December 14, 2009
SPIKE JONEZ INTERVIEW NEWS!
INTERVIEW PODCAST & PATHETIC SLAP FOOTAGE!
Hello there. Just before new year’s resolution: post more bollocks on this blog. To kick off, here’s a picture of me and Spike Jonze at the BFI Southbank after I interviewed him about Where The Wild Things Are at The Apple Store in Regent Street on Saturday 5th December 2009. It was a really exciting day, as you may be able to tell from my special slightly-too-smiley smile.
Photograph by Linda Nylind
Listen to the podcast of the Spike Jonze interview HERE
I thought Spike might appreciate a break from the kind of indepth Q&A’s he must usually get and decided instead to read him some of the comments the You Tube trailer for Wild Things has accrued which I copied into photoshop for the audience to see. I’ve been doing the You Tube comments thing at BUG for a couple of years now and I’ve done it with my own clips at the odd live gig too and it’s always fun. I’m thinking of ways to do it on You Tube too so the whole process comes full circle. Anyway, here are the comments I used for Spike for you to enjoy at your own pace.
Luckily Spike had a sense of humour about it as I imagined he would and he seemd to enjoy himself as much as I did although upon listening back to the podcast I was a little shocked by how inarticulate I was at times. I was nervous and interviews are not my forte but still, I don’t think Mark Kermode concludes his critical musings by saying ‘…and stuff’ as much as I flipping do. Also it takes a while for me to get the ball rolling and it seems an age before you hear Spike do anything but breathe and chuckle. When he was finally allowed to speak however, he was as engaging and candid as I’ve seen him in front of an audience and though our conversation never got particularly indepth there’s some interesting moments I think.
One of the things we mention briefly is the time in 2003 that Spike and I found ourselves reading through the script for The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy for our friend Garth Jennings who was vaguely considering Mr Jonze as a possible Ford Prefect. Below is a brief clip of us reading through a scene for the first time, which Spike decided to punctuate by slapping me hard on the face. It doesn’t look like much in the video but as I say in the podcast I was genuinely shocked albeit a little excited at having been slapped by Spike Jonze.
Another thing we mention in the interview is the video for UNKLE that was cut from the skate video Fully Flared that Spike worked on with Ty Evans. It’s pretty explosive stuff! (That’s a funny thing to say because the video involves explosions so I’m using the word ‘explosive’ both literally and metaphorically. Not bad eh?) Check it.
That’s enough Spike news.
Go and see Where The Wild Things Are though, I thought it was lovely!
Adam 14-12-09
October 19, 2009
BUG 16 NEWS AND A CLASSIC NEIL YOUNG VID!
BOOK NOW FOR BUG 16 OR BUG 16 THE DIRECTORS CUT: 12th & 20th NOVEMBER 2009
As I write there’s a few tickets left for both nights of the music video forum I host at the BFI Southbank and I’m very keen that you, a real, warm, intelligent, compassionate human being book them rather than some block booking from a production company who then fail to turn up having prevented you, the compassionate ones from getting tickets, resulting in great swathes of free seats in a supposedly sold out show which as we all know is a problem far greater than climate change, the credit crunch or any other of today’s so called ‘issues’. If you’ve never been to BUG before, please come, it’s one of the few live things I do and easily my favourite. I really think it might cheer you up and after the month you’ve had, you could use it! If you’ve had a really good month and you’re feeling emotionally robust you can go and see The Invention Of Lying instead.
You can book tickets for BUG 16 on Thursday 22nd starting at 8.45pm here
Or you can book tickets for BUG 16 The Directors Cut on Friday20th starting at 6.20pm (and featuring mostly the same content as BUG 16 but without the director interview and with a few extra sprinkles) here
WONDERIN’ DIRECTED BY TIM POPE
In the meantime here’s a video for Neil Young directed by Tim Pope, my charming guest at BUG 15. I suggest you spend a long time watching his vids and reading the accompanying anecdotes on his excellent website here. Tim is perhaps best known for his great Cure videos but amongst a huge amount else he has for a long time been a trusted Neil Young collaborator and though he’s ended up making vids for some of Young’s more outré material (and by ‘outré’ I do of course mean ‘stinké’) he always gets something unexpected and often hilarious out of the grumpy old genius.
The video for Wonderin’ below is from 1983 when Young had just released Everybody’s Rockin’, an album of doo wap pastiche that Geffen (his label at the time) decided was not what Neil Young fans wanted or expected to hear and sued him for being ‘unrepresentative of himself’. Incidentally that kind of twattish behaviour from Geffen was apparently what convinced Michael Stipe that REM should sign with IRS records and not Geffen. Here’s a review of Everybody’s Rockin’ that looks more kindly on it than perhaps it deserves but makes the point that looking back ‘through the lens of time’ (!) there are things to love about this crappy and bizarre detour, not least the superbly demented performance that Tim Pope gets out of Neil for this vid.
February 17, 2009
BUG 12 NEWS!
BOOK NOW FOR BUG 12 THE DIRECTORS CUT, WEDNESDAY 25th MARCH 2009!
BUG 12 on March 19th is already sold out but BUG 12 the Directors Cut (the same show minus interview but with additional music vids and joy added) still has a few seats available as I write this. As usual the show takes place at London’s wonderful BFI Southbank, starts at 8.45 and features a selection of interesting, unusual and brilliant music videos along with the occasional very short film and some random bullshite from the mad, mad world wide web. In between I drink beer and make asinine comments.
Our inaugural BUG at the Norwich Playhouse a couple of weeks back was a lot of fun with a really good, varied and enthusiastic crowd turning up for the show and staying for a drink in the very cosy Playhouse bar afterwards. I hope we’re going to do be doing more in a few months time and will of course keep you posted in my semi efficient way. Hope to see you in London though.
In the meantime you can book tickets for BUG 12 The Directors Cut here
November 11, 2008
Q&A NEWS!
FILM & Q&A FROM MUSIC VIDEO LEGEND, THIS SATURDAY 15th NOVEMBER @ BFI SOUTHBANK
I seem to be more or less living in the BFI Southbank and spending a lot of time asking you to pay to come and see me, but as I haven’t had a bad night there yet, I hope you won’t mind if I do it again. After our 6 Music show this Saturday afternoon I’ll be hosting a special screening of Choking Man, the new feature by pop video titan Steve Barron. Apart from the pop promos, Steve has quite a bizarre feature filmography that includes Electric Dreams, a well received version of Pinocchio and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Check out Siskel & Ebert kicking the Turtles here, ouches!
I haven’t seen Choking Man yet but I hear it’s very different from his previous films, very much an indie feature about ‘a morbidly shy Ecuadorian dishwasher toiling away in a New York Diner’, which blends ‘psychological drama and magical realism to encapsulate the contemporary immigrant experience in America’. Check the trailer here. I’ve only heard great things about it and if it has half the imagination and visual invention of some of Steve’s wonderful music videos from the 80’s, it should be a smash.
Speaking of music vids, I think the plan is to show a few of Steve’s favourites from his own mighty cannon as part of the Q&A after the film so it’s going to be a visual treat-a-thon! I’m also going to have to ask him about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles too I suppose, and I may dig out a few You Tube comments on some of his vids depending on how robust his sense of humour seems to be…
The Choking Man screening and Q&A starts at 3.50pm on Saturday. You can book tickets here
Here’s some vintage Barron fun to keep you going til Saturday. Hope to see you there.
July 1, 2008
FAMOUS GUY AT 93 FT EAST!
BOOKSLAM BBQ, JULY 8th, 8PM
This Friday’s Out Of Focus Group is now sold out but if you’re up for catching me as Famous Guy as well as Alabama 3, Irvine Welsh and others next Tuesday evening, come along to the Bookslam in East London. If the weather’s good it should be like an amazing barbecue with interesting people and a twat dressed in a flightsuit pretending to be American. If it rains it’ll be more or less the same but inside. Details and tickets here.
