Author: Chad Riden

Last night’s show at The End featured Gregg Turkington’s anti-comedy character, “America’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger along with *major entertainer* Mike H from *major group* DAIQUIRI, local musician/comic Chris Crofton and a surprise set from Tom Green.

The Nashville Creme blog began their review of the show by noting that they rarely cover funny things: “Reviewing stand-up comedy isn’t normally part of The Spin’s job description.” Yeah, we know. Rethink that.

In honor of the Scene taking the time to chime in on local comedy shows, we’ll let them do the heavy lifting for us:

“..we would’ve been idiots to miss this show.”

“Chris Crofton began a streamlined version of an act we’ve come to know and love. With only a half-hour or so to spare, Crofton wasted no time, delving headfirst into gag-inducing sexual descriptions of fecalphiliacs, jokes about rockabilly douches, diatribes against new media, tales of desecrating slave burial grounds while on LSD and even a joke making light of the tragedy in Haiti.”

Here’s some shaky video of Mr. Crofton doing some NSFW stand-up at the 2009 NY Film Festival:

“Clad in a bizarre hodgepodge consisting of a porn star’s sport coat, shorts, a makeshift kilt, an insurance salesman’s tie, fluffy Zorro mask and stuffed octopus hat, Daiquiri [ed note: actually this was a solo performance from *major entertainer* Mike H of the group Daiquiri] looked as if he’d just gone dumpster diving behind Southern Thrift. Using a myriad of effects processors, a Kaos pad, microphones, an overhead projector and some samples, this excitable artiste spent the first portion of his set singing and spastically dancing about the stage to minute-long compositions that we can best describe as sounding like a cross between Dan Deacon and Limp Bizkit.”

Here’s a clip of *major entertainer* Mike H performing on Tom Green’s House Tonight:

At some point, Mike H’s pal Tom Green jumped on stage and helped out with a cover of Wham!’s “Everything She Wants.” After the show Mike complained that some of his gadgets didn’t work at all & he considered his set to be terrible compared to other recent outings. I found his set to be hilarious and entertaining on many levels. His song “Opening Act” could be the greatest thing ever performed by an opening act.

“Donning his trademark cheap tux and exaggerated comb-over, Hamburger came onstage and showered us with side-splitting anti-joke after anti-joke, proving that he’s simply unequaled in the art of insult comedy. Over the course of an hour, everyone from Scientologists to rock stars, dead celebrities and clothing manufacturers became targets of Hamburger’s merciless raillery.”

Here’s one of Neil Hamburger’s appearances on Jimmy Kimmel:

Awesome awesome awesome. Hamburger is in Louisville tonight and Knoxville Wed.. I’d highly recommend it, if you have the means. The show ended with a BONUS set from our friend Tom Green doing some highlights from his new stand-up act. “Good times,” as Mr. Green would say. The Scene erroneously reported that Tom was drunk and although that was the case Saturday when he jumped up at The Stage to sing “Summer of ’69”.. and Sunday at Tootsie’s when he spat rhymes from, “Rapper’s Delight”.. he had not been drinking Monday and was sober. We promise.

It was a very fun show. Now if we could just get the Scene out to review a few comedy shows even if they DON’T also involve local musicians..