About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 2011)
fan Tig No taro Great Timing, Alwayj Tourincj and Never Tweetincj ho doesn't love a good spit-take? Maybe the longest-running—and perhaps the broadest—comic tradi tion, the spit-take's charm lies in its simplic ity: take a drink, receive shocking information and promptly expectorate. On “The Sarah Silverman Program," actor Jay Johnston, upon learning of some surprise, which is for our purposes irrelevant, goes all out, projecting a full gulp of coffee directly to his left. But it's the recipient of this comedic device that makes the joke land: Tig Notaro (in uniform and in character, as, duh, “Officer Tig") sits, dripping with caffeinated drink, incredulous. For what feels like eons. "Really?" she finally asks, slowly gesturing around the room. “There's so many other places you could've..." The key element of this scene, as with any kind of comedy, is not the spray of coffee but rather the timing. This is Tig Notaro's secret weapon: after 14 years of stand-up and come dic acting, the Los Angeles native has sharp ened her joke-telling patience and precision to a fine point. In a stand-up comedy landscape populated by screaming, sweaty over-com pensators, Notaro stands out as an equally dry and wry comedienne who allows the space in between the set-up and the punchline to work its magic, creating maximum tension before the air is punctured with the perfectly sharp verbal jab. This kind of patience is in turn very useful, particularly when one is being subjected to multiple spit-takes in an effort to get just the right shot. "It was a lot," she laughs, when asked how many times the aforementioned clip had to be filmed to get a shot without someone on set cracking up. "I would say it took... oh, I would say, five or six times. Which is a lot when you're getting spit in the face." Flagpole spoke to Notaro as she was en route to Toronto on the jaunt that will eventu ally bring her to her final tour date in Athens; following which she'll fly to Los Angeles, shortly thereafter head to Austin, continue driving up through the Midwest and... it goes on like that. A quick glance at her website finds tour dates listed through April of 2012. “It's just never-ending," she says. "It's been pretty crazy, but it's a great problem to have. It's definitely a first-world problem. "I've worked on TV shows with acting and then doing local Los Angeles shows, but my passion is stand-up, so I like to get out and be able to do it," she continues. "You can't do more than 10 to 15 minutes at shows in Los Angeles because it's so over-saturated with comedians. Your time onstage is so limited, so in order to really work on my show or jokes, I have to go out on the road. And plus, that's where I make the majority of my money." Notaro's hard-touring work ethic and unique approach custom fit her for the so- called "alternative comedy" scene which has thrived over the last 10 years. She came across her record label, Secretly Canadian, after an unlikely tour with Swedish singer/song writer Jens Lekman. "I was doing the comedy stage at South by Southwest three years ago, and he came to my show, introduced himself and told me he was a fan of my comedy," Notaro says. "And then he invited me to his show, and I thought he was just amazing. And I remember hearing word that Michael Stipe was there in the audience. It was funny going from not knowing who Jens Lekman was to seeing him in this huge venue and knowing that Michael Stipe was there to see him." Through that tour, Notaro was able to meet the Secretly Canadian family, and she recently released the label's sole comedy release: her debut album Good One. On tour and out in the world is where Notaro thrives, and that excludes the Internet. She has zero interest in Twitter, a platform that many comedians have taken advan tage of, due to its built-in limita tions; it has created a wealth of one-liners from users such as Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt. Unsurprisingly, Notaro takes issue not only with the glued-to- the-screen vibe, but also the lack of nuance. "I have been avoiding it just because it doesn't interest me as far as constantly being online and updating and getting stuffed into the Internet world the way that a lot of people do," she says. "I also think that there's a particular delivery: people tweet in kind of the same rhythm, and it almost strips a lot of people of their unique voice. A lot of tweets kind of sound similar. I don't know, maybe I'll be late to the party and start a Twitter account in 10 years." Jeff Tobias WHO: Tig Notaro, Matt O’Meara, Shalewa Sharpe, Matt Gilbert, Andrea Boyd, Luke Fields WHERE: Caledonia Lounge WHEN: Thursday, Aug. 25, 9 p.m. HOW MUCH: $8 (21+). $19 (18+) V J Thank You: I'd like to take some time here to give a huge shout-out and thank you to long time Athens music journalist Julie Phillips. She's best known in the music scene as the features/arts and entertainment editor for the Athens Banner-Herald, but she amicably left that position last week to focus on a new career. Phillips began writing for the ABH in 1996, and her first interview was with Vic Chesnutt. At that time the paper didn't have a music editor, so she quickly became, in her words, "the de-facto entertainment editor." She adds, "That was such an honor—being able to meet so many great musicians and, even beyond the music, just great people." Phillips was keen to cover every aspect of Athens music and her enthusiasm for the task never seemed to wane. She has her own band, too, with Kyle Dawkins, called Maps & Transit. Last year she established the Athens Music & Arts blog (www.athensmu- sicandarts.tumblr.com), which she plans to keep running. She has been an aerial skills and dance instructor as well as a member of the performing company at Canopy Studio for a long time, and her new career is kind of an offshoot of that experience. She has been in New York I training in the therapeutic exercise known as body rolling and says: "I knew that if I left the paper I didn't want to go straight back to work behind a desk. I wanted to be able to use my experience with Canopy and help peo ple that were in pain." She has started docu menting her journey over at www.bodyrolling. tumblr.com. Although she may not be covering the music scene for the ABH anymore, she's not leaving Athens. "There's nowhere else I'd want to live," she says. You can check out her own music via www.mapsandtransit.com. So, thank you, Julie, for always being such an ardent and tireless supporter of Athens arts culture. Your reporting will be missed, but we'll see ya 'round town. Elissa Remembered: Sparkle Song is a cel ebration of Elissa Hadley's music at 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 27 at Nuqi's Space. Confirmed acts include Caroline Aiken, Scott Simpson (formerly of Lenny), Jane Stebbins, Matthew Kahler, Kodac Harrison and Neal Fountain. Melissa sang for a lot of bands here before concentrating her creative energies in the the ater, where she continued to be popular and hard working, onstage and behind the scenes. The show is free, but a contribution to Nuqi's Space will be appreciated. [Pete McCommons] Faster Than a Ray of Light: Manray has put the finishing touches on its debut album, Tournament!, and the band is hitting the road later this month for a solid string of shows up and down the East Coast. The album is scheduled for release sometime this fall on Hello Sir Records. The band, affectionately crowned as the leaders of new-school compli- core (as in "complicated") by, urn, me, several months ago, has embraced the term, so feel free to refer to them as such. For the uniniti ated, Manray's sound pulls from math rock, metal, punk, hardcore and even a smidgen of non-boring prog rock. More information can be found over at www.manrayband.tumblr.com and www.facebook.com/Manray.band. Has Become Cumbersome: Local, middle-of- the-road, hard rock Taste Like Good reports that its guitarist Taylor Bracewell, a member for less than a year, has left the group to go to school in Atlanta. The next few shows will be done as a three-piece with remain ing members Carey Welsh, Steve Harris and Brian Carey. Maybe this will give the band the opportunity to dump its 1990s guitar his trionics and rethink its "Alternative Nation" (MTV show cancelled in 1997)-styled songwrit ing. You can sample what I'm talking about over at www.facebook.com/tastelikegood. The band next plays locally at the Caledonia Lounge on Sept. 1 with Thieves Market and Atlanta band The Acorns. < Take a Date: Tickets are on sale now for Indigo Girls' Oct. 6 performance at The Classic Center. Opening the show are fellow Decatur residents Roxie Watson, a five- piece string band. Visit www.ClassicCenter.com or call (706) 357-4444 to purchase. Tickets are $40, $35 and $25. The Indigo Girls' his tory and the band's relationship to Athens are much too long to talk about here, but you can find all you need over at www.indigogirls.com. The Line Forms Here: Longtime drummer Jason Scarboro has left Dead Confederate to concentrate on family life, and the guys in the band say that he will "always have 100 percent of [their] love and support." Friend of the band and Los Angeles resident, but Augusta native, J.J. Bower will handle drums for the band in most capacities, and Jim Crook (All The Saints) will help out on very short tours around the Southeast. As for the much-in-demand sets where Dead Confederate covers Neil Young's Tonight's the Night in its entirety, Jeremy Wheatley will be behind the drums and Matt Stossel will play pedal steel. In other news, the band reports that it has been working on demos and rehearsing new material with its eye on commencing record ing some new stuff before the new year. Catch Dead Confederate live in Athens on Oct. 22 at the Georgia Theatre. Hit That Perfect Beat: If you're just back in town and haven't seen the changes Go Bar made over the summer, then how about waltz ing down there and checking out the velvet curtains and notice how much better it sounds in there. Actually, how about this: head down on Friday, Aug. 26 when Orenda Fink (Azure Ray) and Nina Twin (AKA Nina Barnes) do a collaborative performance art show. Oh yeah, how about checking out some of Nina Twin's artwork over at www.geminitactics.com? And, while we're at it, how about I just keep making suggestions until you're sick of the sight of them? Gordon Lamb threatsandpromises@flagpole.com Indigo Girls 14 FLAGPOLE.COM-AUGUST 24, 2011
