How the Legendary Boston Comedy Scene Was Born w/Don Gavin | Joe Rogan

We've talked about you, I don't know how many times. Many times. I've heard that from my son. He says you mention my name glowingly. Yeah, well hey man, you were a giant inspiration to me when I was coming up. That's good to hear. Well, you know, I've talked about this so many times, but that era of Boston comedy, when I started in 88 and you guys had already been through the ding-ho and all that, it had been gone. And it was the heyday of comedy. It was an amazing time. And, you know, I was very fortunate to be able to see guys like you and Sweeney and, you know, and all those guys, Mike Donovan and Kevin Knox. And I mean, you go down the list over and over and over again, Lenny Clark. And just an amazing time for stand-up back then. Yeah, that was certainly the heyday. I came in, I started at around 79 and it had been going on for one or two years. But going on meaning not much going on, you know. And then it built and built and built and then to the point that that explosion is just it. Wow. And I always like to think people talk about a Boston style. It wasn't a Boston style, other than being very aggressive maybe. Yeah. But everybody had different ways to do it because we didn't know. It wasn't like an LA style or New York style. There was just all different approaches coming out to the same end. Yeah, you started at 79. So that was really like the beginning of comedy clubs, right? Yeah, well, they weren't even comedy clubs. You mentioned the Ding Ho. Ding Ho used to be like a saloon. And the guys that were sitting at the bar, we first went in there. They refused to leave. So they stayed at the bar. And all they would do is when we put somebody up on the stand, you know, they'd turn around and say, shut the fuck up. We're trying to drink here. We couldn't get in. So finally we willed it out because they get so tired of hearing the microphone. But that was just a little, a drink, that's all you can say. And it became a Chinese restaurant. Yeah. So it wasn't a Chinese restaurant at first? It was just a saloon, I think. And then Shun Li, this guy came in. It was approached to put comedy in there. And Barry Criminist was one of the guys originally. And Lenny, myself, Sweeney, as you mentioned, DJ has it. People like that. Jimmy Dingle. Yeah. There was a bunch of us that came in at that time. And once again, no particular one style, other than the fact that we kind of created that the headliner would be the host. Yeah, that was a weird Boston style. Like when you have the Don Gavin show, you would go out there and host and you'd do a few minutes in between each comic. Right. Yeah. Well, we didn't know it was weird because I wanted to be in charge. And if Joe Rogan went on and he slipped through the 15 and you do great, great. Now Bill Johnson comes on, he blows. I'm going to go up and take the mic after about six minutes. Yeah, that was Bill Johnson's deal. And then go on to the next cut. Yeah. And then at the end, that headliner would close the show. Yeah. So you had that much control. But when he started doing more and more shows, like I started Nix in Boston, initially it was a joke. It was supposed to be a tax write off. They tried to sabotage it. That used to be a stake joint. Really? Yeah, Nick's stake joint. And so when we did it, one week the stage was collapsed. Next week there'd be no sound. Next week no lighting. The doors would be locked. And then eventually more and more people coming in. Then they got upset because we were getting in the way of the people going to the stake part. And then they said, well, maybe we can make money on this. We'll go upstairs. There was an upstairs there. And that was used only on one night of the week for Greek belly dancers where they were paid $200. The next was $200. In fact, these Greek belly dancers, their production food. Everybody in their own liquor. So they only made $200 for the whole week. So once we went to the theater, one show, then two. And eventually, and around the time when you came in, we were doing five shows, my night on Saturday night, five shows in the same place. Upstairs and downstairs. Yeah, I remember that. That was before I was getting paid. So I was really an amateur, but I remember watching, there was a show in the upstairs room and then there was a smaller downstairs room. And then there was another time where they did it in the disco, right? Which is a disco now, I think, right? If it is, it's a very sad disco. Well, it was sad then too. But it was strange that everyone was cycling from room to room. Right. And you go from upstairs to downstairs. And again, the first week we tried that with the five shows, you were trying to host. It wasn't possible to go both parties. I mean, the guy on the side of the stage was going, you're supposed to be going downstairs. I'm going, I just started up here. And it was so confusing that you get on stage and you say, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Have I already said that? I mean, you want to? Sure. It got to the point. And also with the few drinks involved by the fifth show, yeah, there was some repetition sometimes.