Mac Blake: Good and Lucky

PSA: If you’re catch­ing this episode on the day of release, June 23^rd, drop every­thing (unless it’s a baby, or some­thing valu­able, like a foot long coney) and get out to see Mac Blake’s shows this week­end and next:

• June 23^rd, 24^th @ 9PM: Mac Blake head­lines, with Amber Bix­by & Devon Walk­er open­ing, at The Velvee­ta Room
• June 23^rd @ 11PM: The Ban­ter Show! At The Velvee­ta Room
• June 29^th @ 9:30PM: Waterbed with Mac Blake & Devon Walk­er

Let’s get this out of the way: Mac Blake is big. Whether you’re look­ing up to his height, his career, or his heart, on stage, every­thing about the man is larg­er than life. 

Blake is almost an offi­cial native Aus­ti­nite, hav­ing been here ​“a while”: near­ly round­ing the 20 year mark. (You might even call him an Austin leg­end.) He spent his youth in and out of Texas, with time in Geor­gia, Vir­ginia, and then a long stretch in San Anto­nio for his for­ma­tive years. 

In the midst of earn­ing his Mas­ters in Adver­tis­ing in Austin, he found him­self drawn (or serendip­i­tous­ly falling into) oppor­tu­ni­ties like the MST3K ​“homage”, Mas­ter Pan­cake. Blake and I seem to share the com­mon attrac­tion to tak­ing on cer­tain chal­lenges & hob­bies: see­ing some­one else doing it and want­i­ng to do it better. 

That ini­tia­tive serves Blake well, dri­ving him to run and per­form in mul­ti­ple local shows, and led to tak­ing the Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin title in 2013. Always work­ing to gath­er and per­fect his mate­r­i­al, in 2015 he etched some of that work for pos­ter­i­ty into his first com­e­dy album, Bird Drugs, on the Sure Thing Records label. The album debuted in the #3 spot on the iTunes com­e­dy chart, and uncan­ni­ly cap­tures the wild ride of Blake’s live performances. 

In addi­tion to the shows men­tioned up top that you should be run­ning to after (or while) lis­ten­ing to Blake’s inter­view, be sure to grab his lat­est EP, Live at Cold­towne. Keep up with oth­er dates and the many oth­er shows he per­forms in, like Six Shoot­er and Movie Riot, at macblake​com​e​dy​.com.