Theater Scene Magazine wrote up a great review about us from our performance in The New York Underground Comedy Festival, naming us the crowd favorite and calling us “one of the top five sketch groups in NY right now”. Read the full text of the review online here.

Your Friend,
Paul Syracuse

If you happen to live in the Los Angeles area check out our videos in the Los Angeles Fest of Sketch. They will be showing “Why Hybrid Cars Are So Gay” and “Children’s Story”. Also check out the other fine groups involved.

Your Friend,
Paul Syracuse

Our video “Double Feature,” featuring Paris Hilton in “It Came With No Talent!” is featured on Best Week Ever today. The say, “this 1950′s movie spoof has never been more timely”. Check it out here.

–Reid.

We’ve had a blast these past six months performing Let Freedom Bling all over the City, and we sincerely appreciate the support and enthusiasm everyone has shown about the show and the group. We’re now taking a short break from performing while we work on our all new show. We hope to start showing off some new stuff in the next couple of months, so keep checking the website! We’re also very pleased to announce the addition of Will Nunziata of New York City powerhouse sketch comedy group The Royal We to Better Than The Machine as director and collaborator. For more info about Will, check out the Bios page.

Stay tuned!

–Reid.

Kari Milchman of the New York Press says Better Than The Machine “captures all the random absurdity of MTV’s The State and all the topical significance of Dave Chappelle” in the Press’s August 16-22 issue. Pick up a copy of the paper on any street corner (its free!) or read the full text of the review online here.

–Reid.

We came, we sang, we conquered. On Wednesday night, CBGB’s, considered by many to be the birthplace of punk music (giving young acts like the Ramones and Blondie some of their earliest stage time), hosted Better Than The Machine (we’re a sketch comedy group that, collectively, owns one Ramones t-shirt). After 30 years of cutting edge music and trend setting, the club is closing down this fall. We were honored to get a chance to play at this New York City landmark before it closed.

We found ourselves the only non-musical act among a sea of cover bands, and one of the following happend (choose your own adventure):

1) Better Than The Machine went on stage and, remarkably, the crowd of 300 people (hipsters, punk rockers, business men, soccer moms, guys who could kick our ass, etc.)–many of whom had never even heard of “sketch comedy”–grew silent. The acoustics were crappy for an act like ours, but the devoted audience hinged on every word we said. When we added a birthday tribute to Mick Jagger into the song, the crowd went wild and demanded an encore. The owner told us he’d love to have us back… if the place weren’t closing down, that is.

2) Remember that scene in the Blues Brothers where John Belushi books the band at a country bar in the middle of nowhere, and it’s just totally the wrong kind of place for an R&B band to be, and the truckers start throwing beer bottles at them and they have to play the theme to Rawhide to escape with their dignity–and their lives–in hand? Yeah, it was kind of like that.

3) In the tradition of some of the club’s more notable bands over the past 30 years, Better Than The Machine got kicked out of CBGB’s after Matt, on a coke binge, got into a fistfight with the club’s owner in a matter involving his unpaid bar tab. It took 16 men to take him down, at which point Carlos smashed Reid’s guitar over the bartender’s head and the cops had to be brought in. Matt, Carlos, and Christina remain in prison and Paul and Reid are seeking new members for the group. Please fax resumes ASAP. Bass guitar experience preferred.

All in all, it was a fun night for everyone who didn’t end up in prison.

–Reid.
(Photos by Sarah McDaniel–thanks!)