Emotionally Unavailable

Before Bill Burr was selling out arenas, he was on stage at the Laff House on South Street in Philadelphia, dealing with a club crowd that did not hand out polite applause. Released in 2003, this audio-only stand-up album captures Burr in his early club-comic phase. Instead of the long, conversational stories that would define his later theater specials, this set is packed with tight, rapid-fire setups and punchlines. He riffs on MTV Cribs, the dominance of Venus and Serena Williams, and the dread of a grandmother coming to visit.\n\nAt this point in his career, Burr was mostly known as a radio regular on the Opie and Anthony show, still a year away from his breakout appearances on Chappelle’s Show. The Philadelphia crowd provides a tough room, and some of the best moments on the record come when Burr abandons his written material to spar with hecklers. His joke about writing a relationship book for women is an early glimpse of the battle-of-the-sexes material he would eventually build his career on. The album was originally self-released on CD before receiving an expanded reissue in 2007.