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The Odd Rock Comedy Hour

It’s time to DISCO!

This month’s Odd Rock Comedy Hour at QED happens to land right on my birthday! And since my impending age will be the same number as in the name of a legendary disco club (Studio 39, obvi) we’re having a disco party!

There will be comedy! There will be disco songs! Sometimes simultaneously! Anyone wearing 70s or disco attire will get a prize! I am so leaning in to this whole thing!

And lest you think this is merely an ironic or kitschy tribute to disco, let me point out that my 2nd full length studio album American Cheese (released on my birthday in 1998) featured a disco song called Disco Nights, and my latest album The American Songbook Redacted features the disco track “Work That Bod.”

Not only that, one of our guests, Goodbye Charlemagne, just released an entire album of disco songs! And one of our other guests debuted a new disco song at the Odd Rock Comedy Hour earlier this year!

So get ready to boogie on up to Q.E.D. in Astoria for a feverish Saturday night of good fun, great music, and hilarious comedy!

The Odd Rock Comedy Hour Returns to Q.E.D.!!

The Odd Rock Comedy Hour is back!

After a loooong hiatus—thank you Covid-19—my comedy music variety show will be returning LIVE to the QED stage (or back yard, weather permitting) and I couldn’t be more excited!

I also couldn’t be more grateful to Kambri and Q.E.D. for the hard work and determination they put in to get through the absolute hardest year+ I’ve witnessed in my entertainment career. We all went a little crazy I think, and I hope you’re as ready as I am to experience live entertainment again!

Q.E.D. will be very safe: audience members and all performers and staff are required to be vaccinated and tickets will be sold through the Eventbrite service to facilitate contact tracing should there ever be an issue (get your advance tix for our return show here).

I’m putting the lineup together for the first show now, already confirmed is the very funny comedian Christina Walkinshaw, who was booked on our March 2020 show waaay back when.

Music Fest Season Starts When WE Say it Does!

If you love music but not the idea of standing outside all day with sweaty idiots, then we’ve got the place for you! New York’s hottest new music festival is Spring Festerella, presented by the Odd Rock Comedy Hour!

It’s only 85 minutes, a measly $10 ($7 if you buy advance tickets here with the code ORCHVIP), and it’s in Astoria so you can go home afterward and not sleep in a tent! It’s compact, streamlined, and filled with more awesome-per-dollar than any other music festival your bloggersnob friends have told you about.

Don’t believe me? Check out these acts:

  • The Reformed Whores They’ve been on IFC, SiriusXM, opened for Les Claypool and the Reverend Horton Heat, and have rocked the Edinburgh Fringe!
  • Carla Ulbrich A comedy songwriter and professional smart aleck who’s been played on the Dr. Demento Show, SiriusXM, and NPR!
  • Charles McBee a hilarious standup comedian who has appeared on Gotham Comedy Live!
  • Tim Ellis comedian/musician whose album and webseries Casual Pimpin’ are packed with hilarity and smooth grooves!
  • Shane Morrison comedic songwriter who has been featured in the New York Funny Songs Festival!
  • Hosted by Rob Paravonian, me, and I’ve also done stuff and been on things!

So there you have it. April 21st, 2018, is the official start of your summer festival season! Come on out and party with us!

The Fake Band Trivia Challenge!

Are you ready to test your fake band knowledge? The Fake Band Trivia Challenge draws questions from 50 years of fictitious bands from movies, TV, and print! That’s half a century of fake bands!

There are 3 rounds of 11 questions. Yes, because these rounds GO TO ELEVEN! But I couldn’t even stop there, there are a few bonus points available in each round, so the total possible points are: Round 1: 15 possible pts; Round 2: 17 possible points; Round 3: 16 possible points; for a grand total of 48 possible points!

This challenge was created for my monthly variety show at QED in Astoria—The Odd Rock Comedy Hour, which I renamed the SHAM Rock Comedy Hour for St. Patrick’s Day—and the winning team took the crown with 20 points.

Will you do better? Will you hate me for leaving out your favorite fake band? Only one way to tell! Grab some paper to write down your answers and good luck!

Start the challenge with Round 1!

It started with a pun, now we’re here!

I’ve accidentally embarked on the quest to create the most epic fake band trivia challenge ever!! It started as a play on words—“Sham Rock” instead of “Odd Rock” Comedy Hour to acknowledge that the March installment of my monthly variety show falls on St. Patrick’s Day.

“I’ll do a couple of covers from fictitious TV and film bands,” I thought.

“I’ll show slides of some of the more esoteric fictitious bands,” I pondered.

But when I had the idea to create a fake band trivia contest I had no idea it would become my mission in life to create the MOST AMAZING AND TRULY AWESOME FAKE BAND TRIVIA CONTEST EVER!! I’m having an absolute blast putting these questions together, I think I may have found my calling in life!

The questions will range in difficulty from “everyone should know that” to “why would anyone know that?” with a lot of room in between. Some questions will be easy with supplemental bonus points for more in-depth knowledge on the same subject. There will be some “everyone wins” questions with prizes for anyone who gets it right. So even if you answer only one question right you could still get a prize.

And on top of this epicness we still have great comedy and music: dope and dirty rhymes from La Dynasty and standup comedy from Boris Khaykin, and more! So get your tickets now! It’s only ten bucks, but you can get tix for seven dollareedoos with the discount code ORCHVIP at QED’s website.

All right, back to the research…

© Paravonian