Thursday, December 23, 2010

My Birthing of Music and Christmas, by "Sleepy" Stanley Muckleberry




I’m so tired. Where do I begin? Okay, this is a story for the holidays. As a young boy I typically slept for sixteen hours a day. I spent an additional three to four hours sipping warm milk. With the remaining few hours sometimes I would leave the house though, and that’s how I started getting interested in music. You see there was this dance team/street gang that hung out on our block named Handsome David and the Gadgets. You could hear their snapping, tap dancing shoes, blades, and whistles from at least ten feet away. I always wore a duck coat so it was easy to spot me out.
One day, Leaf Nugsby, one of the Gadgets, let me borrow his old maraca. I thanked him so much and invited him over for a nap. After a good long nap, I buttered the week's biscuits and started playing with the maraca. It made noises which frightened me at first. I dropped it several times. But like they always say, if you drop something, pick it up and drop it again. I soon became not so afraid of the sounds. In fact, I started to sing words over them. This woke up my brother. It was the first time he'd been awake since the summer solstice. I hugged him and let him eat two of the week's biscuits. Carl scarfed down the biscuits and exclaimed, "Smack my butter lips, I'm exhausted! Smack my butter lips, I'm exhausted!"
And a hit was born.
I wouldn't smack anything but the maracas, and he kept saying it over and over, "Smack my butter lips, I'm exhausted!" until we found something that could almost be described as rhythm.

And a band was born.

After an exhausting nap, we went to the mall and Carl bought a brand new CASIO. It was too heavy to carry, so we opened it right there, and started playing. All the people rejoiced, thinking that we were the opening band for a man named Santa Claus.

Just then Santa arrived and was worried we were stealing his proverbial thunder so he released a hoard of wild badgers! They pummeled and pillaged the shoppers that had gathered earlier. "Your wishes for Christmas are ours now!" screeched the badgers.

"Stop," I said, "we have a hot jam that I think will remedy such a situation." I was very tired from saying such a difficult sentence and began to fall asleep. "Stanley, they need us. Push through brother!" begged Carl. With a brisk stroke of the number pad that held the beats within the casio of freedom, Carl began to drop a beat that captured the souls of all around us . Humphry, our forlorned and forgotten brother, had taken high ground and began shooting lighting bolts made of jelly sandwhiches at the feet of the badgers. Their pummeling subsided and the people rejoiced in our rhythms.

"THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!" Carl exclaimed. Just then, Santa came and liked our sleeping caps so much that he requested his elves make him one just like them that was red velvet.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Hello astronauts, angels, and arseholes. We're wrapping up a very busy 2010 and looking forward to a lot more fashion, being trillionaires, baking Muckleberry pies, and tricycle races. We recently just did a show in Lafayette, IN to benefit Aubrey Deno, a 1 year old with leukemia. The night ended up raising over $2000! Keep fighting Aubrey, and if you would like to donate go here: http://apps.facebook.com/fundrazr/activity/ee7b638d48cf475583fdca41c8797412?share=true

In future news, just after the new year, we'll be back with Pistol Party in it's 18th installment "Pistol Party is Hung Like an Over," on Tuesday January 4th, which will feature a ton of new fun, prizes, and a lot of cold beer.

We are also lucky enough be be in this year's Chicago Sketchfest, on Thursday, Jan. 13th in the 9:30pm slot. This show will feature a lot of material from Modern Men, so if you missed it last time (what the hell were YOU doing?) or want to see more (you KNOW you miss it) come out. The Puterbaugh Sisters are in the same theater the time-slot before, so come make a night of it.

Below, you'll find some stuff we've been amused by recently, and some more stuff that we were behind. Stay with us. Lots of jingle joy in the new year...

Here's the Puterbaugh's GLITTER PARTY VIDEO (look out for Cappy and Paul in it):



Peter produced and directed this video for his good pal JUD, who is funnier than us:



This is our favorite new video. PERIOD.



This is us (drunkenly) paying tribute to our favorite new video. PERIOD. (We're pretty proud of our efforts):



And finally, this just in, idiots in Minnesota STILL think it's a good idea to have a stadium with a dome:



HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Modern Men opens Thursday!



Think Tank's 4th full length stage revue opens this Thursday at Stage 773 (formerly Theater Building Chicago). Modern Men is a multimedia performance featuring all new original material from the creators of some of Chicago's "most bizarre, high concept comedy around." (Chicago Reader)

Modern Men pokes fun at many aspects of contemporary society, including the economy, the environment, the media, and fashion. The action passes between live stage scenes and well-polished video segments, all accented by carefully designed light and sound.

Come enjoy a night of hilarious comedy that might even make you think about some things... even if those things are swimming pools full of gold or the practicality of houseboat insurance.

Think Tank presents Modern Men
Opening Thursday October 7th and playing every Thursday in October
Stage 773 1225 W. Belmont Ave
$10 general
$7 students

Friday, September 24, 2010

LESS THAN 2 WEEKS AWAY........

For the past month, we have been hard at work in the lab creating our latest one-hour sketch comedy extravaganza, Modern Men.

It has been almost two years since we produced our last full-length stage revue, The Bailout Show, and we're getting really excited for what's to come. It is a great privilege to be one of the first comedy groups in Chicago to partner up with the newly revamped Stage 773, which was recently purchased by the Brian Posen and Jill Valentine (co-founders of the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival). Opening night is just less than two weeks away - October 7th @8:00! Enjoy this recent promotional video we made for the show!!!

Modern Men 1 from Think Tank on Vimeo.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Monday, June 21, 2010

The party never stops..........


"Pistol Party is a non-stop comedy assault on the senses, complete with costumery, wigs, props, strobe lights, fog, bubbles, and anything else the Party can get their hands on to seduce the audience visually." -The Apiary (www.theapiary.org)

Those were the very kind words used to describe our most recent shows over at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater. These are just a few photos from the Saturday night performance to help compliment those sentiments.....










We have also been hard at work in the lab putting together some video projects. Here is a short film we recently finished entitled Soup:

SOUP from Think Tank on Vimeo.




We recently won the “Most Bizarre” award for that video at the Chicago Indie Incubator Film Festival. Here some pictures from that night:



Stay tuned….we have some more videos coming soon and a couple big shows (spoiler alert….keep your Halloween plans open) in the planning phase.

Here is a nice taste of the Pistol Party. Next show Tuesday, July 6th at Town Hall Pub (http://www.townhallpub.com)

Pistol Party MASH!!! from Think Tank on Vimeo.


Wednesday, June 9, 2010

ONE DAY AWAY!!!






















Here we go kids, time to have some fun!
Come enjoy the best of Pistol Party, drink PBR (or whatever you'd like to bring, it's BYOB), see never before seen video, and celebrate the summer!

Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com
or cash at the door.

Check out this great write up on Pistol Party from Kristy Mangel at the chicagoist

See ya at Chemically Imbalanced, 1420 W Irving Park

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Get ready...

Tickets on sale now right here.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

"Here comes the flood..."

We have been away for a minute, but have been secretly very busy. Pistol Party is rolling on, having just wrapped up another sold out show at the Lafayette Brewing Co. and Pistol Party 9.0: "Pajama Ham Sandwiches" (Pistol Party X: "Cuatro De Mayo Party!!!" is Tuesday May 4th at Town Hall, 9pm).

A very ambitious 2010 indeed. We'll be rolling out the video for "SOUP" in mid-May. Keep your eyes peeled for a viewing party with cocktails. Here's a crappy video of the live version:

SOUP Chicago Sketchfest 2009 from Think Tank on Vimeo.


And here are some photos from the greenscreen shoot at our rehearsal space:






After a test run in Lafayette, IN, our good friends,the Muckleberry Brothers, have booked a tour of suburban Chicago malls slated for this spring. Keep an eye out for a documentary of that in the coming weeks as well:

Muckles Tour 2010 from Think Tank on Vimeo.


We're looking to get to both coasts this year, and here in Chicago we're doing a Pistol Party run at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater (Southport and Irving Park) June 10-12 at 8pm.

In the meantime, we'll be helping out our good friend the 80's Clown at Chemically Imbalanced Thursday nights in May, our friends from Pistol Party (Drew Frees and John Leadley), host a stand up set "Please Enjoy Yourself" every Monday at Underground Lounge (Newport just east of Clark/Sheffield) at 8pm, and we've never had a bad time at Entertaining Julia (Town Hall Pub Sunday nights).

Here's more clips from recent Pistol Parties, keep up with us on Facebook for chances to win free tickets to Pistol Party 10.0 "Cuatro de Mayo Party!" (Tuesday, May 4; click HERE for Facebook Event page):

Pistol Party Contests from Think Tank on Vimeo.



Racer from Think Tank on Vimeo.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

New

2010 kicked off with a bang, Chicago Sketchfest, where we performed, created a full theater toilet paper war, and won the www.atom.com video contest. We're laying low for a bit preparing for what promises to be an even bigger year. There are some things on the horizon though:

March 2nd: Pistol Party 8.0!! "Meeting Dionysus"
The 8th installment of Pistol Party will be a wild one. PBR sponsors what Timeout Chicago called "a spirited night of sketches" in their Critic Pick. Contests, standup, sketch, video...anything can happen here. And it will.

March 27th: Pistol Party at the Lafayette Brewing Company 8pm
After an amazing first run in Lafayette, we return to the LBC to blast out another show to a packed house. www.lafayettebrewingco.com for more info.

June 10-12: Pistol Party Midsummer Night's Mayhem
We're doing a 3 night run of our best, most polished material at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater at Irving and Southport in Chicago. Should be the pinnacle of the summer.

We are also planning a theater run of shows that will be coming together in the near future, so keep your eyes posted...and look out for more new videos at www.vimeo.com/thinktank


Regicide is a crime,
TANK