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Booth Daniels: Unconventional
January 10, 2007
By David Finkle
Booth Daniels, who looks like a Dead End Kid dressed up for a
job interview, doesn't so much invite you into his world as browbeat
you into it with the blaring finesse of a midway barker. Once
you're inside "Unconventional," however, he has a number
of surprises you wouldn't have suspected from his -- let's say
it -- pushy introduction. During a recent Don't Tell Mama stint,
the guy almost immediately started spilling his story, but not
in a straightforward manner. He's oblique, which is to say the
inclusion of Randy Newman's "Short People" is his way
of letting the audience know that all the noise he's been making
in the first few numbers is compensation for his size.
Musically directed by poker-faced Glenn Gordon, Daniels is the
class clown out of self-defense. (This is, natch, the explanation
behind 75 percent of today's comedians.) He's gotten extraordinarily
deft at it. He may spend a good deal of his time shouting into
the mic, but often what he's declaring is smart and spur-of-the-cabaret-moment
funny. Also, the more confident he is that he's won you over,
the more he eases up on the perky pep.
Toward the end of his high-powered set, he even noted that his
act "is growing up." That observation had already been
substantiated by Daniels' abrupt mood shift into a moving take
on Randy Newman's "Marie." (The singer-comic's interest
in Newman is a giveaway to his preoccupation with the off-kilter.)
The Daniels hour -- during which he sometimes comes across as
Sam Kinison doing Pearl Bailey -- even has an emotional arc. That's
because he eventually implies his truce with life by singing Ben
Folds' "Learn to Live With What You Are." The moment
could have been annoyingly bromidic, but wasn't. As off the wall
as Booth Daniels initially presents himself, he knows exactly
what he's doing and where he's going: far.
"The other daring performer didn’t have his next gig
booked for sure at press time, but remember the name Booth Daniels.
He’s got an act that lives up to its name: Unconventional.
I caught him in a return engagement at Rose’s Turn on Grove
Street in Greenwich Village. Billed as "a cabaret...sort
of..," it also has plenty of the word for which this website
is named: EDGE. Presenting himself as an outsider with issues,
Booth rants and raves to great effect, with tongue in cheek, as
he goes through some mostly high-energy pop songs that let him
show his humor and his humanity. With a few tunes by Ben Folds
(he opens with a smart There’s Always Someone Cooler Than
You), he’s particularly effective. He playfully tosses off
many an aside that must be called snide but knows how to jeer
in a way that makes his audience cheer. Also an actor, he comes
off as a likeable but exasperated Everyman: one for whom you’d
happily buy a gift certificate for an anger management class.
But then he probably wouldn’t be so much fun. Booth could
benefit from including a couple more varied tunes and serious
pieces, as his handling of Randy Newman’s sensitive ballad
called Marie shows he can perhaps be just as fearless in baring
his soul. And I think he has the potential to use more colors
and shadings in his voice; the showmanship and energy get more
attention. "Unconventional" follows one of the most
important conventions of good cabaret: connect with your audience
by presenting what’s special about you. He’s awfully
entertaining."
- Rob Lester, EdgeNewYork.com
"On Thursday, April 13th I headed downtown to UPSTAIRS AT
ROSE'S TURN for the 8:00 pm show of cabaret newcomer Booth Daniels.
I could not see if Mr. Daniels had "eyes of blue" but
he is "five foot two" and from his perspective, life
is indeed "Unconventional."… Booth is cute, clever
and somehow always has a twinkle in his eye as he sings and chats
his way through a rather exotic song list - most of the songs
I had never heard before…This show deserves a return and
a bigger audience - great vocals and most entertaining!"
- Stu Hamstra, CabaretHotlineOnline.com |
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By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 6, 2008
POP
BOOTH AND PAT The classic showbiz tale generally has a star getting
laryngitis and an understudy getting a big break. For Booth Daniels
and Patrick Frankfort, it was more like this: Somebody blew off
a gig, so, well, we can’t let that empty stage go to waste,
can we?
Last fall Mr. Frankfort, above left, a singer-songwriter with
a comic side, was booked for a solo engagement at the Mean Fiddler
on West 47th Street and asked Mr. Daniels, above right, a longtime
friend from when both studied musical theater at the Boston Conservatory,
to provide some backup vocals. When another act on the bill didn’t
show up, Mr. Frankfort, 31, and Mr. Daniels, 34, began winging
it to fill the time, and the audience seemed to get a kick out
of their easy, goofy rapport.
“I think through sheer stubbornness we refused to leave
the stage,” Mr. Frankfort recalled. That was the genesis
of the act they call simply Booth and Pat, a pairing that is part
cabaret, part stand-up comedy, part improv. They have since appeared
at spots including Don’t Tell Mama, and on Thursday (and
again on June 27) they will roll out a new full-length show at
the Duplex that they’re calling “Slow Children Playing.”
Expect routines that defy genre labels. Their take on “Let
It Be” starts out pleasantly tuneful, but somehow they get
distracted in the chorus and toss in a sampling of every other
song that ever used the same chord progression (of which, it turns
out, there are a lot).
Some musing about their favorite lyrics turns into a medley of
every gibberish lyric you can think of, from the “Minnie
the Moocher” refrain to “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
Then there’s Mr. Frankfort’s song “The Straight
Girls.” It’s what a guy writes after more than one
woman dumps him by announcing that she’s a lesbian. “It’s
fashionable to be gay,” Mr. Daniels said, offering his sidekick
some comfort as they described the origin of the song. “Or,”
Mr. Frankfort replied, “maybe it’s just fashionable
to date me and turn gay.” NEIL GENZLINGER
"The compact and hyperkinetic Daniels and the stringbean
Frankfort wring geniune laughs from their horseplay, and they
choose comic ditties they can make something of."
David Finkle, Backstage
"I kept thinking of The Smothers Brothers while watching
the free-flowing but underplayed give and take between comic singers
Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort in their one-night performance
of 2 Guys. 1 Guitar. No Standards. at Don't Tell Mama. After the
show, Daniels advised me with deadpan seriousness that they were
more like The Smothers Brothers on crystal meth.
Daniels is the dark, slightly scruffy one with an authoritative
coolness who can play the microphone like he's hiding a Casio
keyboard in his mouth. Frankfort, the tall one with the guitar,
has an innocent dorkiness about him that hides a lecherous underbelly.
There's nary a punch line in their between-song banter yet the
quirky absurdity of their chemistry, so fresh and seemingly spontaneous,
is very, very funny.
Most of their songs are by Frankfort, based on personal experiences
like having more than one girlfriend break up with him by saying
she's a lesbian ("Where have all the straight girls gone?"
he ponders in song) and the tragedy of hair loss. When the boys
do get sincere with a lovely "(I Can't Wait To Fall Again)
Into You" they joke how Frankfort's emo display will help
him score with the ladies. They also do covers, like a Spice Girls
medley performed with a fierce dedication to girl power and Ben
Folds' hilariously folky arrangement of Dr. Dre's "Bitches
Ain't Shit."
Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort have their separate careers
in comedy, music and acting with no future dates for joint appearances
scheduled as of yet. But hopefully this promising pair will be
treading the cabaret boards much more frequently."
Michael Dale, Broadwayworld.com
Booth & Pat: Slow Children Playing
The last time I reviewed the cabaret antics of singing comedians
Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort, a/k/a Booth & Pat, the
description, "The Smothers Brothers on crystal meth,"
entered the picture. In their new gig, Slow Children Playing,
which has one more scheduled performance at The Duplex on June
20th, it seems the boys have upped the dosage.
The combination of Pat, the dim-witted guitar player with a goofy
smile and a delusionally high regard for his appeal to the ladies,
and Booth, the hyper-intense voice of reason and understated sarcasm,
was merely very, very funny six month ago. But now, like a classical
duo that just needs time in front of audiences to evolve their
playing into making music, Booth & Pat are developing into
a well-oiled laugh-riot machine. The quirky absurdity of their
verbal give-and-take slickly glides on new layers of polish without
losing any of the spontaneity that made it work so well in the
first place. These guys are hilarious.
When they do covers, there's always a twist, like their riff on
Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback," where they imagine all
the out-of-style things they can bring back. ("I'm bringing
dial-up back / Those slow connections are where it's at.")
What seems to begin as a normal rendition of Lennon and McCartney's
"Let It Be" turns into a medley of every imaginable
song with the same chord structure. Rick Astley's "Never
Gonna Give You Up" is slowed-down and sung with such heartfelt
sincerity that the song itself becomes the joke.
They also do Frankfort's original tunes, the best of which has
him emoting, "Where have all the straight girls gone,"
(sounding just enough like Paula Cole's plea concerning cowboys)
after a history of girlfriends break it off with him by saying
they're lesbians. I can't give away big joke from Frankfort's
new idea for a wedding song, but it's extremely inappropriate
and extremely funny, as is Daniels' shocked reaction.
The pair keeps topping themselves with a medley of popular songs
that feature nonsense lyrics ("coo-coo-cachoo," "hi-de-hi-de-hi,"
"doo wa ditty ditty dum ditty doo," etc.) and a big
Spice Girls medley is terrific fun.
But what makes the act really work is the frequently hilarious
between-song patter that establishes the on-stage personas which
carry over into the musical performances. With nary a punch line
they deliver solid character humor that brings a 21st Century
edginess to the old tradition of comedy duos.
-Michael Dale, Broadwayworld.com
Look for another chance at The Duplex to enter (at your own risk
and risqué), the wacky and wonderful world of Booth Daniels
and Patrick Frankfort, not for the prude or politically correct.
BOOTH AND PAT are fearless and embrace their inner goofy rebel
nerdy iconoclastic selves. With an act where the conceit is that
they are getting on each other’s nerves and interrupting
or derailing each other’s best and worst musical intentions,
they are a satirical mini-miracle. It’s R-rated for “Ranting”
and “Rude” and “Rebellious” and “Ridiculous”
and “Ribald” and “Really Riotous.” Gleefully
playing dumb and dumber, they push each other’s buttons
and push the envelope, too. Mocking music styles by just doing
them, with original songs in the mixed-up mix, mocking and mock-serious,
it’s wild. If they were ice cream, they’d have to
be a banana split because they are bananas and side-splittingly
funny when the jokes land (some may thud, causing better ad libs)
or maybe they’re a sundae just because their show is on
a Sunday (July 20… but then a Friday on August 29; you see,
they’re unpredictable).
-Rob Lester, Cabaret Exchange
"I must admit that my entire exposure to hip hop and rap
has fallen into two categories: accidental and reluctant. So it
was with a great deal of trepidation that I contemplated seeing
a cabaret show where two white guys riff and snark at contemporary
music. That caveat out of the way, I have to say that Patrick
Frankfort and Booth Daniels are two extremely personable and talented
young men with nicely trained singing voices and a dry sense of
humor.
Their approach to comedy is part SNL and partly rooted in the
adversarial style of the Smothers Brothers. They unassumingly
bill their act as “2 guys, 1 guitar, no standards”
and their appeal is infectious, particularly to the under 30 set.
Pat’s self-effacing songs about dating straight girls or
male pattern baldness have a wry charm. Booth scores heavily with
Weird Al Yankovic’s “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,”
a very funny song in which he recounts the multitude of ways his
girlfriend has tried to kill him, leading him to the conclusion
that perhaps her love for him has begun to wane.
Together they have an easy going rapport with each other and
their audience. This is not cabaret in the classic sense, so don’t
go expecting to hear a lot of old standards. But it’s a
quirky, off-kilter evening that will appeal mainly to a younger
crowd who’s looking to have a lot of fun."
- Jay Jeffries, CabaretExchange.com
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