We all have flaws. And I wanted to share mine. So, of course, I did the healthy rational thing and put together a comedy show, a Kickstarter campaign, and a double album of comedy and music.
The whole thing is called Flaw Fest. Here’s all the information about it in one place.
I first did the show in February of 2013 on Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruiseCrazy. It’s a stand-up comedy show about all my horrible flaws: a sloth driven obsession to play bad James Bond video games, a stubborn need to fight with large animals, the idiocy to drink something called a Watermelon Shooter, the hubris to write a rock n’ roll song about a helium balloon, and much more.
The show went well so I decided to use Kickstarter to raise funds to record the show for a comedy album. The show deals with themes of music and I have a lot of amazing musician friends. So I asked a bunch of them to write an album of songs inspired by the show. So basically, it will be a comedy album with its own soundtrack. To my knowledge, no one has ever done that before.
The Kickstarter was also a success due to what I metaphorically described on this blog as Unicorns and Cocaine. You can read up on the actual project here! Now that the Kickstarter is funded, everything else is rolling along.
THE LIVE COMEDY SHOW
This coming weekend, we’re recording the show live at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis. It will feature an opening act by Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax. I’ll be doing the comedy show as well as recording a bonus track where I read the name of every person who contributed to the Kickstarter. We’ll also be selling pre-orders of the comedy and music album at the shows!
There are four performances:
Friday, September 27 at 7 pm
Friday, September 28 at 10 pm
Saturday, September 29 at 7 pm
Saturday, September 29 at 10 pm.
The 7 pm shows are almost SOLD OUT, but right now there are still tickets for the 10 pm shows. You can get tickets here. We, of course, want to pack the room for recording the comedy album, so tell your friends. Tell them, “Go pack a room, friends!” You should probably add some context to that sentence, but you know what I mean.
The comedy and music album will be completed and sent out to Kickstarter backers in late October. The album will be officially released to the rest of the world in November. Here are updates on the progress!
SONGS!
Songs are pouring in from all the musicians for the music album half of Flaw Fest. You’ll be hearing a ballad called “Bond’s Bad Day” by Bill Corbett, a kick-ass rock song called “Wife Head” by John Munson, an ode to how f’ing awesome eggs are by The Doubleclicks, and many more.
Here’s a photo of me working on some high-end music stuff in Kevin Murphy’s studio.
PRESS!
Here’s a nice article from l’etoile magazine about the whole Flaw Fest project.
And here’s another in-depth interview about the whole project from The City Pages.
And a nice discussion of the show on The Current’s Weekend Arts Round-Up.
More press coming out this week!
PHOTOS!
My pal and awesome photographer Craig Van Der Schaegen took a whole slew of new photos for the Flaw Fest album artwork.
Here’s a sneak peek.
More flawed updates as they come in!
Many thanks for all your interest and support!
Your flawed friend,
Joseph
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I was at the 7 pm show on the first night, and my husband and I loved it! One thing that I really appreciate about your stand-up is that it is definitely more narrative-driven than other peoples’ stand-up routines. You’re also great at closing “paragraphs” and tying everything all together, something I know I need to work on in my own prose and non-fiction pieces.
Funniest part of all is that after you read the poem about the helium balloon, I thought to myself, “He really should turn that into a song.” AND THEN YOU DID. And you sang with gusto—despite your singing flaw—and nailed it with joy and exuberance.
I hope to be able to catch more shows of yours in the future and/or see you on the JoCoCruiseCrazy this February!