ROOM: Riverside Pub

STERLING SCOTT reminded me of this room, which ran in the summer of 2007 out in St Albert and was run by BARBARA MAY.

It was not a great room, made harder by the fact most nights the host would be getting progressively drunker and doing more and more time between acts with less and less coherency  as the night went on.

It was a good idea to try and be up early.

I got to know JEFF NEESER a little bit at this show; he was a regular attendee and would often drive me home. I also started to develop my spontaneity on this stage. There was no value in doing prepared material, so I committed myself to going up with nothing and winging it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COMEDIAN: Winston Herbert

"I was more happy to meet people who are nice. If the shows went good, I didn't care." - Winston Herbert Winston Herbert started comedy in 1989 and performed regularly until entering semi-retirement in 2011. He started doing comedy at the Yuk Yuks when it was next to the Point After in the south side as well as the venerable Sidetrack Café. His contemporaries included Rob Ross, Jamie Davis, Tim Koslo, Bill Cowen, Terry Ireland, and Dan Trouton. His first paid shows were the four night Yuks Saskatchewan run (Yorkton, Regina, Saskatoon, North Battleford) opening for Kenny Robinson Yuk Yuks so dominated the local comedy scene at the time that when Winston worked a few shows for independant promoter Bob Angeli, he did it under a pseudonym to avoid trouble with Yuks. Winston enjoyed working with Tommy Chong, " a real nice man" and hung out with Emo Philips when the acclaimed joke writer and comic  was in town.
Read more

COMEDIAN: James Wynters

Image
  Like many of Edmonton comics, JAMES WYNTERS entered the scene through PAUL SVEEN's comedy class (one of his classmates was MARK SALAMANDICK).  His first set was at Yuk Yuks Londonderry Mall location in the early 2000s. Touring headliners performed seminars before amateur night shows; James remembers RUSSELL PETERS giving five minutes of advice, saying "That's all I got," and spending the rest of the hour taking questions. James shared a stage with BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT at The Comic Strip, but he remembers many less glamorous nights at open mics like the BRIAN HEGGE-run Livewire and an open stage at a biker hangout on Calgary Trail that lasted one night. "We were forced to do the show outside on the patio," James remembers. "A small group of unenthusiastic patrons barely paid attention until the host started singing Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" and tried to get them to sing along." Says Wynters, "I'm surprised we made it out of t...
Read more