September 21, 2007
FAMOUS GUY AUTOREVIEW, DE-NIRO CALYPSO COVER & SHOCK VIDEO CLIPS!
KNOCK2BAG AUTOGIGREVIEW
I do live gigs so infrequently at the moment that I seldom have the pre-show confidence afforded you by consecutive nights of doing the same material until you’ve nailed it. Thus I cycled off to Shepherd’s Bush on Wednesday with a not inconsiderable sense of dread and fear. I think that’s something everyone gets before a gig, no matter how seasoned they are but this was a little more intense than normal. It’s hard to analyse exactly what it is that makes one so anxious. I suppose the most obvious thing is not wanting people to think you’re crap and if you don’t have the wherewithall to tell yourself for sure that they’re wrong and it was just an off night, that’s a frightening prospect. It’s not dissimilar from the dread of visiting a doctor when you suspect there might be something badly wrong with you except with an audience you’re worried you’re going to be diagnosed with terminal mediocrity.
The flipside of all of this diffidence is the coke style sense of euphoric indestructibility that a good reaction from an audience can give you. Presumably that’s why so many performers end up hedging their bets and just taking Charlie Farley but that’s not a route I want to go down just yet. Anyway, Knock2bag at a nice little place called Bar FM off Shepherd’s Bush green turned out to be great. The MC was Jarred Christmas who kept the audience very happy and was a bit spikey without being horrid, which is hard to do well. The first act I saw was Dave Earl as Brian Gittins who I’d heard about from Tony Law but hadn’t seen before. He was brilliant and he’s only been doing live stuff for a year and a half so he’s just going to get better and better. The character he does is a weird creepy guy who runs a mobile café and you keep thinking he’s going to say or do something revolting but he constantly up-ends your expectations winningly.
After the break I was on and it went really well. I did Famous Guy with a few of the new bits that died so spectacularly at The Albany a while back and I was very glad to find they went down a treat although it should be said the audience was amazingly supportive and I got away with a few slips and lapses that would have stuffed me with a tougher crowd. I was so relieved it had gone well that rather than get back on my bike immediately and begin the rainy trek south, I accepted a delicious beer form the organiser and watched as the next act came to the stage.
From where I was standing I couldn’t quite see him properly but I could hear he was a Kiwi and he sounded funny. Then I got a closer look and holy shit! It was Murray (aka Rhys Darby, the manager from the Flight Of The Conchords TV show!!! He is the Bob Fossil of the Conchordsphere with all the brilliance that implies! He wasn’t in character obviously and his act (which he’s been doing for a while and involves a lot of beautifully executed impressions of odd sounds and mechanical noises) was very slick and as funny and inventive as you’d hope from one of The Conchord team. The audience went nuts for him too and when he finished I couldn’t help going up and introducing myself in quite an overwhelming and stalkerish fashion. He was dead nice and said he really liked Famous Guy, which was a kick. Also I got my photo taken with him. When I got home I kept looking at it. Me and Murray!! BAND MEETING!!! If you still haven’t seen the Flight Of The Conchords show BBC4 are running it from next Tuesday so check it out. The first episode is great so you’ll know pretty quick if you’re going to like it or not, but you in for a very happy time if you do. Also get down to Knock2bag it’s a good scene and all the acts that night were excellent.
Thanks for coming down if you did and to the guy I spoke to about acting, give us a shout via You Tube, I’m afraid I laundered your details!
WE’VE ARRIVED!
Someone forwarded me this link featuring some chaps doing The Robert De Niro Calypso at a gig, which you can see here. As they admit under the clip, they start off a bit shaky but they do it proud later on. It’s amazing when people you’ve never met like something you’ve done enough to do their own version. I saw Sam Bain the other night (he and Jessie Armstrong write Peep Show) and he was saying how thrilled he was at having seen a fan version of Peep Show on You Tube. One of the very first things Joe and I did with a video camera when we were about 13, was to reconstruct Monty Python sketches. I still have the one we did about the man who writes the funniest joke in the world then dies laughing. It’s not quite as good as the original but it’s got something. OK, it’s got 2 quite posh 13 year old boys and that’s about it, but it was fun doing it. Oh, and in case you thought I was drawing a direct comparison between The Robert De Niro Calypso and Monty Python, you’re absolutely right. Checkon!
ADAM & JOE RADIO SHOW LACK OF NEWS!
We have a couple of offers floating about at the moment for podcast and radio things but we’re still waiting on the BBC for a decision. This may take a little longer due to the resignation of Ric Blaxill, the man responsible for getting us into 6 Music in the first place. There’s a story about the whole ludicrous fartstorm here. The situation seems way out of control over there at the moment and my heart goes out to Ric and Leona McCambridge and anyone else losing their job and for what? They were trying to put an enjoyable show on and a few times they cut corners in one area that they presumably felt no one in their right mind would ever give a flying fuck about. Could they not have been warned? These are talented, hard working people here! Fair enough, routine deception isn’t to be encouraged but it’s hardly the same as the wankers on those late night TV call-in shows who would do everything they could to fleece people and not even give them anything more entertaining in return than Brian Dowling giggling distractedly next to some barely sentient girl. And the Blue Peter debacle beggars belief! Joe’s theory is that the viewers actually voted for the wretched cat to be called ‘Pussy’ not ‘Cookie’ and that was the reason for the switch to ‘Socks’. Either way, this is a chapter in the BBC’s history that people are going to look back on with bafflement in a few years.
SHOCK VIDEO CLIPS!
I got a message from a You Tube type the other day requesting some Shock Video clips. I had a quick search to see if anyone else had put anything up from either of the 2 groundbreaking series but then I remembered…it’s the show with tits in it, so they wouldn’t have been able to due to You Tube’s sensible no-porn policy. You can find out more about the genesis of Shock Video in the ‘Career’ section of this site but for now here’s a couple of specially censored clips for you. I might put some more up in a few weeks but the censorship is fairly labour intensive! The one about Morten Gungle who wants to be gay took us about an hour to record because we were laughing so hard. The bit that really got us was the name ‘Frunke’ but it was all quite tricky. You can still hear Joe struggling with some chuckle stifling around halfway through. Apparently they’re having chuckle stifling in the Olympics now. Joe could well be coming back with gold!
September 10, 2007
TEXT THE NATION JINGLE & 2 FAVOURITE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES!
TEXT THE NATION JINGLE ETC!
Hey ho hi! It’s exclamation mark time again!! If you enjoyed listening to us on the 6 Music breakfast show a couple of weeks ago, here’s a very special treat for you! It’s the multi award-winning jingle from the nation’s favourite feature*: Text The Nation, as well as my brief but powerful rock song Jane’s Brain and Joe’s triumph of chilled electro tourism, Euorpean Supermarket. My life will be nearly perfect the day I hear a stranger’s phone emitting the Text The Nation jingle as a text alert or ringtone.
EUROPEAN SUPERMARKET by JOE CORNISH
It looks as if the powers that be at 6 Music were sufficiently happy with us and the positive feedback they got from listeners to try and find us a regular slot of some kind. It’s too early to say when that might be, or indeed if it will definitely happen but it’s looking good. I’ll keep you posted, and thanks very much if you were one of those to feedback positively! Thanks again to Lisa, our fantastic producer, Jenny who gathered important facts and helped Joe marshal the texts and e-mails and Milly who did something so complex and important that I can’t properly describe it. Good work team!!
*Technically it was not award winning or in any way the favourite of the nation but if you make these kinds of claims they generally go unchallenged and impress those of us who assume there must be some kind of truth to these kinds of statements for them to be made in the first place.
I’M HOSTING BUG 03 THIS FRIDAY 14th SEPTEMBER @ BFI SOUTHBANK, 8:15PM!
Buy tickets here for a night of top class music video and inconsequential chatter from myself and some of the industry’s brightest stars.
2 ALL TIME GREAT MUSICAL PERFORMANCES!!!
I used to have a VHS tape with amazing musical odds and sods I’d taped off the telly, most of which were missing the first few seconds as I scrambled to stick the tape in the VCR and hit record. Then I mislaid the tape and for years I mourned those lost musical TV treasures and they became legendary in my head. Of course thanks to You Tube, they’re found again! There’s a little muso snob part of me that thinks that’s a bit of a shame; that my VHS tape represented a hard won journey of chance musical discovery more valuable and meaningful than simply typing a name into a search engine. On the other hand seeing those clips again was a fucking treat and nearly every one was as wonderful as I remembered. Here’s a couple for you.
The first is a very famous clip of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band doing Rosalita in 1978. I think I originally taped it off The Rock’n'Roll years in the early 90’s (so much for my hard won journey) and despite not being much of a Bruce fan then or now I was completely electrified by this performance. It’s a good song (very much the template for a lot of what makes The Hold Steady enjoyable) and they play all the shiz right out of it, but check out Bruce! In a time before irony it’s as if the biggest Bruce Springsteen fan in the world has somehow been transported into the body of his idol (has that been done in a film yet?) and suddenly there he is, duelling with sax genius Clarence Clemons, fighting off beautiful stage invaders and fizzing with energy as he plays one of the gigs of his life. Check out his expression when he finally disentangles himself from the tenacious blonde who’s managed to get a full-on snog off him at the end of the song! Bemusement! Joy! Rock’n'Roll!
The second clip is Jonathan Richman from what must have been one of the first series of Later with Jools Holland around 1992-3. While I think of it, Later provides me with one of my Bad Jokes That I Won’t Stop Using Despite The Fact That No One Ever Finds Them Funny. In this case if someone asks me a question to which the answer is ‘later’ I will reply, “Later, with Jools Holland!” I can almost hear people thinking ‘you’re a prick’ but I can’t stop saying it. “I’ll be back later. With Jools Holland!” Ha ha ha ha! Anyway, Jonathan Richman…
Here he is playing a song called Now Is better Than Before which I believe is only available on the currently deleted album Rockin’ & Romance although you can order a privately burned CD here. There’s a version on his lovely Spanish album Jonathan, Te Vas A Emocionar but, well it’s in Spanish. Everything about this performance is appealing from the song, his voice and guitar playing to the daft commentary he provides with his range of facial expressions and hand gestures. His guitar solo is beautiful but he does this madly exaggerated acoustic whammy bar thing with his arm, which looks insane, something he acknowledges with a little smile at one point. Then when he slightly cocks it all up he gives a look of slightly hurt confusion that more or less sums up my entire life! If you’ve had a horrible bad tempered day this should fix you right back. Guitar!