Welcome to the Surreal World

At last we get mentioned in The Daily Record. A life long dream for both of us. Here's a feature on Sabotage from today's paper.

Mexican Food and Rock 'n' Roll

After dinner at Driftwood, Jo and I went with Darran and Heather to see The Raveonettes at King Tuts. (Good to see Dazza with trousers on.) I think out of us all I was the only one who had really heard them previously.

Anyway I thought they were fantastic. They really rocked and even although they didn’t play Beat City they didn’t really have anything that was weak. Heartbreak Stroll, My Tornado, That Great Love Sound and Somewhere in Texas were among them.

Jo and Heather both really liked them, Darran claims he needs to hear ‘some studio stuff’ before committing and on the way out Alasdair, who was also there, told me he wasn’t that keen on them. Though he has now put that down to perhaps being too close to the speakers. But like I say for me they were terrific.

Although there were five people on stage I spent the whole gig craning my neck to see as much of Sharin Foo as possible. She is so much more of a Goddess in the flesh than in photographs.

Another Triumph

As you’ll have no doubt read on Tom’s post, this was a weekend of Glue, and has to be rated as another positive step. Two good audiences, although Sunday’s was better than Saturday’s, and we got good feedback on a number of fronts from broadening out what we write about to that thorny problem of what to give the audience when we’re away getting changed.

My favourite moments have to be Tom’s cracking “Bad News Strippers” sketch which brought the house down both nights, his vital goal-line clearance when my tash fell off last night and losing my shit when Dazza walked on in the pants. Despite the fact that I primarily wrote the sketch and had seen Darran in his outfit a couple of times, his nonchalant wink and “Awright mate?” knocked my composure aw away tae fuck.

The star of the show seems to have been Bertie, our jaded bunny rabbit kids TV favourite. Loads of folk listed him as their favourite character, which means my career in puppetry looks like being extended rightly or wrongly.

As Tom says, more Glue is tentatively planned for September and we’ll be once again looking at organising things better and getting all the glue crew more involved in what we get up to.

All in all, not a bad weekend considering these were our third and fourth gigs and I had a great time performing the stuff.

The Show's Over

Awright so those of you who weren’t there want to know how Glue 2 went. Well it went pretty well. We had more or less a full house on Saturday and although there was less on Sunday night they seemed to laugh more.

A couple of the audio sketches divided the audience on the first night so we replaced them for the Sunday. I enjoyed the Sunday night more although as Fizz rightly points out it was the most ramshackle performance yet.

A fake moustache fell off during one sketch, though that managed to add to the general hilarity and in the penultimate sketch Fizz had a Jimmy Fallon Moment and cracked up at Darran’s nonchalant but trouserless entrance into the sketch. The audience were all on side though so it didn’t really matter as they found it funny too.

On both nights we were approached about various projects, though early stages and all that so I’ll not go on about them just now. At the moment we’re looking at another show in September. I’ll update on exact details as and when we get them sorted.

The Publicity Drive

Another couple of pieces of Glue publicity on the eve of the first night. Over at Glasgow Theatre Underground we have a wee mention. And in the listings of today's Metro you can read 'Fraser Campbell and Tom Brogan's acclaimed show.' Very nice but unfortunately that is under the listings for this evening. They have us listed as Friday and Saturday and not Saturday and Sunday. Wonder if anyone will turn up looking for us tonight.

Very Special Guests

After rehearsals last night I headed to Mono to see Architecture in Helsinki. They were all right, multi instrumentalists, lots of trumpets, girly melodies and big beards.

I arrived too late to see Marceline’s mate’s band, but I did arrive in time to see the ‘Very Special Guests.’ They turned out to be Data Panik playing their first ever gig. For those who neither know nor care Data Panik used to be Bis.

They were quite good, very poppy. I resisted the urge to shout for the Power Puff Girls theme tune.

Here for your enjoyment are some blurry photographs.

The First Cheque

Yesterday we received in the mail our first professional writing contract and payment for the first 3 episodes of Sabotage. So far we have three sketches in two of the opening three shows.

I also have a CD of the first three shows, so if anyone missed them and really wanted to hear them they can have a copy.

EDIT: Fizz has listened to the CD and we actually have five sketches in the first three episodes. Museum of Surly, Chuck Rodgers Painter and Decorator, Conspiracy of Love, Hollistic Car Repairs and The Twinkle-Toed Detective.

It's Hot

It was 82°F in Glasgow yesterday (For the benefit of our non-Glasgow based readers…Ben mainly). It’s funny how any kind of extreme weather brings public transport here to its knees. Trains were off cos apparently the rails were melting. The buses were erratic and mobbed and when I went to use the Underground it was off too.

Whenever it’s too hot, too wet, too cold etc round here stuff tends not to work. If terrorists want to destroy Scotland all they have to do is gain control of the weather kind of like The Penguin or some other Batman villain might do.

Apparently it's 75 °F at the moment. I ain’t complaining. I’m heading to sit in Kelvingrove Park before rehearsals tonight.

Dig!

At the weekend I went to see Dig! It was quite entertaining, the juxtaposition of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s complete inability to play the game with The Dandy Warhols’ ultimate crossover success through a Vodafone commercial made for interesting viewing.

What comes across most strongly is that BJM main man Anton Newcome is a complete and utter bam. From attacking members of his band midway through songs to wrecking industry shows from attempting to sabotage Dandy Warhols gigs to multiple arrests he comes across as one of the biggest ever fuck ups to become a musician.

Since seeing the film I’ve been reading the BJM website and in particular this statement by Anton Newcombe who insists that the film is a gross misrepresentation of him.

Glue Publicity

You may have noticed our entry in The List. You may not, so that's why I've put it on here. We really need to take total control of our own publicity. 'Surreal'? I wouldn't have described us as surreal. I also think it's a word that may put people off more than attract them.

I've also included the chalk advert that sits in Blackfriars' window. Two days of rehearsals in Blackfriars this weeekend, so hopefully many of the current fears will be lifted at the end of it.


The List listing.


Glue in Chalk.

Rock 'n' Roll for Free

Last night I went to see Brendan Benson at Virgin on Buchanan Street. I expected a short acoustic set, but what we were treated to was a 35 minute electric set with a full band. He played most of my favourites Feel Like Myself Again, Good to Me, Tiny Spark and Spit it Out as well as a good few more.

He made a slight faux pas by complaining about ‘these English summers.’ Predictably that was met by boos and groans. He did look embarrassed and repeatedly offered his apologies. ‘I knew as soon as I said it…’

A cracking little show that makes up for me missing him when he played The Arches in April.

Later on in the evening I saw Amina at Mono. Amina are an all girl group from Iceland who are supporting Sigur Ros tonight. They also accompany them. They played plinky plonky instrumentals and haunting strings. I got quite into it by the end of their performance.

The Big Sleep

This post is really just for Ben, as I know he’ll get a kick out of it. The photos were taken in the work car park around about three o’clock in the afternoon a few months ago.

What’s the Difference Between God or a Dog Talking to You?

Here’s Larry David’s latest blog on The Huffington Post. Some great stuff here on fruit, the army, pillows and President Bush.

London

You post one political blog and see what happens? I’ve not go too much to say on it than what you’re probably saying yourself. I would imagine Africa can kiss their aid goodbye. Work at our table has pretty much stopped and we've increased our already frequent web browsing.

To keep up with what’s going on I’ve found that the 7 July London Bombings page on Wikipedia is about the best place. They have links to other blogs, news and photo sites covering events.

What Billions?

We’ve not been very political on here for a while, but this was a news story that got the heckles up. $8.8bn of Iraq’s money set aside to rebuild the country has disappeared. That’s not to mention the billions of dollars that was dished out that Paul Bremer and the US authorities thought they didn’t have to account for. As you read on it looks more like the construction business Tony Soprano set up than the rebuilding of a country.

Here’s how they used to do things.

Some Photos

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeeks.






Here is Marceline and Uter on stage at Mono.


Marceline and Fraser.


And here's my name in chalk outside Blackfriars.

I'll try and put some photographs up on a regular basis now that I have a cameraphone with which to snap away.

A Tasty Heidfu

We’re still finishing off our CD Exchange here at work and I’m listening to Marceline’s kooky compilation. One of the songs reminds me of Ayrshire band Nyah Fearties. Anyone remember them? Have a look at their site. Their album titles include the title of this post, ‘The Good The Bad and The Alkies’ and ‘A Keech in a Poke.’

I’ve just been handed the recording of the Glue audio prior to sound effects being added so I’ll move onto that for a bit.

Did You Miss Sabotage Too?

Fizz and I missed Sabotage on Saturday, however our Mothers heard it and both appeared to like it. If like us you missed it, you can catch it on BBC’s Listen Again feature by clicking here.

The BBC Press Release mentions a couple of our sketches. Ours are the first two 'one off' sketches.

That Was Cold Blooded

Over the weekend I watched plenty of Chappelle’s Show season two, in fact almost all of it. It’s gold, pure comedy gold. From the now famous “I’m Rick James, bitch!” sketch to ‘When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong’ it’s class the whole way through.

The Rick James sketch comes from Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories. The link below provides some of the best quotes from the sketch, including my personal favourite, Charlie Murphy’s assessment of Rick James, "He was a habitual line-stepper.”

Audio Glue

We recorded the audio for the new Glue show at the weekend. The recording went well, with most sketches ‘in the can’ in only a take or two. There’s a good number more of them than there was last time and on this occasion they have been professionally rather than haphazardly recorded.

You Owe Me Glue flyers and posters should now be visible around some Merchant City establishments. There should also be some photographs from rehearsals up on the site in the next few days.