Hey everyone! Welcome to another edition on Comedy On Us and our second ever Blogisode! A Blogisode is a newsletter that takes the place of an episode and keeps us all in the Comic's Corner loop. We have been off air for the Holiday Season and are very excited to return. The Corner crew has been out there doing cool shows, seeing shows, getting drunk on egg nog and getting gifts. 2013 was a great year but has nothing on this one. -See you out there! past friends return in 2014![]() A few months ago we featured "Infected" a novel by James Schannep on our blog, with my first book review and had James on an episode to do a reading and talk about his latest project, "Click Your Own Poison" books. Click Your own Poison is a series of choose your own adventure books. Infected was an end of the world-zombie-apocalypse adventure. "Murdered" is a murder mystery that throws you into the action and suspense. Soon I will finish reading this one and will be featuring my second Book Review with Schannep's second book. In the meantime check out the links and past episodes. (Select Posdcasts are streamable on our SITE.) a little help for our friends Recent Corner Guests, Lenny Schwartz and Richard Griffin have combined forces to create another Schwartz original PLay into a feature film. Click the banner above to check out their donation site for cool donation packages. And see Richard and Lenny's latest Theatrical release, "Normal" January 26th @ Cinemaworld, Lincoln, RI 7pm and 9pm shows.
![]() The show kicked off with a (head) bang. As the opener was Iron Reagan, a side project of Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour members. The band features Municipal Waste vocalist Tony Foresta and bassist Land Phil on guitar. As a raging fan of Municipal Waste, I knew that this band was going to THRASH! What also impressed me was the fact that Iron Reagan just released a split cd with American death metal extremists Exhumed, due out January 7th from Tankcrimes records. Iron Reagan had the split available at the show and the cover caught my eye in an instant. It features Ronald Reagan holding a blood-soaked chainsaw. The perfect way to capture both the spirit of Exhumed and Iron Reagan. I did have a chance to listen to the split and it rocks, do yourself a favor and check it out once it releases. Anyway, Iron Reagan thrashed the house. Toad's place is relatively small in size so the whole place was head banging like it was 1985. However, things got off to a rocky start for the Comic's Corner gang. When Iron Reagan started playing their first song, Dan Martin took a punch to the back of the head and went down hard. Clutching his Gwar vinyl in his hand, Dan made it back to his feet only to be pushed back into the pit by head-banging thrashers who were in a state of euphoria caused by Iron Reagan. Dan took a breather and ultimately survived the onslaught led by Iron Reagan but that was only the beginning as two other bands were set to take the stage, Iron Reagan slayed for over 40 minutes and next up was Battlecross, a heavy metal band that describes themselves as "Blue Collar Thrash Metal". Fresh off of releasing a cd this year entitled, War of Will on Metal Blade Records, Battlecross have toured relentlessly since. They have had quite a year performing on shows with the likes of In Flames, Death Angel and Metallica. Now they find themselves on tour at Toad's Place opening for Gwar. They did not disappoint, keeping the energy intact and leaving the masses to keep forming circle pits with fist-pumping, face-melting action. The Comic's Corner crew enjoyed it and now were set to see the main event of the evening Gwar. ![]() Gwar released an album last year called Battle Maximus, and that sums up what you would experience at a Gwar show. I last saw Gwar in 2012 along with Municipal Waste and Ghoul and that was one of the most fun shows I have ever seen. Gwar utilizes every inch of the stage and provides the audience with a unique experience that leaves you gasping for breath. They started out the show pumping the audience up with the Black Sabbath classic, War Pigs. That worked like a charm as the raucous crowd was chanting "Gwar" as loud as hell. Then Gwar came out started playing and the place was destroyed. They played for nearly 90 minutes and provided a storyline featuring a character, Mr. Perfect, and no it wasn't based on the late wrestler from the 80's. They also brutally murdered Justin Bieber and Pope Francis before turning on the meat grinder, where several Gwar starlettes met their grisly end, mush to the chagrin of the audience who were too busy jockeying for position to get covered by their innards. Gwar did an encore with the song "Sick of You" that left the club in ruins. Again, Toad's place is rather small and the crowd was excessively large. The result was people fist-pumping, head-banging, crowd surfing, mosh-pitting madness that ultimately got covered in blood. Every member of the Comic's Corner Christmas Party was put to the test here. We were all in the pit and took our lumps. I got kicked in the head by several crowd surfers and got drenched in so mush blood at one point I couldn't even see. That's dangerous when everyone else around you is throwing fists and feet in the air. Another time a crowd surfer crashed down on his head and that stated a ripple effect where everyone started pushing and falling back, I nearly broke my leg there but managed to stay on my feet, however, Dan Martin wasn't so lucky as he was pushed down to the ground and trampled. We did manage to help him up only to see him get kicked in the head. Bruce lost his Christmas hat and evidently his hearing but luckily got both back by the end of the night, When the show was over and the smoke cleared it looked like the four of us just walked off a battlefield, blood soaked and battered. We all took "after pictures" and none of our shirts looked the same, In my opinion, they looked better and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Our white Christmas turned blood red thanks to Gwar and of course Santa Oderus. It really was a Stripper Christmas Summer Weekend!
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