Talking to people about what is commonly known as “alternative comedy” without talking to Janeane Garofalo would be like having a conversation about the “alternative rock” scene without mentioning Radiohead.

Janeane was very kind to sit with us deep in the sweaty bowels of the Upright Citizens’ Brigade Theatre and talk to us about the origins of the LA alt. comedy scene.

Liam McEneaney: Let’s start by talking about the LA comedy scene.

Janeane Garofalo: Regarding the LA alt. comedy scene; there have been a couple of people, sometimes when I do these interviews, say you’ve been credited with helping to start, I don’t know, that gives me way too much credit.  I don’t know how that could possibly be true.  I’m flattered anyone thinks that, and also alt. comedy, really in my mind, an alternative to a comedy club proper; it has nothing to do with content, it is, just meaning, that you are hard pressed to find time in comedy clubs, so you go on your own, try to find a space to do stand-up or, whether it be a coffee place, bookstore, bar, restaurant and that to me, is the alt comedy scene and yes there was, in 90’, 91’, myself and couple of other people; Dana Gould, Colin Quinn among others, I feel uncomfortable because I know I’m gonna leave peoples’ names out, who would go and seek out other places like the Big-n-Tall Bookstore, or different coffee shop,

Janeane Garofalo: But Beth Lapedis is instrumental in starting a scene like that, The Uncaberet, and that was a really important room; Largo, um, Flannigan’s Largo is incredibly important, and it also, I guess if there’s another alternative aspect to it, it is maybe the type of comics that were less jokey, or less able to write the hard and fast jokes that they could do a 5 mins set on (The Tonight Show with Johnny) Carson, because Carson was around at the time; that you didn’t have that, you were just more conversational, more finding your way, and outside the comedy clubs the audience was really great about that, they would really allow you to work on material or not, to even discuss something, “I was thinking about this thing and maybe you’ll find it funny,” or what have you.  If there was scene going on like that, which there probably was in the spoken word arena, I really didn’t know about it, and those poetry nights going on already, it sort of mixed with that.

LM: You started in the comedy clubs?

JG: Yes, I started doing stand-up in 1985, my first set was at a club called Periwinkles in Providence, Rhode Island inside a mall.

LM: Sounds like paradise.

JG: It was paradise…oh, the hilarity…

LM: I bet you just felt your creative wings spreading.

JG: Yes, well, I just did stand-up there. I was going to college there at the time, and also I would drive in to Boston to do open mics in Boston, and Houston, because my family lived in Houston.  Whenever I would come home, I would do comedy at the Comedy Workshop or The Laff Stop in Houston, so I actually was getting lots of stage time because in the mid ’80s through the mid ’90s you could get a lot of stage time and that’s not the case anymore.

LM: Would you say that the audiences you found in those clubs were different from the audiences that started coming in ’91 to the Big-n-Tall Bookshop?

JG: No, it depended on – the Comedy Workshop actually, and I think it had a lot to do with Bill Hicks, and some of the comics working in the 80’s and 70’s there, who were just different.  They weren’t hacky-jokey and they cultivated a very good audience in Houston, oddly, and especially not on Friday and Saturday nights.  Anybody that was going to see comedy Sunday through Thursday, were as good as the UCB audiences, here at the UCB Theater where we’re sitting.  And I did notice that in Houston, and I think that’s because, if you create that, where you have good smart comedy happening 7 days a week, there is an audience that will find that, especially the ones that are out there Sunday through Thursday.  Because they are different than someone who’s going on the weekend, like ‘we should go see comedy’ and they have an idea of what comedy is, I think for their entertainment dollar, which is a very standard-type of comic who’s gonna make them laugh right away and they don’t really have to think about it.  And also, unfortunately, on the weekends, it’s expensive, it’s too expensive; at the door you’re paying and a 2-drink minimum.  It really is a drag and it’s a different kind of audience, and so on Sunday through Thursday, you don’t have to do that, you don’t have to pay the two-drink minimum fee and the door is like 3 dollars or something like that.

For our concert film, Tell Your Friends!, we’ve been interviewing different comedians about all aspects of the business.  A few weeks ago, Jim Gaffigan sat down and talked to us at Comix about his earliest beginnings in New York’s comedy clubs, and what it took to get onstage.

Below is an excerpt from that interview.

LM: Ok. And what is a “bringer show?” Just for the audience.

JG: A “bringer show” is when you’re a new comic, and if you bring four people, or in some cases twenty people, to a show you can go on and do stand‐up.

LM: At a comedy club?

JG: At a comedy club.

LM: And did you do a lot of bringer shows?

JG: I did a couple of them, but you’d burn through your friends unless you were a social butterfly, you know. And I also wasn’t very interested in my friends seeing me do standup because it was incredibly awkward.

LM: So, when did you find yourself starting to do comedy clubs in New York?

JG: Well, I hung out at the original IMPROV, which was on 44th Street, for about three years, which was pretty standard back then. You would hang out and watch and then eventually when no one showed up you could go on. Well, I hung out for three years, and then they closed down. So, it was, when I really started getting spots, was maybe at the old GOTHAM around ‘97. I would sometimes get late night spots at the STRIP or an occasional spot at the COMEDY CELLAR, but I never got weekend spots until . . . I mean, I remember doing Letterman and not being able to get a weekend spot. Which is not that rare, you know. But, so, the weekend spots, you know . . .

LM: So you performed during the week at a comedy club?

JG: Yeah.

LM: And describe the audience, the weekday audience at, like, a traditional comedy club.

JG: At a traditional comedy club such as THE COMIC STRIP it would be people that had received a free pass to get in, or tourists, or people that were just drunk and kinda came in. It was not an ideal demographic for developing comedy.

LM: So it sounds like a very comfortable place to experiment . . .

JG: Yes.

LM: . . . and find your voice.

JG: It was perfect for a low‐energy Midwesterner to follow someone fucking a chair. [Laughter.] Yeah, so you know, some of it is, you know, you do stand‐up, you know, the first six or seven years you’re kinda finding your way, or you’re learning how to write for yourself. And, you know, environment has a lot to do with it, you know. If you follow someone who’s doing something that you know, that kinda spoils the audience. . . There’s a difference between being unfunny, and, you know, bringing out the devil in people. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, but then again it’s like, I think I’m a really easy comedian to follow, not that that’s something to brag about.

To really get into the alt. comedy scene that has evolved in NYC over the past twenty years, we’ve been interviewing people from all walks of comedy, from the fans to the industry to comedians, and talking to them about their careers and what alternative comedy means to them.  It’s been really really cool, talking to some of the comics I admire and emulate, and getting to talk shop with them about comedy and what their philosophy about it is.

If you only know Colin Quinn from “Tough Crowd” and SNL, you’d be surprised to learn that he’s the guy that people like Janeane Garofalo credit with inventing the style of comedy that’s considered “alternative.”

In our interview, shot at the Magnet Theatre, Colin talked about his humble beginnings, about how he felt when he started that only other comedians really got him, and about how, although she gives him all the credit, Janeane started the first real “alternative” comedy room in the mid-90s at Big & Tall Books.

Like all of the comedians we feature in the movie, he’s got the three most important qualities of a great comedian; funny, smart, and honest.