May 20, 2007
LOTS OF NEWS!
SORRY IT’S BEEN A WHILE BUT…
I’ve been busy. I’m currently rehearsing for a Channel 4 pilot with the working title Modern Men, written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, the insanely talented men behind Peep Show. I’ve done quite a few pilots over the last year and sadly (or mercifully in a few cases) they haven’t gone any further. I really hope this one gets the nod though because it’s very funny and the rest of the cast is top notch. I won’t say any more about it just yet for fear of jinxing the barnicle but if anything exciting develops I’ll let you know. Now here’s more of the latest thrilling lint from my attractive navel.
BBC PILOT NEWS!
I got some great news the other day. The BBC have commissioned a pilot from me for a show containing the kind of videos I’ve been posting on You Tube this last year as well as some character stuff. It’s by no means big budget but they’re giving me as long as I need to deliver it so I’m hoping to put together something very disappointing. I’m joking of course, it should only be mildly disappointing. The ultimate plan is for there to be some kind of website that would exist in tandem with the show (as the whole thing will be very much inspired by the net and sites like You Tube, albeit featuring all new material, not stuff we’ve got off the web) where you’d be able to see everything in the TV version plus lots more in the same vein. Anyway, while I’m working on the pilot I probably won’t be posting much new video material unless it’s something, like the Nissan ad below, that I know I wouldn’t be able to use for clearance reasons. There’s still a lot of good quality ballcrap in the vaults though so don’t despair! I’ll keep you updated now and then on my pilot progress. Fingers crossed!
JOE ON MY SPACE NEWS!
One of the questions I get asked most frequently is ‘what’s Joe up to?’ Well, now you can find out as Joe has his own My Space page here. At the moment his My Space page is certainly more fun packed than mine and I feel a little guilty every time I add a new friend because it’s unlikely to get more exciting any time soon. I was trying to make it more sexy a while ago but I got angry with the fact that I couldn’t put up my own piece of audio unless I had a ‘musician’ account and then I thought ‘what am I doing on My Space when I’ve got an amazing blog right here?’ and then I had a lie down. My advice is not to bother with me on My Space, but give Joe’s page a look!
FAQ NEWS!
Apart from ‘what’s Joe up to?’ there seem to be a handful of questions that I get asked a lot so I’ve added a new FAQ section at the top of this page to deal with some of those.
OTHER SHITE!
If you’re a fan of brief Q&A’s (and who isn’t?) here’s one that I did for a website for aspiring media types called Media Circus.
There’s a mention of Adam & Joe along with our old friends Louis Theroux and Giles Coren in The Word magazine this month. It’s the issue with Nick Cave on the cover. I was wondering the other day if Nick Cave fans refer to themselves as ‘Cavemen’, as in “Are you a Caveman?†“Are you kidding? I’m a giant Caveman!†etc. They’re missing a trick if they don’t, surely! Anyway, we’re mentioned in a piece about ’stars in the making’ who knew eachother at school.
The piece is factually accurate but the photograph features Louis, myself and Joe with my brother David, not Giles Coren as is kind of implied by the caption. I think they probably got the pic from David’s sadly no longer maintained Adam & Joe site so they must have known full well that it wasn’t Giles but thought, ‘oh fuckit, he could pass for him’ and stuck it in. I’m not complaining though and I’m flattered that The Word included us, but I thought I’d give Dave a shout out. The picture incidentally is from around Christmas 1995 and it’s my Mum and Dad’s old house in Clapham. It was a tradition in those days for Lou and Joe to come over on Christmas eve and have some booze while my Dad regaled us with tales of debauchery from his youth. In fact it was these Christmas eve sessions that lead to Louis encouraging us to include my Pa in The Adam & Joe Show, which of course we eventually did.
In other old photo news. I was rooting through some old crap in the attic the other day and I found this picture of myself as a carefree 23 year old bartender with a young lady customer I had charmed into the restaurant photobooth with my special people skills and booze.
Needless to say that’s as raunchy as things got and I never saw her again until a few months ago when I was watching Lost, the ridiculous yet enjoyable mystery island soap. Recognise her yet? Give up? OK, click here. That’s right, it’s Penny, erstwhile girlfriend of Desmond (catchphrase ‘you alright brother?’)! What are the chances eh? Thought I’d share that with you, it doesn’t really go anywhere. Maybe if she reads this she can send me a message of some kind to complete a rather underwhelming circle. And with that, I bid you goodlunch.
May 7, 2007
LIVE & TV NEWS!
HAVE I GOT LAST WEEK’S NEWS FOR YOU? (yes, I do.)
A spot of dirty British bank holiday weather has given me the opportunity to fill you in on last week’s exciting doings in my stupid hamlet. On Wednesday night the 14th Out Of Focus group, my semi regular evening of live comedy and vids. took place at The Zetter Hotel in Clerkenwell. Thanks to all of you who came along, apologies to those of you who tried and failed to get a ticket, and to those of you who didn’t even consider coming for a second I extend a small portion of withering contempt. It was another good one I think. I was MC-ing this time, which I haven’t done before, because I hadn’t had time to write any new character stuff and didn’t want to trot out the same routine I’ve done the last few times. I’ll trot it out next time. Anyway, it meant that I was able to relax a bit more than I normally would and see how the audience responded to a couple of new video things I was showing for the first time. I was also able to watch the other performers, which was great fun (usually I’m cowering in the green room, dressed up as one of my hilarious characters). Jo Neary and Tony Law were on top form and our special mystery guest, the hugely talented, celebrated and tall Stephen Merchant also done wicked with his tales of short sighted sexual disaster, although my Dad who was there that night, was a little scandalised by some of Stephen’s more graphic references!
The following day I started intensively cramming for my appearance on Have I Got News For You. I’d only been told a few days before that I was definitely going to be on the show and because I was frantically trying to get my videos finished to show at the Zetter, I hadn’t had time to read the papers as thoroughly as I would have liked. Instead I trawled through the BBC News webshite with Sky news on in the background. This must be what it’s like being Jeremy Paxman I was thinking. Except he probably eats some kind of special up-to-the-minute news puree and drinks topical smoothies made for him by Fiona Bruce. Fuck the news. I hate news. Why on earth did I agree to go on the most full-on TV news quiz in the world? My brain is so full of shit TV and indie pop, there just isn’t enough room for Gordon Brown or Alex Salmond or any of those lavatories.
I arrived at the London Studios on the south bank at 5:30pm and was shown to my dressing room. A few minutes later I was taken to the studio to meet everyone and have a quick run through of the rounds. Appearing on the show with me were Armando Iannucci, who I know from Time Trumpet of course and Bill Bailey who I’ve met a few times and like a lot. I was on Ian Hislop’s team. He and Paul Merton were perfectly cordial but I found them both a little intimidating. Clever people who are very good at what they do tend to have that effect on me.
In contrast to Never Mind The Buzzcocks, there is no time spent preparing gags for the rounds with writers, they just show you the clips once so you can make a note of what they are and what order they come in. It was exactly like being back at school and getting ready to sit an exam you know you’re not prepared for. I watched in horror as the clips played and I realised that none of the news I had revised had come up! Nothing on Hawking in space, Kate Moss and her shit clothes line, Lord Browne and his jilted man-pal and unsurprisingly, nothing at all about the amazing solar power plant in Spain (why the hellbag did I spend so long reading about that one?!) I couldn’t even identify half the people in the VT’s let alone think of funny things to say about them. Afterwards Ian came to my dressing room to make sure I was OK with the clips and give me a few bits of advice for the show. “Just get in there early†he said. “Say anything. Sometimes people can get caught in the headlights a little bit and before they know it, the show’s over and they haven’t said a word.†Yup, I thought. That’s exactly what I’m going to be like. “Anything else you want to know?†said Ian. “Yeah, who’s Hazel Blears?†To his credit Ian didn’t flinch as he explained, but deep down he must have been thinking ‘what are you doing on this show?’ An hour or so later in front of the audience, as Hazel frigging Blears stared out at me from the video monitor I was asking myself the same question.
Bill Bailey was very conscientious about giving everyone as much time as they needed to chip in and contribute, but my head felt as if someone had flushed it as soon as the cameras started rolling and it was taking ages for my mental cistern to refill. A couple of times I thought ‘oh fuck it’ and just said something for the sake of it, as per Ian’s advice, but it was usually a little lame and smutty and mercifully none of it made it to the edit (a riff on the Gordon Brown’s odd mouth twitch being somehow related to his passion for blowjobs was especially shameful). I did manage one or two unbroadcast intrusions that got a big laugh but they were part of longer build-ups that would have taken too much time to include. I bet that’s what everyone who goes on that show says though, right? The truth is they probably used every vaguely funny comment I made and that worked out to about 4 things. However, that’s an average of one funny thing every 6 minutes of screen time, which for someone who didn’t know the answer to one single question is not bad I reckon. Anyway, the main thing was that everyone involved with the programme was extremely warm and friendly and made what could easily have been a trial into an enjoyable experience.
The night before the taping my Dad, without a trace of malice said to me, “Have I Got News For You is exactly the kind of programme on which you are thoroughly ill suited to appear. It’s full of people being witty and telling jokes and that’s not what you’re good at all.†My Ma, who was all excited about me appearing on proper telly, has remained conspicuously silent since the show went out so she perhaps agreed with that assessment. If only there was a quiz show all about Spoon. I’d be the king of that frickin’ prog.
April 9, 2007
TV AND BENDY NEWS!
HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU NEWS & JAZZ QUEENS
Regular readers of this navel gazing newsletter will know that towards the end of last year I got all excited because I was due to be appearing on the BBC’s venerated low reverence news quiz, Have I Got News For You (now just starting its 245th season or something). Anyway, my excitement turned to humiliation when I was ‘bumped’ in favour of Sue Perkins. Something about getting more women on the show (not to belittle Sue who did a fine job!) Amazingly and true to their word, the producers of HIGNFY have asked if I will appear on the new series! I’ve said yes of course, and I’m waiting to hear back about a date. I’ll let you know when they bump me for Joe.
For now here’s a very dusty cornflake from the Adam & Joe vaults. This was one of the first videos we made when we were doing the pilot for The Adam & Joe Show (then called Stüffe) although it ended up being shown on the second series of Takeover TV I recall. You can see a bit of it on The Adam & Joe DVD but here’s the full version with the music we originally used but were unable to clear: Duke Ellington’s Rockin’ In Rhythm, which you can find on the wonderful Singing Detective soundtrack. This was another song that our friend Zac Sandler came up with one day with Joe and during a stoned weekend away with friends in 1995 we all wrote some extra lyrics and recorded it on my old 4 track then made the video in various people’s gardens that summer . I think The Jazz Queens were supposed to be louche detectives from the 30’s but this was as far as we got with developing that notion and the video certainly doesn’t give many clues as to what the nature of their work might have been. I’m sure there’s a series in it somewhere though. OK, maybe not.
February 27, 2007
LIVE AND TV NEWS!
GOOD GIG, SHIT GIG, & RUSH HOUR
Last Friday’s Out Of Focus Group at the Zetter Hotel was a peach if I say so myself. Martin White was great and Jo Neary was hilarious as usual. Sooner or later she’s going to be a big star I reckon. Have I said that already on here? Well, it bears saying again. Julian Barratt was in the audience and got up to sing a version of Port Of Amsterdam with Travis bassist Dougie Payne, which was amazing. Julian can really sing! The evening was rounded off with more music from Mara Carlyle and Robyn Hitchcock who were both on top form. Jimmy Bignutz has uploaded one of Robyn’s songs from the evening for you below.
I also did a couple of character bits that night. One was a new thing using a voice I do in Rush Hour for a character called Jolyon (a posh Marilyn Manson wannabe schoolboy), but applied to a character who could have been Jolyon’s Dad and the other was my Famous Guy character, which was on Comedy Shuffle last week. They both went down well I think and Famous Guy especially felt good and funny. Because of that I was feeling excited about playing the highly regarded Sunday Special at Up The Creek, a legendary comedy club in Greenwich on Sunday night. I was asked to do the gig a while ago and said yes not really thinking about what I’d do. I only really realised that I was technically headlining the night about a week ago and started to get a little worried because I knew I didn’t have a good half an hour of any one thing. The extremely genial organisers said that it wouldn’t be a problem so buoyed by Friday’s success I thought ‘OK, Famous Guy is in good shape! I’ll do that!’
I spent Sunday trying to write some extra stuff to get the act to run at more of a headline length but I made the mistake of checking out some of the videos of previous acts from the Sunday Special on line. I started to get a vague feeling of anxiety about doing a character bit in what seemed from the clips quite a traditional stand-up night with a large vocal crowd watching. Turns out I was right to be anxious and after a fairly over the top introduction from the reliably clever and funny Mark Watson (who was MC-ing with Welsh accent), I hit the stage and quickly realised I was in trouble. Not massive trouble mind you, because a good few people were laughing, but I was by no means thrilling a capacity crowd who seemed very happy before I arrived. It’s such a frustrating feeling to feel a night slip from your grasp like this and to watch a room full of potential fans become gradually disappointed. Maybe it wasn’t that bad but that’s how it feels when you’re not on top of it. Of course the moment you admit that to yourself on stage, you’re fucked. My confidence leaked out of me like air from a bad balloon and I felt the audience could see it. Gutlessly, I ditched the extra stuff I’d written and pegged it.
As I was unchaining my bike outside the venue afterwards a girl came up to me and enthused sweetly about having loved The Adam & Joe Show. “Sorry about tonight then,†I offered. “Yeah, your humour really misunderstood me tonight for some reason†she replied. I thought that was a good, if oddly worded diagnosis. Oh well, it paid for a couple of days of childcare, enabling me to spend my days thinking up more lame crap that’ll mystify people in comedy clubs.
Speaking of disappointing people, I was filming a promo for Rush Hour last week, and the very nice make up lady said she’d seen one of the shows in order to match the ‘looks’. She said she thought bits of it were quite funny but didn’t get a lot of it. Everyone knows that’s code for ‘I thought it was shite’ don’t they? My heart sank a little. When I got the job last year I was delighted to have actually just got a job and it was even better that it turned out to be a couple of months of very good fun working with a load of incredibly nice people. Plus it was enjoyable for me because I wasn’t writing it (apart from a couple of sketches) so that pressure of doing the whole shaboobah yourself wasn’t there. But then when the finished product comes out, other people start telling you whether they like it or not and that’s never fun.
I was staggered by how lavish the budget must have been for this promo though. There was a crew of about 50 with a fleet of cars, camera trucks and low-loaders all for this 30 second trail. A whole 30 minute episode from the series probably cost less to produce. This may sound churlish and I’m very impressed that the BBC are getting behind the programme but why not cut a trail from the finished show and put the money into producing a few new and more unusual comedy shows? Still, I’m glad they think Rush Hour is worth it!
Apparently the trail is going to feature characters from the series as if glimpsed from passing cars, all slo-mo and surreal with a kind of ‘ooh this is weird!’ whispery voice over (which I think I may be providing). It’s all being put together not by the team that made the show but by Red Bee (the BBC’s promo department) who usually turn out pretty impressive and effective promotional clips. I guess they’ll start running the trail in a couple of weeks or so.
As far as the finished show goes the only thing I’ve seen is this clip on You Tube. I imagine someone form the production company must have stuck it up there. It’s one of the sketches I wrote featuring a character called Rock Dad who tries to indoctrinate his young son with his musical tastes (although I think the idea for using NWA came from either producer/writer Neil Webster or Charlie Brooker who works out of Zeppotron too) . I think it’s worked out nicely.
Now to dissipate any feelings of unease that today’s rollercoaster of solipsism may have induced, here’s Robyn Hitchcock with a track from his lovely album You & Oblivion. If you’re interested in further investigating his magnificent canon, I’d start with Black Snake Diamond Role then head off to the first Soft Boys album. Then you can go where you like and it’ll always be a happy time. Now I’m off to put the finishing touches on a short video that made my brother laugh and he’s a tough crowd, so I’ll post it later this week for you. Stay tuned!
February 19, 2007
VANITY NEWS!
VANITY NEWS & AN OLD KEN NUGGET
After my last post I’ve received a load of incredibly kind messages via my You Tube channel from people concerned about my dented self image. Now I’m worried that my posting that bit of hate mail just looked like a big compliment-fishing trip, which was not the case I SWEAR TO YOU!!! I’m as sensitive to criticism as anyone but I’m not so fragile that a few anonymous net trolls are going to destroy me! If it was a big gang, that would be another matter, but that’s why I stay off those really frightening comedy analysis sites.
That said, it was very heartening to have so many genuinely supportive messages and I really appreciated it. Jesus, I sound like Kylie. As I’ve said before on this site however, communicating via You Tube or message board or whatever is not something I enjoy so if I haven’t replied to a message you sent or comment you posted it’s nothing personal so don’t go suddenly turning troll on my arse! A letter and an SAE via my agent (address on introduction page of this site) does however GUARANTEE* a response, if that’s what you’re after.
As far as other news goes, still nothing to report on the radio/podcast front maddeningly. I think I’m on Comedy Shuffle this week but I’m not certain. There’s news to follow shortly about this BBC3 sketch show I did Rush Hour (still haven’t seen it though so no idea if it’s any good or not) and other random projects that have come along recently. Also Joe and I are working on a couple of potentially very exciting things that I will talk about when and if they progress sufficiently. Ooh! Mysterious!
As proof that I don’t ignore messages, here is Ken Korda’s South Bank Show/Omnibus style profile of Pat Sharp, which someone asked a few times if I could post. It was the first one of these we did for the 4th series of The Adam & Joe Show (the others were Handy Andy and Jenny Powell) so we were all a little nervous that it wasn’t going to be any good. I remember the first thing Pat said when we started taping was “Well Ken, I was born at a very early age…†and I thought, ‘we’re fucked!’ but in the end he did a great job, though not quite as good as Handy which is why this didn’t make it to the DVD. This is one of those things from our show that I can watch some days and think, ‘hey, that’s alright!’ then other days I think it’s not funny in the least. See whatchoo reckon!
*If for some reason you don’t get a reply and you decide to send me to jail, I am only able to serve a short term as I have children who need me to buy bad computer animated films for them. Speaking of which, Hoodwinked?!! Bottomraped more like! How the FUCK did I get suckered into that one? It’s like a Reboot Christmas special! Open Season?! That looked like a quality one but BY NO MEANS IS IT! I’m certainly not going anywhere near Barnyard or indeed The Reef! Have these fuckers absolutely no shame whatsoever? No wonder people haven’t a single qualm about using Bit Torrent if this is the crap you’re expected to fork out for (and as any parent will know, you always do eventually!) You see? I’m not afraid of dealing with the really dangerous political issues on this blog. Oh no. The Reef though! For fuck’s sake!!! How depressing must that have been to work on if you were a talented animator? Not that anyone gave a fuck how they felt because they were all in Korea. Yeah!? POLITICAL! You’d better watch out!
Next time on Adam Buxton’s blog: traffic wardens! They’re twats innit?!
Monster House however is the hooty mac!