‘Fred Armisen: Standup For Drummers’ On Netflix Marches To Fred’s Familiar Off-Beat

Fred Armisen has displayed his strengths as a character comedian and a talented musician on TV throughout this 21st century, from Saturday Night Live to Portlandia to Documentary Now!, and he continues to demonstrate his drumming chops whenever he has time to sit on with Late Night with Seth Meyers.

And yet, Armisen’s first Netflix special, Fred Armisen: Standup For Drummers, is more ironic or misguidedly sincere than it is funny.

Should we be surprised, though?

I’m going to do my impression of someone watching Fred Armisen….

Well, that’s…

Haha….

Hmmm…

No.

Words.

Without someone to counterbalance Armisen onstage, he often lacks focus or direction – coming across as a real-life version of his Nicholas Fehn political comic parody on SNL‘s Weekend Update. Or borrowing Armisen’s own words from this special, in which he described blues music: “It’s great for 20 seconds, and then I just want to go.”

In his most focused comedic effort, Armisen guides us through his ability to not only mimic accents from every corner of America, but distill that accent into an attitude that illustrates our commonalities and our differences.

At other times, you’re reminded of Garth and Kat, another recurring Weekend Update fixture, in which Armisen led Kristen Wiig improvising nonsensical song lyrics, leading to nowhere.

If you’re in the mood for that, the joy comes from letting go and embracing the silliness. Armisen clearly enjoyed it, telling us near the end: “This is so much fun for me, I just want you to know.”

The live audience, presumably made up entirely of drummers – signs inside and outside The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, echoed by a doorman, shouted: “Drummers only!” – and we see audience members challenged to play a drum kit to gain entry, even. They’re treated to plenty of jokes about drums, and both appearances and performances by famous drummers, including Sheila E., Tre Cool, Stella Mozgawa, Thomas Lang, Clem Burke and Vinnie Colaiuta. Armisen also shows off his impersonations of Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Larry Mullen, Stewart Copeland, Meg White, and Tito Puente. That latter bit allows us to see where Armisen found inspiration for his first breakout character on SNL, Fericito, once more laying his head into his arms after a rim-shot punchline.

There aren’t many of those to be had here.

In one lengthy routine, Armisen doesn’t tell any jokes, but rather takes us through a decade-by-decade tour through American popular music via different drum kits and the prevailing styles of each era. Interesting for us, but for drummers, it must seem like drumsplaining?! It’s as if Armisen has become that guy at the party with a guitar, who upon getting our attention, has brought us back to his room to impress us and try to bed us.

Which makes his late pivot that much more striking, recalling for us the time in his Armisen’s teen years when he so admired filmmaker John Waters that he wrote to him; Armisen shares with us that letter, as well as the response he received.

In a rock band, the stereotypical drummer can party harder than any of his band mates, or may be the weirdest of the weirdos. And in that sense, Armisen as comedian does continue to march to his own beat. No matter how off it may sound to you, it’s a perfect pitch to his fans.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Fred Armisen: Standup For Drummers on Netflix