and motivated by the rapid development of many of my peers.  Most importantly, a real comedy community has been established.

However, this burgeoning do-it-yourself comedy scene in Knoxville has sparked periodic debates at times.  Some comics have essentially shunned the local comedy club and instead focused on constantly getting onstage and improving themselves by performing multiple times a week for free.  A handful have attempted to keep one foot in both worlds.  Others have basically pledged loyalty to the comedy club, and absolutely refuse to set foot inside any show outside of the club, choosing instead to pay to perform every two weeks. (Coincidentally, some of these comics tell others that, if they take their comedy seriously, they should get onstage anywhere they can.  Yet, they won’t do it themselves for whatever reason.  So who’s taking their comedy more seriously, exactly?  That’s just a personal aside.)

I stopped doing Knoxville’s comedy club’s pay-to-play open mic in the fall of 2011 primarily because I couldn’t afford it, and also because I didn’t enjoy the experience the last several times I had done it.  I decided to take a temporary break from the club’s open mic with intentions to eventually return, until a situation fell into my lap in November 2011, when a comic-friend in Knoxville gave me info for a venue that was interested in putting on a weekly open mic.  When I met with the owner to pin down a schedule, I tried to avoid putting it on the same day as the club’s open mic, because I didn’t want to step on their toes.  However, the only free night they had WAS the same night as the club’s open mic.

I took a chance and decided to set up the show anyway, knowing full well it wouldn’t be well-received by the club and some of the more club-loyal comics.  And I know from a number of sources that it wasn’t.  However, I wanted to figure out a way to try to create the most benefit, so I made my open mic a CLEAN open mic.  It’s common in most cases that if you want to get booked as an emcee at a comedy club, you usually have to work clean (this is the case at the club in Knoxville).  So, with that in mind, I designed my open mic with the idea that comics can come to my show and work on a clean set for free, which they can then use at the pay-to-play open mic at the local comedy club to showcase for paid work.

My intention for my weekly open mic was and is not to compete with the club’s bi-weekly open mic (because half the time, IT DOESN’T), but to provide an alternative setting for comics to workshop their material with no pressure or consequence regardless of whether they destroy or tank—just like I had had shortly after moving to Knoxville.  I am merely giving other comics another opportunity to get onstage and improve themselves, and foster goodwill among the growing Knoxville comedy community.  The only reason I don’t do the pay-to-play open mic nowadays is because I am busy producing, promoting, and hosting my own weekly show which merely happens to fall on the same night as the club’s (for the record, these are skills I am learning that go beyond what I would have gotten doing the pay-to-play open mic).

In all honesty, my involvement in both worlds—pay-to-play and free—has yielded rewards on both sides, and often those rewards are one in the same.  In both cases, I’ve gotten paid for doing comedy, I’ve gotten to work with some really great comics in the business, and I’ve been able to forge a modestly prominent position within the local comedy community.  I have no complaints.

So, where do I stand on the pay-to-play versus free issue?  Here’s where I stand: in December 2011, I performed my first-ever headlining gigs at the Out Front On Main theater in Murfreesboro, TN.  I did a three-night stand, in which two of the three nights were sold-out and standing-room-only.  At the end of the weekend, I got a return booking to headline again in December 2012.  I did an hour all three nights.  Half of that set was written, developed, and polished over 2010 and the first nine months of 2011 mainly performing every two weeks at Knoxville’s comedy club.  However, the other half of that hour-long set was written, developed, and polished at DIY open mics in Knoxville between September and December 2011.  Three months.  Thirty minutes in a year and nine months versus thirty minutes in THREE MONTHS.  The opening bit, a politically-charged rant running roughly eight minutes about war and the homeless, was put together in roughly TWO WEEKS.  Oh, and I had the greatest sets of my life and plan to release a recording of these headlining shows as a live comedy album later this year.  So, take that for whatever it’s worth.

But honestly, it doesn’t matter between pay-to-play or free.  Neither is really better than the other.  It’s a fucking stupid argument.  In the end, I say if you want to get better, SHUT UP AND GET THE FUCK ONSTAGE.

DIG IT.

RF

Well, folks, as I always seem to say at the beginning of EVERY post I write in here: I am SO FUCKING AWFUL at updating this thing on a regular basis.  One of my goals for the new year is definitely going to be keeping this updated at least more than once every three months.  Anyway, it's been quite a year for me in my comedy career.  Here are a few of the things I've done this year:

- Finished in 3rd place at the 2nd Annual Rocky Top Comedy Contest in Knoxville, TN
- Performed all across the country in such cities as Paducah, KY; Indianapolis, IN; and Austin, TX
- Opened for such names as Stewart Huff, Gary Gulman, Rory Scovel, and Henry Phillips
- Started my own weekly open mic comedy show in Knoxville
- Made my first $1000+ dollars in comedy within one calendar year
- Headlined my first weekend at Out Front On Main in Murfreesboro, TN

Not too shabby, eh?  The next year is going to be even better.  I already have several gigs booked for 2012 already, including a RETURN HEADLINING ENGAGEMENT at Out Front On Main for December 27-29, 2012.  Check out the SHOWS page for all the info on those upcoming gigs and more as they come up.

The biggest project for me in 2012 is going to be something very special.  I audio-recorded all three shows from my headlining weekend at Out Front On Main in December 2011, and as long as the quality of the recordings are solid, I am planning on doing something with them.  I'm not ready to formally announce it until I am well into the project (although with context clues, you can pretty much figure it out), but hopefully it will be able to happen next year, so be on the lookout for updates about that.

Beyond all of that, I am really looking forward to next year, and I have a feeling it will surpass all of my accomplishments of 2011 by a long shot.  Here's to good times and good laughs.

DIG IT.

RF

Okay, I promise I am going to eventually start updating this shit more often.  Holy Christ, this is embarrassing.  I always keep forgetting to write stuff here in the off-chance that someone is going to come read it.  Anyway, quite a bit has happened in the last three months, so let's get to it!

My last update was written right before I traveled to Texas with the family.  While I was in town, I did a short set at the open mic at Cap City Comedy Club in Austin.  It was a fantastic show.  I had a lot of relatives and friends come out so it was great to be able to perform in front of them.  They all seemed to enjoy themselves.

In August, I performed at the preliminary round for the 2nd Annual Rocky Top Comedy Contest in Knoxville, TN (organized by Matt Ward), and advanced to the finals in October--more on that later.  In early September, I also performed in the finals for the Opportunity Knox competition at SideSplitters. I didn't win, but I have it on good authority that I came pretty damn close, so no complaints from me.  Also in September, I played my first road feature gig in Paducah, KY with Halli Borgfjord.  It was in a cool little independent movie theater right in the heart of downtown Paducah.  Beautiful setup, and the crowds were unfortunately smaller than average--but you wouldn't know it by how enthusiastic they were.  I had a ton of fun out there.

Finally, in October, I performed at the finals of the Rocky Top Comedy Contest and snagged 3rd place!  Not too shabby, considering some of the pros I was going up against.  Cookeville's Monty Mitchell took the runner-up spot, and Mike Haun from Atlanta walked away with the victory.  Both are hilarious gentlemen and worth checking out.  Certainly didn't mind losing to those guys.  I had one of the best sets of my career that night, and although I forgot to bring my video camera, Matt Ward didn't!  So if you head over to the VIDEOS page, you can watch my complete set from that show!

Next month, I will be opening for the awesome Rory Scovel on his Dilated Imagination Tour here in Knoxville at Preservation Pub.  More info on that can be found on the SHOWS page.  I will also be (finally) making my debut in Chattanooga in November at Vaudeville Cafe.  Definitely looking forward to those shows.  Oh, and there's also something happening in December in Murfreesboro.  The official announcement is yet to come, but if you REALLY wanna know then just check out the SHOWS page.

Hopefully that should be a good enough recap as well as a preview of some things to come.  Hopefully I won't wait another three fucking months to write some more shit here.  I really would like to try to turn this blog section into more of exactly that, rather than just occasional "look what I'M doing" updates.  We'll see what happens.

Until next time, DIG IT.

RF

It's been long enough since I posted an update here.  Things have been running fairly smoothly.  I've been back in Nashville since early May for the summer, and it's been wonderful getting involved in my home scene again.  I've done many shows locally and on the road with some great names, such as Stewart Huff, Rory Scovel, Gary Gulman, and Henry Phillips (just to name a few).  I've performed around the state, heading to places like Cookeville, Knoxville, and Sevierville at various points (lots of villes, it seems).  And things are continuing to pick up steam.

I recently advanced to the finals of the Opportunity Knox Comedy Competition at SideSplitters in Knoxville.  The finals (which are on September 7th) will have 9 locally-based comics battling it out for $500 and a week of work at the original SideSplitters club in Tampa, Florida.  I am incredibly excited about this opportunity and I look forward to seeing the other comics bring their best (though I obviously hope to bring my bester).

I've got some other cool things coming up on the horizon.  This Sunday I will actually be returning to the real homeland to perform in Texas for the first time.  I'll be in town visiting relatives, but wanted to pick up a set while I was there.  I'm doing the open mic at Cap City Comedy Club in Austin on 7/31.  Yes, it's just the open mic, but I'm still excited about doing a set 16 hours away from home.  I also hope to check out at least one or two local shows in the area.  I may do some reporting on that.

Also, in September I will be featuring for Halli Borgfjord in Paducah, KY.  You can find out more about that show on my SHOWS page.  Definitely looking forward to that.

Finally, to wrap things up, I recently did an interview with James Irwin, a friend of mine who lives in England who dabbles in comedy.  We mainly discussed stand-up--influences, early gigs, cultural differences between American/British comedy--and then ended it with a brief digression into the band Rush.  It was a great talk.  You can read that interview here: Counterparts, A Stand Up Discussion Between American Comic Riley Fox and My British Self.

That's all for now!  I'll try to post another update soon from Texas.

DIG IT.

RF

After a long technological dormancy, I have finally returned to THE INTERNET in the form of a NEW STAND-UP VIDEO!  It is on my Videos page at the top.  It was recorded last weekend on April 15, 2011 at SideSplitters Comedy Club in Knoxville, Tennessee.  I did a series of guest sets opening for the hilarious Josh Sneed, with the goal of getting a new stand-up video to put online.  I think it turned out pretty well.  It has a few old favorites, some newer works-in-progress, and even a couple of bonus crowdwork clips thrown in at the end!  Check it out and share it with your friends!

In other news, I've got a bunch of big gigs coming up within the next couple of months or so.  Check out my Shows page for all the info there.  Currently the most high-profile gig is opening for Billy Gardell (from the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly) at SideSplitters in June!  I'm really looking forward to working with him, and I'm very glad to have the opportunity to do so.

This is a short entry, mainly because I wanted to give special focus to the new video.  Thanks to all of you who take the time to keep up with what's going on in my comedy career.  I really appreciate all your support.

Until next time,
RF

Just a brief post to let you know that I am officially taking over the Knoxville Underground Comedy Show.  It's a relatively new open mic that has gotten off to a great start with plenty of room to grow, and I'm very happy to have been put in charge of it (the previous host's work schedule has gotten too overwhelming to allow him to continue hosting the show, so he gave it to me).

It runs every other Wednesday at Prince's Deli & Sports Bar in West Knoxville.  It's a show-up-go-up open mic, so all comedians are welcome, from touring pros to newbie first-timers.  Sign-ups are at 8:30PM, show's at 9PM.

The next show is this Wednesday (3/30), so bring y'asses and enjoy some of the best local comedy East Tennessee has to offer!

Until next time,

--Riley

The weekend was busy with a lot of driving and running around on my part, but I finally have the exciting conclusion of the FOX IN INDY series, along with a very brief FOX IN NASHVILLE entry!  Hooray!

Thursday was, by far, the weirdest day of the entire Indianapolis run.  It was St. Patrick's Day, although that didn't really have to do with any of the weirdness until technically very early Friday morning, when it was no longer actually St. Patrick's Day.  More on that later.

The first show of the night was the biggest gig in the run for me.  Earlier in the week, my friend Courtney Kay Meyers had gotten a gig featuring for another comic at a one-nighter at a bar across town.  She was able to finagle her way with the booker into letting me come along to emcee the show.  However, a couple of days before the show, the headliner had to cancel, so CKM and I decided to step up and do the gig two-man show style and split the money 50/50.  She would go up to get the crowd ready and introduce me onto the stage, I would do about 20-30 minutes to open and then bring Courtney back up, and she would close the show doing about 30-45 minutes.  That might be a little shorter than the traditional length for a regular comedy show--usually running anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours--but everyone involved agreed that with the St. Patrick's Day festivities in bloom, we didn't want to take too much time away from their celebrations.  Hell, we didn't even know how this gig was going to go. (And if we bombed, we sure as hell didn't wanna bomb for 30 minutes.)

Together, we did about an hourlong show.  I did somewhere in the realm of 20-25 minutes, and Courtney did about 35-40.  We both got $25 and a free meal out of it, which I was totally cool with.  Wasn't even expecting any paid gigs for the whole Indy trip, so to get one at all was just gravy.  However, the show itself was, as I stated before, just plain weird.

We arrived at the venue: a dinky sports bar on the outskirts of town, located near the speedway where they have auto races.  We were expecting to see hordes of rowdy St. Patty's Day partakers, but we walked in only to see about 20-30 older "bar regular" types playing cards and drinking (in a more sociable manner).  Half of them weren't even wearing green, if that tells you anything.  They were pure Indiana rednecks.  I know that seems odd--rednecks in the Midwest?  Yeah.  They exist.  They're really everywhere if you pay close enough attention.  The ones in the South just have the best PR (or would it be the worst?).

Here's what was weird about it: I killed.  I've never done that well in front of redneck crowds.  I don't identify with the redneck way of life, nor do I really want to, and my material isn't necessarily for the drunk redneck demographic.  Hell, I spent the whole week in Indy opening all my sets with a bit about being in college--and none of these guys were magna cum laude material, that's for sure.  But somehow I must have transcended those barriers, because I ended up having the best set of the week there.  I got a RIDICULOUS amount of applause breaks (when I say anywhere from 10-15 in a 20-25 minute set, I am NOT exaggerating), although I think some of them were more like applauding for a joke the same way you applaud a musician at the end of a song.  Which isn't quite the same as an applause break in stand-up, but still, they applauded, so I'm fuckin' counting that shit.

CKM sold a few of her t-shirts (I would like to have sold merch myself, but I need a polished act and some more bookings first), and we hung out a little bit and chatted it up with the locals and the townies for a bit before heading off to the final show of the Indy run: another music open mic.  This one was located in downtown Indianapolis.  A far cry from where we had just come from.

Unfortunately, we arrived around 10:30PM, and there were already several musicians signed up on the list.  Each musician got roughly 20 minutes or so to play their songs, which meant that Courtney and I wouldn't be hitting the stage until at least 1-2AM Friday morning.  I was up for it, since I wasn't leaving until sometime Friday afternoon.

It was awful.  By the time we were about to perform, all the attentive audience members had been replaced with St. Patty's Day Party People dressed in various pigments of green.  Talking talking talking talking talking.  No care at all in what CKM and I had to say.  She went up first and got ignored for 15 minutes or so, and then brought me up.  I only lasted 8 minutes--but I was able to get laughs out of CKM, her boyfriend Sam, the sound guy, and one lonely dude sitting up front by himself by making fun of the fact that I was being ignored by the SPDPP crew. ("Thank you all for coming to the stand-up distraction part of the show.  We couldn't be ignored without you guys here, so thank you again for that.")

It was a slightly disappointing way to end my Indy run, yet weirdly appropriate.  Comedy is so rooted in complete and utter failure sometimes, you just can't escape it.

Friday afternoon, I made the lengthy drive back to Nashville for the weekend.  That night, I stopped by Wilhagan's to do a set.  It was great to see many of my friends in the Nashville comedy scene again, both new and old.  I'll be back in Nashville in May for the summer, so I'm looking forward to really hitting the home turf hard again soon.

So, overall, what did I accomplish during my trip to Indianapolis?  I learned how to build an extended set (doing two 20-25 minute sets forced me to sit down with my material and put it together in a fairly logical structure).  The fact that I successfully did two extended sets in town--and that both went really great in terms of crowd response and my ability to fill the time--gave me a HUGE confidence boost as a comic.  Putting together those long sets also helped me figure out how to build sets of various lengths (5, 10, 15, etc).  I also finally figured out my "tight five" that I can do just about anywhere at any time--which is long overdue for me because of my tendency to constantly turn over material--and although I don't know it like the back of my hand yet (does anyone REALLY know the back of their hand? why do we say that?), it'll get there soon and it'll be nice to have that at my disposal whenever needed.

I also learned how to finally fucking start using this website productively with the creation of this little blog series that you've been reading!  Thanks to everyone who kept up with me and my FOX IN INDY adventures over the last week or so!  I hope you enjoyed it and can't wait to do another running travel series like this again sometime!

(Oh, and CKM may have found my so-called comedy hook: "Riley Fox: The Brains of the South." I can dig that.)

Until next time,

--Riley

Well, it was bound to happen at some point.  The dreaded comedy b-word.

BOMBING.

It happens to everyone.  You can't avoid it.  Just have to endure it and move on with life.  However, there are some upsides to my particular bombing case: I was in a small bar on the outskirts of town, in front of a handful of comics and outskirts-of-towners.  So it's not like I bombed in front of a packed house at a heavyweight comedy club.  Also, I was breaking in a number of new jokes and random goofy things that have no real place in my other sets (e.g., "Why did the psychic chicken cross the road?  BECAUSE OF THE PROPHECY!"), I still got off a few solid laughs in my set, and still finished strong enough to bring up the headliner with some level of dignity.

That was at the open mic at The Goldmine, hosted by my friend Courtney Kay Meyers (ckmcomedy.com), which was my second show last night.  The headliner was Lance Weiss (lanceweiss.com), a comic from New York who was featuring at Morty's Comedy Joint over the weekend and dropping into the city a day early to pick up an extra paid gig in town.  He had some very funny stuff, and he also complimented the new material I was experimenting with in my set.  When you're an up-and-comer, anytime a working comic from New York says nice things about your shit, it's a pretty redeeming validation. (And it takes a lot of the sting of bombing away, too.)

My first show last night was at Morty's Comedy Joint.  It's a very nice club with a more modern vibe.  I don't know the history of the club very well, but I think it's been around for just a few years or so.  By comparison, Crackers in Broadripple has been around for much longer, and when you walked in, you felt like you had entered a piece of comedy history.  You had to walk up several flights of stairs, and once you reached it, the place had the air of a very old-school comedy club--hell, the backdrop of the stage was a red neon sign in the shape of Charlie Chaplin's face.  I really dug it.
I love performing in old clubs that have a bit of established history.  It might sound silly, but it always comes back to that simple mindset of, "Oh, man, [insert famous and successful comic] performed here and I'm gonna stand on the same stage they did!" That feeling will never get old.  Walking around the building, just staring at all the old promotional headshots of comedians (and laughing at some of the ridiculous hairstyles and fashion choices) might be fun to do as an audience member.  But doing that as a comic gives you a more significant feeling.  You feel like you're a part of something.

But this is not at all suggesting that Morty's doesn't give you that feeling.  Morty's was the newer kid on the block, so the environment reflected that hip sensibility, along with a hint of classicism.  Upon entering, the walls were adorned with numerous framed classic comedy albums (and when I say albums, I mean actual vinyl records--Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, the Smothers Brothers; you name it, they had it) and promotional posters for various stand-up comedy specials over the years (a highlight being a full-sized autographed poster for Carlin's Life Is Worth Losing HBO special hanging in the front lobby).  Newer clubs are also fun to perform in because they have no historical reputation to live up to, so there's a sense of unpredictability in the air.  It's new, it's exciting (and sometimes it's even a little weird)!  However, although Morty's was young on the scene, it was clear that they had just as high a reverence for the art of stand-up comedy as Crackers did.

And the show at Morty's was fun.  The crowd was a little scant and apprehensive at first, but they loosened up as the show progressed.  I saw several now-familiar faces from other shows earlier in the week, and it was great to see them again.  My time in Indy has been a lot of fun, and I've met a lot of very funny people out here.  A few new comedy-friends, if you will.  I'd love to return sometime to not only do more shows here, but also to hit up the scene in nearby Bloomington.  Hopefully, I'll get that chance at some point.

Tonight is my last night in town, and it's gonna be a barnburner: first, I'm co-headlining a show with Courtney Kay Meyers at Mike's Speedway Lounge (with appearances by some of Indy's best), and then popping in for an extended late-late-night set (12:30 AM!) at The Living Room Lounge's music open mic show.  It only seems fitting that I'm finishing my Indy run the same way I started it--at a music show.  It's also even more fitting that I started and finished my run here the same way I started performing stand-up for the first time: at music shows.  I like it when things come full circle like that.

I'll be on the road to Nashville tomorrow for the weekend, so I'm not sure when I'll have the final FOX IN INDY entry up.  It'll be after the shows tonight, or sometime after I get back to Nashville.  You'll know either way, so stay tuned.

Until next time,

--Riley

Yesterday was a fairly bigger day for me in Indy, at least compared to Monday.  I was scheduled to do two sets: one at Crackers Comedy Club in Broadripple, and then a drop-in set at Beer Sellar Castleton.  Unfortunately, I was unable to make it to the Beer Sellar Castleton show in time to perform a set.  I didn't want leave the Crackers show early out of disrespect to the other comics on the show, especially as an out-of-town visitor.  I try never to leave shows early unless I have a really valid reason for doing so--like leaving an open mic early to head over to another venue across town to prepare a show I'm producing, which I've done before.  But beyond logical things like that, I always do my best to stay for the whole show.  I just think it's good comedy etiquette.  If other comics had to sit there and listen to my shit, I have no problem with doing the same for them.

Sure, I could have picked up another set later on, and if I was at another local open mic then I might have felt more inclined to leave early because I'm in Indy solely for the stagetime.  However, my first show of the night was at a comedy club, and I'm not going to leave a comedy club until the show is over.  You know why?  Because hanging out at comedy clubs after the show is over is fuckin' fun (at least most of the time--if you had a shit set, you probably wouldn't feel like sticking around).  I can't think of many things more fun for me than to hang out at Zanies in Nashville after a show with other comics, servers, bartenders, staff, management--everybody.  Just sitting around the club after hours, drinking and smoking and shooting the shit.  It's fuckin' fun.  If you consider yourself a serious comic and you don't at least make an effort to hang out at your home club, you're doing comedy wrong.

Crackers was another great opportunity to see some of the local Indy talent, like Lazy Daze.  However, unlike Lazy Daze's more no-pressure workshop atmosphere, this is where I got to see some of the Indianapolis comics--a few of whom I'd seen the night before at Lazy Daze--go up in front of a great, lively crowd in a full-time comedy club and kick some ass.  It's a vastly different dynamic.  To me, when you're starting out, open mics are where you experiment, polish, and work out the kinks in material; clubs are where you take that refined material and showcase yourself with it.  I saw several guys hit the stage at that club last night carrying their notebooks with them. Not their setlist--enormous five-subject spiral notebooks (like they had just come from class), that they would lay on the stool next to them and occasionally turn towards to flip pages during their sets.

Say whatever you will about how this reflects on me, but I have never gone onstage at a comedy club with my actual notebook in hand.  I may write my setlist on an index card, or go the sneaky route and jot it down on a napkin under my drink, but I think if you're going to perform at a comedy club--even on open mic night--you need to be prepared enough that you don't need your entire damn notebook onstage with you.  Ideally, you should be prepared enough that you don't need to have your setlist out while you're onstage--but that's a matter of personal preference.  You don't have to be super-polished and have everything memorized: that's what a setlist is for, and I have no problem with people who do that.  I'm not a hardcore advocate one way or the other (because sometimes I go with a setlist, other times without).  But bringing your entire notebook onstage is where I draw the line, because it looks lazy and just screams, "I am not at all prepared for this." At a coffeehouse or bar open mic, you can bring your entire goddamn filing cabinet onstage with you.  I don't care.  But at a club, at least give off the impression that you give a shit.  But then again, who am I to judge?  Everyone has their own different process for developing and polishing material.

That said--with my editorial out of the way--I did enjoy the show I saw at Crackers last night.  There were several very funny comics who I hadn't seen at Lazy Daze the night before, and whose names escape me (I really wish I had written them down).  That club is also a partner of RooftopComedy.com, which is a website that video records shows virtually every night at various comedy clubs around the country, and posts clips of stand-up comedians' sets on their site.  I'm not sure if they were recording last night, but if anything from my set made the cut for their site, I'll be sure to link it here so you can check it out.

Today is another big day.  Doing a set at Morty's Comedy Joint (which should not be canceled, unlike the other one earlier in the week), and then a late spot at Courtney Meyers' show at The Goldmine.  Hopefully I'll be able to make it to her show in time to get a spot--I still haven't yet been able to do the two-show-in-a-night routine since I've been here, despite having a couple of missed opportunities.

ALSO: If you'd like to keep up with my Indy adventures in convenient, bite-sized, 140-character chunks in real-time, you can follow my Twitter page @ http://twitter.com/riley_fox

Until next time,

--Riley