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Thursday, August 05, 2010

I'm Guessing You Don't Know Brian Woods

Brian Woods, out of Reno, is just now starting up his run at comedy. Just. Now. He started posting on his blog, Laugh at Brian, just about a week ago. You can watch a few of his sets there.

A few things to remember: comedians do the same material over and over and over. That's how it works. That's how you perfect it. That's how you figure out which jokes work regularly, which jokes need sharpening, and which jokes need to be thrown out.

Woods is brave. He isn't hiding his early rough sets. There is some good material that doesn't hit yet, but I'd like to see if he can tune it up.

The set below isn't his best. There's some better stuff on his other videos, but note a couple things about this clip, which he's titled "Is this bombing?":

He admits being thrown by the host getting his name wrong. That might explain his sprint into the material that feels kinda like he jumped the gun on the audience. But he doesn't look shaken. Remember, kids: sometimes the audience can't tell you're a wreck.

His text notes on the video are refreshing. I especially like his comment about midway thru about NOT explaining the joke to the audience. If they don't laugh, you need to move on. Unless you can make fun of yourself. And that had better be damned funny.

Another thing: he deserves a lot of credit for plowing thru the annoying chatter. On his blog he writes:
I bombed, the audience didn't bomb, the bar didn't bomb, the other comics didn't bomb, I did. I didn't give them what they needed in order to get their attention.
That's a workman's attitude.

Good luck Brian.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the kind words and the constructive notes. I've been trying in vain to get some feedback from the local comics that I go up with. I guess I haven't gone up enough for them to remember my name let alone give me some pointers. I do have a cool mentor so to speak, Kinsie Damon, look her up on YouTube.

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  2. This guy's brilliant! I've seen a few of his performances (out of the few he's made)and keep goin' back for more. Subtle, ironic, unique and...well just funny as f***!

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