Comedian Gallagher’s distinctive voice cuts through on this clear and precise May 2014 recording from Pasadena, California’s Ice House. On this CD the comic is smart, observant, absurd and absolutely funny. With a Parental Advisory/Explicit Content sticker on the right-hand bottom corner of the CD cover, one needs to study the compelling art work with a Gallagher caricature(courtesy of artist Phil Roberts) – the Edison/Einstein light bulb inside the jester’s cap, one face with an intriguing color scheme taking up half the face in a sort of/kind of nod to Star Trek The Next Generation’s major enemy, the Borg
“You can get an idea from anything” says the professor while lecturing to those who appear to attend the concert to face the humiliation, but it isn’t aimed at anyone specific. Gallagher’s genius is that he attacks things, place and people, and generally uses a broad brush. If he does single out someone it is all in good fun, adult fun – of course – but still good fun.
Produced by Uproar Entertainment’s David Drozen with engineering from Steven Carthy (he’s worked on the films Kungfu Monks in America, Outta Moves and on the TV series documentary Independent Lens) Gallagher is completely on. With bits entitled The Bible, Relationships, Confusion, Our Judicial System you know that the jumping off point leads to tons of ingenious digression with quick scrutiny and inspection of aspects of all sorts of things, over under sideways and down.
Though he can be gruff when explicit, the bursts of outrageousness are merely sagacity on display. The profound wisdom is turned upside down, especially when asking how aliens will react to illogical mankind long after the nuclear winter evacuates the planet. Gallagher’s cynicism is cloaked in a matter-of-fact colloquialism – giving the audience the props for being smart enough to come to his show. Gallagher is a self-proclaimed genius and treats the audience with the obvious: he’s the authority and your acknowledgment of that means you are pretty intelligent as well. And inside that notion is the fact that the disc is non-stop funny.
Gallagher will appear in Beverly, MassachusettsLarcom Theater Beverly, MA gallaghersmash.com 13 Wallis St, Beverly, MA 01915 (978) 927-3677
Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com, Gatehouse Media, Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, and a variety of other media outlets. Joe also produces and hosts Visual Radio, a seventeen year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed Jodie Foster, director/screenwriter David Koepp, Michael Moore, John Cena, comics/actors Margaret Cho, Gilbert Gottfried, Gallagher, musicians Mark Farner and Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad, Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals, political commentator Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities.
