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Comic knew his band was a joke
By John Benson
Funnyman J. Chris Newberg has a funny, yet horrific, story about his first and only visit to Youngstown.
“It was the worst and had nothing to do with the city,” said Newberg, calling from Los Angeles. “During the ’90s I was in a band called Vudu Hippies. We had our big break to open up for this band called Tangent Image. We drove like six hours from Detroit, where I lived at the time.
“When we got there, the club was like, ‘What are you doing? The show was yesterday.’ We were all so bummed out.”
Newberg returns to the area for shows Friday and Saturday at the Comedy Cellar at Mojo’s.
As far as the Vudu Hippies are concerned, Newberg said the outfit sounded like “the style of horrible.”
Looking back, if the act had any sustained success there’s a good chance the funnyman may have never found his calling as a comedian.
As far as moving from the concert to the comedy club stage, that rock-bottom moment took place around the turn of the century. Newberg was 30 at the time and, well, it took Tom Petty for him to realize he’d been raised on promises that weren’t coming true.
“I’m up in Michigan playing covers when I look down at the set list one night and we were playing ‘American Girl,’” Newberg said. “I was like, ‘I gotta go.’ It was in the middle of the chorus, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve become what I said I would never be.’
“It was such an amazing and wonderful experience in my 20s, but then it got to the point where one band member got married and I was like, ‘I’m living the lyrics to [Bryan Adams’] ‘Summer of ’69.’”
It was literally a few weeks later that Newberg started pursuing comedy full time. Eventually he landed in Los Angeles and quickly put together an impressive resume. He’s appeared on “America’s Got Talent,” “The Tonight Show” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
He’s also toured with Dane Cook and Russell Peters, and wrote jokes for “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” “Chelsea Lately” and “The Conan O’Brien Show.”
Currently, Newberg is writing and producing a couple of different cable shows with his goal of becoming something bigger.
“I don’t think anyone really has any control over what it is they become or how the evolve,” Newberg said. “It’s just about doing good work. I would love to be a bigger stand-up comedian. What comic wouldn’t? But arguably, with the exception of having my own TV show, I’ve kind of done everything I wanted to do so far. I’m kind of enjoying being me for the first time in my career ever.”