FOH FIRST LISTEN: TODD BARRY “SUPER CRAZY” AVAILABLE IN STORES 07/24/12

 

by Ryan MeehanOn Friday I received my latest assignment, which just so happened to be “Super Crazy” – the new standup album from Todd Barry.  To be perfectly honest with you, I hadn’t done much research on Todd.  I’d seen him on YouTube a couple of times but it was late at night and if there’s one thing I can tell you about Ambien, it’s that you’re not going to retain a whole lot of information after you’ve taken one of those.  For the most part my familiarity with Todd Barry had come from his Twitter account, usually from being retweeted by other comics.

 

Barry is widely recognized for his roles as a bongo player on HBO’s “Flight of the Conchords” and Mickey Rourke’s deli boss in the Oscar winning 2009 film “The Wrestler”.  Aside from numerous late night talk show appearances, he has also appeared on the hit cable show “Louie” as well as FOH favorite “Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job”.  You may also recognize his film work from David Wain’s “Wanderlust” and Chris Rock’s “Pootie Tang.  His album “Medium Energy” was recognized by The Onion’s AV Club as one of the best comedy records of the decade.Todd has a very Stephen Wright-like delivery to his comedy:  He has that same baritone range that Wright has, and his voice does tend to be a lot more relaxed than a lot of other comics these days.  It presents an interseting challenge for the listener because it’s not the usual “in-your face” approach that a lot of casual comedy fans might expect.  The title “Super Crazy” obviously supposed to be a joke in and of itself, as it would be hard to assign that title to an album like this without trying to be funny.  Judging by the way Todd cycles through his setlist, it doesn’t surprise me that he’d use the album title to drop that extra joke.  And I’m not saying that to sound insulting, I’m bringing it up because sometimes I think that other comedians put way too much thought into creating a record or DVD title that the materal can’t live up to.

Barry’s material on the other hand is very, very good.  The chops are there, and you can tell that the guy’s been doing it for a long time.  My favorite bit on the record has to be when he’s talking about the aggressive nature of Barcelona’s prostitutes – “Whoa, you’re this wild on the streets, what’s gonna happen when we get back to the youth hostel?”  There’s a lot of last minute punchlines and “bet you didn’t see that coming” jokes that I’m a big fan of.  I did notice that Barry mentions Sarah Silverman and Louis CK in the liner notes, which lets you know that he’s in good company.  Although he doesn’t quite work at the pace of those two comedians, the structure of the material is similar.  “Super Crazy” is available on iTunes now and is well worth the listen.

The press release for this record mentions that not only will Comedy Central Records be releasing a DVD of the recording that will be available the same day, but that the DVD will also include a bonus feature that shows Barry’s uncut full performance from “The New York Friars Club Roast of Chevy Chase”.  The actual one hour special itself will air this Saturday, July 21st at 11:00PM, so make sure to check that out.  Stay tuned to Comedy Central Records for this and many great comedy releases left in the supposed year of the apocalypse.  If it all goes down, at least we’ll all we laughing thanks to Todd Barry.

Once again thanks for visiting First Order Historians and enjoying more of the internet’s finest in user generated content.Meehan