We are seven days out from my favorite Asheville festival of the year, the 8th annual Laugh Your Asheville Off festival held August 13th-16th among various venues across town including Highland Brewery, The Millroom, The Altamont Theater, and Diana Wortham Theatre.
Today’s comedian spotlight focuses on Dave Stone who will appear on Saturday’s showcase at Diana Wortham Theatre starting at 8:00 p.m. Click here for tickets!
Here is a clip of Stone performing:
Stone should be a familiar face to the Asheville comedy scene as he was once one of the beards in the now defunct Beards of Comedy tour that appeared in Asheville regularly. Some of my favorite facts about Stone include when he moved to Los Angeles to pursue stand up full time he decided to live out of his van to save money and focus on stand up. Watch a short documentary about Dave living in a van below:
Stone is currently shooting a documentary about adopting a raw vegan diet, a fact I learned when he appeared on the very popular podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. Stone was also selected as one of the 100 comedians to try out for this season’s NBC Last Comic Standing.
More about Stone from LA Weekly:
In Atlanta, Dave Stone was at the top of the stand-up food chain. He did vocal work on Adult Swim series Squidbillies, was named one of CMT’s “Next Big Comics” and regularly toured solo and as a member of the Beards of Comedy, who released their second album through Comedy Central.
On his way up, he’d been a radio DJ, worked in a BBQ restaurant, ran his own landscaping company, served as an undercover security guard for a grocery chain and tour managed for wrestler Chris Jerico’s heavy-metal band Fozzy. Dozens upon dozens of other temporary gigs paid the bills and gave him the necessary flexibility to feature for the likes of Brian Regan, Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Marc Maron and John Mulaney.
But if he wanted to make it as a full-time, headlining comic himself, he needed to move out of Atlanta. After two years of planning and saving, in January 2012 Stone finished decking out the inside of a white cargo van with carpet lining, a sawed-off mattress, tan swivel chair, metal bar to hang shirts, cooler, battery-operated fan, curtains his mother sewed and a triple set of plastic drawers conscientiously labeled “Food,” “Not Food” and “Stuff.” He then drove from Atlanta to Los Angeles, and has resided in the 54-square-foot mobile living space ever since.