PHILOSOPHY: THE BEST OF BILL HICKS

CREDITS

Written and performed by Bill Hicks

Executive Producer: Mary Reese Hicks

Compilation Producer: Jeff Rougvie

Mastering by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering

Design: Steven Jurgensmeyer

Cover and Rear Card Photography: David Johndrow

Special thanks to Steve Saporta, Peter Casperson, and Bob Donnelly.

Thank you Jim , Lynn , Steve, Marty, Ryan, Rachel Hicks, Philip Lyon, and Matt Adams.

(P) 2002 Arizona Bay Production Co., Inc. (C) 2002 Rykodisc. All Rights Reserved.

Manufactured and Marketed by Rykodisc under exclusive license.

Rykodisc RCD 10631

LINER NOTES & ART

I recall seeing Bill Hicks' show in Belfast around the end of '92, one night of fabulous, blasphemous chaos; Goat Boy dancing around the stage and coming out with the kind of material that makes your eyes stick out on stalks. The bloke on stage lights had a couple of technical difficulties and was immediately verbally eviscerated, much to the delight of the baying audience below. I'm told that this hapless technician still remembers his merciless ordeal with some affection, and I wouldn't be surprised. Like everyone else that night, he'd never heard anything quite like Hicks before.

Sitting down to listen to him one more time, I was surprised to find myself a little more laid-back about the man and his comedy than I usually am. My long-standing rabid enthusiasm seemed to have faded slightly; after all, how could he still be so fresh and shocking and hilarious after so many repeat performances? I've seen his shows on tape and heard his CDs of his gigs and talked his routines to death with friends so often that all I was anticipating was a comfortable familiarity, a wry smile here ant there at the old favorites. This "Best Of" would join the others on the shelf, get dragged out every once in a while, be laughed at less and smiled at more, until one day...

Wrong again.

An hour or two later of How is semen being worn this year? and Step on the gas! and the J.F.K. lesson for every new president, and the gruesome redneck reality of America (passed out under the truck with his dog Skeeter), and the gasps of the appalled audience as our hero reveals the truth about their children and all the other little miracles - an hour or two of this and I had well and truly laughed my ass off. You get tired of Bill Hicks and you're dead from the neck up.

Bill Hicks was the antidote to that safe, bland form of comedy we know so well; that mixture of what happened to the guy on the flight in and the amazing things his kids are doing these days and electricity, hey, what is it keeps that inside the little outlets, what's that all about, you know what I mean? That crap. It lulls you, dulls you, lets you sit back and smile and predict the punch lines with a warm, comfy feeling inside. Hicks was the guy who blew that all away.

I sometimes wonder - if things had kept rolling along and the money kept rolling in, as it has a habit of doing - if he'd have ended up selling out. If today he'd be nuzzling at Satan's pecker, shilling Orange Drink or some other horror, one more guy who used to be great. But I like to think not.

What really fires my imagination is what he would have made of the world today. What he would think and say a mere eight years on, when the targets he (and pretty much he alone) would snipe at have only gotten more plentiful. When the bad guys are most definitely in the ascendant. And when, God help us, one of the terrible, alcoholic, bible-thumping, illiterate looks-like-we-got-us-a-reader redneck dead-eyed fucks is "actually in the White House." Wouldn't you love to hear him cut loose on that little lot?

Bill Hicks died of pancreatic cancer on February 26, 1994, aged 32.

There is precious little justice in this world.

For the record.

- Garth Ennis / Belfast, May 2001

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Born December 16th, 1961 in Valdosta, Georgia, William Melvin Hicks was the youngest of three children. By the time he was 7, Bill had lived in four states before settling in Houston. As a child, Bill yearned to be a comedian. He idolized Johnny Carson and the stand-up comedy of Woody Allen. In junior high Bill met Dwight Slade and they became fast friends. Together, the two spent hours creating comedy routines. Bill and Dwight's ambitions of performing in front of an audience seemed hopeless. Even though there were no comedy clubs nearby, they made recordings and sent them to local agents. One package earned them an overnight slot on the Jerry Lewis telethon, bu they were underage and couldn't perform. Finally, an opportunity arrived when The Comedy Workshop opened in Houston. Chauffeured to the club by friend Kevin Booth (the only one of the three with a driver's license), they convinced the club manager to give them a shot. Bill and Dwight became the venue's youngest regular comics. With only a handful of performances under their belts, Dwight's family relocated leaving Bill to focus on his solo act.

Shortly after graduating high school Bill moved to L.A. to start the first phase of his love/hate relationship with the city. Performing alongside then-unknowns Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and Gary Shandling, Bill found the going rough. After two years he had had enough and returned to Houston. Although his experience in the heart of the showbiz beast had been disappointing, Bill remained enthusiastically dedicated to stand-up comedy. He began touring relentlessly, building a small but loyal base of fans.

In 1984, with the support of Jay Leno, Bill made his first appearance on David Letterman's show (at the time of his death, Bill had performed on the show eleven times). He began playing more prestigious rooms and fellow comedians developed tremendous respect for his work. Hicks tried again to integrate into traditional showbiz by moving to New York, which he found more agreeable than L.A. Ther Bill stopped taking drugs, a habit he had picked up during hard years of touring. Although he attended AA meetings, Bill never renounced his drug use, explaining in performances that he had "some great times on drugs." This blunt honesty flowed over into other areas of his performance, and Bill addressed a variety of subjects with a new and pure clarity.

Bill's comedy (despite his own claims to the contrary) was not about hate or pessimism. Bill was an unabashed optimist. He believed most people were good at heart, but evil forces were deliberately distracting us all from creating a better world using television, lies, tobacco, and alcohol as opiates. Bill felt a revolution of thought was coming and that it was his duty, as an emissary of the truth, to bring whatever light he could to anyone who would listen. The blunt, straightforward expression of these ideas could cause clashes with less enlightened, unsuspecting audiences. The result was sometimed dangerous; Bill had his ankle broken and a gun was pointed at him on stage. Despite these experiences, he refused to compromised his material and soldiered on.

His first comedy video, Sane Man, was recorded in 1989 before an enthusiastic crowd in Austin, Texas. Much of the material heard on his later albums is here in the embryonic stage. Bill toured the clubs even more incessantly in the early '90s, playing 250-300 gigs a year. Although he loved performing, he hated traveling, but the effort was showing results. His legend was spreading by word of mouth. His first comedy album, Dangerous was released in 1990.

That year, Ninja Bachelor Party, the film he made with Kevin Booth, was released on video and HBO aired an all-Hicks episode of One Night Stand. At the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, Bill was a hit with audiences and critics.

Soon after his Montreal gig, Bill debuted in the United Kingdom appearing in an American comedy revue. British audiences enthusiastically embraced Hicks (Bill joked that it was because of his pale skin). He toured the country extensively, winning the prestigious Critic's Award at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival.

Bill's second album, Relentless, is a developmental step from Dangerous but still only hints at what is to come. On a 1992 English tour he filmed the Revelations performance video.

Although he was working harder than ever and his career was building momentum, still, Bill was not reaching as large an audience as he hoped to. Meanwhilre other comedians were breaking into the mass consciousness with a watered-down version of Hicks' comedy. While it could have been lucrative for Bill to tone down his act and supercede these pretenders, he had no interst in doing so. Uncompromising, Bill believed in moving forward, expanding his world-view. Turning his back on the opportunity to cash in, he plowed ahead fearlessly. Bill's material and performances evolved at a tremendous rate.

In 1993, a breakthrough seemed closer than ever. Rolling Stone had declared Bill "Hot Stand-Up Comic" of the year. He began work on "Counts of the Netherworld," a high-concept talk show for British TV. He had been nominated for "Stand-Up Of The Year" by the American Comedy Awards for the third time. He wrote a column for the British humor magazine Scallywag and was asked to write for the political journal The Nation. Rock bands flocked to his banner; Radiohead, Rage Against The Machine and Tool professed their admiration. He had been invited by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to speak at Lincoln center in June of 1994. Performance films, screenplays, books, and CD box sets were in various stages of discussion. Perhaps to take advantage of this synergy, Bill moved back to L.A.

Then, in June, Bill learned he had cancer. Choosing to keep his illness a secret, he told his family, a few close friends, and went straight back to work. In August of 1993, Bill's brother Steve flew to L.A. They packed Bill's belongings into his jeep and drove to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Bill moved into his parents' home. He had already recorded Arizona Bay and Rant In E-Minor, with ambitious plans to mix music that he had recorded into the performance to complement the comedy themes. He described the conceptual Arizona Bay, built around the theme of L.A. falling into the Pacific Ocean, as his Dark Side Of The Moon.

Throughout the rest of the year Bill underwent chemotherapy on a weekly basis. The tour dates didn't let up and his writing pace accelerated.

In October, Hicks taped a performance for David Letterman that became one of his most infamous moments. Returning to his hotel following the early evening taping, Bill was told that censors had cut his segment. In a 39-page letter to John Lahr of The New Yorker, Bill expressed his frustration. He had reason to be enraged; the set had been approved (twice!) by the powers that be. It would've been his last television appearance.

His last gig was on January 6, 1994 at Caroline's in New York City -- he did not complete the series of shows.

Despite his illness, Bill was at peace. He spent his time with his parents, playing them music he loved and showing them documentaries about his interests. He called friends to say goodbye and re-read J.R.R. Tolkien's Fellowship Of The Ring.

"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather." - BILL HICKS

On Saturday, February 26, Bill died. He was 32.

I believe that Bill Hicks is one of the greatest entertainers and social critics who ever lived, but even more so, I respect his work as a comedian. This is not to belittle the ideas and observations that Hicks put forth - they are integral parts of what made Bill great (and this is The Philosophy Of Bill Hicks, after all). It's just that Bill's devotion to comedy as a medium for his ideas is awe-inspiring and and equally-important, if often unrecognized, part of his legend.

You see, a lot of comedians who genuinely attempt real social commentary (instead of just toying with it for fashion's sake) tend to become overwhelmed by it. They end up exorcising their performances of humor by getting way too heavy. Even when Bill was railing against injustice, or when he was down and out personally, he was always blisteringly funny, funnier than anybody else.

Having spent literally hundreds of hours listening to Hicks, I mistakenly assumed that assembling this "Best Of" would be easy. I was quite wrong. Bill's comedy is so well conceived, his performances so perfectly structured, that it was very difficult to pull apart and re-assemble material recorded over the course of four (very evolutionary) years.

To further complicate matters, Bill's latter albums are conceptual pieces with music interspersed, making editing even more difficult. In order to present this album in as coherent a manner as possible, most of the music found in the bits from those albums have been removed, but the bits themselves are unexpurgated; Bill's words have not been compromised.

This is the best I could do. I hope it will introduce you to a world of truth, honesty, and hilarious humor.

Viva Hicks!

- Jeff Rougvie

P.S. I'm not in marketing, but if you like what you hear on this CD, you really should listen to Bill Hicks' complete albums. There's plenty more dark stuff where this came from, my friends.

-- Jeff Rougvie / 2002

 

More about Bill Hicks: Light Fantastic, John Lahr's book of profiles collected from the pages of The New Yorker, includes "The Goat Boy Also Rises," his amazing depiction of Bill and his comedy. The original article appeared in the November 1st, 1993 issue of the magazine. Light Fantastic published by The Dial Press.

On June 3rd, 1994, Robert Seidenberg chronicled the "Death Of A Comedian" in Entertainment Weekly. Mike Sager profiled the brilliant end of Bill Hicks' life in his article "The Gospel According To Hicks" (GQ, September, 1994). The Tiger Aspect Video documentary, It's Just A Ride, has appeared on Comedy Central (US) and Channel 4 (UK).

Bill Hicks died of pancreatic cancer on February 26, 1994. He was 32 years old.

 

 

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