Stanhope Strikes Back

There are still a good few dates left of Doug Stanhope’s current UK tour, and personally I think you have a moral obligation to at least attempt to go to one of them.

We did.

Red Eye sent our best reporters to his gig in Bradford last month, so that we could put together a thorough and enlightening review of his latest material, as we thought this information was in the public interest. Unfortunately every single member of that team fell victim to what can only be called, a dangerous and repugnant level of alcohol consumption. When they finally rolled into Red Eye HQ, several long days after the initial assignment, not one of them could string a coherent sentence together, recollect anything about the show that they had attended, indeed it seemed to us, that all they had managed to achieve over that fateful weekend, was to get massively shitfaced.

We can only apologise for their conduct and confirm that no review was submitted to this blog for publication.

Our only advice to Doug Stanhope fans who may be reading this in order to determine whether the show is worth seeing, is to stop endlessly googling shitty reviews of your so-called hero, buy a fucking ticket, and see the goddamn show for yourself. Stop looking at others to tell you how to think. If you like this guys stuff, go and see him while you still can, you revolting, mindless bottomfeeder.

If you’re still unconvinced about whether you should spend your hard earned sheckles on a Doug Stanhope ticket, sort your life out and check out his blog here.
His merciless annihilation of Allison Pearson forms a strong thread throughout his new show. It will make you piss. And he doesn’t even mention kick-fucking girls with cerebral palsy or anything…

Here’s a taster:

This is the arrogance of a media that is beginning to realize that they no longer have a monopoly on public discourse. People like Allison Pearson are dipping their toes into the internet, into the medium that is quickly making them irrelevant and they are shivering at coldness of their own sudden vulnerability.

It used to be that people like me were at your mercy, Al-Zebub Pearson. If I said something considered mean-spirited or off-color on stage, the papers could lambaste me in the press with impunity. Now the shoe is on the other foot as we, the people have columns and readers of our own. You wrote what I found to be loathsome, I gave you a bad review and all of a sudden the flurry of email you’re getting isn’t so pretty.

You are a moribund Vaudeville act. And you can either sink with the ship or come into the future where you are gonna have to hear what people think in whatever language they choose to use. If you google my name or read the comments on any one of my Youtube clips, you’ll find boatloads of comments that are far worse than any of the slings and arrows you or even Fabrice Muamba suffered. It’s par for the course. And if anyone ever went to prison for even a minute because of the viciousness of their online attacks on me, I would campaign endlessly for their freedom.

Enjoy your breakfast.

Reflections on another Black Mirror

The second installment of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror leads us to another implausibly grim vision of the future, but the main difference between The National Anthem and 15 Million Credits, is that the latter is actually rather good.

Co-written by Kanak ‘Konnie’ Huq (of Blue Peter fame) and directed by Euros Lyn (Doctor Who), this modern fable is a surprisingly entertaining glimpse at a possible future dystopia. We can only guess that what unfolds is society’s answer to the impending energy crisis, as people are put to work on millions of exercise bikes to fuel a hi-tech, computerised existence, obsessed with mindless entertainment and online living – distractions from their slavery.

The plot is much more emotive and engaging than the first episode, with characters you actually care about and everything – and it does what all great satire should do, which is to push the current way of things to the extreme, in order to reveal some hidden truths about their nature.

It’s also really heartening to see some proper Science Fiction back on the television. The best Sci-Fi uses the future to tell us about the present, and 15 Million Credits does this better than most. Its exploration of the cruelty innate within Reality TV shows like The X Factor is undertaken by pushing them further in that direction. Its subversion of the idea that social networks somehow bring us closer together, its parody of throwaway digital culture, web advertising and online pornography and its use of a Microsoft Points-style credit system in place of a currency – all have deep sociological and psychological resonances with the new ways we have begun to live our lives through technology.

Black Mirror’s dark future is like our own world with the volume turned up, and what is reflected back is not a pretty picture. Most worrying of all is how the technology is used to placate us, used to make the population do the bidding of the powers-that-be, by removing people’s freedom of choice and disempowering them, while making them believe they are actually getting exactly what they want. In full high definition. Just keep peddling and saving up those credits and all your dreams will come true, citizen. It’s the same lie we’ve always been told, and the black mirror of the ubiquitous LCD screen reflects both that, and a ghostly wan imitation of our vitamin D-deprived faces. Now plug in, shut up and resume viewing.

This is a very clever caricature of our increasingly digital world, the full consequences of which, we are still oblivious to. Let’s just hope Brooker and Huq’s vision of a malevolent force behind the network is just another dark fantasy and not a true sign of things to come.

Can’t wait for next one now…

Watch On 4OD

First Impressions on Black Mirror

Unbelievable, nauseating and bleak are all suitable adjectives for the description of Charlie Brooker’s latest satirical drama, Black Mirror. When I heard about the premise, I suppose I was hoping for something akin to a dramatised Brasseye Special, or Nathan Barley with added politicians and bestiality – but struggled to find the humour in it to be honest.  The TV-crime-drama aesthetics and tempo also put me off a bit, and the implausibility of the plot left me cold.

Having said all this I will still be watching the next two instalments of this mini-series, as I’m interested to see where he takes it next. Certainly, the YouTube generation is ripe for satirical analysis, and holding up a “Black Mirror” to the unseemly side of our digital lives and the effect it has on society and politics, is virgin territory that needs to be charted. And who better than Charlie Brooker to have a go!

I hope the next one is either more believable or more comedic, as I think The National Anthem fell between two stools, in so much as it was neither, and needed to be both, to be all that effective as a satire on our networked zeitgeist. The first episode felt like watching someone’s dark fantasy made real, rather than a future history playing out – but maybe that was the point Brooker was trying to make – that the internet age can bring that dark fantasy one step closer to being real. And that people will watch it. In their millions…

Watch on 4OD

Life’s Too Short

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are at it again, writing and directing their latest situation comedy for the BBC.

Life’s Too Short combines elements of The Office and Extras, but with a new slant on proceedings. This series features Warwick Davies (Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi, Willow) as the lead role and all the things he gets up to in order to raise his profile and drag himself out of the massive tax debt he has run up. It transpires very quickly that this is due to his incompetent accountant who he can’t get rid of, as he considers him a friend.

Warwick Davies is a brilliant actor and although he has obviously taken influence from Gervais for this role, he performs as if he has been in comedy for years and should not be overlooked….. no pun intended!

Whereas The Office is a full on Mockumentary, Gervais and Merchant have cleverly designed this sitcom to feel a lot more like an actual documentary, as everybody plays themselves (albeit characterisations of themselves) and includes references to actual events which makes for great comedy and even more cringe-worthy situations than you have seen before. The correlation with Extras comes from the inclusion of film stars, although because of Ricky Gervais’ Hollywood status he is now able to incorporate the likes of Liam Neeson and Johnny Depp, both delivering outstanding comedic performances in very different ways.

I did notice a few people on social networks being quite negative about the show after the first episode, with the main criticism being; it was just more David Brent but out and about and played by a dwarf, however I personally think there is much more to it than that and with the self referential jokes included in the second episode, it is clear that the potential for public opinion swaying that way was not lost on the creators.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet and/or enjoyed any of their previous work. Gervais and Merchant are two of the best comedy writers around at the moment and long may their careers continue.

Click here to catch up on BBCiPlayer.

Rap News 9

Buxton’s BUG

“I tell people that BUG is like going round to a friend’s house and having him open up his laptop and show you interesting and amusing things he’s found or made, except not as tedious and shit as that sounds.” Adam Buxton

We went to see Adam Buxton present BUG last night at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, with no real preconceptions whatsoever.

Well, maybe one. That it would be something akin to watching Rude Tube live, but with more interesting beats and without that curly-haired twat.  Thankfully it was nothing of the sort.

Sitting in an art-house cinema to watch cutting-edge music videos was a novel enough experience in itself, but the focus of the evening was definitely the host, Adam Buxton, who was in fine comedic form, making the whole experience much more like live stand-up comedy than anything else I can think of.

He would be the first to admit he has been off the public radar for a few years – in “TV Jail” as he puts it! But he has still been very active in the digital realm, carving out his own surreal style via his Youtube channel. While incarcerated in obscurity, Buxton has embraced the viral and assimilated this culture into his comedy vignettes, which seem just as playful (but a lot less infantine) than his seminal work with former partner-in-crime, Joe Cornish. As a childhood fan of The Adam and Joe Show it’s really nice to see his comedy mature and develop as I do.

The whole evening had a really relaxed and intimate atmosphere – like you really were round his house, peering over his shoulder while he showed you his favourite online clips. My only criticism of the event was that it didn’t last quite long enough. I could easily have stayed into the small hours watching music videos with him. It felt like I was hanging out with an old mate of mine that I hadn’t seen for a few years, and it seemed like the rest of the audience felt the same.

The music videos he showed us were also of high quality. Alongside more obvious (but still great) choices like Roots Manuva’s Witness The Fitness and contributions by the legendary Cyriak, there were also some great videos that had passed me by, and I enjoyed this aspect as much as the comedy. If you get chance to go see one of these shows, do so!

Some of Adam Buxton’s new material:

Adam Buxton’s website

BUG website

8 Billion Year Sentence for Bankers

“One way to deal with this would be to make the rules consistent. So after an inquiry into the riots, the gangs would be given eight years to separate their regular mooches round shopping centres from their time looting Dixons. Or we could apply the same sentence to bankers as to looters for each pound’s worth stolen. So as one looter was given four months for stealing two bottles of water, the average banker would be jailed for around eight billion years, though obviously they could be out in four billion for good behaviour.”

Mark Steel writing in The Independent.

Funny and a good idea!

Read the rest here

Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

Doug Stanhope does not give a fuck what you think. There’s no sugar with his pill. No lubricant with his dildo. Nothing is sacred during his acerbic assaults on the state of the modern world and all myths must be destroyed, however positive they may seem.

I think it goes without saying that his comedy is not for the easily offended, and if you consider porn and drugs to be society’s sickness you probably won’t like him. He may even make you physically ill. If this sounds like you, you can stop reading this now and save yourself an aneurysm.

But he isn’t provocative for the sake of it (a criticism that could easily be leveled at Frankie Boyle for example). There is a ruthless logic at work, to the point where anyone with a questioning intelligence will find it hard to disagree with him – even when he’s advocating fun with pedophiles, pissed and leering on stage, or vehemently blaming people that have children for climate change – the arguments are watertight. Even the most liberal-minded comedy-lovers may flinch, but his rants make sense, and expose us for our own hypocrisy as a society. And I, for one, find that shit hilarious.

No Refunds is my favourite. The first time I watched it I was pissing myself for hours afterwards. It’s anger and energy is infectious. It came as quite a shock, as I had previously only seen his rather downbeat contributions to Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. Although they were intelligent and witty they didn’t quite prepare me for the genius of his on-stage performances, which have been compared (incorrectly in my view) to those of Bill Hicks. Anyway, don’t take my word for it, watch this shit:

I was ecstatic when I heard Doug had a new DVD out. But Burning the Bridge to Nowhere is an odd one. Filmed in Oslo with only 36 hours notice, you can see why both the time constraints and the language barrier may have contributed to the slightly stilted delivery of his new material. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol or maybe he was just pissed off – his comic timing doesn’t seem to be up to his usual standard. I don’t want to seem overly-critical though as some of it is really good (parts of it are up there with No Refunds) and he has set himself a very high bar with previous shows. What I would say, is that if you like Stanhope, watch it, and if you don’t yet, watch the others first – you’ll be more forgiving of the bits of it that don’t work quite so well.

Buy it from Amazon

Robert Foster tells it like it is!

If you haven’t seen Rap News yet you’ve been missing out!
A no-bullshit hip-hop news channel from Melbourne, Australia, taking on the biggest stories of these troubling times – it is a must-see for all comedy hip hop fans and liberal-minded fuckheads everywhere. The news is spat by fictional b-boy anchorman Robert Foster aka Hugo Farrant…

“Hugo Farrant fills the role of the amiable Rap News anchorman, Robert Foster – as well as all the guests who appear on the show. Hailing from Branksome in the UK, Hugo is a prolific rhymer and orator, MC and spoken-word poet who regularly graces the stages and festivals of Melbourne. Having spent seven years rhyming and rapping, he now co-rhymes/writes ~TheJuiceMedia: Rap News.”

See more here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia

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Wobble n Dubb – It’s Not Rocket Surgery [Review]

I’ve never been raped in either of my ears, but I imagine that the sensation would not be dissimilar to that of listening to the merciless new album from Wobble n Dubb. The duo’s debut album, a bass-heavy Techno hybrid called It’s Not Rocket Surgery, demands to be played loud: loud enough to make you think the room you’re in is the only piece of horrific reality left in existence, and everything outside has disappeared into the abyss. It will pulverise the soft tissue of your inner ear and maul at your ear drum to the point of near collapse; it will melt a fuse in your brain and trap you in a dark acid flashback of mental psychosis… It’s not for pussies, I’m for real.

The intro, Brain Science, sets the psychotic pace of the album. Wobble N Dubb ain’t messin’. The Godfathers of Ravecore have returned and they mean serious deviant mash-up business. The album starts for real with the pummelling rhythm of Kokoro’s Actroid pulling you into a futuristic nightmare realm of androids and robots, where the sublimely heavy kick-drums batter out the pace of a revolution. The epic Holy Shiite comes next, a track which not only gives you an insight into Wobble n Dubb’s troublesome sense of humour, it also shows them at the top of their game: eerie and unsettling glitched-out vocals mesh perfectly with pounding drums and a crushing bassline; every second is immaculately and painstakingly produced.

Full of blistering snares and nervous sounding bass, Shifty is just that: the theme tune to a man skulking away down an alley after indecently exposing himself to a schoolboy. The dirty bastard. Then comes the hammering bassline of Propa Wood, thrashing out the soundtrack to an imaginary scene in an imaginary documentary in which David Cameron gets ripped apart limb from limb by a naked midget with a tin opener, and screams of anguish erupt from his posh twat-hole of a mouth as his ridiculously annoying face gets sprayed with lumps of bile-soaked cartilage and chunks of bloody gristle. But that might just be me.

Wobble n Dubb – Propa Wood

The aptly titled Loud is a highlight – its unearthly sci-fi melody fuses immaculately with a thundering signature Wobble n Dubb bassline, and it morphs into a destructive and fierce rave anthem. Monstrously heavy Seppuku is a summoning to watch a ritual suicide by disembowelment – the wobbling bass takes prime position again, ripping apart your ear canal without so much as a bit of courtesy spit to ease the pain. Deal with it or fuck off, it seems to say. Gonzo throws you into a brutal Gabber insanity of thrashing spastics; but then Front Gammon pulls you back out with a jolly little melody, and makes you feel like you’ve landed in the middle of a rave down a rabbit hole with a clarted Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee ripping up the dance floor.

The atmospheric and dreamy Tiny Dinosaur Hands brings this demented album to a close in a way that’s actually verging on serene. Maybe Wobble N Dubb aren’t complete savages after all – they have at least had the decency to attempt to calm our troubled minds at the end of this psychotic saga that has been It’s Not Rocket Surgery.

But I do think it’s time for them to fuck off now. Don’t you?

Get the album NOW (at your peril) from Dead Channel
Wobble N Dubb on Soundcloud / Facebook
Check out The Wobble n Dubb takeover on The Otherside Radio show back in January 2011: download here.

Free Bag of Crisps!

So a new series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle started tonight. Hurrah!

I lurve Stewart Lee. He makes me laugh. His jokes are funny, very funny, but I like most the way he tries to alienate a large parts of his audience. I didn’t feel that way before, but the more I see of Lee, the more I appreciate the subversive elements of his “comedy”.

He’s gained popularity in the last few years, and he’s trying to get rid of all those “middle-class tossers” (and I know quite a few of them, living in Lee’s home town, Solihull) who have jumped on the band wagon. He tries to trip his audience up with jokes that are a bit shit (or blue and bigoted in many cases), and it’s funny and satisfying (and more than a little unsettling) when it works. I saw him live in December, in a small intimate venue in London, it was good. One of his “jokes” was centred around taking the piss out of a single, working class mother struggling with her kids and her shopping on a bus; a trap more than a few fell into.

One common criticism of his jokes is that there aren’t enough of them… if you feel the same way, go seek-out another stand-up that will suit your short attention-span! And leave Stewart for the rest of us, unadulterated and de-constructed. Crisps crisps crisps crisps crisps crisps.

Crips. I lurve the way he stands by his left-field guns. He doesn’t tailor his act for the masses, he keeps it real. His shows are witty, cutting, subversive and politically charged, and at times, a bit moronic and stupid.

Long live Stewart Lee!

If you missed it, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle episode 1 series 2.

Why 10 O’Clock Live is Important

Channel 4’s 10 O’Clock Live has been the subject of much criticism, some of it justifable, some of it not. I’m not writing this to defend the show because I think it is perfect, I’m defending it because I think it is sorely needed.

Christopher Hooton of the Metro has commented that the show is “as overtly partisan as Fox News.” I wonder which party Hooton believes the show is Partisan to? It is heavily critical of all the major political parties as far as I can see. I suspect he is deriding the show for being overtly left-wing – a horrible sin as that may be, comparing the show in any way to Fox News is obscene bullshit.

It pisses me off when people equate a bias for the left with a bias for the right. These are not equal, comparable opposite ends of a single political continuum as some would like to have us believe. The right serves to protect the status quo, the hidden agenda is exploitation. Extreme right wing views are often moral perversions born of fear. Fear of change, fear of outsiders, fear of losing material possessions or status. They come from self-interest, patriotism and nostalgia. People who harbour right-wing views tend to want to preserve privilege and protect the inequality of capitalism.

People who sympathise with left-wing idealogies are not immune from self-interest, they are not saints and they certainly aren’t always right. But their ideas come from a desire to make the world fairer – their hearts are in a more altruistic place. So when someone says that something has a left-wing bias as some sort of a criticism, I can only assume that they are a cunt. Balance in this case is an illusion – and frankly impossible. The news is biased to the right, most newspapers are biased to the right, most political parties are biased to the right, and are there to preserve the status quo… so when something comes along that isn’t, I say, well, good. About fucking time, in fact.

10 O’Clock live is biased to the left. Great.

The program has also been criticised from the left – for not being left enough, for being too soft on certain issues, and missing opportunities to give people who deserve it, a good grilling. For example, the interview with Alastair Campbell in Episode 2 of the first series was painful to watch, as David Mitchell was obviously in awe of him, and seemed unable to take command of the situation, ask any pertinant questions, or hold him to account in any way. This isn’t that surprising though. David Mitchell is a comedian (albeit a politicially astute one), and Campbell was the UK’s Spin Doctor in Chief – not a fair fight.

To those on the left who criticise this show, I say, give it chance. Hopefully it will get a second series and continue to mature into a quality vehicle for political satire. In Tory Britian (sorry, Coalition Britain… pfft), we need a mainstream left-wing voice that is actually heard by people in their living rooms. People saying these important things in an inclusive, funny way that is accessible and entertaining – and this show does just that. If you want to keep your left wing views undiluted and pure in your little middle class left-wing clique, you may as well surrender this country to the fuckers who want to carve it up, and sell it off in bits, to their friends, for a tidy profit.

Most importantly 10 O’Clock Live is hilarious. David Mitchell is in his element – self-indulgent ranting that is cheered because it is heart-felt – often you can’t even be arsed to listen, the guy is so verbose, but you know it was probably fucking excellent. Charlie Brooker has shit hair, but who cares, the man is a miserablist genius. Jimmy Car is much funnier than I ever thought he could be and even Lauren Lavern is getting better.

So long may it continue. We need it in these dark times.