Review: Joey Z: Trip Sitter

Many moons ago, I was sit­ting in the audi­ence of Sand­box, a leg­endary Austin show host­ed by the impec­ca­ble Rob Gagnon at Fall­out The­ater. I had recent­ly inter­viewed com­ic Joey Z, a well-liked standup com­ic. Sand­box was known as an exper­i­men­tal show, so imag­ine my delight when Joey Z saun­tered on stage, pre­sen­ta­tion click­er in hand, advanc­ing through a Pow­er­point slide for the game ​“Is it a Bong or a Lamp?” 

Lit­tle did I know that this moment would set off a series of events cul­mi­nat­ing in Joey Z’s Trip Sit­ter, his debut album expe­ri­ence.
Trip Sit­ter is not a stan­dard com­e­dy album or spe­cial. It’s a bare bones exper­i­ment in sound, music, char­ac­ter work, ani­mals, and yes, a lit­tle standup tossed in. Z is known in Austin for his psy­chadel­ic-friend­ly vibe. He’s tak­en that ener­gy on the road with the wild­ly suc­cess­ful tour­ing show, Glow Show, which made its Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val debut in 2024.

I’m thrilled that Z has memo­ri­al­ized some of the ele­ments you might expe­ri­ence at a Glow Show. The album kicks off with an AI-gen­er­at­ed voice intro­duc­tion that lulls you into think­ing this is a zen­ful moment. Hav­ing missed the live per­for­mances of Trip Sit­ter, I’m sad I could­n’t see the visu­als I found myself con­jur­ing as I lis­tened. The next track is par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable show­cas­ing Z’s will­ing­ness to play with char­ac­ter work, music (a very Radio­head-esque sound), and what felt like a Beav­is and Butthead-style devolution.

The album’s tracks incor­po­rat­ing music, singing, AI voic­es, and oth­er non-standup ele­ments are the most suc­cess­ful at mak­ing you feel like you are, indeed, on a trip. You’re not sure where you’re head­ed, but that’s what your imag­i­na­tion is for, after all. Inter­spersed with the more exper­i­men­tal tracks are live record­ed standup jokes by Z, sev­er­al of which pro­vide the ori­gin of the album’s title.

Sup­port live com­e­dy, sup­port exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy (like Sand­box’s suc­ces­sor Explo­rapho­ria), and of course, sup­port Joey Z’s Trip Sit­ter. He loves us all very much and delights in bring­ing his cre­ative vision to audi­ences. Even if you don’t ful­ly under­stand the trip you’re on, you know you’re in good hands with Z.

Trip Sit­ter was released on March 27, 2025. This album is avail­able on stream­ing plat­forms and avail­able for free on youtube.