{"id":3379,"date":"2019-05-29T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=3379"},"modified":"2019-05-29T13:26:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T17:26:08","slug":"dot-ep91-comedian-erica-rhodes-on-art-discipline-and-her-new-album-sad-lemon-plus-new-music-from-cate-le-bon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2019\/05\/29\/dot-ep91-comedian-erica-rhodes-on-art-discipline-and-her-new-album-sad-lemon-plus-new-music-from-cate-le-bon\/","title":{"rendered":"DoT EP91: Comedian Erica Rhodes On Art, Discipline, and Her New Album Sad Lemon, plus New Music from Cate Le Bon"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have not heard Erica Rhodes\u2019s comedy, you have the perfect excuse to dive in on June 18, when her new album, Sad Lemon<\/em>, comes out. Rhodes has been performing in some fashion since she was a kid, modeling at five and playing the voice of Garrison Keillor\u2019s conscience on Prairie Home Companion<\/em> at ten. She was a dancer as a child, then dedicated herself to playing cello before discovering acting and attending the Atlantic Theater Conservatory. That\u2019s where she got some advice from David Mamet, that she needed to fix her voice if she was ever going to have a career, an experience that wound up as the subject of a joke on the new album. Turns out, she says, he was right. <\/p>\n

If Rhodes\u2019 voice, high-pitched and friendly-sounding, was a liability in acting, it\u2019s an asset in comedy. It allows her to speak honestly about subjects like aging, living alone, and revising your life\u2019s expectations and keep the mood light. There\u2019s a natural buoyancy in her stand-up. And she writes smart stuff. When you\u2019re thirty, you start talking about how you\u2019re old, she says. Then when you\u2019re forty and realize you really are old, you realize you could have been young for an extra ten years. Her mother is relieved that she never had to face abuse by Harvey Weinstein. \u201cShe\u2019s like, \u2018I know you weren\u2019t \u2018cause I told your father, if she had been, she\u2019d be a lot more successful.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n