Beginnings

On today's show I talk to actor and comedian John Ennis. John grew up in Boston and attended Emerson College, where he was in a sketch group with David Cross and Laura Kightlinger. He continued to work with David and became one of the ensemble actors on the incredible and influential sketch program Mr. Show . Since then, John has been in a number of awesome projects from Malcolm in the Middle to S...

On today's show I talk to comedian Rich Fulcher . Originally on the path to become a lawyer, Rich began taking improv classes at Second City, and soon ditched his juridical goals in favor of comedy. A improv show he created called "Modern Problems in Science" took him to the UK, where he was part of some of the best comedy of the last decade, including The Mighty Boosh and his sketch show with Mat...

On today's show, I talk to Matt Gourley, Jeremy Carter and Mark McConville who collectively make up the creators and stars of the brilliant Superego Podcast . Superego is an improvised sketch show that was borne out of Matt and Jeremy's Channel 101 collaboration Ultraforce . Mark was featured in early episodes of the show, and then soon became a full-time member. Since those early days, the show h...

On today's episode, I talk to comedians Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael . As writers and actors, June and Casey have been involved in some of best comedies of the last few years. Casey was a cast member of SNL and one of the stars of ABC's fantastic Happy Endings , and June stared in Burning Love and currently Adult Swim's NTSF:SD:SUV:: . The two met in an acting class at NYU and came up throu...

On today's show, I talk to LA-based comedian Nick Wiger . Starting off his professional career as a video game designer, Nick soon moved to comedy. He creates videos for Funny or Die (including "Gungan Style" , one of my favorite videos ever) and writes for Adult Swim's NTSF:SD:SUV:: . Nick's also a mainstay of the UCB's LA theatre, performing as part of their house sketch team A Kiss From Daddy a...

On this episode - the first one taped in Los Angeles - I talk to LA-based stand-up and actor Beth Stelling . Starting in Chicago, Beth studied improv at The Annoyance Theater and ran a show with The Puterbaugh Sisters. She was also one of Just for Laugh's New Faces, performed on Conan last summer, and her debut album Sweet Beth was released by Rooftop Records last October. She's super-cool, super-...

On this bonus episode of Beginnings , we break our usual format and delve into the creative process by chatting with Caroline Creaghead about booking and producing a live comedy show. As the booker and producer for Big Terrific, Get It Out There: Comedy by BAM and IFC, The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, her own weekly show at Union Hall, Creaghead and Company, as well as many others, Caroline has...

On today's show I talk to  comedian Kevin Allison. Kevin is a former member of the sketch group The State, which had a show on MTV from 1993 to 1995, and currently, he's the founder and host of Risk! , a storytelling podcast which you can find on the Maximum Fun network. Unlike a lot of other storytelling shows, Risk! encourages real, un-coached tales - some polished, some raw, some funny, others...

On today's show, I talk to the Brooklyn-based musical group The Gregory Brothers , as well as their father Russell. Composed of Michael, Andrew, Evan and Evan's wife Sarah, The Gregory Brothers first achieved notoriety with their series of videos "Autotune the News", and their videos collectively have more than 300,000,000 views online. They've also created musical segments for the Academy Awards,...

This week's episode of Beginnings is an oldie (as in a month and half old) but a goodie (as in the guests were super-fun). Earlier in the summer, I was invited to host a live Beginnings down in Austin, Texas right before Labor Day weekend as part of the Out of Bounds comedy festival. While the venue - the corner of a coffeeshop - was perhaps not the best place to record a podcast, we had some amaz...

On today's show, I talk to actor Rich Sommer . Well known for the role of Harry Crane on AMC's Mad Men , Rich got his start acting in Minnesota in high school and college, and he continued his education, earning his MFA in acting from Case Western. Besides Mad Men , Rich is known for his role as Anne Hathaway's pal in The Devil Wears Prada , as well as for roles on The Office and Curb Your Enthusi...

On today's show we talk to actor Maria Thayer . Originally from Oregon and then Minnesota, Maria's first major role was as Tammi Littlenut, Jerri Blank's best friend, on the incredible show Strangers With Candy . Since then, she's been in awesome project after awesome project including Forgetting Sarah Marshall , Arrested Development , and lately she's been co-starring in Chris Elliott's amazing A...

The juggernaut of melancholy keeps rolling along, friends, on the latest live episode of Beginnings . A while ago, I had an idea to rip off the Nerdist Writers Panel and do the same kind of thing but with that patented Beginnings spin, and what a fun/sad time we had at UCB East earlier this month! (Sad in a good way though, folks! You know, that poignant, meaningful sadness, not the pitiful kind!)...

On today's show we talk to musician Darwin Smith . Originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Darwin moved to New York after attending Wesleyan for a short time and began playing in indie rock bands like The Creaky Boards and eventually his own group Darwin Deez. Their first self-titled album made a big splash in 2010, and they're second album Songs for Imaginative People came out earlier this y...

On today's show, I talk to comics writer Fred Van Lente . Originally on the path to be a professor, Fred sold his first comic script about a decade ago and moved to New York City. Since then, he's written on a number of fantastic titles including Amazing Spider-Man , Marvel Zombies , Incredible Hercules , and most recently, the incredibly funny Archer and Armstrong relaunch for Valiant. Check out...

On today's special episode of Beginnings, I moderate a discussion with J.J. Sedelmaier live from the UCB East Theatre on the nuts and bolts of being a professional animator and on running your own studio. J.J. was the animator for the first season of Beavis and Butthead , the co-creator of the SNL cartoons with Robert Smigel, and he's worked with Adult Swim, The Daily Show , Colbert and a host of...

On today's show we talk to musician Eleanor Friedberger . Originally from Oak Park, Illinois, Eleanor formed the popular indie rock group The Fiery Furnaces with her brother Matthew in Brooklyn, and from 2000 to 2011, they wrote and released eight albums. Now on hiatus from the band, Eleanor has released two albums on Merge Records, and her latest, Personal Record just came out in June. Check out...

It's time for a "juggernaut of melancholy" with the most horrific episode of Beginnings yet! Three minutes into this baby, I creep myself out, and the shame train kept right on going as my fantastic guests stand-ups Bonnie McFarlane and Max Silvestri , The Colbert Report 's Eric Drysdale , Todd Goldstein of ARMS and guest co-host Mike Pace told tales of inappropriate adult/teen relations, and (may...

Today marks the first episode of the newish format focusing more on my guests' childhoods, and I couldn't have asked for a better guest, the wonderful musician and writer Larry Livermore . Originally from Detroit, Larry began to get involved with the San Francisco punk scene in the late 1970s. After playing in a number of bands, he co-founded Lookout! Records in 1987 which was the home of numerous...

On today's show, I talk to musician and producer Quentin Stoltzfus . From 1999 to about 2006, Quentin was the principal songwriter behind the amazing Philly psyche-pop band Mazarin. When a wedding band with the same name threatened a lawsuit, Quentin dropped the moniker and is now recording as Light Heat. With The Walkmen as the backing band, Light Heat's self-titled debut was just released at the...

The first live show where we’re feeling out a new style and experimenting a bit, and I call this one FUN and a SUCCESS. With one of my favorite stand-ups Nick Vatterott ( Comedy Central Half Hour , Conan , etc.) as the first guest co-host, how could it not be fun? We were joined by former Daily Show correspondent and delightful stand-up Wyatt Cenac , xoJane Deputy Editor Mandy Stadtmiller and wond...

On today's show we talk to Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, the writers and creators of the wonderful scripted podcast Welcome to Night Vale . Structured in the style of a local small town radio show, Welcome to Night Vale is a like Our Town written by Lovecraft and David Lynch. A few weeks ago, Jeffrey and Joseph came over to Andy's Harlem apartment and transformed Beginnings into The Fringecast f...

Live from the 56-hour Del Close Marathon in New York City (June 29th, 2013)! And unlike other DCMs, I did not accidentally drink too much, vomit in a trash can at the party space and somehow end up at home sleeping on my bathroom floor. Instead, I got lots of sleep and had a super-fun time with improviser and actor extraordinaire Billy Merritt (The Swarm, The Stepfathers, The Smokes) and author an...

in January of 2010, two novice comedians - Andy and Mark - started Beginnings as a way to cut through the layers of mythos that surrounded having a career in entertainment. How does one *actually* have a career in comedy? What are the realities about getting into show business? Three years and 106 episodes later, Beginnings has shed its original intent and morphed into a Freudian talk show that ex...

It's the dawn of a new era for Beginnings, and on today's show we talk to writer and musician David Grubbs. Starting in Louisville, Kentucky with the bands Squirrel Bait and Bastro, David has since released seven albums with Gastr del Sol, 12 full-length solo albums and has appeared on more than 150 records including recordings by Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Matmos, Will Oldham, the Red Krayola...