Valerie's 2018 Moontower Comedy Picks!

Let’s get the dif­fi­cult part of this arti­cle out of the way. If you see me sob­bing in a cor­ner dur­ing the 2018 Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val, it’s because I had to skip so many pow­er-packed (or is it punch­line-packed?) show­cas­es and live pod­casts to see oth­er stel­lar shows that it’s brought me to tears. But pre­vail I shall. In its 7^th year, the fes­ti­val con­tin­ues to bring us an abun­dance of riches. 

In the spir­it of the con­tin­ued explo­sion of comics who have their own pod­casts, the 2018 Moon­tow­er line­up includes an even greater vari­ety of pod­casts for us to choose from. One new show is You Up with Nik­ki Glaser. While I’m excit­ed to see Nik­ki, I’m also look­ing for­ward to see­ing her cohost, Tom Thakkar who came through Austin a few years ago and impressed me with his com­e­dy and his will­ing­ness to talk at length about the com­e­dy industry.

One thing I’ve noticed is my rec­om­men­da­tions this year tend to focus on head­lin­er acts. Some selec­tions sur­prised even me, but more on that in a moment. Oth­er selec­tions fol­low my fair­ly pre­dictable lean­ings toward the LA com­e­dy scene comics. Let’s dig in shall we? The quick­er we get through this, the quick­er I can get back to study­ing the sched­ule to see how many shows I can pack into my itinerary.

Two recent Net­flix com­e­dy spe­cials informed my first 2 rec­om­men­da­tions. Judah Fried­lan­der and Ryan Hamil­ton. Judah fits in my ​“type” of com­e­dy — sub­ver­sive, bit­ing, but demon­strat­ing an intel­lec­tu­al ele­ment too. Judah’s spe­cial blew me away. It was unlike any oth­er spe­cial I’ve seen and he’s a Moon­tow­er favorite (he alleged­ly skipped last year’s Moon­tow­er to give some­one else a chance to win, ​“World Cham­pi­on” of the Ping Pong Slap­down), so this makes him an easy rec­om­men­da­tion. Ryan Hamil­ton’s Net­flix spe­cial shocked the hell out of me. Billed a ​“clean” com­ic, I was set to be dis­ap­point­ed when I watched his spe­cial, but I’ve watched it sev­er­al times and he has a gift, not only for com­e­dy, but for mak­ing me for­get that he bills him­self as a clean com­ic. Now, I con­sid­er that mas­tery of the art form and I’m excit­ed to see him live.

I was blessed to catch Tig Notaro per­form at her own curat­ed Bentzen Ball in Wash­ing­ton DC a few years ago. It was a mag­i­cal per­for­mance to wit­ness. For that rea­son alone, Tig is on my ​“must-see” list, but add to that her con­nec­tion to Texas, her One Mis­sis­sip­pi show (boo to Ama­zon Prime for can­celling the mas­ter­piece after only 2 sea­sons), and her riv­et­ing per­son­al sto­ry, and I guar­an­tee you won’t be dis­ap­point­ed if you can get in to see this sell-out performance.

I plan to catch Weird Al Yankovic because frankly, I grew up lis­ten­ing to him on Dr. Demen­to and I’ve seen him live twice. It’s a guar­an­teed good time — just be sure to bring your own tin foil hat (hard­core fans will know what I mean). 

Speak­ing of clas­sic com­e­dy, who does­n’t love Kids In The Hall?? Scott Thomp­son of KITH fame, brings his Apres le Del­uge: The Bud­dy Cole Mono­logues to Moon­tow­er. Thomp­son expe­ri­enced per­son­al set­backs a few years ago, but is back in full force and I’m incred­i­bly excit­ed to catch him per­form and return true to com­e­dy form.

As far as peren­ni­al Moon­tow­er favorites, don’t miss Andy Kindler (either his Par­tic­u­lar Show or open­ing for Tig’s Para­mount show), The Sklar Broth­ers (host­ing their View from the Cheap Seats, serv­ing as live com­men­ta­tors dur­ing the Ping Pong Slap­down and many oth­er appear­ances), and Big Jay Oak­er­son (The Bon­fire, New York’s Finest and many more).

And now, my annu­al pros­e­ly­tiz­ing of The God­damn Com­e­dy Jam (GDCJ).… This will be my 3^rd year of attend­ing and rec­om­mend­ing the Jam. Don’t miss any of the 3 per­for­mances dur­ing Moon­tow­er. It’s that sim­ple. Last year, I got to see the late Ral­phie May per­form a short set, and then deliv­er the most rous­ing ren­di­tion of Bön Jovi’s Liv­ing on a Prayer. I get chills think­ing about it. You will col­lect life­long mem­o­ries from watch­ing this show. One of my favorite parts of see­ing the GDCJ is the back­ing band and per­form­ers, espe­cial­ly Jere­mi­ah Watkins who I inter­viewed last year. Watkins is back after an incred­i­ble year of suc­cess — he became a paid reg­u­lar at The Com­e­dy Store, went on tour, got mar­ried to his high school sweet­heart, gained 30 lbs in a month for a bet with long-time pal Tony Hinch­liffe (don’t wor­ry, he’s already shed it), reg­u­lar­ly sells out his Stand Up on the Spot show­case, AND launched his 2^nd pod­cast, Jere­mi­ah Won­ders. I thought I was busy!! I’m look­ing for­ward to catch­ing Jes­si­mae Pelu­so, Yamanei­ka Saun­ders, Nik­ki Glaser, Jon Rud­nit­sky, and Ali Sid­diq on the GDCJ because if it was­n’t for GDCJ, I might oth­er­wise miss these per­form­ers dur­ing the fes­ti­val. Some of these per­form­ers are house­hold names in the com­e­dy world, but oth­ers I’ve recent­ly dis­cov­ered and I’m look­ing for­ward to get­ting a more prop­er introduction.