Dave and Pete

This is my buddy Dave.  Dave Crosby.  He has been my friend since the 8th grade, but he has been a top-tier friend (known as a pillar) since my freshman year.  Dave has always been a perfect compliment to me, I feel very confident when I am with him.  After our first semesters at BYU, he moved in with me in DT.  I know that many of you will not fully understand what this meant at the time, but in our circles, this was considered to be nothing short of a shocking decision.  This was like Jerry Sloan retiring mid-season, plus Deron Williams being traded without warning combined!  That shocking.  I was thrilled.

That semester was what dreams are made of and we still look back on those times as the glory days.  After our missions Dave and I and our other two top-tier friends all moved in together.  After one semester we realized that some friends are better friends when they have their own addresses and it seemed like everyone wanted to move out of the Riv except for me.  At the last moment, Dave had a change of heart and decided to stay and keep living with me.  This was like the ending to every wonderful chick-flick you've ever seen.  And did we live happily ever after?  You bet we did.  That next semester was a revival of the freshman year days only this time we got to experience it while dating the girls we would both go on to marry.

After that semester we moved into Arcadia together for the summer and both went through long-distance relationships at the same time.  Afterwards, he got married and so I forgave him for not wanting to live with me anymore.  While I have several best friends, Dave is by far my most loyal friend.

Recently we have been talking about performing together as a unique duo.  Dave has been a top-notch performer since Jr. High.  Not only is he a great guitarist and singer but he belongs to rare class of songwriters that manage to explore new territory through song.  I have often been downright amazed with Dave's lyrics (I consider myself a lyric snob).  Some of my favorites are:

"Upon a shelf, I saw myself,
And I look myself in the eyes
You know I tried to start a conversation
But all I ever told myself were lies"

"I hear them saying, sometimes son you've got to let it go
And hear I sit,
 I'm thinking maybe, it something I ought to let you know
That I'll never last, time moves too fast and we move to slow"

"You can stare me down, but you will never see
Just who I am, when noone's watching me
Cuz only virtue sees inside the culture of thieves"

For more on Dave check out his band page on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dave-Crosby/45435154310?sk=app_2405167945
Or check out his former band's page to stream their full debut CD:
http://finallyfridayband.com/

Anyway, he is awesome.  He's a great singer, great guitarist, and great performer.  Always has been.  And when I perform with him, I become an amazing performer, something about sharing the stage with Dave infuses with me with a sort of confidence that always results in something magical.  Especially since joining Humor U in 2008, performing has become a regular part of my life, but two of my all-time favorite moments on stage were with Dave, once at a DT activity in the Morris Center where we played a guitar, recorder duet called "Dear Abby" that literally brought the house down and again when I was invited to share the stage at his farewell concert at the Rose Wagner Theater.

I have always wanted to somehow be a part of Dave's performances, and one of the major reasons I decided to learn to play drums in 2008 (other than it having been a life-long dream) was that if Dave ever formed another band, he would have the hardest time finding a drummer and I wanted to be poised and ready to go when that day came.  Sadly, I sold my drumset when I got married and that moment came about a year later and I wasn't ready.  There's a lesson in there for all you readers out there.

For a long time I was obsessed with music and I wrote a lot of lyrics and songs on the piano.  However, I was never good enough (especially at singing) for that to go anywhere and so I managed Dave's band and tried to be a big supporter of all his efforts.  When I decided to try my hand at stand-up (earnestly in July 2008) I found myself naturally succeeding at it.  Almost immediately I was unable to write songs anymore, its strange but with a new outlet to express myself, I lost the ability to write songs.  I joined Humor U and quickly became a solid and dependable cast member.  Learning to write comedy and critique others really defined my undergraduate experience.  Guess who became my biggest supporter, that's right, Dave Crosby.  He came to all my shows, gave me great feedback and encouragement, and talked me up to those around him.  More than anyone else, he made me feel like I could really be a great stand-up comedian.

Well, we have progressed a lot in our own mediums.  Dave is heading into the studio this weekend to record a new batch of original songs and I recently recorded a stand-up DVD with The Left Field that will be distributed by Excel Films nationwide.  It will be released in August.  If you want to see a few samples of my stand-up, here are some examples.  These are all over a year old and I don't feel the same connection to the material that I did then but regardless, I'm proud of my work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvO-dQt6sz4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QOP1yolSkE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cYc5vgH6bU
And for more info on The Left Field go here:
http://leftfieldstandup.com/

OK, so here is the big news.  Dave and I have decided to try out a new experiment this summer by performing shows together as a duo.  A musician and a comic teaming up to bring to you an awesome, unique, memorable, and always entertaining show.  We aren't exactly sure how the format will work exactly but we imagine that we will switch off twice over the course of a show and in the transition times, perform together, whether its one of our recorder/guitar duets, a freestyle battle, or any other thing we happen to come up with, I can guarantee you one thing.  Dave + Pete = MAGIC!

We are really excited to start performing together, as I already mentioned, its always been a dream of mine, and as a musician I would have always felt like a second class citizen next to Dave, but as a comedian, I feel like we are going to be great partners and be able to really blow audiences away with the quality of the entertainment they are going to see.

Our first show will be this Saturday for a fundraiser  for a cystic fibrosis foundation called Orion's Army.  Here is the information for the event.  There will be entertainment going on all day but we will be performing around 3 or 4.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197787256905676
If you'd like to come out, you will be supporting a really good cause and you might just be witnessing history in the making.

We are calling our duo, Dave and Pete.

If you are looking for entertainment for any event, corporate parties, family reunions, birthdays, FHE's, bachelorette parties, we are available for hire.