When their IFC sketch series ended after five seasons, The Whitest Kids U’Know mostly went their separate ways, although they reunited for a tour in 2013 and tried filming a pilot last year.
Timmy Williams got married and moved back to South Dakota. Zach Cregger went the primetime sitcom route with NBC, appearing in single-season efforts Friends with Benefits and Guys with Kids before landing a recurring role on currently-running About a Boy. Sam Brown and Darren Trumeter, meanwhile, recently joined Trevor Moore on tour. Moore was one of Jay Leno’s correspondents, appearing in sketches both during Leno’s primetime stint as well as his second Tonight Show tenure. But the past few years have seen Moore indulging his musical side. He released a Comedy Central Records album of musical comedy in 2013, “Drunk Texts to Myself,” and follows up now with an album plus a live hourlong special, “High In Church,” premiering tonight at midnight on Comedy Central.
Moore manages to fit not only his Whitest Kids mates into the live performances and music videos, but also several other comedy friends and icons, including Dave Foley and James Adomian (as Illuminati members with Cregger), Heather Anne Campbell, Sean O’Connor, Steve Agee, Randy Liedtke, Johnny Pemberton, Jonah Ray, Owen Benjamin and Reggie Watts.
He opens the live special — taped at New York City’s Gramercy Theatre — by telling the audience, “Lately I’ve just been touring around the country and playing music.”
On Reddit today, Moore told a fan who asked him to choose between music and sketches that they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive. “I like both,” he said. “But lately I’ve been favoring music. Some of the most fun ones are the ones that start as music and then break into a sketch. There are a couple like that on the new album/special.”
In fact, watching “High In Church,” you can imagine an alternate timeline parallel universe in which Moore and his Whitest Kids had been hired at Saturday Night Live instead of The Lonely Island to produce music videos and digital shorts. Particularly with a musically-inclined frontman like Moore.
He starts his special, however, with a straight comedy sketch imagining the concessions Moore made with the network to secure his second album, then to the Gramercy for a live performance of “God Hates The Tips,” a song about circumcision that includes a trio of backup singers and a melody that echoes Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.”
Moore is comfortable with multiple genres, and as he tells us, he grew up in the South (Virginia, mostly), which means he grew up with country music and religion. He hits both targets with one song, “Gays Got Married.”
Before you have time to pass judgment on it, he’s turned the dial to a Beach Boys surfing safari version of “Kitty History” that subversively suggests several conspiracy theories about our world leaders and our wars. Did The Illuminati approve?
One song acquiesces to his mother’s friend, Connie, who keeps pitching him comedy ideas, by dedicating an ode directly to and about her. Another imagines him getting revenge against high-school classmates who made fun of him by buying a monkey. And Moore also directly references his previous album with a track reading his drunk text messages to himself, as Reggie Watts sings background vocals and beats.
“The Ballad of Billy John,” which he described as a new folk song, like any good folk song delivers commentary about the world around us — in this case, the horrible trolling and awfulness that can be YouTube commenters and meme-makers when a sincere old man uploads his first song.
And his closing number, at least in the edited Comedy Central hour, promises to unite us all with a common cause. Even if that cause results in bad news for a lot of other people. Vive la revolution!
The full CD has 14 tracks including “Geniuses,” “Bullies,” more drunk texts and “What About Mouthwash?” Here’s the music video for “Geniuses,” in which Jonah Ray and Colton Dunn help learn Moore about historical advancements, in black and white. Credit where credit is due!
The extended and uncensored version of Trevor Moore: High In Church will be available for download on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Xbox Video, Sony Entertainment Network, Vudu and Google Play on March 10. The digital album also will be available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Google Play, Spotify and all streaming services.