By trade, I am a comedian.

Or, rather, _was_ a comedian. It's been years since I've made a professional dabble into that particular entertainment medium. Around-town open-mic sessions keeping an immature high school audience in stitches made my Bridgeton, New Jersey comedy career really take off. Keen observations about the rigors of high school, why chicks are so messed up, and, of course, farts-- all terribly original topics for a stand-up comedian, no?-- hit home with my sixteen-to-seventeen-year-old fan base.

Then I got to college and nobody thought I was funny anymore.

I decided to shift my medium; jokes about chicks and school and farts became, well, songs about chicks and school and farts. Armed with my guitar and pal Austin-- incidentally, another singing comedian-- we formed comedic acoustic power trio Bohemian Man Fair. And as it turns out, people ate it up (and are still eating it up to this day: look for our first album, Banned on the Run, sometime next year). Which, in turn, led to a wonderful epiphany: if you sing it, it's funny.

**

As it turns out, singer/songwriter Stephen Lynch ascribes to this particular philosophy. When an enthusiastic fan at a Bohemian Man Fair show described our music as the intersection of Tenacious D, Barenaked Ladies, and Lynch, I felt an urgent need to give the man from whom, apparently, we'd cribbed a certain amount of inspiration a cursory listen. With two albums to his name (as well as a DVD, a Comedy Central Presents special, and innumerable tours and television appearances), Lynch is becoming a pretty hot comic property.

Lynch's gimmick-- because as every good singing comedian worth his salt knows, you gotta have a gimmick-- is, oddly enough, his talent. Other people of his ilk-- myself included-- do comedy because they haven't the chops to do anything serious. Lynch's voice is not merely passable; it's a set of pretty marvelous pipes, especially for someone totally content with being a total goof-off. Evidently, in his college years, he was a force to be reckoned with theatrically, snagging leads in plays like "Grease" and "Jesus Christ Superstar". Somewhere along the line, though, Lynch picked up a guitar and sold his soul for laughs.

Now, the thing about Stephen Lynch's joke songs: they're offensive. Not mildly offensive, but, usually, recklessly so. He takes glee in making the audience alternate between laughs and horrified gasps; in part, surely, it's the doe-eyed sincerity of his on-stage demeanor-- not to mention, that angelic voice-- that makes it so shocking. The size of it is this: off-stage Lynch is a genuinely nice guy, appreciative of and kind to his ever-growing audience; on-stage, he exists to piiss that same audience off. No joke is too twisted for Lynch, whether it's imagining himself as a world-famous gynecologist (and all the puns and innuendoes that accompany such a dream) in "Dr. Stephen," hoping for the speedy death of an aging patriarch so he can collect a fat inheritance check in "Grandfather," or, perhaps most gasp-worthy, assuming the role of a Catholic "Priest" in the wake of that nasty child molestation scandal (yes, the worst kind of priest).

Lynch's second album, Superhero, is entirely live. This already gives it a nudge over his first, A Little Bit Special, which contains songs that would eventually become live favorites, but in poorly-arranged, lethargic versions. He relies on crowd interaction, is fueled by their laughter and, on occasion, their gasps of horror. When the minor-key, Leonard Cohen-esque intro of "Talk To Me" segues into the bouncy, sprightly chorus-- wherein the narrator deals with the repercussions of his father catching him in the throes of self-flagellation-- the audience yuks its approval. Half the fun is hearing the audience's reaction to Lynch's punchlines, which are likely to pop up in the hook after a sincere-sounding first verse. This approach to songwriting makes things pretty predictable sometimes, but half the fun is anticipating what exactly the joke will be. Hearing the audience draw in a collective horrified breath at the end of "For the Ladies"-- which, it shall suffice to say, involves the narrator dreaming up a way to deal with an unexpected pregnancy-- is fun, as is listening to them shout out suggestions for potential superheroes far too crude for the Justice League in the lengthy midsection of "Superhero." For the song itself, Lynch assumes the role of a hilarious fey teacher telling his students that they can be anything they want-- even a superhero, much like his own song subjects Awesome Man, Justice Guy, Drug-Free Boy, and Immigration Dude.

"if you could be a superhero, would you be Justice Guy?
making sure people get what they deserve... especially women who lie
like if a wife left her husband with three kids and no job
to run off to frickin' hawaii with some doctor named bob
you could skin them and drain them of blood 'till they die...
then you would be Justice Guy!"

The album peaks on three duets between Lynch and best pal/partner-in-crime Mark Teich. Their trade-offs and harmonies make "She Gotta Smile" (Lynch and Teich eyeball a woman at a local bar, only to find, to their chagrin, that a "big fat friend" is blocking every attempt), "Best Friends Song" (Lynch and Teich sing about their similarities as friends, but halfway through Teich finds that Lynch is using him as a gateway to bedding his sister), and "D&D" (Lynch and Teich trade verses about the virginal Dungeons & Dragons players from high school) a lot more fun than any solo performance. My favorite, from "Best Friends Song":

Teich: "I like my toast buttered..."
Lynch: "...and I'll take mine dry.."
Teich: "I like the Beatles..."
Lynch: "I'm a Stones kinda guy.."
Teich: "I have fine taste.."
Lynch: "...and I like things cheap.."
Teich: "I wanna stay up all night...
Lynch: "...I just wanna sleep.... with your sister."

**

As offensive and predictable as Lynch can be, he can also spark, in those of us with less mature senses of humor, fits of laughter. Fans of highbrow humor-- or, for that matter, serious music-- should just walk on by; everyone else-- presuming, of course, that you're not easily offended-- can give 'im a try.

Which one am I? Well, since being compared to Lynch, the members of Bohemian Man Fair have worked on another of his songs, "Ugly Baby," and incorporated it into their live show, have seen him in concert at Boston's Orpheum Theatre, and have given up all hope of ever writing serious songs.

I'm sure you can judge which.






Recommended: Yes