Review: Duncan Carson - Pointless

Our first ever Com­e­dy Wham Presents inter­view was with Bren­dan K. O’Grady and Dun­can Car­son, the founders and co-hosts of Sure Thing, a week­ly show­case and insti­tu­tion of the Austin com­e­dy scene. For each anniver­sary of Com­e­dy Wham Pre­sen­t’s exis­tence, we have marked the occa­sion with a nod to Sure Thing.

For our 1^st anniver­sary, we talked to Bren­dan to dis­cuss the excit­ing things hap­pen­ing with the launch of Sure Thing Records (a label that cur­rent­ly touts 10 album releases).

The 2^nd anniver­sary, we went dark, but that was in a melan­choly trib­ute to the fact that the live week­ly show­case that had been held on Sat­ur­day nights for so many years went dark for many, many months (lucky for us, it has returned to its usu­al ​“packed room” sta­tus at The Fall­out The­ater, but now on Fri­day nights).

For the 3^rd anniver­sary, we get to mark the occa­sion by review­ing Point­less, the debut com­e­dy album by Dun­can. Not only to hon­or the great work that Dun­can did in both being the artist and co-pro­duc­er (along with O’Grady) for the album, but to cel­e­brate a new are­na for Com­e­dy Wham Presents — the album review. With just a hand­ful under our belts, we look for­ward to cel­e­brat­ing and high­light­ing the record­ed efforts of comics far and wide but still with a con­nec­tion to the Austin com­e­dy scene.

Because this is a spe­cial album review / anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion, we also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask Car­son about his expe­ri­ence work­ing on the album. We think you’ll enjoy the insights that Car­son pro­vid­ed almost as much as you’ll enjoy his album.

Point­less

Point­less, the album by Dun­can Car­son is a won­der­ful cap­ture of some of Car­son­’s finest jokes, many of which I have heard while attend­ing the Sure Thing showcase.

Fre­quent­ing com­e­dy shows, it’s not unusu­al to hear a joke many, many times over. On an album, how­ev­er, there’s some­thing mag­i­cal in hear­ing the ​“record­ed” ver­sion. You real­ize, ​“aaah, this is the finest form of the joke”, with its sub­tle changes of one word or two, or a slight­ly longer pause insert­ed or removed.

This is the feel­ing I had when lis­ten­ing to Point­less. It’s still Car­son, but it’s also the per­fect­ed ver­sion of Car­son. And if you’ve watched Car­son live, you know that there is much that is con­veyed with one of his sig­na­ture eye­brow wag­gles and smirks. I real­ized, lis­ten­ing to his album, that those sig­na­ture moves are not what makes his com­e­dy great, it’s the jokes and the deliv­ery. Duh — you’d think I had fig­ured that out by now! That’s the joy of review­ing com­e­dy albums, it allows you the chance to real­ly focus on the mes­sage — and if the mes­sage (ok, the joke) is real­ly, real­ly good, you don’t even need to see the per­former on a stage. (You should, of course). This album made me appre­ci­ate Car­son­’s under­stat­ed and heav­i­ly self-dep­re­cat­ing style all the more.

What are some key ele­ments you need to know to con­vince you to buy this album? I’d like to trade­mark this expres­sion as how I describe the album — Car­son man­ages to cap­ture our worst anx­i­eties about our­selves with comedic gen­tle­ness. He points out his own anx­i­eties in a way that we accept them as our own, but with­out ever mak­ing us feel like we’re bad peo­ple for hav­ing them. I also noticed that if you lis­ten close­ly, there are a lot of poten­tial catch­phras­es that Car­son pro­vides through­out the album.

With Point­less, I noticed some­thing I’d nev­er noticed before when lis­ten­ing to an album — none of the track titles reveal the joke. I have lis­tened to albums where you see the track title and (if you’ve seen the per­former enough times that you know their jokes) instant­ly know what the track will be. One of my favorites was ​“dying with peanut but­ter face”; it’s a gem, and I leave the sur­prise of dis­cov­er­ing it up to the lis­ten­er, not the track list.

But not Car­son­’s. I like that ele­ment of mys­tery. It keeps peo­ple on their toes, and I think in a genius move, it forces a new audi­ence to relis­ten because they won’t know what the track­’s joke is based on the title unless they lis­ten to it repeat­ed­ly. The album is not one hit after the oth­er. The album starts off strong, has a patient and steady beat in the mid­dle and it’s not til the very end that you get hit with a pow­er-packed punch. And it is pow­er-packed. While I can’t in good con­science spoil the clos­ing track, I can spoil the fact that I was so thrilled with what Car­son did that I screamed and clapped with excite­ment. If you know any­thing about Car­son, you will too.

Point­less is a won­der­ful addi­tion to your com­e­dy album col­lec­tion, and def­i­nite­ly not pointless.

Point­less by Dun­can Carson

Dun­can Car­son on Point­less

As a spe­cial fea­ture to this album review, I asked Dun­can to tell me about some of his expe­ri­ences with record­ing the album. I asked think­ing it might be nice to get a quote or two to sup­ple­ment the album review, but his insights were so inter­est­ing, we thought we’d share them in full with you.

Valerie Lopez: How did it feel record­ing the album?

Dun­can Car­son: I was ner­vous! The best weapon against nerves, over the years for me, has been under­stand­ing that it’s just a moment in time with some peo­ple, at an open mic or my show, or Cap City or on a fes­ti­val. The stakes feel high, because it’s you and your jokes and your hopes and dreams, but if you get out of your head and remem­ber to just be in the moment and in the room with peo­ple, it’s way more fun (and you’re fun­nier, too). So for the first time in over ten years of per­form­ing, off and on, I was pret­ty caught up in the thought that I would be record­ing this to actu­al­ly put it OUT there, for it to exist in the world. It was hard to keep my head in the present, espe­cial­ly the day of the recording.

“If you get out of your head and remem­ber to just be in the moment and in the room with peo­ple, it’s way more fun.” Dun­can Carson

My favorite moment is in the first track when I address the record­ing hap­pen­ing and I say ​“for the lis­ten­ing (audi­ence), this is hap­pen­ing dur­ing a hail­storm that I’m rel­a­tive­ly sure my anx­i­ety caused”. When that gets a big response from the crowd, I remem­ber a lot of ten­sion and anx­i­ety melt­ing away, this wave of relief as I remem­bered: I’m here with these peo­ple. They fought through the weath­er to get here also (it WAS hail­ing that day), this is real­ly hap­pen­ing, and if I stop wor­ry­ing about whether it’ll be a good album or not, this is going to be a whole lot of fun.

VL: How did it feel after you were done record­ing? Espe­cial­ly since you’re both the artist AND the audio editor.

DC: A few of my friends that have record­ed albums, for Sure Thing Records or oth­er­wise, warned me there would be a peri­od of time that I could­n’t even stand to lis­ten to it- and I was pret­ty sure that would­n’t hap­pen to me… until I tried to lis­ten to it. It was painful! All of the instincts you have in your brain to con­stant­ly be improv­ing jokes, to be a bet­ter per­former, those instincts aren’t easy to qui­et down when you’re work­ing on a ​“final” ver­sion of the jokes, dur­ing a per­for­mance frozen in time.

A few months went by – I record­ed in May 2017 – and then Austin Java closed at the end of August, and with­out a week­ly show to wor­ry about I’m even less orga­nized, so I kept drag­ging my heels, until the fol­low­ing sum­mer, when we were com­ing back at Fall­out (The­ater) and in the reg­u­lar swing of things. All of a sud­den, after enough time avoid­ing the thought, I got real­ly excit­ed to have an album to put out there!

Once I final­ly did it, it was a big advan­tage to have helped edit sev­er­al oth­er albums- it made it a lot eas­i­er to made cer­tain choic­es to make the whole album flow well, instead of being dead set on includ­ing cer­tain jokes that were near to my heart.

It also helps, in gen­er­al, that the pre­vail­ing theme of the album, and the joke that the title comes from, is not to let anx­i­ety keep you from enjoy­ing your­self. The mate­r­i­al that I chose for the album, and that I have grav­i­tat­ed toward the longer I do com­e­dy, is usu­al­ly advice that I find it impor­tant to repeat to myself. And it’s flat­ter­ing and hum­bling that peo­ple laughed along with me, that day last May and all the oth­er days I’m lucky enough to perform.

===

We’re very thank­ful that you record­ed the album, Duncan!