The Groggy Squirrel

The Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Stephen Sondheim, Weird Al Yankovik, Jerry Springer the Opera…the list goes on…

Musical comedy has a history which is as long as it is diverse. We asked a few of Melbourne’s current proponents of musical comedy how they got into musical comedy and how they see themselves in the context of the comedy genre.

James Hazeldon is one third of successful Melbourne band Man Bites God. MBG have built up a cult following in Melbourne over several years, both finding a niche with the comedy world and becoming a successful musical act in their own right.

Sammy J celebrated his first solo show in the Melbourne Comedy Festival with a win in the category for the Best Newcomer prize. Sammy has appeared on both television and stage (notably as a core cast member for channel 7’s ill-fated Let Loose Live), and has released two CD’s along with appearing on the Laughapalooza DVD.

Wendy Little is a regular solo performer, but is also a member of the female rock-comedy trio The Sheryls. She has appeared in festivals around the world, including the Melbourne International Comedy Festivals, the Melbourne and Adelaide Fringe Festivals and Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Josh Earl and Justin Heazlewood together are the electronic folk parody duo The Renegades of Folk. They also have thriving solo careers each, with Josh debuting his first solo show “Josh Earl is Broke” in the 2005 MICF. Justin’s alter ego The Bedroom Philosopher has also enjoyed festival success but has also enjoyed some mainstream musical success, finding his way onto the Triple J Hottest 100 list earlier this year.

Scott Edgar is better known as Scod from one of Australia’s best know comedy acts, Tripod. Tripod have enjoyed success both onstage and on the small screen with Scott himself recently making the move into more serious music with his band “The Universe”.

We asked this diverse group of performers how they first got into musical comedy.

“It’s all my parents fault!” says Wendy. “They performed in Gilbert and Sullivan productions and left me as six-month old backstage in a bassinet. I was either destined to be a musical comic or the very model of a modern major general.”

Josh said “I’m a big fan of bands and artists like Belle and Sebastian, the Magnetic Fields, Darren Hanlon, the Lucksmiths and Jonathan Richman and when I first started playing guitar in 2001 those were the acts I was trying to emulate. I never considered performing them to anyone other than friends but then I got asked to do a show and I played my little indie pop ditties and people laughed at the lyrics, so then I thought “well I could make these funnier if I wanted” so wrote songs with jokes in them. But it was still important that they were songs first, not just a joke.”

“I used to write poems about my friends and teachers at school,” says Sammy, “but it was always quite awkward when I tried to perform them. I realised that putting the words into songs was much more acceptable, so I taught myself piano and began to sing.”

“Man Bites God don’t consider ourselves ‘musical comedians’,” says James. “We’re a band who just happen to write fun songs. It’s our protest against the pretentious and lazy lyric writing in modern, mainstream pop/rock. Pop/rock is a fun medium, and yet so many people write these clichéd, tired lyrics that do nothing to challenge or entertain their audience. If you’re going to write a love song, write an unexpected, interesting and surprising love song – we’ve written love songs about building a girlfriend, dating a ninja and spelling bees, to name a few. We’ve written songs about scientific fashion, the army reserves, cubby houses, smashing butterflies to death and a bunch of other weird, wonderful and obscure topics. We don’t write these songs because we’re trying to be funny. We write these songs because nobody else seems to be – and this is the sort of fun music we want to listen to.”

Scod said that he preferred the term ”’vaudeville’... It gets more chicks… As for how I got into it: My band “the Members” started busking in shopping centres, playing covers (with a guitar and three part harmony) – I guess we kind of modelled ourselves on a cappella cabaret sensations of the time “the Phones” (Hey Hey regulars) – I think we even might have stolen one of their arrangements at one stage… I think it was a bit from Bohemian Rhapsody (the bit which goes bom bombombom bom bom). Anyhoo. so then we started doing one- and two- setters at pubs, all covers, sometimes our own shows and sometimes opening for the hottest cover bands of the time (“Miss Dorothy and his Fools in Love”... “Relax with Max”... “Explosive Hits”... yeah you heard me – heady days). By this stage I think we were called “the Folkwits” – anyway so we did that for a while, through a couple of lineup shuffles and a name change, and then, a few years in, the place where I worked – St Martins Youth Arts Centre – were looking for an act to fill a slot in their comedy festival program (which was going mental at the time – we had “Slippers” in the big room – anyone remember that show? – Glen Robbins, Matty King, Bob Franklin, Roz Hammond, Marty Sheargold, Many More) so I said…”maybe my band Tripod could do an hour for you”. So that’s how we got involved in our first comedy festival show (1997). After that people started expecting jokes, so we started writing them.

The Bedroom Philosopher says “In grade nine I entered the Parklands High School talent contest – it was around this time that I’d begun writing my own songs on guitar. I wrote a little tune all about Home and Away “turned on the Tv screen and there was Irene, wish I’d never seen her, goin’ off at selina” etc. I think it was then that I realized the power of combining pop culture references and music. This was more intensely realized during university when I had two bands, one serious, urban turban and one comedy, the harmonica lewinski’s. I entered them both in the campus band competition and the harmonica’s made it through to the finals. To me, that was a fitting scientific experiment that proved that people like laughing more than they do sifting through your murky minor chord poetic ballads. Eliciting laughter from an audience is a performance enhancing drug and I’m addicted.”

But was this something that these acts strived for, or was it something they just fell into?

“I think the line between ‘striving’ and ‘falling’ is a fine one for most performers” says The Bedroom Philosopher. “To me, you can’t really ‘fall’ into something unless you’re putting yourself out on the edge in the first place. I just kept regularly chipping away, doing gigs here and there, and by the time I landed my segment on Triple J’s Morning Show, I felt like I had a rolling start.”

James Hazeldon says “we did get adopted into the “Comedy Scene” a bit. And we were certainly appreciative of people who found out about our music through it. They’re a very supportive bunch. But that’s not where we’re comfortable. We don’t really follow the conventions of comedians, and we certainly don’t want to. At the end of the day we’re just a band, and we’re happiest playing band venues. We’re trying to follow in the footsteps of They Might be Giants and TISM, rather than Monty Python.”

“It was beaten into me by my blind piano teacher who hit my knuckles with a ruler every time I made a mistake”, says Wendy. “I got even though, I used to poke my tongue out at him when he wasn’t looking, which was most of the time.”

“Growing up in Tasmania I would never think that I would get a chance to perform them so I never really strived, it just happened quite naturally”, says Josh. “My whole comedy career has been like that, I am quite lazy in terms of getting gigs, I kind of just potter about doing my own thing hoping people appreciate what I do”

Sammy J says that he “never consciously strived to be a musical comedian, it’s just the thing I enjoyed doing the most. Personally speaking my shows are about the whole experience, which includes music, film and all sorts of shenanigans in between.”

“The only thing i ever specifically said I would never do was be a comedian”, adds Scod. “Fools game. Life, huh.”

Would they prefer to be thought of a comedian who does music or a musician who is funny?

“Musician who is funny, thanks”, says Scod. “It’s cooler. Sorry comedians.”

Wendy says “I’m a comedian who does music definitely, I’m the first to admit I’m no Slava Gregorian, more like Keith Richards, I only know 4 chords!”

Josh reiterates this sentiment. “I am a comedian who does music. I used to say it was the other way around but since being in the comedy industry I have a lot of respect for comedians. And I think ‘real’ musicians would say I was a comedian. I often have to defend what I do to these ‘real’ musicians and my answer is that Johnny Cash performed really funny songs ‘Boy named Sue’ ‘Three Feet High and Rising’ The Smiths are hilarious “I was looking for a job and then I found a job, heaven knows I’m miserable now” I think humour is just as valid in a song as anything else.”

“I’d just prefer to be thought of, full stop!” says Sammy. “That said, I’ve never considered myself a musician in any real sense of the word … all my songs are about the jokes and if I’m not being funny then I consider myself to have failed, regardless of how nice a tune may be. Although as I’m developing confidence I’m finding that I trust the musical side of things more than I used to.”

James says “we take our music very seriously, and we work hard on the instrumental arrangements of each song we play. We find that people may find our songs funny when they first hear them, but they play them over and over again because they are fun, catchy pop. It’s much more fun to play to an audience who is dancing, than an audience who is just laughing. At least we think so. “

The Bedroom Philosopher says “I’ve been having this debate with myself for most of my career. It’s endlessly fascinating. Kind of. Oh no, there you go, it just stopped being fascinating…oh well. For quite a long time I was the musician who happened to be funny as I never had a lot of confidence in my between song banter. I reckon that’s the test for a lot of acts. Take people like Darren Hanlon, often what he says between songs is hilarious, but in a comedy venue it might have too much pressure on it to have ‘gags’ to be properly appreciated. Same with The Self Righteous Brothers. They were playing at a musical comedy gala that I was at – they had hilarious songs, but because their banter was kind of rambling and relaxed, albeit funny, they were asked by the organizers to ‘gag it up a bit’ and subsequently told the organizers to ‘fuck off a bit.’ Recently I’ve had stints MCing the local where I don’t even take the guitar up on stage and that’s only because of the growing confidence in my spoken bits. I’ve decided to totally drop the music or comedy argument, and take the box people try to put me in and wear it on my head. Heaps of industry types say ‘you have to be either comedy or music, you can’t be both’ and I really wonder why that is, and see it as a challenge, if anything, to survive and be relevant in both industry’s. There’s often the misconception that musical comedy ‘isn’t cool with the kids’ or that there’s something tacky or novelty about it. Well, as a rule, most people like me HATE generalizations, but I think in the past it’s probably been true – but we’ve come a long way since Rodney Rude and Col Elliot. Tripod sell out music venues, Minchin’s gone nuts, I beat Bright Eyes in the Hottest 100 – the reason there’s a new wave musical comedy revolution is because of talented singer/songwriters composing challenging, original arrangements, as well as gags. At the end of the day, if a song is good enough, who gives a shit what category it’s in? You’re still going to buy the CD and pay money to see it live! I consider myself to be both. When I’m at a comedy venue I’m a comedian, when I’m at a music venue I’m a musician. God damn, J-Lo sings, acts, dances AND fashion designs, and no-one’s on her back! Multi-task people, multi-task.”

Many thanks to James Hazeldon, Wendy Little, Sammy J, Josh Earl, Justin Heazlewood and Scott Edgar.