August 6, 2010
FESTIVAL TIME NEWS!
GETTIN’ MIDDLE CLASS ON YO ASS!
Too much has happened for me to start recapping since my last post. Suffice to say, you did it! and Joe and I should be back around November. Now before the festival season ends…
A couple of years back Joe and I did songs about festivals for Song Wars. Joe’s was about Glastonbury and mine was about people like myself who love the idea of music festivals but cherish a degree of comfort. I ‘sung’ my Festival Song as part of BUG at Latitude this year (at least a sweaty, breathless version of singing) and some people thought I was biting the hand that tightly attaches the wristband. Not at all! I love Latitude and the more friendly, clean, comfortable and diverse festivals get, the happier I’ll be. It’s not as if you can’t still go off to some litter strewn wasteland and burn plastic bottles while you listen to Zane Lowe endorsed shouting music, it’s just nice to have the option to sit on pillows in the Robin Tent and listen to Robin Ince introduce Robyn Hitchcock instead. Here’s a video for the song which I started last year (hence lack of beard) and only just completed. I mean I haven’t ONLY been doing this video for a year. I have done other things in that time, though it’s hard to think what…
On the last night at Latitude I snuck back after bedtime with my 8 year old son and I was in Rock Dad fantasy festival paradise. We’d already seen Sweet Baboo that day who had gone down very well and Buxton jr was eager to see Vampire Weekend so we tooled up with doughnuts and drinks and went roamin’. Before long we found ourselves in the Robin tent and sure enough, there was Robyn Hitchcock with whom all my children are familiar from car journeys peppered by salvos from the ‘Cock’s tremendous psychedelic folk cannon(!) At one point we seemed to be the only people in the little tent laughing at Robyn’s weird inter song rambles that night and I wondered if he felt fed up. Perhaps he was fed up with me laughing at him. Hmmm.
On the Friday I’d seen Spoon, one of my very favourite bands, getting tetchy with a noncommittal late afternoon crowd on the main stage and I wanted to jump up and give them a hug then electrocute them into action, but they seemed depressed by it all. Not so Robyn who will not be diverted from ploughing his eccentric furrow by anything or anyone it seems and is well loved for it. He was on very good form and with Frank looking on admiringly I got to join him on the tiny stage with other more musical guests and we sang Olé Tarantula, something of a tradition in the Robin Tent I hear. It sounded good (I was INCREDIBLE!) and as we left the stage Robyn said “Ooh, I welled up there” and sure enough his eyes were glistening. Then I started welling up. The Paul Weller started welling up.
Vampire Weekend are not the kind of band that would ever really scramble your mind but they delivered a well drilled and energetic set and deserve all their success IMHO. Would I have been happier in some no man’s land watching a more ‘important’ band with my son 20 years ago? I’m glad you asked, it’s a very pressing question. No, is the answer.
Speaking of Robyn and Spoon, here’s a couple of acoustic performances I shot in London back in 2007. I was doing my pilot for BBC 3 at the time and wanted to cram it with everything I could possibly think of that I thought was any good and music was going to be an important part of that if it ever got to series, which of course it didn’t and I’m still very, very bitter. I shot 3 performances with Robyn at his home in Chiswick (‘Chinese Bones’, ‘I Often Dream Of Trains’ and ‘My Wife and My Dead Wife’) and 3 with Britt Daniel of Spoon backstage at The Borderline before they played the most amazing gig I’ve ever seen. I’ve already uploaded Britt playing ‘Black Like Me’ but I’ve posted ‘Advance Cassette’ below. He also sang ‘The Beast And Dragon, Adored’ which I’ll post later, along with the other Robyn stuff. Thanks Robyn and Britt!
Cheerio ho ho. Hope you enjoy the rest of the festival season! Now here’s some men with acoustic guitars…
Love Adam, 6th August, 2010
July 9, 2008
MeeBOX UPDATE!
GET BACK BACK IN THE BOX!
I keep bumping into people at gigs who are nice enough to ask what’s happening with MeeBOX, so here’s the deal. BBC3 have decided against taking it further because they don’t feel it caters to their 16-24 target demographic. It’s disappointing news because although you might imagine that TV companies everywhere are desperate to give me millions of pounds to make programmes for them and be their king, this was in fact the closest I’d got to getting a show off the ground since the last series of The Adam & Joe Show in 2001. I’ve always done other things of course but making a whole show, either with Joe or solo has been the most fun.
I’m aware that left to my own devices the kind of stuff I produce is not particularly in synch with the world of Lilly Allen and Gavin & Stacey and it may never have the potential to cross over the way those chaps have but I hoped there might be room for a diversity of shows on BBC3, especially as a series of MeeBOX would have cost less to produce than a couple of episodes of The Wall, so it could hardly be thought of as a costly risk.
Most people seemed to like the show although I heard some criticism that it didn’t work as a parody of You Tube. Although that was one way I explained it to people in interviews and such, it was never meant to be the whole point of it. The vague on-line look was more just a peg on which to hang the videos. What was important to me was that each individual element was funny in some way. If it had been commissioned I guess I would have gone further with the You Tube spoof angle or perhaps pulled back from it completely but as it was a pilot I didn’t get too hung up about it.
I think MeeBOX is funny, not particularly obscure and very televisual. The BBC said they agreed absolutely but it had been a case of unfortunate timing. When the pilot was commissioned BBC3 was still a place where wonderful shows like Snuff Box (more BOX based marginalia!) could co exist with the channel’s more obviously teen-brained fare. Now that’s apparently no longer the case and there is a ‘brand’ in position that needs to be consistently maintained, or some such. I guess that’s the reality of life in the dirty UK multi channel world: get successful or fuck off. Well, duh! you may say, but in TV as with most other things ‘successful’ is by no means always the same thing as ‘good’.
As you can see, it’s impossible to analyse these kinds of policies without sounding like a bitter and twisted old fartcake so I’ll try to resist and say instead that I hope you watched the show and if you liked it, you might find some way of letting BBC3 know. They’re unlikely to reverse their decision but hey, who knows? If on the other hand you thought the show should have been called ShiteBOX, then I guess your interests are being well served.
Either way I was pleased with MeeBOX and I’m very grateful the nabobs at the Big British Castle gave me the opportunity to make it in the first place. I’m also indebted to everyone who helped on the show, especially Dougal Wilson who directed several segments, Garth Jennings who made Sausages with me, Jonny Greenwood who wrote and recorded the title music, David O’Reilly who worked tirelessly to create the title sequence and most of the graphics for the show, John Pocock who produced it, Robin Hill who edited it with me and tied it all together, Jack Cheshire who exec-produced and championed it from the start (along with Armando Iannucci) and all the actors and comedians who were kind enough to be in it. Thanks too to the rest of the crew and production team who helped it turn out exactly the way I hoped it might.
Love Adam
9th July 2008
June 22, 2008
MeeBOX WEEK!
WATCH IT NOW ON iPLAYER OR ON BBC3 WEDNESDAY 25th JUNE AT 1.30am!
OK, so there’s no way you’re actually going to watch it as it goes out on telly unless your life has gone wrong or you’re some kind of young party person, but why not record the show so you can watch it over and over and over?! Your other option is catch it on the BBC’s iplayer. In a way that’s preferable because then the geniuses at the Castle can see how many people actually watched it rather than doing their insane pseudo scientific TV ratings guesstimates. I’ll post a few more clips (and possibly some out-takes) and say more about what’s happening with the show in the next few days. I know the BBC are keen to see if people respond to it, so please do respond and if you like it perhaps you could encourage your friends to watch before it vanishes from the radar! Here’s a quintet of recently uploaded clips to get you going
Fanques!
Love Adam
BAAADDAD’S CLICHED MEMORIES OF PUNK
FUNKY SONGS OF PRAISE
TODAY ON XANTIAR
KEN KORDA: TALKING INDEPENDENT FILM
FAMOUS GUY INTERVIEW 1
June 11, 2008
MeeBOX TRANSMISSION NEWS!
WATCH MeeBOX ON BBC3, SUNDAY 22nd JUNE 2008, 11.45PM
MeeBOX, the pilot I made for BBC3 last year is finally being transmitted on the night of Sunday 22nd at 11.45pm. I showed a few clips from the show when I was MCing at the 100 Club last weekend (thanks for making it a very enjoyable night if you were there) and they all went down very well so I’m hoping the massive audience I’m bound to get in this incredible slot will respond with similar enthusiasm. It was made for very little money but I had a very happy time putting it together and I’m deeply grateful to all the many people who helped. When the show goes out I’ll say more about the production and give some proper credit for anyone who’s interested. As far as the future of MeeBOX goes, I have a meeting at the BBC next week so I hope I’ll be able to tell you soon if I’ll be making any more for TV.
In the meantime, here’s the first of a few clips to whet your appetite and maybe encourage others to tune in. This is a video for a song called Sausages that I made with Garth Jennings. It pretty much speaks for itself I think. It’s nice and short so I hope you’ll send it around to all the Sausage lovers and haters out there. Lord knows, everybody’s one or the other!
love Adam. 12th June, 2008
October 3, 2007
MeeBOX, STARDUST, LADIES & GENTLEMEN PILOT NEWS!
MeeBOX NEWS!
I’ve just had a couple of days filming with a proper digibeta crew this week for my BBC3 pilot, MeeBOX. Pop video/commercials whizboy Dougal Wilson was directing and every department was top notch. One of the things we shot was a fake clip from one of my Hollywood star character Famous Guy’s films (a sci-fi thriller) and it looked exactly as I’d hoped it might, which is very seldom the case with these things. In fact everyone was so good at what they were doing that a couple of times I felt a little embarrassed of some of the less well formed ideas that we were working on. Thing is, a couple of days like this eats up a large proportion of our meagre budget so you may as well shoot as much as you can even if you only end up using a couple of bits. The majority of the show (which is broadly internet themed) is going to be shot on mini DV, webcams, digital cameras and the like.
The digibeta shoot was a lot of fun though and we got some great stuff but when I got back last night I felt a little sick that I hadn’t spent some more time thinking about the point of a couple of bits! We’ll see how they look when they’re edited. I’m indebted to those who came along to help with little scenes here and there including Jo Bobin, Gareth Tunley Leah Charles, Tony Law, Jo Neary, Matt Berry, Emma Pierson and my dad, a.k.a. BaaadDad. I hope they had a good time too.
The only downside was that the filming coincided exactly with the worst cold I have had in a while. I was feeling a little dodge on the eve of the first day but assumed it was the usual feeling of vague physical collapse I often get before I do anything of personal importance in my life but it just got worse over the course of Monday and Tuesday and now I’m writing this in bed having had a night of feverish dreams. One of them was about working in a deserted fast food joint that had pubes scattered about the counter. That can’t mean anything particularly good can it? Anyway I’m feeling pretty positive about the pilot, which we still have a good couple of months left to work on so I’ll keep you briefed from time to time.
STARDUST PREMIERE ILLNESS QUANDRY NEWS!
The question preoccupying me right now, is am I going to feel well enough to attend tonight’s star-pebbledashed premiere of Stardust in London’s glamorous Leicester Square? I asked my Mum to come along with me and she’s making the long journey from Reading this afternoon so I don’t want to let her down, but what if I go along and sneeze on De Niro then he gets my cold and it affects his performance on the incredible ‘return to form’ film he may be working on? Not that he isn’t on form in Stardust of course, he’s great and very funny but still, I have to be responsible. Oh fuckit, I’m going to dose up on Lemsip Max and go along. Apart from anything else I want to say a personal thankyou to Neil Gaiman, the author of the graphic novel from which the film was adapted. He got in touch the other day to say that he’d brought me back a Stardust poster from Japan and I’m on it! How cool is that? And how incredibly nice of him to think of bringing me one back! So unless I take a significant turn for the worse later to day I’m going to put a bad suit on and head over there!
I’M IN ‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN’, C4, FRIDAY 12th OCTOBER 2007, 10PM
The pilot I shot back in June by Peep Show writers Sam Bain and Jessie Armstrong is being shown next week as part of Channel 4’s Comedy Playhouse series. The cast includes Reece Shearsmith, Darren Boyd, Lucy Punch and Rosie Cavaliero as well as myself and is a sitcom set in Victorian England. I have no idea what its chances are of getting commissioned as a series but I was a little unsettled by the fact that Radio 4 recently ran a series with a superficially similar sounding conceit called Bleak Expectations starring Mitchell & Webb regular James Bachman. Apparently it was very good although I didn’t hear it. I can’t quite work out if that’s a good thing for Ladies and Gentlemen’s chances or not. Regardless, I hope you’ll check out the show when it airs on Channel 4 on the 12th. This is a picture I put together as an invite for a screening a while back as well as a picture of me and Reece who I’m still kind of in awe of being a big League Of Gents fan. Excitingly, he and Steve Pemberton are going to be making a new show for BBC2 next year! Should be wickles.
CHECK OUT THE PETER SERAFINOWICZ SHOW, THURSDAYS, BBC2, 9:30PM!
I’m not in it or anything, I’m just excited about it. Here’s a bit here. Apart from being someone whose work I enjoy hugely, Peter is the person who got me into You Tube, which I guess you could say has indirectly lead to me being able to do this BBC pilot so cheers Peter! I’ve no doubt his BBC2 series is going to be a smash so why not get in at ground level and check it on Thursday then you’ll be the one with the hot new catchphrases in the playground on Friday morning. Is that how it still works with comedy? I need more Lemsip.