Pop and Rock Listings

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 6, 2008
POP

BOOTH AND PAT The classic showbiz tale generally has a star getting laryngitis and an understudy getting a big break. For Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort, it was more like this: Somebody blew off a gig, so, well, we can’t let that empty stage go to waste, can we?

Last fall Mr. Frankfort, above left, a singer-songwriter with a comic side, was booked for a solo engagement at the Mean Fiddler on West 47th Street and asked Mr. Daniels, above right, a longtime friend from when both studied musical theater at the Boston Conservatory, to provide some backup vocals. When another act on the bill didn’t show up, Mr. Frankfort, 31, and Mr. Daniels, 34, began winging it to fill the time, and the audience seemed to get a kick out of their easy, goofy rapport.

“I think through sheer stubbornness we refused to leave the stage,” Mr. Frankfort recalled. That was the genesis of the act they call simply Booth and Pat, a pairing that is part cabaret, part stand-up comedy, part improv. They have since appeared at spots including Don’t Tell Mama, and on Thursday (and again on June 27) they will roll out a new full-length show at the Duplex that they’re calling “Slow Children Playing.” Expect routines that defy genre labels. Their take on “Let It Be” starts out pleasantly tuneful, but somehow they get distracted in the chorus and toss in a sampling of every other song that ever used the same chord progression (of which, it turns out, there are a lot).

Some musing about their favorite lyrics turns into a medley of every gibberish lyric you can think of, from the “Minnie the Moocher” refrain to “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Then there’s Mr. Frankfort’s song “The Straight Girls.” It’s what a guy writes after more than one woman dumps him by announcing that she’s a lesbian. “It’s fashionable to be gay,” Mr. Daniels said, offering his sidekick some comfort as they described the origin of the song. “Or,” Mr. Frankfort replied, “maybe it’s just fashionable to date me and turn gay.” NEIL GENZLINGER

"The compact and hyperkinetic Daniels and the stringbean Frankfort wring geniune laughs from their horseplay, and they choose comic ditties they can make something of."
David Finkle, Backstage

"I kept thinking of The Smothers Brothers while watching the free-flowing but underplayed give and take between comic singers Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort in their one-night performance of 2 Guys. 1 Guitar. No Standards. at Don't Tell Mama. After the show, Daniels advised me with deadpan seriousness that they were more like The Smothers Brothers on crystal meth.

Daniels is the dark, slightly scruffy one with an authoritative coolness who can play the microphone like he's hiding a Casio keyboard in his mouth. Frankfort, the tall one with the guitar, has an innocent dorkiness about him that hides a lecherous underbelly. There's nary a punch line in their between-song banter yet the quirky absurdity of their chemistry, so fresh and seemingly spontaneous, is very, very funny.

Most of their songs are by Frankfort, based on personal experiences like having more than one girlfriend break up with him by saying she's a lesbian ("Where have all the straight girls gone?" he ponders in song) and the tragedy of hair loss. When the boys do get sincere with a lovely "(I Can't Wait To Fall Again) Into You" they joke how Frankfort's emo display will help him score with the ladies. They also do covers, like a Spice Girls medley performed with a fierce dedication to girl power and Ben Folds' hilariously folky arrangement of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit."

Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort have their separate careers in comedy, music and acting with no future dates for joint appearances scheduled as of yet. But hopefully this promising pair will be treading the cabaret boards much more frequently."
Michael Dale, Broadwayworld.com

Booth & Pat: Slow Children Playing

The last time I reviewed the cabaret antics of singing comedians Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort, a/k/a Booth & Pat, the description, "The Smothers Brothers on crystal meth," entered the picture. In their new gig, Slow Children Playing, which has one more scheduled performance at The Duplex on June 20th, it seems the boys have upped the dosage.

The combination of Pat, the dim-witted guitar player with a goofy smile and a delusionally high regard for his appeal to the ladies, and Booth, the hyper-intense voice of reason and understated sarcasm, was merely very, very funny six month ago. But now, like a classical duo that just needs time in front of audiences to evolve their playing into making music, Booth & Pat are developing into a well-oiled laugh-riot machine. The quirky absurdity of their verbal give-and-take slickly glides on new layers of polish without losing any of the spontaneity that made it work so well in the first place. These guys are hilarious.

When they do covers, there's always a twist, like their riff on Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback," where they imagine all the out-of-style things they can bring back. ("I'm bringing dial-up back / Those slow connections are where it's at.") What seems to begin as a normal rendition of Lennon and McCartney's "Let It Be" turns into a medley of every imaginable song with the same chord structure. Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is slowed-down and sung with such heartfelt sincerity that the song itself becomes the joke.

They also do Frankfort's original tunes, the best of which has him emoting, "Where have all the straight girls gone," (sounding just enough like Paula Cole's plea concerning cowboys) after a history of girlfriends break it off with him by saying they're lesbians. I can't give away big joke from Frankfort's new idea for a wedding song, but it's extremely inappropriate and extremely funny, as is Daniels' shocked reaction.
The pair keeps topping themselves with a medley of popular songs that feature nonsense lyrics ("coo-coo-cachoo," "hi-de-hi-de-hi," "doo wa ditty ditty dum ditty doo," etc.) and a big Spice Girls medley is terrific fun.

But what makes the act really work is the frequently hilarious between-song patter that establishes the on-stage personas which carry over into the musical performances. With nary a punch line they deliver solid character humor that brings a 21st Century edginess to the old tradition of comedy duos.
-Michael Dale, Broadwayworld.com

Look for another chance at The Duplex to enter (at your own risk and risqué), the wacky and wonderful world of Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort, not for the prude or politically correct. BOOTH AND PAT are fearless and embrace their inner goofy rebel nerdy iconoclastic selves. With an act where the conceit is that they are getting on each other’s nerves and interrupting or derailing each other’s best and worst musical intentions, they are a satirical mini-miracle. It’s R-rated for “Ranting” and “Rude” and “Rebellious” and “Ridiculous” and “Ribald” and “Really Riotous.” Gleefully playing dumb and dumber, they push each other’s buttons and push the envelope, too. Mocking music styles by just doing them, with original songs in the mixed-up mix, mocking and mock-serious, it’s wild. If they were ice cream, they’d have to be a banana split because they are bananas and side-splittingly funny when the jokes land (some may thud, causing better ad libs) or maybe they’re a sundae just because their show is on a Sunday (July 20… but then a Friday on August 29; you see, they’re unpredictable).
-Rob Lester, Cabaret Exchange

"I must admit that my entire exposure to hip hop and rap has fallen into two categories: accidental and reluctant. So it was with a great deal of trepidation that I contemplated seeing a cabaret show where two white guys riff and snark at contemporary music. That caveat out of the way, I have to say that Patrick Frankfort and Booth Daniels are two extremely personable and talented young men with nicely trained singing voices and a dry sense of humor.

Their approach to comedy is part SNL and partly rooted in the adversarial style of the Smothers Brothers. They unassumingly bill their act as “2 guys, 1 guitar, no standards” and their appeal is infectious, particularly to the under 30 set. Pat’s self-effacing songs about dating straight girls or male pattern baldness have a wry charm. Booth scores heavily with Weird Al Yankovic’s “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” a very funny song in which he recounts the multitude of ways his girlfriend has tried to kill him, leading him to the conclusion that perhaps her love for him has begun to wane.

Together they have an easy going rapport with each other and their audience. This is not cabaret in the classic sense, so don’t go expecting to hear a lot of old standards. But it’s a quirky, off-kilter evening that will appeal mainly to a younger crowd who’s looking to have a lot of fun."
- Jay Jeffries, CabaretExchange.com