Friday Night in the City

I'm generally not a huge fan of stand-up comedy, but years ago I stumbled upon Marc Maron (MySpace) on some TV special and was instantly won over by his sense of humor. He's intellectual, very left-wing, dark, angry, twisted and self-deprecating... my kind of guy. I don't quite know why his humor resonates with me so much. He can come off as kind of an asshole. But a highly entertaining asshole. The kind of guy I'd love to hang out and drink with. If he still drank. He did a weekend at the Punchline Comedy Club in San Francisco and I met up with Pamela and her friend from NYC on Friday night to go see him perform. He did not disappoint. I was one ear-to-ear grin the whole time. I even got to chat with him briefly after the show. Good fun!

After that, we hung out at Pamela's place in SF for a bit before she went off to some DJ thing and I went to the Rickshaw Stop (a small club in SF) to hear The American Music Club, a great indie rock band led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Mark Eitzel.


Eitzel recently moved from San Francisco to LA and subsequently put together a whole new version of the band with only the other guitarist remaining. The show was the first on a long tour, and one of only two shows in the US. It was quite good, but the band hadn't had a chance to learn much old material, so 90% of the setlist was new material from their upcoming album. I would have liked to hear a few more old tunes, but it was great to finally hear them live at all.