#dolchnakov brigade

[kskill]

My Favorite TCGS Musical Guests

In no particular order, here are my 10 favorites:

1. Low Fat Getting High - "My Hate" (Ep 133)

Mosh. Sludge. Grunge. Dat bass (no trebble).  Mmmm yeah.  Could hardly contain myself in the studio, can't contain myself while watching this on YouTube (I watch this clip regularly).  It's 1993 all over again, but with better technology documenting it.  Buy their new album, they're cool.

2. Dolchnakov Brigade - "Drinks on Me" (Ep 50)

It's hard to pull off weird performance art that's also accessible, but Dolchnakov Brigade do it swimmingly (despite their lyrics about drowning).  Incredibly edited live by JD Amato and the MNN booth. Admirable technical wizardry and the insanely focused performance by lead singer Schlomie Lavie make this delightfully unforgettable.

3. The Front Bottoms  (Ep 106)

I like to think that The Front Bottoms are making the music Weezer should've made after Pinkerton.  And if Pinkerton was a live call-in public access show hosted by Chris Gethard, it'd be TCGS.  So yeah, this kicks ass. Also, inflatable dancing carrot!!!!

4. Free Energy - "Girls Want Rock" (Ep 85)

One of the few bands I was a fan of prior to playing TCGS, this performance made me love them ten times more.  So happy, catchy and full of life... they're just irresistible. To make it even sweeter, they asked a few of us to dance on stage with them later that week and it was easily the highlight of my year.

5. Mal Blum - "Baltimore" (Ep 49, 52:19)

If any performer was a kindred spirit of TCGS, it'd be Mal.

6. Night Birds (Ep 36, 21:19)

A great punk performance enjoyed by very aggressive fans who nearly broke our cameras (check out those TCGS crew hands in the foreground!)

7. The Toys and Tiny Instruments - "Lottery Ticket" (Ep 18)

They use toys as instruments, so that's cool. Also, they were probably the first completely bonkers, haven't-scene-anything-like-this-before, TCGS musical guests, so I'm pretty nostalgic about it.

8. Crazy & The Brains - "Saturday Night Live" (Ep 119)

There was magic in the air when C&tB performed.  If memory serves me, there were some industry bigwigs in the studio that drove a give-this-your-all energy into TCGS that night. C&tB are amazing and would've crushed it regardless, but the added pressure made involved everyone throw down even harder.

9. Fucked Up (Ep 97)

They're so good that instead of doing more of our own show, we made them play a third song. ...That's really good!

10. Jeff Rosenstock - "Eat More Butts" (Ep 124, 10:01)

Seamlessly coming off the heels of a 10 minute "Eat More Butts" chant, Jeff Rosenstock doesn't change the tune, he heightens it.  An impromptu jam putting electric in the air, I get giddy when this band chimes in.  This is my favorite episode of TCGS, and the Jeff Rosenstock band plays a huge part in it.

...That's all I got.  What do you think? What did I miss? My honorable mentions are Pearl And The Beard, Anamanaguchi, Ceramic Dog and Zs.

PS - Props to Heidi, Kiri & Zane for booking all this shit.

[kskill]

Real pumped to be seeing these guys again next Thursday.

[dolchnakovbrigade]

Here's a video from our last appearance on The Chris Gethard Show playing Drinks On Me. I think the crowd was a bit terrified in the beginning but ended up Palevishing it SO HARD! yet...still terrified.

[dolchnakovbrigade]

Drinks On Me. Photo by Adam Cohen.

[dolchnakovbrigade]

Taken with Instagram

[dolchnakovbrigade]

[dolchnakovbrigade]

New single debut - Drinks On Me

It sounds exactly as it looks!

[thechrisgethardshow]

6/20 on TCGS - OUR ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW

One year ago this week, The Chris Gethard Show made the transition from being a monthly stage show at the UCB Theater to a weekly live broadcast on Manhattan’s public access cable system and the internet. It was a rocky switch – the fan base of the stage show didn’t come with us, the bits we were used to didn’t play in the new medium, and we were definitely in over our heads right from the start.

BUT – it’s one year later and I am proud to say that I wouldn’t trade the last year of my life for the world. We – and by we I mean myself, all the comedians on the show, the show’s brain trust of organizers, our crew, our studio audience, our callers, our guests, and our fans – have come together and built something pretty odd and unique. We haven’t taken over the world just  yet. We haven’t put a huge dent in the side of the traditional entertainment industry. But we have had so much fun, and seen so much creativity unfold during our one hour a week together. We’ve had good bits and bad bits, wonderful films, unexpected animation, beautiful poems, sandwiches made with passion, mindblowing performances from bands, votes of confidence from people we respect, a presidential run, warped animations, and so much more.

On the occasion of our one year anniversary week, I want to thank EVERYONE who has been a part of this show for making this all happen. From me and JD and Noah and Dru sitting in diners outlining episodes to nervous kids who watch the show but are too scared to call in, THANK YOU. A million times over, THANK YOU. I hope this strange experiment we do together lasts forever – but even if it doesn’t, I think we would all agree that we were part of something weird.

I have two requests for our one year anniversary show -

1) If you watch the show and have been nervous about calling in, make this the week that you call in. 212-757-1393. This show revolves around a community of participants and I would love for you to be a part of it.

2) It would be amazing to me if this show was the one that had our most live viewers ever. If you are a supporter of the show, why not make this the week that you convince a buddy or two to check it out live? It feels like our first year celebration is a good occasion to try to trigger some momentum that way.

As for the show itself, we will have two major things happening in the studio -

THE DOLCHNAKOV BRIGADE shall return. Our palevish driven friends will grace us with their presence once again. I discovered the Dolchnakov Brigade by googling the phrase “the weirdest band in the world”. I booked them as soon as I saw them. We’ve gone from that distant relationship to recognizing each other as kindred spirits, then becoming frequent co-collaborators, and most importantly friends. I am so happy they are returning for this show.

THE HUMAN CRANE IS BACK! Viewers of the show may or may not know that the worst bit we’ve ever done – BY FAR – was called the Human Crane. It was a poorly conceived and even more poorly executed idea where I would be hung upside down and would grab prizes with my mouth, a la an arcade claw game. Al that really happened was that I got dropped on my head about six times on a concrete floor.

Well WE ARE GETTING THAT SHIT BACK. I am intent on doing the Human Crane again and getting it right, erasing one of our show’s lowest moments and replacing it with a positive and more optimistic version of that memory. They say it can’t be done! They say there’s no way to do the Human Crane in a way that will be exciting.

Well I’m going to Home Depot later today and I plan on spending as much as it takes to construct some sort of contraption that will allow this thing to happen the RIGHT WAY. I don’t know what it will involve, but probably some combination of wheels, piping, and chains.

It’s all about REDEMPTION this week when it comes to the Human Crane. To quote Bananaman, “Let’s do this!”

If you are in the New York area and want to be in the studio audience for this show, I’d LOVE to have you there. I think it is going to be such a fun, positive night. Email [email protected] for tickets.