Comedy Album Book Club

This past spring my wife Heather and I visited the UK, on our trip we had the opportunity to sit down and chat with sisters Nicola and Rosie Dempsey also known as Flo & Joan. Fixtures of the Toronto sketch community who had returned to their native England sat with us over an initially sunny and progressively rainy brunch to talk about their influences both musically and comedically as well as the challenges and opportunities of performing in Canada versus the U.K., Fringe Festivals and some of their experiences performing. They are currently on tour and you can find more information on their facebook page. Thanks again to Nicola and Rosie for sitting with us and please enjoy the episode.

We do a second deep dive into Lenny Bruce's album The Carnegie Hall Concert this time joined by special guest writer, comedian, playwright, educator and activist Lara Rae. Lara has spent many years working with some of the greats of comedy and was able to share their encyclopedic knowledge of comedy with some terrific first-hand accounts of talking with people from Lenny's life. It was a real joy to sit with them and we look forward to doing so again in the future.

Hey Chachi, put down your latte and get a load of Mr. Todd Van Allen and Mr. Chili Davidson taking a break and chatting with Jason and Matt about the 1988 debut album by Dennis Miller called The Off-White Album. We discuss the career of Dennis Miller and ponder what turned him from the comedian he was into the comedian he is (as well as the fact that the 80s were a very screwed up time).

We sit down with a batch of new comedians to talk about Jim Gaffigan's Grammy nominated album Mr. Universe. Thanks to Alicia Carrick, Liz Myers, Sunny B and Miguel Martin-Garcia for joining me to discuss the quiet and subtle darkness that is Jim Gaffigan.

We had the joy of sitting with Marc Hallworth of Vest of Friends and Chili Davidson of Pay What You Can't to discuss Jerry Seinfeld's 1998 album and HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. We discussed Jerry's impact on comedy, his continued relevance and the weird little differences between the album and the special. In addition to this amazing conversation about Jerry Seinfeld we also talked about National Lampoon, Chevy Chase and the value of a damn joke.