Bill Hicks was born and raised in Houston, graduating from the
\nsame high school as me recently enough that we may have had some of
\nthe same teachers, and I never knew this fact until last week. I
\nknew who Bill Hicks was, in passing, (no pun intended), through
\nobituraried when he died, and through various stand-up clips when,
\nduring lonely late-night channel surfing of yore, I would come upon
\nthe last refuge of lowbrow entertainment: Comedy Central. Some of
\nyou may not know this, but long before the town of South Park,
\nComedy Central, (once known as the Comedy Channel, once known as
\nHa!), basically showed two minute stand-up routines with little
\ninformation sidebars, in following with music videos. Bill Hicks
\nwas a staple of the network. That’s probably the only way you’d
\nknow who Bill Hicks, perhaps the only truely controversial comedian
\nof the 90s, and perhaps the greatest.<\/p>\n
My high school never made mention of his attendance, instead
\ndwelling on a certain young redneck B-list country star. But he was
\namazing. Last Wednesday, in one of those late night conversations
\nwith a girl that always seems to involve 5 packs of cigarettes and
\na wet patio, his name came up. I had no idea anyone else knew who
\nhe was, and I sure as hell never knew he went to my old school. I
\nwas pissed at this fact, and scurried off the next day to pick up
\nRant In E-Minor<\/i>, his final CD.<\/p>\n
A 74-minute, 36 track CD chronicling three shows during his last
\nweek of performing in late 1993,
\nRant<\/i> is not a belt-busting, rolling in you seat,
\nlaugh-a-minite riot, nor is it meant to be. Hicks walks onto the
\nstage before a feverent rant on ‘fevered egos’, announcing, “Well,
\nfolks, this is kind of a sentimental evening for me, because this,”
\nhe chokes up, “is my final live performance I’ll ever do, ever.”
\nThis is a man that knows he is dying, and I can only guess now what
\nthe audience thought he meant by that weighty remark.<\/p>\n
Don’t take that as an indication that
\nRant In E Minor<\/i> is a somber affair. Hicks is as funny,
\nvolatile, and insightful as ever, with a verbal pallete, and a
\ndeeply human philosophy that makes Dennis Miller look like Carrot
\nTop. He tackles controversial issues without remorse, from
\nabortion, (“if they’re so pro-life, why don’t they picket
\ncemeteries”), to David Koresh, (“let’s see: a frustrated rock
\nmusician, with a messianic complex, armed to the teeth, and ready
\nto f— anything that moves. I hate to tell you this, but that
\nsounds like every one of my friends in Austin.”).<\/p>\n
One thing about this CD which may annoy those more accustomed to
\nconventional comedy records is that, in many respects, it is edited
\nlike an Oliver Stone movie, drifting from monologue to rant to
\nflat-out “dick jokes” through segues of music, performed either by
\nHicks himself, or local Austin band, Marblehead Johnson. I enjoyed
\nthis, and recomend listening to the CD in a dark room, preferably
\nwith a lit cigarette, even if you don’t smoke it, just for the
\nambience.<\/p>\n
If this CD had been made into a movie, it would defintely be
\n“NC-17”. Bill Hicks isn’t as directly profane as, say, Martin
\nLawrence, or Andrew “Dice” Clay, but he does something a lot more
\ndangerous. He can’t be written off as just profane, just appealing
\nto lowest common denominator, or just anything. He’s just not that
\neasily definable. He gets under the skin by berrading the senses,
\nand making you question everything you believe in. He’s more than a
\ncomedian. Bill Hicks is an artist.<\/p>\n
Three months after the recording of this album, Bill Hicks died
\nof cancer at the age of 32. Although he really only gained
\npopularity in the last four years of his life, there’s a little
\nBill Hicks in every comedian starting out today. Yet he was much
\nmore than that.<\/p>\n
This is years ahead on any comedy album I’ve ever heard. Perhaps
\nthe greatest danger here is that it will show just how dated such
\nperformers as Adam Sandler, and, God help me, Dennis Leary really
\nare. A simultaneous venture into both human comedy and inhuman
\ntragedy, with a one-liner surface that really hits much, much
\ndeeper. You may not find yourself laughing at
\nRant In E-Minor<\/i>, but after all is said and done, you’ll feel
\nsomething deep inside you loving every minute of this album, under
\nthe constant suspicion that your stereo is going to be struck by
\nlightning. No, you may not laugh, but you’re almost guaranteed to
\nbe smiling throughout
\nRant<\/i>. It’s more than just another live comedy album, it’s a
\nman looking back on the world from a perspective that none of us
\nknows. This makes it a work of art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":27796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7053],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-39179","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bill-hicks","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39179"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39179"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}