Customer Reviews

Let's Get Small

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Too many of the reviews here are not judging this album on its own merits, but on everything they know about Steve Martin following the appearance of this album in 1977. The fact is that this album was so successful that it catapulted Steve Martin into the national spotlight, but before this album he was virtually unknown. At a time when most comedians were basing more and more of their humor on their capacity to get progressively vulgar, Martin brought forth a brand of humor that depended less on profanity than conceptual humor. He could get obscene as well, but because most of his act was "clean," the few times he would get bawdy had far more impact than with other major comedians.

I remember reading once that before turning to comedy Martin was in college a philosophy student, especially the linguistic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Certainly Martin is more conceptual than any contemporary comedian (though Steven Wright has since developed a comparable conceptual approach, though his presentation is considerably different), delighting in toying with words, combining ideas that clash unexpectedly with one another. And although the humor was always completely planned, there was an almost stream of consciousness touch to his routine at times. It was almost he never ceased being a philosopher, almost engaging in a deconstruction of normal humor.

What I find amazing today is that this album, released in the hey day of the age of disco, seems as fresh today as it was when it first came out. Even if you've heard the stuff before, his changes of pace and shifts are perennially original and unexpected. He really was cutting edge, but pretty soon he made cutting edge popular. The album was such a success that he immediately began selling out arenas and coliseums and, of course, began his unprecedented run as guest host of SNL, where he pioneered a string of famous skits. The album was cutting edge, but it was also graced with an almost universal appeal.

Following this album he released an almost equally good one, A WILD AND CRAZY GUY. Unfortunately the next two were more formulaic and felt like efforts to cash in on his success. By then Martin's career as a stand up comedian was over. The other great stand up to emerge from the seventies, Robin Williams, has at gone back to stand up from time to time, but Martin has stuck with acting and writing. But his subsequent success in other fields shouldn't make us forget just how brilliant this debut album was.

Anyone who can use "Obsequious, Purple and Clairvoyant" in a sentence, and make you laugh at the same time, is a comical genius! This album makes you wish that you had a 'wayback machine' set to 1977. You would gladly pay your four dollar admission to the Boarding House, and spend the next hour or so laughing with/at Mr. Steve Martin.

Since much of the humor is in the delivery, you'll have to listen for yourself to appreciate this masterpiece of comedy! You won't be dissappointed!

In interviews in the early eighties, Steve Martin claimed that he hated performing standup: he said it frightened him. But he sure showed audiences a good time. He once led an audience - several hundred of them - outside to a local fast food joint and tried to order fries for everybody; another story he tells had him leading an audience out for a walk into the nearby neighborhood where they found an empty swimming pool. He had them all get in and he swam across the top of them - years before that became a commonplace of rock concerts.

Here he is with his banjo (he is a wonderful, mostly self-taught banjo player), trying and failing to sing sad songs with banjo accompaniment. ("You just can't sing a sad song with a banjo.... 'Oh death...and grief....and sorrow...and murder....'") He talks mockingly of seventies pot culture, improvises, dreams, and rambles with an ease and mastery that surpasses all of his subsequent albums. Highly recommended!

I had this album on vinyl, but haven't actually listened to it since some time in the 1980s. I realized that my wife had never heard any Steve Martin, and I knew I had to get the cds. It was interesting getting the reaction of a totally new listener and comparing it to my own sepia-toned nostalgia.

The good: My wife laughed quite a bit more than I expected her to, honestly. There is a lot in this album that still holds up. Martin is great at building expectation and then taking a sharp left turn that makes you laugh out loud. The story about his girlfriend is still a classic.

On a personal note it was also great finally being able to share the source of so many of my own sayings, lines, and bits. I'd forgotten just how much of my own comedy comes from Steve Martin's early years, and I think this gave my wife an insight into my formative years.

The bad: I hate to criticize one of the true greats, but listening to this today I can clearly see that it was recorded and edited on the cheap. The sound quality isn't always very good, jokes from multiple shows run together in sometimes confusing ways, there is a little too much "filler" in some places and not quite enough in others, etc. If the original recordings of these shows still exist (fat chance, I know) I'd love to see someone recut them into a new album.

Also, as with almost all comedy albums, there are some bits that are a little hard to follow without the visuals. It's a shame, too, because the audience seems highly amused. But as I said, that's a problem with almost every comedy album ever made, so it's not a criticism. It's just too bad that videos of Steve's early shows aren't more readily available.

In short: this is still a great album, even so many years later. It's certainly dated (he calls himself a semi-professional comedian, the price of tickets is $4, and he complains about $15 ticket prices in Vegas) but the comedy is well-crafted, intelligent, and far less offensive than most of what you'll find today. There is some swearing, but it's all in service of the comedy and not just to be shocking. But best of all, the performance is subtle enough that it rewards close attention and repeated listening. Martin doesn't just spoon-feed the audience, he makes you meet him halfway. And it's definitely worth the effort.

One of the most classic comedy albums of all time... hands down. It's one timeless side-splitting bit after the other. If you don't walk around singing "Ramblin' Man", you need to go get meds for your depression.
The bit called "Smoking" actually helped me out once. I used Steve's line and it really worked!! Not to mention the other person found it funny too. (If you don't know the bit, buy this CD, listen to it and you'll understand what I'm talking about)
It's just too bad comedy just isn't like this anymore...

I love this album. Of the three Martin albums that are out, this is the best, but they are all excellent. Good stuff.

Steve Martin engages in one of his best nightclub performances in the Bill McEuen-produced recording of his act at The Boarding House in San Francisco in '77.

Steve opens with the engaging Ramblin' Guy, goading the audience to join in the singing - a trait he repeats later in Grandmother's Song when he makes the audience repeat his hilariously demented lyrics such as, "Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant."

Steve's banjo figures prominently in the lengthy title skit. Getting Small is a drug parody that takes up very little of the roughly fifteen minutes of the skit. Steve fills out the time with a joke aimed at plumbers supposedly attending the show (the laughs come from Steve's use of arcane plumbing jargon), a bogus story about how he was born "a poor black child" (the basis for the movie The Jerk), and a long banjo riff that includes a fantastic bout of Foggy Mountain Breakdown amid a cheerful riff with deliberately inane negative lyrics.

Smoking is a skit that is funnier than it has any right to be; it uses flatulence in a roaringly funny satire of smoking in a restaurant.

Steve's tradmark catchphrase is brought forward in a sham fight with the nightclub's backstage crew after they ignore his request for a blue spotlight to create a mellow mood. It is great as he calmly gripes about how the crew is made of hippies who prefer to take drugs than do their job; the more he talks about it, the angrier he gets, until he is roaring - some in the audience start egging him on, adding enormously to the comedic effect.

Funny Comedy Gags is just that - recommended jokes to play on friends, the laughs coming from the sheer rudeness of the jokes.

The best skit, though, is his parody of a Vegas pop singer who has to perform his act in fifteen minutes, so he talks at the speed of light. The skit includes a humorous story of a bisexual couple who ask him to join them with some S&M people; Steve feigns ignorance by claiming he speaks a little Spanish and is looking forward to an intellectually rewarding dissertation with "Spaniards and Mexicans."

The Ramblin' Guy rambles on.

Despite being over 30 years old, this album, Steve Martin's debut and arguably his best, is still amazingly funny. It's filled with some of the most memorable comedy bits in Martin's career, and despite hearing this album over and over again, it still sounds fresh and vital. A lot of comedy is topical, but Martin's standup here isn't. There are a few jokes about Carter, but aside from that, the album hasn't dated at all.

There is classic bit after classic bit here, none of which gets old. There's Martin's "exxxxcccuuuussse mmeeeeeeeeeeeee" bit, his great banjo playing, his lines about Vegas, the fact that the show only costs 4.50 to get in (!), his smoking bit "mind if I smoke? No, mind if I fart?", and the hilarious Grandma's Song, with some of the best lines I've ever heard in a comedy song, like "put a live chicken in your underwear". It also has some of the most surreal lines in a song. What the hell does "live in a swamp and be three dimensional" really mean? Or "be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant" mean? Oh, hell, I don't know, and I don't care. The song is brilliant.

Another remarkable thing here is that Martin hardly ever swears in the routine. When he does, it makes it even funnier. When many comedians of the day were swearing and using coarse language, Martin generally kept it clean, and was still hilarious. Most modern comics, who swear a lot thinking it's automatically funny (it isn't, not by a long shot), should take a listen to this album and learn something from a master.

Let's Get SmallThis album is even funnier now than it was 30 years ago. If you are planning to read Mr. Martin's excellent biography Born Standing Up: A Comic's LifeBorn Standing Up: A Comic's Life, treat yourself and buy this album for background!
Martin was at the top of his game when he recorded this performance.

Steve Martin is so funny man. He laugh me out to death since I purchased this on original LP. I thought this was gonna be a music album at first when I little growing up but it's a comedy album. And it can be played again and again. Even tho he doesn't do stand up comedy anymore, he does movies which is his big thing. I always been such a honorable or fanatic fan of him since seeing him on Saturday Night Live and everything. I actually hear that he's plays guitar and banjo. No problem. Maybe 1 of those days he'll do a music album in the near future. I also wanna go see him. He's sure is one of the funniest and most beloved actors and comedians that's been around in the planet. I can't wait 4 his return to the stand up comedy pretty soon. 'Cuz it's been so long. All the comedy joints are great and are fun to listen to. I recommend along other comedy acts like Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Gilda Radner (one of my all-time fav. people in the world, RIP, bless her heart wish she was here), a lil Lenny Bruce, Flip Wilson, Jerry Seinfeld, just to name a few. Yep this is a comedy must if u luv real comedy or else into other stuff like I do.