With new clubs like Comedy Mothership and waves of L.A. headliners and rising comics moving to Austin, West Coast comedy has planted a flag on the new frontier in stand-up.
The glowing red and green neon lights on the marquee of the Comedy Mothership have become a symbol of L.A.’s invasion into Austin’s stand-up comedy scene. Flanked by twin alien heads, the megawattage sign shines on the city’s clubgoers like a UFO that’s just landed in the heart of Sixth Street.
“Not only have a lot of people moved down there, comics from L.A. are calling in avails there, and just going to Austin to do two or three spots during the week,” said comedian Bert Kreischer, who performed during Mothership’s run of opening shows — along with Dave Chappelle, Ron White and Roseanne Barr — and quickly returned to Rogan’s place to do more shows in May. “He’s created the Store down there. It’s really impressive.
Onstage, Rogan paces back and forth, veering into jokes about trans athletes or being anti-vax and generally gearing his comedy for hunters, MMA fans and ballcap-wearing bros with no worries of offending, being canceled or being filmed. “My first impression of Austin was that these motherf— ain’t really seen s—,” Lucas recalled about first entering the scene. “It was like getting a virgin woman, so whatever they see is amazing.” He said he sold out three shows in January 2021 despite the pandemic. “I was like, ‘Why?’ I expected to have 50 people there. Sure, Austin had a comedy scene, but they never had aWhile most comics found themselves in a purgatory of Zoom shows during the pandemic, L.A.
Austin’s location in the middle of the country made it relatively accessible from the coasts. When the city finally emerged from COVID-19 closures, locals found a scene that was not the same as they had left it. Austin had more clubs but also an influx of L.A. comics, many of whom were trying to escape what they deemed as politically correct coastal audiences. With this influx came a political shift from liberal to libertarian.
Ben Dela Torre, a comedian from south Minneapolis, put a twin mattress in the back of his Volkswagen Golf for a 16-hour drive to the new comedy promised land. He headed straight for Austin and took up residence in a Walmart parking lot downtown. — a popular head-to-head format that grew out of the Comedy Store. Add venues including Fallout Theater, the Hideout and Esther’s Follies cabaret theater, and it’s nearly impossible to walk more than a block without bumping into some sort of comedy show.
“It’s kind of weird. Everything came full circle, the tragedy of COVID freed up this room, but it also freed up all these comics to come to Austin,” said Sunset Strip’s co-owner Anthony Hashem. “Yeah, COVID sucked and we’re all in a worse place for it — but no COVID, no Austin comedy boom, no Sunset Strip.”
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