Worst Gig Ever With Geoff Garlock And Mike Pace

"Loveable curmudegon" Pam Murphy makes an appearance on the show this week, convivially complaining about everything from her rental car, Los Angeles, coming from New Jersey, inexplicably moving to New Mexico in her twenties, transitioning from a job in finance to comedy, getting a tv pilot, auditioning for commercials, getting cancer and then making an award-winning one-woman show about it, and about how your perception of yourself is always completely different from everyone else's.  Lots of light 'n love on this WORST GIG EVER.  Plus, it's the return of Philm Korner, where Mike and Geoff dissect the Nicolas Cage classic, 8MM.

Keith Murray: women want him, men want to be him, large animals aren't that crazy about him.  The We Are Scientists frontman yaks about the band's early days playing shitty gigs with comedians, slicing his hand open at a "showcase," that magical first meeting with Oxford Collapse, living in a "band house" in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, working as a script reader, makin' funny videos, and how his most receptive audience wasn't at a WAS show.  One of the 2007 Runners-Up in the World's Sexiest Vegetarian contest is pure gold this week on WORST GIG EVER!  Plus, other funny schtuff!

Tag-team action as Mike and Geoff take on the wonderfully weird comedy duo of Mark Bisi and Andy Beckerman, better known as Wrestling Team.  Mark 'n Andy divulge their yinzer musical beginnings in the Iron City of Pittsburgh and their gradual morphing into the absurd goof troupe that is Wrestling Team.  A slew of bad shows follows for all the right reasons (vaginas in jars, playing for punks, bit about Karl Rove and Machiavelli).  The guys also talk about the origins of their great podcast Beginnings, which gets into the nuts and bolts of doing creative shit.  WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN WORST GIG EVER RUNS WILD ON YOU?

The Joggers' singer/guitarist, Ben Whitesides, makes an appearance this week to talk about his ska past, starting a band in Portland before the "careerists" moved in, touring the vast western midwest, and Adam Sandler. There's also a litany of memorably bad shows from Pittsburgh to Anaheim, featuring everything from masturbation to murder! It's a funny and touching episode of WORST GIG EVER about one of the great unsung underground bands of the past ten years.

Funnywoman Amber Nelson gabs with us about the ins and outs of stand-up and improv in New York, being seduced by directors, performing with her mom, growing up in Saudi Arabia, and then goes on to relate one of the most horrific stories we've ever heard about feces and working with the elderly.  It's a must-listen this week on WORST GIG EVER! Plus, the debut of Mike & Geoff's Philm Korner!

This week we welcome Ezra Feinberg, mastermind behind San Francisco/New York-based soft-psych juggernaut CITAY.  Ezra entertains us with tales of playing mental institutions in Massachusetts, van engines bursting into flames in Pennsylvania, getting pelted by beer bottles by friends of Slipknot in Iowa, and the heartbreak of playing sold-out shows immediately followed by performing to empty rooms.  Tour stories galore on this ep of WORST GIG EVER! 

Jokes abound when master improviser Micah Sherman joins Mike and Geoff to talk about doing disastrous stand-up in "urban" rooms (and why he doesn't do stand-up comedy anymore), his early days in a funky slap bass college musical duo, swapping stories with Robert Forester on the set of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and why Danny DeVito is a true renaissance man; all in all a classic ep of WORST GIG EVER!  Micah's got a brand new musical comedy cd called Please Be Seated, czech it out!

Virtuouso musician/comic (or comic/musician) Dave Hill plops down with Mike and Geoff to ponder amps, pedals, his myriad of musicial experiences both good and bad, falling into comedy, as well as continually diverging to discuss whatever comes to mind.  Dave follows through with a fantastic, epic tale of one of the worst gigs we've ever heard; involving friends, coins being thrown, beer being splashed, and general all-out mayhem (for more Dave, check out his book, Tasteful Nudes, at B. Dalton or other fine book sellers).  Plus, this ep features a bonus interview with a former member of ELP!

Man about town Chris Gethard stops by WORST GIG EVER to chat extensively about mid 90's Northeast pop-punk, the power of failing, what really happened with Big Lake, the freedom of his public access show, his new deal with IFC, reading his own reviews, and just doin' shit.  Like the best Jawbreaker songs, there's a lot of heart mixed in with catchy, fun stuff.  Plus, Mike and Geoff hang out on the roof!

Between !!!, Outhud, and The Yah Mos, Nic Offer's been playing squats, punk houses, clubs, festivals, and arenas for going on twenty years.  Nic hunkers down with Mike and Geoff to talk about selling sno cones and promo cds on tour to make extra scratch, performing in a civil war-era prison, dealing with an epic week-long van breakdown in Arkansas, and dealing with !!!'s rise from basement shows to winning over fans while opening for the Red Hot "Chi Peps."  He's also way punker than we'll ever be - find out why on this week's WORST GIG EVER. ITUNES USERS: GO HERE NON-ITUNES (LO)USERS: GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3s!

There's plenty of punnery when the hilarious Myq Kaplan drops "backstage" to pontificate on the difficulty of opening for bands, roasting old Italian men (and coffee at Starbucks), performing comedy outdoors and "in the round."  Myq's also got a musical background, which we delve into, and a new musical CD with his partner Micah Sherman called "Please Be Seated," that's available for pre-order now.  There's barrels of wordplay and laffs galore on this week's WORST GIG EVER, brought to you by Muhpopolvuh Meat Can!

You probably know that former Editors guitarist/keyboardist/pro wrestling obsessive is a talented bloke who helped bring his band to the forefront of the UK "indie" scene with his uncanny ability to paint bleak aural landscapes informed by his native Birmingham (how's that for an awful sentence?). But did you also know that the dude is HILARIOUS?  Chris jumps into the WORST GIG EVER fray, dropping pithy asides while sharing tales of dealing with the lack of tour bus toilets, showering "cocks out" with bus drivers at festivals, gruesomely destroying his fingernail, and why Ric Flair v. Harley Race at Starrcade '83 is the most overrated wrestling match of all-time.  

The relentless upbeat Jodi Lennon stops by WORST GIG EVER to spread some P.M.A. and somehow gets away with it!  Jodi traces her history from the Chicago improv scene to the Big Apple and landing on the early Comedy Central sketch show Exit 57, (featuring younger versions of Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris), to making The Voice of Something, a documentary about comic Marc Maron in the wake of 9/11.  Along the way, Jodi makes a case for needing the drama, dealing with small crowds, and why she thinks Greenpoint, Brooklyn stinks.  This ep also features a special guest appearence by the wackiest funnyman this side of Margaritaville, COCONUT JONES!

Andy Adler, erstwhile bassist for Crystal Stilts, pontificates on regional snacks and sodas, breaking bass strings and blowing up amps shows, Irish cops, and playing at sushi places.  The ins and outs of touring (driving, crashing, killing time, van mishaps) are thrown on the operating table and dissected for your listening pleasure.  Lots of inside baseball on this week's WORST GIG EVER.

The veritable Prince of All Media, Jake Fogelnest welcomes us to his posh hotel room to chat about his beginings as a 15 year old wunderkind interviewing Cypress Hill in his bedroom on public access and later MTV, getting involved with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, VH1's Best Week Ever, and Sirius Satellite Radio.  Oh, and there's plenty of talk about alcohol and heroin addiction, the decaying New York of the early 90s and gentle, loving jibes towards the Cro-Mags. This episode of WORST GIG EVER is brought to you by Brodie's Giardiniera.

Jon Fine - mild-mannered media analyst by day, axe-slinging paragon of post-whatever indie rock by night - shares tales from his more than twenty years of slugging it out in the trenches in an assortment of legendary outfits.  From van breakdowns, canceling shows, and breaking knuckles in the dusty pre-Internet days of the early nineties, to destroying his guitar onstage in a fit of rage during a recent Bitch Magnet reunion show in Japan, Fine has seen and done most of it, if not all.  Young whippersnappers are sure to learn a thing or three from this elder statesman of the Alternative Nation.  And yes, "Alternative Nation" was the best we could come up with.

Gentleman Pete Schultz has an ideal WORST GIG EVER pedigree: he used to play in a hardcore band called Crisis Bureau, slugged it out in the trenches with a bunch of shit jobs, and now writes for Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live.  Howie do it?  Take a listen, as Pete's tale is one for ages; wrought with crummy bringer punk shows, fitting customers for running shoes, taking the SATs at age 30, and almost getting sued by Vincent Gallo.  Beat the heat this week with Pete!

Freshkills frontman and VICE scribe Zach Lipez paints a grimy portrait of pre-Strokesian New York and all of the beer-soaked and drug-fueled insanity that comes with being an incredibly charming journeyman rock dude.  Plus his take on partying too hard before shows, playing benefit shows for meth heads, and vomiting into a bucket onstage. There's plenty of pigfuck on this week's WORST GIG EVER.

Longtime UCB improv/sketch/stand-up guru Will Hines begins this episode like a songbird and quickly transforms into a "Little Buddha," dispensing choice tidbits about zen and the art of motorcycle improvising.  From coping with those sleepless nights filled with anxiety to bombing in front of hundreds of people while wearing a Janet Jackson-esque headset to seeing "Baby: The Secret of the Lost Legend" in the theater when he was sixteen, Will "brings da pain" (and sweat) to this week's WORST GIG EVER.

Sam Axelrod drops "backstage" with multiple tour diaries in tow, cherrypicking his favorite worst gigs and recalling each in graphic detail.  Follies in Japan? Got 'em.  Promoters shaming the band?  Here.  Crashing with lunatics?  Check.  Sam's got stories galore from his days playing with shambolic indie punks The Narrator that are both heartwarming and heartbreaking...and he's still tickin'.  Hear why in this week's episode!