This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear
Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Kyle Gordon is a New York City based improvisational
comedian, actor, and writer, and he's got a new album out called
Kyle Gordon Is Great. I guess we don't have to ask how you're doing
because we already know. Yeah, feeling good, feeling amazing, feeling great,
thank you. And upon this album, You've got a lot of great
new parody songs. But it's almost like a concept album, isn't it to
the listener? Yeah? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, as you
mentioned, it's a comedy album, and each song on the album is a
parody of a different genre of music. So there's like, you know,
some country music, some pop punk music, some Irish music. So it
really kind of spans a lot of different genres. But I sort of tether
it together with these inter ludes of radio stations, so when you're listening to
the album, it sort of feels like you're in the car flipping the station,
listening to all these different genres. So yeah, in that sense,
there is a one cohesive concept that kind of ties all these weird genres and
weird songs together. Well, let's talk about one of those songs, Antonio
Frankfurt's Ugliest Girl on the Beach. Is this a Boston Nova spoof? Yes,
exactly? Yeah right, so, yeah, listeners might know if Boston
Nova it's like a Brazilian smooth jazz. It was popular in the early sixties.
Girl from Ipanima is probably the most famous song in that genre. So
this was a parody of that style of music. Yeah, so tall and
tan and young, young and lovely. Yeh, there we go. Yeah,
although although this girl, this girl is not that ravishing, I guess
no, Yeah, I mean he comes right out with it. He doesn't
beat around the bush. She's the ugliest girl on the beach, but he
still wants a piece. Sure, because she's Brazilian, of course, that's
the vibe. Well, I grew up, I mean, that's why I
got into this. But I knew at the age of five this is what
I wanted to do with my life. I don't know why, but you
too must. I mean, I've been a fan of radio all along my
whole life. You must have been a real good fan of it too.
Yeah, I mean that's I mean a lot of my early musical taste was
shaped by listening to the radio in New York, specifically listening to a lot
of classic rock radio and top forty pop radio. So yeah, absolutely,
I had a lot many, many, many many hours in the car,
you know, driving all over listening to radio. So that absolutely has shaped
my taste and perspective for sure. Kyle Gordon and the name of the album
is Kyle Gordon Is Great, featuring his release from Antonio Frankfurt, Ugliest Girl
on the Beach available everywhere. Yeah, I too have. I've been in
the business long enough to know that I can make fun of that with driving
and weather together room because I was one of those guys. I love it.
Yeah. Yeah, you're listening to Kyle krd new album. Everybody those
tripping now, Yeah, Jackson in the Morning, Sandy to the Afternoon.
Uh, that's awesome, it is. But also you know, there's there's
there were these uh, these genres of radio that like when you go back
to the old days of the Golden age of radio, there seemed to be
this idea that you everything had to either rhyme or have assimilation, Like Sonny
It's hona solely under the sun, you know that kind of thing. Uh
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's worth worth making fun of,
definitely. So what what got you started in comedy? Yeah? So,
I mean, if you want to go all the way back, it's
kind of the cliche story, kind of class clown type personality my whole life.
But yeah, then after college, it's kind of hard to even think,
like where do you even get started doing something like that? But I,
you know, essentially just moved to New York started doing improv comedy.
That's that's where I kind of cut my teeth. But after a while I
wanted to develop sort of a solo comedy act, but I wasn't a stand
up so I developed this weird kind of act where I have the you know,
I'd play music and each song was a different character. So all the
songs that you hear on this album, these are songs that I'd been playing
live in New York for many, many, many years. So it's very
cool for me to now be able to release these songs fully produced to the
world because you know, they've been in my DNA for so many years.
I imagine bouncing around your head too. Oh yeah, absolutely. And my
girlfriend is she wants to kill me. I chose to have it bouncing around
my head. She did not. Yeah. Yeah, lovely wife has plenty
of periods where she wants to strangle me as well. Kyle, It's part
of it. Yep, Kyle Gordon is Great is the name of the album
eight of the best, funniest and most unique music musical comedy songs of all
time. And let's talk about the heritage of your character that sings Ugliest Girl
on the Beach. He's kind an interesting story on Toni Antonio Frankfurt. His
name is half Brazilian, half German. Yes, it's quite interesting. Yeah,
the Yeah, the origin of that character is Yeah, he and his
family moved to Brazil from Germany under curious circumstances in nineteen forty five. Yeah,
escaping with the other nazis right, Yeah, well I guess yeah,
that's yeah. Yeah, we want to come right out with it. That's
probably you know there, aren't You know? If you have a blonde haired,
blue eyed guy in Brazil with the last name Frankfurt, who in nineteen
you know, sixty three is twenty five years old, you can kind of,
you know, put the pieces together. Yeah, how did he get
into music. Yeah. So the background, the background of this character,
Antonio Frankfurt, he was a you know, he was an aspiring football player
in Brazil, but unfortunately he was stabbed in the leg after he incided a
riot in a postgame match, and so as a way to continue to meet
women, he just picked up the guitar and you know, it took off
from there. You know, he became one of the best known and horniest
musicians in Brazil. And his song Ugliest Girl on the Beach was actually the
English language translation of the of the original Portuguese song moher Norenta the Hideous Woman.
And yeah, so that song sort of blew up in the States,
and you know it was his career took off from there. Oh, it's
fantastic and you got to hear it. I love it. I also love
that. You know, you have to have a backstory to these characters,
you really do. Yeah. Yeah, I dig in deep, I dig
in Deep. Kyle Gordon is Great is the album eight of the best funniest
and most unique musical comedy songs of all time. If you love improv comedy
in this kind of quirky style, I think you'll really love this and just
in time for the holidays too. Kyle Gordon, thanks for joining us,
Thank you so much for having me, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation