Review: K Trevor Wilson - SexCop FirePenis

Many com­e­dy album titles are fair­ly straight­for­ward, designed for sim­plic­i­ty, designed to give you a glimpse into what you’re about to hear. But how many album titles would cause you to blush when said aloud? Not too many I’ve come across, but the point was proven when I sat down with K Trevor Wil­son dur­ing his vis­it to Austin for the 2019 Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. While ref­er­enc­ing Sex­Cop FirePe­nis dur­ing my talk with Wil­son, I blushed and excused myself each time I ref­er­enced the album. After a few times of say­ing it, I enjoyed the joke of the title and hav­ing lis­tened to the album sev­er­al times at that point, and sev­er­al times since, I appre­ci­at­ed the self-ref­er­en­tial nature and the word econ­o­my of the title. My hope is not only that you’ll buy and enjoy the album Sex­Cop FirePe­nis, but that you, too, will find your­self look­ing for­ward to men­tion­ing the title to any­one who’ll listen.

The album clocks in at just a c‑hair over 45 min­utes (an impor­tant ref­er­ence that many Cana­di­an comics like to use), and there are almost too many great ele­ments about the album, but I’ll try to give a fla­vor. Wil­son is a man of few words, leav­ing long spaces between words, but result­ing in no less pow­er and abil­i­ty to destroy a room with laugh­ter. This is on dis­play almost imme­di­ate­ly in the album. Most open­ing tracks fea­ture a host announc­ing the com­ic quick­ly fol­lowed by the comic’s open­ing words. Wil­son waits more than 11 sec­onds after his name is announced before say­ing a sin­gle word, long after the audi­ence applause dies down. He waits it out, sens­ing that the longer he makes you wait, the more laugh­ter he can gen­er­ate. And he does. Like pulling on a sling­shot, Wil­son draws out his jokes, then launch­es his punch­line with strik­ing accu­ra­cy and to uproar­i­ous laughter.

WIlson’s debut album was released Sep­tem­ber 2014, reached the top of the iTunes com­e­dy charts and earned him a 2016 Cana­di­an Com­e­dy award for Best Taped Live Per­for­mance. It has the cre­den­tials, but does it have the firepe­nis, er, fire­pow­er? Of course it does. The album is a col­lec­tion of sto­ries, pep­pered with some very effec­tive impres­sions (yes, you will hear a Bill Cos­by impres­sion — even after Cos­by’s pre­cip­i­tous fall from grace, Wil­son isn’t afraid to go there). If you lis­ten to Wilson’s album enough times, you real­ize that most of the album could be deliv­ered as a dra­mat­ic read­ing, but there’s some­thing about hear­ing Wilson’s deliv­ery as he declares to the audi­ence in Fire Sto­ry ​“ani­mals don’t know when you’re try­ing to save them”, only to then declare to the cat ​“it’s not a game you ass­hole, it’s a res­cue!”. And once you’ve heard the album you appre­ci­ate (appre­ci­ates if you’re a prop­er Let­terken­ny Squir­re­ly Dan afi­ciona­do) that the album title ref­er­ences the sto­ries he tells.

Sev­er­al of Wilson’s tracks cross the 6 minute mark and the final track, Penis Game, cross­es the 11 minute mark, a track length I rarely see in albums. But that final track is intri­cate­ly orches­trat­ed. Even lis­ten­ing again before writ­ing this review, know­ing exact­ly when and how the punch­line would arrive, I still laughed out loud at the mas­tery of deliv­ery and the visu­al imagery that Wil­son pre­sent­ed. It is a wise and fruit­ful 11 minute invest­ment of your time. As is every oth­er minute of the album. This album has eas­i­ly entered the mul­ti­ple lis­tens a month cat­e­go­ry for me. It makes me laugh, it sur­pris­es me, and makes me wish I could write few­er words to such great effect (as my word count exceeds 600).

Get this album. Say this album title to any­one who’ll lis­ten. And go ahead and get his fol­low up album Sor­ry! (A Cana­di­an Album) and enjoy the deep moun­tain of a voice that deliv­ers hys­ter­i­cal laughter.