McQueen, the hard-to-pigeonhole multimedia comedy/music improviser, is late for our phone interview because his session with his chiropractor ran late. Which inspires this question: “How physical is your comedy?”
“I’m seated for a lot of it,” McQueen says. “I’m creating a soundscape, so I can’t go too far from the equipment. Technology is temperamental. But I’m interacting with the faces on the screen. I’m moving around.”
As a performer, McQueen (whose given name is McQueen Jesse Adams) is most comfortable in rock clubs or small theaters. From what he knows of it, the intimate, modern-styled Sea Tea Comedy Theater on Asylum Street — where he will perform at 8 p.m. Sept. 28 — seems ideal for his act.
“I don’t do comedy clubs,” he says. They aren’t set up for what I do.”
McQueen, a native of Pittsfield, Mass., who now dwells in Brooklyn, has created a comic style that’s unique to him and his software. He injects funny voices and bizarre videos into an aural mix of music and funny, abstract situations. Some elements are sampled and pre-recorded, but much of the show is spontaneous. He draws his comedy from pop music, movies and animals — mainly cats and foxes. He projects pictures of celebrities and manipulates them so they’re singing absurd songs — a Vladimir Putin rendition of “Wrecking Ball,” for example.
It’s not like there are a lot of other comedy/music mixmasters out there.
“I’m an island,” McQueen says. “It’s weird. When I started out, I was always on the outskirts, watching this alt-comedy scene spread out. I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this, I need to find what my voice is.’ People would think ‘Oh, a comedy show,’ then see me and say ‘What the hell is this?! It’s like watching a movie, but it’s hilarious.'”
The artist that McQueen is most often compared to is “Weird Al” Yankovic. But while Yankovic exists in two distinct worlds — his record albums and his elaborate live shows — McQueen is still primarily known as a stage performer.
“It’s odd that you bring that up, because just last week I signed my first record contract. The album will have original skits, plus I’ll get some bands that will help with song parodies.”
McQueen’s as big into music as he is comedy, and has made some heady connections in both realms.
“I always loved Radiohead, and I ended up meeting their manager in a bar in New York City. Now we’re super close friends. I got to meet the band. That’s where I got a lot of my technology ideas from.” Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke figures in some of McQueen’s routines.
A recent series of one-minute bits for Comedy Central’s Snapchat Discover channel were successful enough, McQueen says, that “it will either lead to more of those, or a pilot for a TV show. I would love to do something like ‘Flight of the Conchords’ did, that revolves around music.”
McQueen likes the idea of TV series, but also expresses some amibivalence, since “viewership can be so much higher for [online] videos than on television.” He’s recently been getting offers to do voiceover work, including the new virtual reality series “Rainbow Crow.”
However digitized and downloadable his work gets, though, McQueen continues to keep it real, and live.
“It’s all about the live show. What I do exists in that world. I would love to tour with a band. It makes so much sense. What I do is musical, but it’s completely different from what the band would be doing.”
The Sea Tea Comedy Theater appearance will also feature another eccentric alt-comedian: McQueen’s friend and frequent tourmate Greg Barris, creator of the outré New York comedy series “Heart of Darkness.”
MCQUEEN is making the scene with his screen at 8 p.m. Sept. 28 at Sea Tea Comedy Theater, 15 Asylum St., Hartford. $10. 860-578-4TEA, seateaimprov.com.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct McQueen Jesse Adams’ name.
