January 5, 2009
BUG 11 NEWS!
BUG 11 THE DIRECTORS CUT & MY FIRST NORWICH SHOW!
Hello again. It’s been too long, but it was a very busy Jesusparty. Apart from the usual high octane present prep, I did a highly enjoyable week’s work in a Radio 4 adaptation of a book by William Thackeray called the Yellowplush Papers (a favourite of Al Murray apparently), and I spent longer than I intended to putting together a compilation of our 6 Music show for transmission on New Years day on Radio 2 (I’ll make the whole 2 hour prog available for download here in the next few weeks). In addition I’ve been working on a few video morcels that should be available on the BBC’s comedy website sometime soonish.
Apart from further 6 Music duties, the next items on my agenda are all BUG shaped. BUG 11 on Thursday 22nd January is sold out but tickets are now on sale for BUG 11 The Directors Cut the following Wednesday 28th, which will be more or less the same as BUG 11 except without the guest but even more fun! A reminder for those who haven’t yet been that BUG is a show I host at the BFI Southbank featuring a selection of amazing music videos from recent times with me reading out a few You Tube comments and talking ballwash in between. The videos are mainly chosen by David Knight from Promonews and he always comes up with some wonderful stuff, much of which you’re unlikely to have seen anywhere else. Show starts at 8.45pm.
You can book tickets for BUG 11 The Directors Cut here
CALLING ALL EAST ANGLIANS!
BUG is coming to Norwich! I’ll be hosting a show featuring jawdroppalicious vids from previous London BUG’s at the Norwich Playhouse on Thursday 5th February so why not come along and see what you’ve been missing? Let’s have a drink at the extremely cosy Norwich Playhouse bar afterwards! Come on, Stephen Fry’s the patron!! See you then I hope.
You can book tickets for NORWICH BUG 1 here
November 15, 2008
LIVE NEWS!
OUT OF FOCUS GROUP B @ THE BFI, FRIDAY 12th DECEMBER
I’ll be doing another show featuring live comedy and videos on Friday 12th December so book now as tickets for the last one went fast. Hard to believe Out Of Focus Group A was back in July when the world banking system had yet to collapse completely, Brand & Ross hadn’t tortured any sweet old actors sufficiently badly for anyone to notice, America still had the wacky president and everyone was wearing leg warmers and deely boppers and saying Wassssuuuup! Wow, it seems longer than 5 months ago.
As with the previous Out Of Focus Groups this is an opportunity for me to try new things out on an audience as well as honing older bits and mixing it all with guests and other golden nuggets. Speaking of which, I was thinking of dusting off some Pavel bits and pieces last time but never got round to it so I may do that for this one. Golden nuggets! There’ll also be some new Ken Korda stuff as well as a couple of new video pieces. More golden nuggets! Special guests are as yet unconfirmed so I will post nearer the time to fill you in.
It’s an early start (6.50pm) so you’ll be out by 8.30pm and your Friday night will only just have begun so really, unless the whole of the south bank gets zapped by aliens or whatever, you can’t lose. Even if the aliens did start zapping, you might be one of the lucky survivors and then what a tale you’d have to tell! An alien attack AND Out Of Focus Group B in one night! Hope to see you.
You can book tickets for Out Of Focus Group B 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.
November 7, 2008
NEW PRESIDENT NEWS!
THE ROAD TO OBAMA
What a week! I finally read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. For those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure, it’s a rollicking post apocalyptic father & son trek, which is now being made into what is sure to be a fun movie with exciting cannibals and Charlize Theron. The only slightly disappointing thing is that they’ve cast Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee in the leads, and I was very much hoping Harrison Ford & Shia LaBeouf would team up again and reprise their winning father/son chemistry from Indiana Jones and The Incredibly Crap Alien Skull. Don’t these Hollywood twats know anything?
If you have read The Road however then you’ll know that upon finishing the book one is badly in need of something outrageously positive to refit all the bits of you that have been shaken loose so waking up on Tuesday morning to see Obama’s victory speech on the news was like a giant gift box of sweet smelling salve. He’s even more comfortingly charismatic than Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact! And he’s real!! Now do us all a favour Barack and stear clear of blowjobs and pathetic conflicts, unless they’re with your wife.
I couldn’t help fantasising about what earlier drafts of his speech might have been like though. Or what a less gracious man might have said…
October 27, 2008
PIRATE INTERRUPTION NEWS!
CHOCOLATE CAKE SLICE
I said I would upload this fleshed out version of the Chocolate Cake Slice pirate radio interruption that we played on the 6 Music show a few weeks back so here it is. I think you can download the MP3 and keep it for ring tone purposes or whatever (right click or ctrl click on the link). I may try to do a video for this track too, but I feel like I should do a vid for my Quantum Of Solace song before. Oh golly, so much to do, so little point…