Hey, buddy, don't blow a Gaskin. He's only got one shot at this, but it's a quality shot, and he needs votes to move on to the next round.
Chris Gaskin was announced as one of the 18 finalists to make it into the online voting stage of the SiriusXM Top Comic tournament. The list was announced this week after 72 initial comedians tried their stuff out live for panels of judges in Toronto and Vancouver. These 18 semifinalists are all seasoned Canadian talent, all of them are headliners, but only Gaskin has a Prince George address.
For the past few years, he has been based out of Vancouver to focus on his standup career, but Gaskin was born and raised here, and its still where he comes home to be with family and friends.
It was also here where he got his start in standup. Even that first time was funny. He signed up for what was then an annual local talent competition, the PGX Idol event at the 2004 fall fair (now the BCNE), and the organizers were so accustomed to singers entering that they slotted him in between vocalists, which significantly broke the momentum of the proceedings.
"I had maybe three minutes of material and I only had one real joke: it was about my family going to Disneyland but I was so short the only thing I could go on was It's A Small World," Gaskin remembered with a shudder.
"If you can hear a pin drop at the midway of a fair... yeah... that's bombing."
But he persevered and now he has become a regular on the Canadian club circuit and at comedy festivals like the Vancouver chapter of Just For Laughs, FunnyFest in Calgary, and on various television appearances.
"The average year looks like being on the road probably three or four months doing gigs in the Pacific Northwest, Alberta, Ontario, the Maritimes, and the rest of the time I'm doing the clubs closer to home - Yuk Yuks mostly and another club called Laugh Lines, the Kino Cafe, a bunch of local one-nighters and open mics, and that's when I'm writing new material and working new jokes into my act, so it's as strong as possible for the tours," he said.
It was a combination of factors that drew him into the life of standup comedy. He loved to watch it, and always had an affinity for live comedians, but one summer in particular he saw a run of George Carlin specials on the Bravo Network, which turned him onto the science of comedy and the art of delivery. Then, when he saw a televised special by comedian Sean Collins, another realization struck. Carlin was a big star, but Collins was funny too, and was a regular guy, a working professional. This comedy thing was a job, he suddenly realized.
He had few friends he could look to for peer support. The only folks around Prince George doing that brand of comedy were Joey Bergey, Tristan Rynsewyn, Julia Schlieman and a smattering of others he knew of. He joined them in makeshift comedy shows they would arrange every couple of months.
Now, out on the road and backstage at festivals, he is not the only one from the Prince George area. He rattles off names that are all up in lights across the country who once called this area home.
"There's my buddy Johnny Pirrotta, there's Matt Billion doing great, Tom Stade is from Quesnel but he's big in the U.K. now, and Ian Bagg is from the Smithers-Terrace area," he said, but he expected that number to explode now that it was no longer just solitary comedians working alone in their disconnected northern towns to get heard elsewhere. Connections are being forged and skills are being built in group sizes now.
"I know Prince George is a lot different then even just a few years ago. There's starting to become a scene up there. It's great to see. You have got to have stage time to develop as a comic. Even if you bomb, you have to get up there in front of people and try out your material. Musicians can tell if a song is good before you perform it in front of a crowd, but you don't know that with jokes at all. You need that tactical feedback, and the only way to do that is to be on stage."
To see his work, head to his website (www.chrisgaskin.net) and click on the clip that stands as his official audition for the SiriusXM Top Comic competition. He has a link there to the voting page.
The top prizes involve winning spots at coveted comedy festivals, some plumb broadcasting opportunities and $25,000 cash.
"That's like seven years' salary for a Canadian comic," Gaskin said.
"This year's competition grand prize will be truly career-changing for our finale winner and we're thrilled that Canadians will have a hand in selecting the eight competitors (moving on to the next round)," said the event's host Ben Miner, who also presides over the Canada Laughs comedy channel on SiriusXM.
The voting goes on until Aug. 22 at 11:59 p.m.
