COMEDY MAKES A COMEBACK

 
Need to get out of a funk? Can’t seem to nd your smile or croak out a laugh? Go to a 970 Comedy show and the results are guaranteed. These guys are fucking funny and know what makes a good joke: “Relatability. Everything funny is rooted in honesty, it has to ring true. There’s this intangible feeling when you are explaining something in a way that no one has thought of before. You have to show your neck, be a little vulnerable, and sometimes just rip yourself open,” David Rodriguez and Jacob Erdman explained.
Founded by comics, David, who won the Comedy Works New Faces of 2015 contest, Jacob, who claims the butter y is his spirit animal, Kyle Pogue, who is hoping to get certified in drunk driving, and Mallory Wallace, who slays with menstruation jokes – period, this group started booking shows at The Boot Grill in July of last year. “970 Comedy is what we call our whole scene. All the shows are 970 Comedy shows, and all the comics who claim Fort Collins and Greeley are 970 Comics,” Kyle explained. “30 years ago, where Coopersmith’s is now, there was a Comedy Works. Our ultimate goal was to have a comedy club here again.” With a name change happening this month to The Boot Grill & Comedy Club, that goal has been realized!
Over margaritas and burritos, this funny group of friends schooled me on comics. “Amy Schumer came from Boulder/Denver. Josh Blue (winner of Last Comic Standing), lives in Denver. Ben Roy just nished lming a TruTV sitcom, ‘Those Who Can’t,’ which has already been signed on for a second season, and all three of the guys on that show are from Denver,” David said. “Denver is the biggest city outside of Los Angeles and New York for comedy. We’re an extension of Denver Comedy, and really are trying to change it to Colorado Comedy.”
When David started doing stand-up about a year ago, he was the catalyst to the group making waves. He did it by creating ridiculous Photoshopped images and posters to promote himself and became a fresh face in the mix that everybody loves. Now he’s been nominated for Best Use of Social Media in the Denver Comedy Awards (by Sexpot Comedy), he and Mallory have both been nominated as Comic to Watch in 2016, The Boot is nominated for Best Comedy Showcase, and 970 Comedy has a Favorite New Group nomination.
Fort Collins’ blooming comedy scene is not only hilarious, it is welcoming and supportive to the comics. Mallory said, “It is unique due to the fact that the people at open mics are typically all comics. They come to work out their jokes and perfect them for a show, but in Fort Collins, ‘real people’ (i.e. not comics) actually go. Like out on a date and stu . So everyone tries harder at open mics here and it makes for a good product.”
Jacob added, “Being a comic, it’s hard as fuck to hit open mics and make everything work. When I first saw Bill Burd at the Comedy Works, I thought, I could make my friends laugh around a re, and so I started having these delusions of grandeur. They make it look easy, it sounds like a conversation. But the pauses and everything on the back end is not taught, so you just fight through the failure.”
“We may each get into [comedy] for a different reason but we all stay for the same reason,” David said. “It’s the most true art there is. People either laugh or they don’t.”