Road Trip Album Picks: Mitch Hedberg's "Strategic Grill Locations"

WHAT: Debut stand-up album from the late comic
LABEL: Comedy Central Records (2002), self-published CD (1999)
GOOD IF YOU LIKE: More jokes
WHERE TO FIND IT: Better record stores

"I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it."

Some albums lend themselves to road trips-- this is not one of them. Mitch's delivery on this, his first CD, is more reserved and mellow plus there's music from bass player Chuck Savage playing along with the jokes for some reason I don't quite get.

It's still obscenely funny and packed with one-liners like "I got an ant farm, them fellas don't grow shit" and "I got dressed up for the CD." That's just in the first track, the whole album is packed with 53 minutes of jokes. Considering there's a new one every few seconds, it shows just what an amazing talent this guy was.

This CD was actually quite difficult to get for a long time, and was still hard to find until after Hedberg passed away until around 2005.

It's much more subdued than his other two releases, and the overall quality of the sound seems a little on the cruddy side. The applause seems to be as loud or louder than Hedberg at times, which is of course not his fault. It just makes for difficult listening if the pavement sound is particularly high.

Do You Believe in Gosh?

Mitch Hedberg: Do You Believe in Gosh?
Released by Comedy Central Records
September 9, 2008

Every February 24th I think of a lot of things, one is that I've gotten another year older, and that Mitch Hedberg would have gotten another year older, but he is fucking dead. Then I get doubly depressed. He was a comic who could write very snappy jokes and had an un-snappy delivery, and it all came together is something that was damn funny.

It was a pleasant surprise to find Do You Believe in Gosh? A new CD featuring Mitch Hedberg. Unfortunately he was not resurrected; instead the CD is an album recorded two months before his death at the Improv in Ontario, California. It is a performance of mostly new, some untested material that was meant to go on a proper CD later in that year. There's a lot of good material, a bit of rough material, like "Tea Ski" in which he wanted to "go to a lake and tea bags in there, like a hundred of them for a week and then, Tea Ski."

The recording is done at a live show and appears to be minimally edited. This gives the album a more intimate feel that Hedberg's other albums lack.ed. It's nice, especially wehn you hear the hecklers and Mitch Hedberg's response to them. One man yells from the back that he "has something to put in his pipe" to which Hedberg replies with "Oh, I bet you do! Only you don't think about the fact that there might be police around! What have you got, you got some dope? Fuckin' doper! Arrest that dude!" It's good to see an example of Hedberg being quick on his feet, despite his laid-back demeanor.

It's overall a good, but bittersweet album. You know, the usual "Shit, I wish he were still alive making comedy, fuck," kind of album. The booklet included makes it even sadder with the inclusion of pages of comedy notes written by Hedberg and a whole lot of pictures. The physical copy wins over the digital download solely because of this extra.

It's nice. It is a final album obviously put together with care and respect, and not too expensive. If you liked Mitch Hedberg you will want to get this one last album. Unless of course, he and Tupac are secretly hanging out somewhere, which we can only hope.

Back of CD:


Inside cover with disc:


Some pages from the booklet: