Dan Dion has spent his life in comedy. 

Dan Dion has spent his life in comedy.

He was a comedy nerd before our current glut of superfans and podcasters– a kid scouring used-record store bins for comedy vinyl and seeing his first live stand-up show, dropped off by his parents in their 1980 diesel VW Rabbit, at a roadside steakhouse in California when he was 14 years old. By the end of the night, the magic of live comedy had cast a spell from which he would never recover.

As a junior at Santa Clara University, he won the role of comedy director, bringing the iconic Second City Touring Company and Rolling Stone humorist P.J. O’Rourke to campus. In addition to producing creative tweaks on stand-up shows, such as a political debate between Will Durst and Greg Proops, he also mined his personal comedy LP collection for a show on KSCU radio. Even then his focus was on the smartest performers dedicated to satirical cultural commentary and the art of the joke.

Upon moving to San Francisco Dan joined the staff of the legendary Holy City Zoo comedy club, flashpoint of the comedy boom of the 1980’s and alma mater of legends such as Robin Williams, Margaret Cho and Dana Carvey. While there, he was baptized into the chaotic camaraderie, as well as challenged by the realities of the everchanging climate of the nightclub business. When live comedy venues became victims to the over-saturation of the cable boom, Dan adapted by becoming an initiator of what would later be coined as “Alt-Comedy” by co-founding Nervous Laughter, a DIY stand-up troupe bootstrapping at odd venues, cafes, smoky backrooms in bars, and in a gym above a laundromat.

He has published humor pieces in satire icon Paul Krassner’s The Realist and SFWeekly. As a promoter, he brought comedy back to the legendary Purple Onion nightclub, (resurrecting a stage that hosted Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor), and went on to run a weekly show and filming a stand-up web series there for Sony.

In addition to Dan’s love of the art of comedy, he found that he had an eye for capturing the vibrant personalities of the entertainment industry as a whole through the lens of his Canon. His insider status may have granted him access to the backstage life, but his affection for its characters offstage in unguarded moments gained him the immersive trust to build a tandem professional photography career within the performing arts.

When he pitched himself to Bill Graham Presents to document the restoration of the historic Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, Dan parlayed the opportunity into a coveted house photographer position that he’d rock for 20 years; his days of sneaking his telephoto lens wrapped as a deli sandwich into venues were officially over. Along with shooting entertainers onstage and off, his ongoing project of over 2,000 comedian portraits led to the collaboration of ¡SATIRISTAS! with Paul Provenza, interviewing an extraordinary roster including: George Carlin, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien, Amy Poehler, Patrice O’Neal and more of the best of the best…

Dan has exhibited his portraits at clubs and festivals worldwide, including Gotham Comedy Club in NYC, The Punch Line in San Francisco, The Comedy Store in Sydney, Australia, The Improv in LA, Just for Laughs in Montreal, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This year he opened a permanent exhibition at the Mainstage Bar at Second City in Chicago.

Dan’s experience working in comedy audio progressed to an artist relations position at Amazon’s Audible platform, and he later convinced Apple Music to create a position for him as their comedy curator, authoring their “Essentials” collections for the history of modern recorded comedy. In 2019 he moved to Nashville to become Head of A&R at 800 Pound Gorilla Records, and opened a photography gallery and performance space next door to Jack White’s Third Man Records.

His 30-plus years as photographer and producer created the rare combination of artist and “industry”- a trusting bond and track-record across the comedy community. In 2024 he founded Goat Song Records, celebrating the most original artists and the craft of comedy.

It has been a long journey from the used-record store bins.

It has been a long journey from the used-record store bins.