I would place a warning label on this CD, that were it to be stored in the immediate vicinity of a lesser comedy cd, that there is a great chance of the two discs causing a matter/anti-matter explosion, opening a black hole and destroying the universe. So, please, do us all a favor and throw all that crap away off your shelf before you buy the new CD. Because you really want to.
Marcus’ new comedy album, “Hell Oh Well”, ranks right up there for me with the best of comedy albums of the past decade, right beside Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, David Cross, Jim Gaffigan, Dave Attell, and our dear recently departed Greg Giraldo. High praise, but completely deserved. It proves Marcus is at the top of the game of working comics today.
Wait, who the f#$% is Marcus? And why have I never heard of him?
Good question. Well, if you blended a perfect cocktail of those comics I just mentioned and it was somehow more than the sum of its parts, you’d have Marcus.
You might remember him as the best person to ever perform on NBC’s Last Comic Standing… EVER. (and yes, I’m especially looking at you Jay Mohr and Bill Bellamy). Marcus’ 2008 DVD “Second to None” gives us his reflections on having gone through the TV process… and he emerged a funnier, smarter, leaner comedian.
He’s been a staple of the national comedy club and college tour circuit since then (including an upcoming stint entertaining the troops on a USO Tour– what a patriot!), and making many notable appearances on media outlets we love, such as The Geek Show Podcast and Radio from Hell. But for those of us not lucky enough to catch a live show, we’ve been sadly missing…. well, a lot.
Enter 2010 and now, and his forthcoming DVD “The Hand that Feeds,” (due out Oct 29th, same day as Hell Oh Well UPDATE: the CD is now available on iTunes!!) clips of which have been floating around on the internet (especially if you’re a friend of Marcus on Facebook– oh, and you really want to be his friend on Facebook). And you know, Marcus is so talented that in between when he taped his DVD special and it was finished being edited, he wrote almost an entire album’s worth of new material, and decided to bring it to you, the public. This is what became Hell, Oh Well.
This album should be called “Nothing’s off-limits” or “Roasting sacred cows”—Marcus goes after everyone. Mexicans, Polynesians, Whites. Teenage boys, teenage girls. Gays. Homophobes. Weed. (lots of stuff about weed) Movies, Music, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus (who don’t count as music), and a special roast is reserved for Twilight (which also does not count as a movie). In fact, for being such a young guy and despite his rockstar image, Marcus spends a lot of time sounding like an old man complaining about “kids these days and their rock’n’roll and why is every kid in school trying to have sex with my daughter….” At the same time, he also pokes at “classics,” making fun of lyrics from 70’s rockers like Thin Lizzy.
But the smart, hip vibe is what makes the jokes transcendent of age or generation as everyone understands that while even though the culture of the generation following yours is surely inferior to what YOU were watching/listening to in high school, we can all agree that Twilight really is a cultural abomination of which there is no comparison. As someone who is personally also in my 30s and dealing with issues of adulthood, being married, kids, etc, the material for me hit on so many touchstones of what my life is all about. And because Marcus truly does take on all people as an equal opportunity mocker, I don’t feel personally offended by anything he says as he spreads the love (read: hate) around. Like, if Marcus made a joke about nerdy, obese, white, liberal Mormons who live in Texas (of which I might be the only one), I might get offended for a moment.
And then I’d remember I don’t really give a rat’s ass if he makes fun of me: when it comes right down to it, Marcus makes fun of himself more than anyone. In the same vein as one of my other favorites, Patton Oswalt, and his ability to open the window into his life, Marcus also takes several self-deprecating turns talking about the joys and perils of marriage, parenting, and life in general.
George Carlin isn’t around any more to talk about the inane things we spend our time on like cell phones, Twitter and Facebook. Thank God we have Marcus to do it.
If you’re looking for Marcus doing funny voices and impressions, well, I have good news and bad news. Marcus is surely the most gifted impressionist working in comedy today, but rather than a cavalcade of silly voices, he channels them into the more universal jokes we can all relate to. Ok, well, maybe only some of us can relate to speaking to our genitals as if we were Leonidas in the movie 300, and maybe not everyone immediately knows who Richard Attenborough is, but the impressions are still spot on, and even better, serve the purpose of moving the comedy forward.
If you’re looking for a Jeff Dunnam puppet show and silly voices, or idiot catchphrases like “Git R Done”, you’re in the wrong, wrong place. In fact, I would place a warning label on this cd, that were it to be stored in the immediate vicinity of such a lesser comedy cd, that there is a great chance of the two discs causing a matter/anti-matter explosion, opening a black hole and destroying the universe. I believe a similar reaction would happen on an ipod playlist, but we’d have to get the folks at the CERN super-collider involved to be sure. So, please, do us all a favor and throw all that crap away off your shelf, delete it from your ipod, before you buy Marcus’s new CD. Because you really want to.
Signed copies of Hell, Oh Well will be available through the Big Shiny Robot store in the very near future, and are now available through iTunes.
PS- for full disclosure’s sake, I receive not dime one from the sale of these goods. I wish I did. But regardless, I’m just trying to turn you onto something that might blow your mind with laughter. And then you can txt, IM, Tweet, or FB your BFF about how you LOL’d.
Art and track listing below, bitches:
