Alternative Comedy Now And Then

Incredible four CD box set filled with influential and diverse U.K.-based Indie Pop and Rock acts that emerged from Great Britain in the broad wake of '80s Post-Punk. The Brit Box features all of the styles that wormed their way into the hearts of the music lovers during the late '80s, all through the '90s and beyond including Indie, Shoegaze, Baggy and Brit-Pop. While many artists featured here enjoyed superstar status in Mother England, their impact on U.S. charts was more peripheral but their stylistic imprint and collective uber-hip peer-pressure on late 20th century popular music overall is undeniable. With the respect given the '60s-era British Invasion in countless other compilations, Rhino's new trans-Atlantic ocean liner-sized box shaped to resemble a vintage UK phone booth with real flickering lights champions close to 80 independent acts that didn't so much reject mainstream musical sensibilities as spin it in their own fashion for hits that defined cool. Lovingly compiled with true oh to be in England spirit, Rhino hails Britannia with over five hours of tastemaker tracks.

In 1975, the Broadway musical Chicago brought together a host of memes and myths - the gleefully subversive character of American musical comedy, the reckless glamour of the big-city newspaper, the mad decade of the 1920s, the work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon (two of the greatest talents in the musical's history), and the Wild West gangsterville that was the city of Chicago itself. The tale of a young woman who murders her departing lover and then tricks the jury into letting her off, Chicago seemed too blunt and cynical at first.

When asked to describe himself, Whitmer Thomas comic, musician, skateboarder, infamous Blink182 fan will tell you, “I’m always gonna be the one whose mom called him ‘the Golden One,’ right before she died.” This is where his debut HBO comedy special, The Golden One, finds Whitmer: age thirty, investigating this sense (curse?) of destiny-as-identity. It’s been thirteen years since he left Alabama for LA, becoming a linchpin for LA’s young, independent comedy scene with Power Violence, the monthly show he hosted with friends.

Before Jon Lajoie was known as YouTube’s satirical rap-master “Everyday Normal Guy” or The League’s guitar-toting daydreamer “Taco,” he spent most of his time playing in bands in and around his hometown of Montreal. Wolfie’s Just Fine is his long-awaited return to making music independent of comedy.