National Post (National Edition)
Comic selects his audience as carefully as his jokes.
ARMISEN’S ARE AT THEIR BEST WHEN BLEEDING INTO SKETCHES RATHER THAN PUNCH LINES
In his new Netflix special, Standup for Drummers, Fred Armisen adopts the distinctively skeptical tone of an observational comedian when asking,“Doweeverneedtobringour own cymbals?”
The audience, made up exclusively of drummers, chuckles. Minutes later, he cracks another rhetorical joke: “Is it me or is it justsohardtogetasnaredrumto be exactly the right way?”
It’s not just him, but I confess I have no idea what he’s talking about. I recognize the rhythms of the joke, and can tease out the generalmeaningwiththehelpof context, but as a nondrummer, this joke is not intended for me. Nor doesitneedtobe.
There’s an old-school belief that great comedy should work for all audiences. It’s never been entirely true. Taste varies wildly, and some of the best comedy, like the finest film or theatre or art, can be obscure, esoteric or simply too odd, dirty or absurd to attract the biggest crowds. But in a splintered culture, where there are more options than ever, comedians are increasinglyaimingfornarrower niches.
Standup for Drummers is the logical extension of this trend, when you create your jokes but also curate your crowd. Of course you don’t need to be in that room of drummers to see his special, which is what makes watching it on Netflixdisorienting.Armisen,thePortlandia star who’s also a drummer, delivers his material as if everyone is deeply conversant with doublekick drum pedals and high hats. He appears to want to be relatable, even when he isn’t.
Attimes,thatmakesitseemas if he’s doing a spoof, poking fun at the kind of hipster-in-a-bubble character he often lampoons on Portlandia. And there is a knowing wink here. But the more you watch, the more his set comes across as a labour of love, comedy he hopes everyone likes, even though it caters to a small segment. And what’s wrong with that?
Drummers laugh, too, and material about them isn’t exactly everywhere. You won’t find any otherstandupspecialwithimitations of Keith Moon, Meg White and Larry Mullen Jr.; or one that pokes fun at the lighting in instructional videos for drummers. And for those who don’t know anything about this world, there is fun to be had observing this clubby atmosphere from the outside.
Armisen has long been a bridge between the comedy and music worlds, after his 11 years on Saturday Night Live with a job as the bandleader on Late Night WithSethMeyers.OnPortlandia, he has done sketches filled with musicians like one this year about a reunion of aging punk rockers, which starred Henry Rollins, Krist Novoselic (formerly of Nirvana) and the Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty. Some of Standup for Drummers operates as a history lesson, as when he plays drum kits from differentdecades,describinghow the instrument has changed.
Armisen is much more seasoned as a sketch performer and actor than a standup and it often shows. His setups are repetitive, his transitions awkward and some of the jokes aren’t fully formed. “Aren’t crazy people crazy?” is a linethatshouldbecut.
But someone with such diverse talents would be wasted toiling away at a comedy club. Armisen’s jokes are at their best when they bleed into sketches, when they lean on characters rather than punch lines in his own voice. In one premise, he says that doo-wop was once considered as edgy and angry as heavy metal. Then he puts on some doo-wop music and imagines what a kid from the 1950s getting his mind blown would look like. His performance is all flailing limbs and coiled attitude, evoking a whole type in a few brief flourishes.
Part of what makes him gifted at these caricatures is his perceptive ear for the eccentric ways people talk, pointing out oddball pieces of rhetoric and habits of speech. He also displays a gift for accents. At one point, he puts up a video of a mapofAmericaandgoesstateby state, demonstrating the accent of everymajorcityinthecountry.It’s a marvel, and not entirely off point, since local differences are the kind of thing bands on tour know.
There’s something wonderful about the idea of trying to speak to everyone. But in our divided, siloed culture, who really believes that’s possible? Just as politicians play to their base, comedians now find their specific audiences.
The future of comedy is not in the size of your crowd, but in the depth of its passion. And the connection between performer and fan can be cemented with inside jokes, the shared, exclusive language of close friends. Something is lost in this shift away from monoculture, but only the rigidly nostalgic will insist nothing has been gained.