As a product of Lynn and Salisbury, and a self-proclaimed “Revere spawn,” Valerie Tosi isn’t totally sure she has blood running through her veins anymore. At this point, it may just be Atlantic salt water, and the vibe of her new album lends all that much more credence to that notion.
With her debut stand-up album, Beach Trash, which made its way into the world this past Friday (January 21), Tosi adds insult to ingenuity as she leans into the historically hilarious diss she and her fellow North Shore classmates endured throughout high school, and in the process, delivered a product that not only embraces the sentiment, but also pokes fun at it on more than one occasion.
Tosi has trekked all over the country for years with different variations of this batch of material, and fine-tuned the hour in Zoom shows to help her “stay funny” over the course of the pandemic. Naturally, the consistent hammering and polishing has had her fairly burnt out on it, but the response she’s received about it so far has her hype machine up and running once again.
“It’s so weird now because I’ve been so entrenched in it over the last few months, but I’m really excited to have this album out there, even though I feel like I’m kind of numb to it at this point,” Tosi tells Vanyaland. “But I am truly thankful that I got to do this album, and getting to hear people say they love it now, after having that feeling, it’s like ‘Oh, thank God’.”
Dishing on everything from the pandemic and Lynn-centric nursery rhymes to sexuality and her place in life as a “geriatric millennial,” the album serves as a “sample platter,” as Tosi puts it, of her years on the stand-up grind. And while she reflects on a lot of stuff with material that she’s carried in her arsenal over the years, there’s plenty that brings the hour into the present day, even if she was admittedly naive in worrying that her COVID-19 material would be outdated by the time the album came out.
Of course, one aspect that stands at the forefront of the record is Tosi’s takes on her family. Whether it be discussing the stoner habits of her parents, or directly unleashing her mothah’s thick Boston accent, Tosi doesn’t shy away from taking a few playful jabs when she can, but even so, there were lines she didn’t want to cross for the sake of keeping some cards close.
“When people hear my stuff, they’re incredulous in telling me that it didn’t really happen, but the truth of the matter is that I actually have to sugar coat and dial some stuff back because sometimes, it’s even more insane than the story I’m telling” says Tosi. “We all have our different family dynamics and drama, and I think I’m a pretty good judge of what I can get away with that won’t make people upset, but then there are those stories that are super personal or that I don’t feel are mine to tell, or I’m not able to make a joke about them yet. That’s not to say I won’t, but I also kind of know what the triggers are and what to steer away from.”
While she’s been part of the LA comedy scene for quite awhile, and she’s worked through hell and high water out west to get where she is today, she credits her North Shore roots, and her move from Lynn to Salisbury, with equipping her with the thick skin to get it done.
“Boston people don’t pull any punches, and I’ve always kind of been that way. I think that has helped a lot out here in not being afraid, because LA is a huge city, especially when you’re trying to find your way and where you belong,” says Tosi. “I’m grateful for growing up in a place where you didn’t have to shy away from who you were. My family is kind of loud, and they can be a lot, and that really made me unafraid coming out here.”
The experience of putting this project together was, of course, fulfilling for Tosi for a number of reasons. Years of hard work have officially been put on record, and while she delivered the goods at the end of it all, Tosi can’t help but point out that there were plenty of other factors that helped her out along the way.
“I’m just super grateful for the team I got to work with at Blonde Medicine, and that I was able to finally put together something that is a culmination of years of work that I can finally present as proof that I am, in fact, a stand-up comedian.”