{"id":1667,"date":"2009-07-07T16:24:27","date_gmt":"2009-07-07T20:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=1667"},"modified":"2009-07-08T14:47:54","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T18:47:54","slug":"theset-nyc-at-le-poisson-rouge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/07\/theset-nyc-at-le-poisson-rouge\/","title":{"rendered":"theSet NYC at Le Poisson Rouge"},"content":{"rendered":"

A month ago, I posted about a wonderful weekend that included catching Altar Boyz<\/a> at New World Stages<\/a>. As a result (I assume) I received an email from Pim, a member of the team that founded theSet NYC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

theSet NYC is a great idea. Collect a group of talented performers and promote a show featuring a bunch of them on the same night. The idea is to give these people an alternative to the grind of a pure open mic night. Pim used to do standup comedy (and might again in the future), so he was well aware of the difficulties of getting the appropriate breaks.<\/p>\n

For the performers, it typically means a slightly longer set (roughly 15 minutes each) and a (hopefully) friendlier crowd. For the audience, it typically means a (slightly) more vetted group of performers (no one who just mustered up the courage five minutes ago to get up on the stage), and also a friendlier atmosphere (not oriented toward heckling, etc.).<\/p>\n

theSet NYC aims to put on a show once a month. They use a number of venues, one of which is the lounge at New World Stages, which is how I guess Pim ended up finding me.<\/p>\n

One of Pim\u2019s roles is blogger outreach. Once he connected with me via email, he invited me to attend their next show, which was last night, at Le Poisson Rouge<\/a> (LPR), in the Gallery Bar (downstairs, they also have a more traditional club upstairs<\/a>). The show fit with our schedule, so we decided to attend.<\/p>\n

\"Pim\"<\/a>
Pim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most of the shows have been free to date (including last night), though there\u2019s no guarantee of that in the future. We arrived at 7pm (the show started at 8pm) because we intended to eat (and drink) at Gallery Bar first.<\/p>\n

You can check out the menu<\/a> to see the eclectic range of food and drink offered there. Lois had the Edamame. She raved non-stop while she was eating them. I had the Spicy Tuna Roll (absolutely incredible), and the Sloppy Kobe Joes. Folks, I do believe that this is one of the most delicious things I\u2019ve ever eaten. Not quite a hamburger (because it\u2019s not pressed together in a patty, since it\u2019s a sloppy joe), and with a sauce that’s spicy (not hot, flavorful!) and fantastic.<\/p>\n

If theSet NYC did nothing else for us, it introduced us to a place that we will return to for the food alone, no doubt! In addition, the lovely bartender made me a perfect Chocolate Martini. Thanks!<\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/a>
Gallery Bar Bartender<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On to the show. Lois asked me to cover the performers in the order that we liked them, rather than in the order that they appeared. Seems fair enough to me, so here goes (I think we are in basic agreement on the order, but I\u2019m not double checking with her, so technically, this is my personal order):<\/p>\n

Evon Campbell<\/a> was the most consistently funny of the comedians (which dominated last night\u2019s show). He has a very relaxed style which relaxes the audience. He is then easily able to catch the audience off guard with very clever jokes that aren\u2019t easy to predict (the best kind). Here\u2019s a three minute video of him<\/a> from a previous theSet NYC show (he didn\u2019t repeat a single line from this clip last night!).<\/p>\n

\"Evon<\/a>
Evon Campbell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arthur Carlson<\/a> had the most professional delivery of the group last night. Here\u2019s a clip of a bit he did last night<\/a> as well. He was more in control<\/em> of the audience than the rest, and appeared more comfortable and self-assured on stage than the rest. I\u2019ll have a more general note at the end, in which I\u2019ll have some more to say about Arthur.<\/p>\n

\"Arthur<\/a>
Arthur Carlson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kai Raziq<\/a> hosted the evening. He didn\u2019t actually do any specific routines, but his style on stage was engaging, and we all chuckled at nearly everything he said, even though he wasn\u2019t telling any jokes<\/em> per se.<\/p>\n

\"Kai<\/a>
Kai Raziq<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alec Sobel<\/a> held his own reasonably well. He too has a professional quality to his delivery. Here is a link to a five minute video<\/a> that will give you a good sense of his style and genre. At the bottom of the page is a link to a different video that is a little less adult<\/em> in nature (not much, but perhaps a little cursing removed).<\/p>\n

\"Alec<\/a>
Alec Sobel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matt Rittberg<\/a> was close behind Alec in my opinion. While he too has a pretty good command of the stage, he relied a bit too much on sexual jokes, and isn\u2019t quite expert enough to walk that kind of tight rope. Here is a page with a variety of videos of Matt\u2019s routines<\/a> which includes stuff the seems cleverer than most of the material he did last night.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/a>
Matt Rittberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m going to present the next two performers (the only musical ones last night) in the order that Lois preferred them. For my taste, I would swap them, but I\u2019ll predict and respect Lois\u2019 choice.<\/p>\n

Adontay<\/a> sang two songs last night. The first was a cappella and we both enjoyed it more than we thought we would when he first started. Adontay has a very nice voice, and the song was pretty good too. Unfortunately, he didn\u2019t carry that through to the second number. In that one, he had a soundtrack (played off of a laptop). The song wasn\u2019t as good (in our opinion) and was a little too long. When the soundtrack ended, he continued a cappella, and to our ears, rambled off key and out of tune. He has a lot of talent, but he needs significantly more polish and practice.<\/p>\n

\"Adontay\"<\/a>
Adontay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stephanie Carlin<\/a> sang and played acoustic guitar. I think she has an excellent voice, plays the guitar well enough, and has a reasonable amount of stage presence. Unfortunately, neither of us was drawn to her two original songs. They brought her back on stage at the end because two of the scheduled performers didn\u2019t show up, and we somewhat preferred the two covers<\/em> she did then (a medley of Hit the Road Jack and Moondance). The raw talent (at least in the voice) is most definitely there, but the performance and musical selection isn\u2019t our personal cup of tea.<\/p>\n

\"Stephanie<\/a>
Stephanie Carlin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ranked last in both of our opinions, but opening the show (which made for a tense few minutes when we thought the rest of the night would be like this) was April Brucker<\/a>. Her delivery last night was completely flat (close to zero energy). She started with very crude sexual jokes about her roommate, and then brought out the roommate (from a suitcase), a puppet called May.<\/p>\n

\"April<\/a>
April Brucker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April describes herself as an Inappropriate Ventriloquist<\/em>. That\u2019s an incredibly apt description. She\u2019s a reasonably talented ventriloquist, and she\u2019s beyond inappropriate. I\u2019m sure that the college boys laugh like hell at that kind of shock you<\/em> humor.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t reconcile her lack of energy last night with this video<\/a>. In the video, she has tremendous energy, but the same crude humor. At the four minute mark, she introduces May, so you can get a sense of that part of the act last night as well.<\/p>\n

I have explained in a number of posts how much I love comedy (and laughing) in all forms, even crude ones. Lois isn\u2019t as forgiving of pure crudeness, which she (correctly) equates with comic laziness. In other words, it\u2019s easier to get a laugh by shocking<\/em> your audience (especially if you\u2019re female) than by actually being clever.<\/p>\n

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all time, and he never resorts to cursing. He doesn\u2019t resort to much sexual innuendo either, and when he does, it\u2019s high level enough to be acceptable even if kids are in the room.<\/p>\n

If I wasn\u2019t sitting with Lois, and analyzing in my head the fact that a crude joke probably just rubbed her the wrong way, I would enjoy the crudeness a bit more myself. Still, fundamentally, I agree with her that it\u2019s a cheap<\/em> way to get a laugh.<\/p>\n

That said, I mentioned above that I would circle back to Arthur Carlson. He had two routines that were 100% sexual in nature. One was actually gross (if you attempted to visualize it). Yet, I laughed like hell at both (even the gross one), and even Lois chuckled at the gross one, and liked the other one a lot.<\/p>\n

There were three things that made us\/Lois react differently to Arthur\u2019s sexual jokes than to most other such references:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. His delivery is so professional that you\u2019re listening to a true joke teller, not someone just trying to deliver a crude one-liner.<\/li>\n
  2. Both jokes were very inventive. The punch lines weren\u2019t predictable, so it wasn\u2019t shock value that made you laugh, it was the imagery and the comedic absurdity of what he was saying.<\/li>\n
  3. It was a change of pace<\/em> for him. Since he was able to tell a bunch of clean jokes too, telling a clever<\/strong> sexual joke caught the audience more off guard than when they are coming at you one after another.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    While this isn\u2019t really Lois\u2019 idea of a perfect night out, we both had a really good time, and would recommend catching a theSet NYC show to anyone who is interested in seeing fresh talent, in good quantity, in reasonably contained sets (in case any one performer isn\u2019t to your liking), in a very pleasant and supportive atmosphere. If it\u2019s in the Gallery Bar at Le Poisson Rouge, then we can recommend the food and drink very highly as well!<\/p>\n

    Thanks again to Pim for reaching out, and to Leo (the producer of the show) for making it happen!<\/p>\n

    \"Leo\"<\/a>
    Leo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A month ago, I posted about a wonderful weekend that included catching Altar Boyz at New World Stages. As a result (I assume) I received an email from Pim, a member of the team that founded theSet NYC. theSet NYC is a great idea. Collect a group of talented performers and promote a show featuring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15,3,17,2],"tags":[85,419,457,1371,1366,458,1365,456,455,1367,453,454],"class_list":["post-1667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dining","category-food","category-3","category-music","category-2","tag-a-cappella","tag-altar-boyz","tag-arthur-carlson","tag-comedy","tag-dining","tag-evon-campbell","tag-food","tag-gallery-bar","tag-le-poisson-rouge","tag-music","tag-new-world-stages","tag-thesetnyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1676,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions\/1676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}