There is a point during most Garfunkel & Oates performances in which Kate Micucci will declare she was a late bloomer. The candid look into her personal life usually comes sometime after the folksy comedy duo has led the crowd through a kazoo breakdown, taken a knock at pregnant women and discussed where ducks rank on the bestiality scale, all of it delivered with buoyant ukulele-led pop.  

As for Micucci's confession, it greets one of the newer additions to the Garfunkel & Oates oeuvre, a peppy keyboard rap entitled "I Don't Understand Job." In the song, Micucci and bandmate Riki Lindhome profess their confusion toward an act of intimacy, but rather than find comedy in lewdness, the pair focus on their own nerdy naivete.

The fact-checking process for this article did not include an investigation into Micucci's past romantic dalliances, and thus the 30-year-old ukulelist will be taken at her word. Yet there's evidence that the graduate of Loyola Marymount University isn't exaggerating. In fact, a certain four-letter word that appears regularly in the Garfunkel & Oates catalog is one Micucci promises she did not say until two years ago.

"I got yelled at when I was a little kid for accidentally saying it," Micucci said. "We were playing Duck, Duck Goose, and my babysitter said, 'Say a word that rhymes with duck' ... And then he yelled at me like you wouldn’t believe. I was so scarred from this babysitter, so I didn't say it again until two years ago."

If so, then the last 24 months of exercising repressed demons have been rather productive. With a mix of innocence and vulgarity, the act's monthly appearances at the Upright Citizens Brigade improv theater are guaranteed sell-outs, and a bigger stage awaits Feb. 10 when the pair headline Largo at the Coronet. What's more, a self-released CD is imminent, and a production deal inked earlier this month with HBO will potentially position the duo as the West Coast female response to "Flight of the Conchords," the network's popular Brooklyn-centered musical series that ran for two seasons.

"I think it will be a little edgier, maybe a little more frankly sexual," Lindhome said of a possible series. "We swear a lot, and [the songs] are really sexual and personal. And they always portray us in a bad light."

We ran into Rob Corddry at a party in Hollywood last month. The former Daily Show correspondent — who earlier this year starred in “Hot Tub Time Machine” and is also the creator-star of the medical show parody “Children’s Hospital” on Adult Swim — lives in Silver Lake these days. “Can’t you tell? Look at this mullet!” he jokes — though he’s no longer sporting the Mötley Crüe look.

The event was a release party for the Ubisoft game Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, for which Corddry was a spokesman. Is he a gamer? “I’m terrible. At any game,” he says. “This one, I’m not so bad at.”

But music … that’s something the comedian knows a thing or two about. He goes out of his way to stay up on emerging bands, he says. In fact, Corddry was a ubiquitous presence at the big Matador Records 21st birthday party in Las Vegas in November, which featured performances by Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian and Ted Leo and the Pharmicists, among others. Here’s what’s on Corddry’s iPod …

“I just made a mix — can you even call them mixes anymore? They’re, like, playlists. OK. I’ll tell you what’s on my “Walking Around Playlist.” Music I like to walk around to. Warpaint. They’re a new band from Silver Lake — all women. Incredible. And they’re gonna be huge. They’re just starting to break. One of my favorite bands is the Thermals. Nada Surf. Blind Pilot. Oh — Free Energy. That’s a big one. They’re great.”

--Deborah Vankin

Photo credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times