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10 |
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Bill Hicks |
| Salvation: Oxford November 11, 1992 |
| Rykodisc | 2005 | Double Album |
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Bill Hicks doesn’t fit the description of ‘stand-up comedian.’ It’s no secret that most comics don’t really tell jokes in their stand-up routines. Not since Benny Hill anyway. Anyone starting out their set with “Take my wife…please” is asking to receive a roomful of silence for their effort. Even so, Hicks doesn’t quite fit the standard of modern comics either. While his act does use some of the standard set ups–make an observation about some common aspect of life, follow it with a witty and insightful comment on said aspect–his overall routine breached a certain line that most comedians wouldn’t dare cross for fear of losing the audience, and that was being dead serious about most of what he was saying.
Bill Hicks died of cancer in 1994, not from the cigarettes he loved and defended, but from pancreatic cancer. His work is still a favorite among other comedians, who talk about him with a kind of reverent wonder, and he has taken on a somewhat legendary status. His posthumous fame is more real than other dead legends like Lenny Bruce, in that people actually still listen to Hicks rather than just know his name. His performances don’t seem like stand-up routines, they’re more like philosophies being boiled down for you, and there’s one important element in particular that makes Hicks stand out: He’s angry. Not at people with baggy pants, or drivers who go too slow, or people who use “literally” wrong in sentences. Bill Hicks is mad at YOU. You, the consumer/citizen/believer of lies and falsity, and he’ll tell you about it on stage, but in such a way that you’ll be convinced he’s right to be angry and just trying to make you a better person.
Bill Hicks: Salvation, Oxford, November 11, 1992 is a recording that fans of Hicks will have heard and memorized, and if you bring it up to them, they will pelt you with more quotes than you’d hear at a frat house the night after a new episode of Chappelle’s Show. He was amazingly smart and wanted the same from his audience, asking at one point, “So do I have a message? Is there a message in all this? Because I know all you’re gonna remember [are] the dick jokes. I know that. I’m doing two hours, the last seven minutes are dick jokes and everyone goes, ‘He’s so dirty.’” He sought out the contradictions of life and demanded answers. There was a deeply spiritual side to his routines (he did his first act at church camp) but that didn’t excuse what he saw as the hypocrisy of some Christians from his act. “Christianity is such a weird religion,” he says. “Some Christians wear crosses around their necks. Do you think when Jesus comes back He ever wants to see a fucking cross?” While he could leave it at this, with the one-two punch of observation and comment, Hicks presses on with the type of things that most other comedians wouldn’t touch with a ten foot mic stand. “That may be why He hasn’t shown up yet. [Doing a Jesus voice] ‘Shit. They’re still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I’m not going, Dad. They totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes I might show up again.’” Hicks didn’t just tread in the waters of liberal comedy, picking off fundamentalists with a comedy rifle because he thought they were stupid. He thought they were stupid because they ignored what he saw as a decent, and easily understandable message.
An added treat with this album is the fact that the first George Bush had just been defeated by Clinton when it was recorded, and Hicks is still reveling in victory. “You know what bugged me about the whole election?” he asks. “They totally reduced us to this worship of money…They made the whole election about money, voting with your wallet…I have news for you folks. There’s plenty of reasons not to vote for Bush other than taxes…The reason I didn’t vote for George Bush, is that Bush, along with Ronald Reagan presided over and administration whose policy towards South America included genocide. So yeah, the reason I didn’t vote for him, was because he was a MASS MURDERER…I’ll pay that extra nickel a liter for petrol just to make sure that little brown kids aren’t clubbed to death like baby seals.” Hearing him invoke the name Bush, it’s easy to forget that this was recorded in ‘92. One can’t help but wonder what heights his outrage would have ascended to if he were alive today.
Long time fans will love this 2 disc set, but don’t look for any extras. There’s no booklet, just a cover with a few quotes from random newspapers inside. For the uninitiated, this is the White Album of Hick’s career, the man at the height of his powers. |
| Kennedy Weible |
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