“The Bob Dylan of comedy music”
Rating: 4 Stars ****
James Hazelden is entertaining, hilarious, and charismatic in this piece of musical comedy mayhem. Admittedly, my first impressions were something along the lines of ‘blimey, not another gutter mouthed man strumming the guitar’, but one song put paid to my reservations and I was hooked. The lyrics were absurd, accompanied by frantic guitar strumming, and an incongruously harmonious voice. Laughs echoed around the room at the dark obscurity of the material; think a ninja meets Satan and they breed to produce an Australian Bob Dylan on speed. James’s jagged charm created a laid back and chilled ambience, which kind of made it acceptable to laugh quite as hard as we did.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 1: BATTERY HENS OF THE SKIES
“When people choose to fly overseas they become battery hens of the skies”..- Sarah Coffey
I realize it is a big cliche for writers and comedians to talk about air travel, but where there’s joke, there’s ire.
I love flying. I love airports and tend to get a lot written in them. I love sitting in a vaguely comfy seat for 20 hours and being brought food at regular intervals. I always eat it whether I am hungry or not. What the hell else am I going to do? I love in-flight entertainment, and will have scheduled my entire trip’s movie viewing while the plane is still on the ground. This time around it was Iron Man, Kung Foo Panda, Bee Movie and Be Kind Rewind. Kick arse.
I was going to the Edinburgh Festival to perform my first ever solo comedy show for the PBH Free Fringe. Appropriately enough it was called Freeloader. It was just going to be me talking and playing guitar for 50 minutes, with a mix of old songs from my bands’ (The Drowning Hitlers and Man Bites God) back catalogue, plus some new songs. I had performed some 20 minute solo comedy shows last year in Wales, supporting Tony Law, and this formed the basis of the new full-length show. How I ended up doing this tour was the subject of my first press release to the lovely peoples of the UK. And it’s all true:
AUSTRALIAN GETS DRUNK IN TOWNSVILLE AND WAKES UP IN EDINBURGH
“After a heavy night of drinking some people wake up next to a person they don’t know, Australian comedic musician James Hazelden woke up in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
During April this year James Hazelden was touring regional Queensland with the internationally renowned Circus Oz where one of his tasks was to play a double bass that swung around violently 40 feet above the delighted audience. After a performance in Townsville, and a few celebratory drinks, James stumbled to his hotel room and hit the internet for some inebriated virtual chat. His friend Nicko (from Nicko and Joe’s Bad Film Club) wrote to him about her upcoming Edinburgh show and James expressed a drunken longing to return to Edinburgh. After much cajoling… Okay not that much cajoling… But after being reminded of the great tour James had in Edinburgh 2004 with Man Bites God, James was convinced. Still drunk, he made up the name and concept for a show on the spot and emailed the PBH Free Fringe Festival straight away. Eleven minutes later James had a 915pm spot waiting for him at the Nicol Edwards which he graciously accepted.
Then he passed out. Still in his clothes. Half on and half off the bed.
In the morning James awoke to the full ramifications of what he had done, and a blinding hangover, but he decided to uphold his end of that ridiculous and drunken bargain. Four months later and James Hazelden is about to debut his first ever, solo comedy music show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Who says alcohol is bad for you?!”
I was very nervous. If the show sucked, I was in trouble. If the show didn’t suck but lots of people thought it did, I was in trouble. If the show didn’t suck, and no one thought it did, but that’s because no one turned up, I was in trouble. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a fight for audiences and attention. It is flyering in the rain and trying to get a reviewer to see you and write nice things. It is mentally begging everyone you make eye-contact with to come to your show and like you. It makes you exhausted before you even hit the stage. It is hard work.
I had a big month ahead of me, and probably should have been sleeping, but the airline seemed to have seated me in the middle of several grizzling kids. I do not understand why parents feel the need to bring small children onto planes – surely the requisite “change of scenery” can be just as easily achieved by periodically popping a different coloured piece of cardboard in front of them. And it must be expensive and time consuming to fly with children. Especially when you consider that drowning them in a bag is cheaper, quicker and a lot more fun.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 2: PLASTIC GUNS
“You know where I stand, holding my plastic gun…” – Neil Finn
When I arrived in Edinburgh I had a dream that I was holding a room full of people hostage with several cheap-looking plastic handguns. I cannot think of a better metaphor for a comedy show than that.
When Man Bites God was playing the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2005 I would always see this one guy walking the streets, seemingly lost and always alone. It turns out he was from out of town and doing a solo comedy show at the Fringe, and didn’t really know anyone in Adelaide. No one was coming to see his show and he clearly wasn’t very good at meeting people, so he was just left to float anonymously like an orphaned ghost through the streets, killing time dead until it was time to cancel his show (again), because no one turned up (again). A few months later I saw the same guy doing the same thing during the Melbourne Comedy Festival. My biggest fear about attempting a solo comedy show in Edinburgh was that I was going to become that guy…
I performed in a small room called the Nicol Edwards Banqueting Hall. Don’t let the name fool you – it is not a room that inflames the appetite. It is a small, moist, claustrophobic cave with a semi-circular stone roof, stone walls and floor and a few chipped and broken pews and chairs situated under Scotland’s “most haunted pub”. It is the only room I have ever been in that leaks, even when it isn’t raining. It was a fantastic venue.
On the day of my first show I flyered very half-heartedly on the Royal Mile. Then I went to the venue to prepare for my show. Every show in the Nicol Edwards was a PBH Free Fringe show – entry was free for audience members, and a collection for the performers was taken at the show’s conclusion. The performers didn’t have to pay any venue rental, and the owner got more people to come into the pub because of the free shows. Everybody wins. And it fucking works. The free shows started around 1pm and ran till about 1am, and there was a steady stream of people in and around the bar for all that time. My show was on at 9.15pm. I was competing against proper shows like Fiona O’Loughlin, Greg Fleet and The Lady Boys of Thailand to name but a few. Whenever you play during the Edinburgh Fringe, there are 100 acts on at the same time as you. This is daunting. The average audience for an Edinburgh Fringe show is just 3 people. This means there must be shows consistently getting LESS people than that. This is very daunting. As I stood in the shadows and waited for the show before me to end, I prayed for just 10 to 15 people. If somehow 10 to 15 people came to see my first show this one night, then I would flyer more tomorrow and be a good person and stop masturbating and build a church for orphaned lepers and whatever it fucking takes to get 10 to 15 fucking people into that fucking room and there to see me.
The PA was a bit crappy, and suspiciously wet. I decided to avoid it altogether, and do the show with no amplification. This would leave me free to wander a bit with my guitar, troubadour style, and address the audience in a more informal and relaxed manner. In the Free Fringe you are your own usher, sound tech and crew. I tuned my guitar and opened the doors and waited.
I didn’t get 10 to 15 people. I got about 40. I had an hilarious “joke” about how good it was playing in Scotland’s most haunted pub, because the empty seats had ghosts in them, and it still counted as a sellout. All the seats were full and I never got a chance to say it. I don’t know where the fuck these people came from and I tried not to jinx it by thinking too hard about it. Amongst the crowd were my good friends Cath, Marko, Bags and Derek from Circus Oz, who were also performing a show at the Fringe. It was lovely to have mates in the crowd, and it was a great first show. I played and talked and people laughed and I had a great time and I hoped they had a great time. At the end I sold some CD’s and got some very generous donations.
At the conclusion of the gig I drank a lot of Guinness and then wandered home to Leith in a daze. I had just performed my first ever full-length comedy show. It was in front of an international audience, at the world’s biggest arts festival, and people came and seemed to like it. I gave lots of change to a beggar. He offered to carry my guitar case home for me. I politely declined. As I staggered home I remember thinking two things: that I hadn’t been this happy for a long time, and that it didn’t fucking matter what the rest of the shows were like, because the memory of this one was going to be enough to see me through. Oh, and I also really wanted a kebab.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 3: THERE ARE NO ONE MAN SHOWS
“A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body” – unknown
I had great crowds for all 19 shows I performed at the Nicol Edwards. Often they were standing right to the back, and out of the door, straining to look inside. Of course it would be naive of me to say I have absolutely no idea why my show proved to be quite popular. It was a combination of help, timing and luck that made all those people take a chance on a show they had never heard of before.
My lovely friend Nicko added my show details to the Bad Film Club mailing list, which went out to lots of UK people. My poster and flyer image was simple and eye-catching, designed by Sarah Philips and photographed by Chris Tomkins. Chris also made my Youtube video preview. Several of my friends in Australia and abroad pimped my sorry arse out to people they knew were going to be in Edinburgh. The List and the Ed Fringe website gave me some lovely articles, with Robyn helping me to write the press releases. My friend Justin, who is a professional street performer, talked to me about ways of getting an audience to donate money at the end of a gig. And the PBH Free Fringe has its own booklet, website and set of loyal supporters. Also the standard of shows in the Nicol Edwards was very good, and if people saw one good show there, they would be more likely to drift back and see others. The acts in the venue all got along together very well, and we would often promote each others’ shows and help each other out. In Free Fringe there is less competition because the other guy’s crowd is likely to be your crowd the next night. It’s a great system.
Then there is the venue itself. The Nicol Edwards is just off the Royal Mile, near Cowgate. It is slap bang in the centre of a lot of Fringe traffic. The pub is popular all year round, with live music every night. It doesn’t close till 5am most nights, and has a large number of regulars. It’s owned by Dave who is lovely. He laminated all our outside posters without asking, just to keep them safe from the rain. No other venue does that, even when you’re renting it. Richard is the manager and there are several young, extremely wonderful bar staff including Kieran, Paddy and two girls called Ash. These guys were my guiding lights throughout the festival. They made time to come to Freeloader, and pimp me out to all their friends and the inhabitants of the bar. They played my CD’s over the sound system, and talked up my show every chance they got. I loved working in the Nicol Edwards. I even hung out there on my nights off. It was the happiest place in Edinburgh, and I got to go to work there.
I was scheduled to play about 13 twenty-minute High Street showcase gigs on the Royal Mile. These largely unrewarding affairs are just glorified busking spots, and you are competing with 1000 other people for the attentions of the crowd. After my first night I emailed the Fringe and cancelled them all. I realized I wasn’t going to need them. I still flyered… for a while. It was easier to flyer for a show that you knew people were going to come to, because it took the pressure off. About 5 shows in I asked the crowd of 50 people who had come to Freeloader because I had given them a flyer. No one put their hand up. It got a big laugh. I stopped flyering after that. There was no point.
Nicko says that most people make up their minds about what they want to see at the Fringe before it even starts. And by not forcing a flyer on someone, you are guaranteeing that the people who do come to your show are the type of people who will like it. I think there’s something to that. My crowds were all really lovely for the entire run. In that tiny cave, deep underground, if they had decided to beat me to death no one would have heard my screams. Luckily, none of them did. One woman wanted to heckle me really badly during the show, so SHE RAISED HER HAND. When I told her to keep all questions to the end, she put it down. This is how lovely the crowds were.
Word of mouth is the best tool to sell a show and, as the run went on, I noticed that people were coming back, and bringing more and more people with them. One man brought all the people in his hostel room. Another brought along his 14 year old daughter, and far from being offended at the material, they came back twice more. She told me that her favourite song of mine was the “devil fucking me in the arse” song. That’s a true story.
Of course not all my reviews were so favourable. There was a bootmark on one of my venue posters, where someone had kicked it right in my face. On another poster, someone had struck a match on my face. On a third poster, someone had drawn horns and a moustache on me and written the word “devil” with a big arrow pointing to me. During one of the shows early on, a woman sat up the back and talked the whole time. When I politely pointed out that she was a bit annoying she made a face at me and told me to get off. At this point the rest of my crowd booed her. It was pretty funny. I did get some favourable reviews as well. I was in Chocolate Soup having a nice cup of tea, when a man asked to pay for my bill because he had seen the show the night before and liked it. And a lot of people bought me drinks after the show, or left beers (and sometimes phone numbers!) in my collection bucket at the end. A lovely young lady wrote a poem about me on the back of one of my flyers and gave it to me. The more formal reviews of my show have been archived as blogs here on the Myspace page.
It’s very easy to say that it doesn’t matter what other people think. And it certainly shouldn’t. But it does. And when they think and write nice things I like to read about them. It’s masturbation really. Of course when they don’t write nice things I go insane and get very annoying, and this is why my band has taken to hiding bad reviews from me. Cunts.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 4: AN INTERVAL – LOCH NESS
“There were monsters on that ship. And truly we were they…” – Lisa Simpson
The most popular pipe band in Edinburgh at the moment is a group calling themselves the Red Hot Chili Pipers. This is not a joke. In fact, to get any further away from a joke you would need a wormhole.
I certainly wasn’t doing the show the whole time I was in Edinburgh. I got to see some other stuff. My lovely friend Susan snuck me into the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle, which was very stirring and moving… sometimes. When the Scots played it was amazing. When the US and Canadian marching bands foofed their way onto the arena they got laughs from the crowd because of their namby-pamby-ness. Still, it was a great show. I also got to watch my friends in Circus Oz perform a couple of times, and wrangled free tickets to Frank Woodley’s excellent show.
Unlike 2004, this year I had given myself Mondays off. Also unlike 2004 I was not able to drink till 6am every night. I am just too old for that sort of thing nowadays. I managed to drink till 6am every third day this year, and that was about right for me. I ate lots of haggis. I drank lots of Guinness and Irn Bru. I enjoyed working in Edinburgh, without feeling the need to be a tourist every day. But on one of my free Mondays I became a tourist again, and got on a day bus that was going to cruise to Loch Ness, via the picturesque Scottish Highlands.
Most of the tour was watching stuff from the bus, which suited me fine. The night before had been one of my “drink till 6am” nights, and I staggered in and realized almost too late that I needed to be on a tour bus at 8.00am. Somehow I made it. There is a definite beginning to the Scottish Highlands – a place where the scenery distinctly changes and lush green fields are replaced with lush green mountains and trees. It reminded me a little of the Canadian countryside. The heather was in bloom and entire hills and valleys were bright purple and glinting in the sunlight. It was a very beautiful sight, like someone had draped an old lady shawl over mother nature. After performing in a small cave under a pub for the better part of two weeks, my lungs were reinvigorated by the country air, and I took huge gulps of sweet tasting oxygen at the Spean River. Then I took huge gulps of free whiskey at the tasting store down the road. We passed through Birnam Wood – yes it is real, even if Macbeth (and possibly Shakespeare) are not.
Loch Ness itself was a small, pretty town. It seems to be equal parts embarrassed and thankful for its ridiculous monster legend, and when I went on a cruise on the Loch itself, the on-board commentary was mostly Nessie-free. The dry, Hibernian man with the wink in his voice only occasionally interrupted the cruise with little historical facts and details, and for the most part I was able to just sit there and listen to Neil Finn on my Ipod, with the water and the mountains and the sky and the air, and be content.
On the way home we went through Glencoe, and saw the Three Sisters. We drove over the desolate, grey and foreboding Ranock Moor. I was exhausted and hungover, and would fall in and out of sleep as the coach rambled along. I would wake up in the middle of the driver telling me a story about William Wallace, then nod off, then wake up during a bloody tale from the life of Robert the Brave. They were great stories, and completely unspoiled by any kind of facts or logic. The Scots love their history. They were never invaded by the Romans, and they are ridiculously smug about it.
I returned to Edinburgh in a happy, sleepy sort of mood, and floated home to lie on the couch and drink more Irn Bru.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 5: ALMOST ONE THIRD AS GOOD
“This is insane. I am attempting a comedy music show without the funny one or the musical one” – James Hazelden
In the excellent Anthology documentary series about the Beatles, George Harrison makes an interesting distinction between The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Although both acts were incredibly popular and surrounded by a type of madness most of their performing lives, The Beatles survived because if one of them was in trouble, there were always three other guys who knew exactly what he was going through. Elvis was just a man alone, surrounded by yes-men and people who couldn’t understand what it was like to be Elvis. This must have been a very frustrating and lonely way for him to live.
Now obviously I am not comparing The Beatles and Elvis Presley to Man Bites God and my little solo venture. That would be funnier than the third series of Blackadder. However it is an interesting mega-uber-maxi-cosm for my own humble existence. I had two bad shows. And I had them in a row. It was nobody’s fault but my own. The crowds were nice, and I certainly got away with them. But I didn’t enjoy them, and felt I was losing the audience, and unable to completely get them back onside. They just weren’t my best shows. One of the shows happened while my friends Nicko and Clint were in the crowd, which was awful because they had been so kind and supportive, and here I was serving them up a supremely average show.
My problem was simple – I had become more and more excited and flushed with the initial success of Freeloader. People were laughing and having a good time, and I was having a good time. Then it became more and more important to me that the show do brilliantly every night, even at the cost of my own enjoyment. Suddenly I went from being suprised and delighted when something got a laugh, to being disappointed when something didn’t get a laugh. I put unnecessary pressure on myself, and that sapped the fun from my performance, which was the very thing the audiences were responding to. This is what is known in showbiz circles as: becoming a cunt. Every audience is different. You just have to be enthusiastic about the material, and if they like it, they like it. But on your own it’s very hard to step away and see that.
This is where I missed the Man Bites God boys most. And I missed them a lot during the days of this tour. I remember drinking a lonely pint in a corner of the Nicol Edwards after those bad shows and talking to myself about what I was doing wrong, willing myself to be better next time… blah blah blah wank. All I needed was for two guys who had had the same show as me to tell me it was ok, and perhaps get me a beer. This is why being in a band is better. The rest of the shows were fine, and I recaptured my initial excitement and even added to it. The final week of shows were definitely my strongest. But being a full time solo act takes an internal strength that I’m not sure I have, or want.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 6: ANOTHER INTERVAL – GLASGOW
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde
As I had lost a bit of weight and my hair had grown longer and messy and I now had a beard, I looked distinctly unlike the photo of me on my flyers and posters. This was of tremendous advantage on the rare occasions that I would flier. People would look at me and then at the flier and then back at me again and ask, “what’s he like?” To which I would always reply, “he’s alright… quite funny”. It is much easier to sell a show in the third person.
Man Bites God had seen a fair bit of Scotland in 2004 when we played at the Edinburgh Fringe, but we had never been to Glasgow. Many countries have two cities that are at odds with one another in both ethos and aspect; Shanghai has Beijing, Sydney has Melbourne, Los Angeles has New York, Frankston has everywhere else in the world. And Glasgow has Edinburgh. I decided to hop on the Megabus with my friend Sarah and visit Scotland’s darker, grimier capital city.
Well firstly we found the cheapest full Scottish breakfast in Scotland. Two pounds! And in a lovely pub just off the Sauchiehall St. So we were already ahead of the game. Glasgow is a grey city that looks like it is permanently under construction. Beautiful old Georgian buildings are reflected in giant, glass nightmare office blocks, and everything is being dug up to make a new carpark for everything else. We walked the streets and found the old town. We visited George’s Square and saw the impressive Glasgow Council Chambers building. After a few hours of walking around we wanted somewhere green to sit and have a rest. We couldn’t find anywhere. Every piece of greenery we saw in the distance and headed towards, turned out to be a lone hedge or a highway plant or something. It was a bit depressing.
We did finish the day with tea and scones in the Willow Tea Rooms. This is a proper old-fashioned tea establishment, with excellent art deco interiors. Tres jolie. The Glasgow Modern Art Gallery is also excellent, with floors of works housed in a beautiful Georgian building in the centre of a small, picturesque square.
I left feeling glad I had seen Glasgow, but with no real desire to return to it. Perhaps as visitors we had just missed the best bits. Often in cities like Glasgow, a little local knowledge will make them sparkle. I have read too that Glasgow has an excellent nightlife, restaurant and club scene. But I had to rush back to Edinburgh for the inevitable 9.15pm Freeloader show.
EDINBURGH TOUR 2008 PART 7: GREAT EXPECTATIONS
“That’s G-R-A-T-E Expectations, also by Edmund Wells” – At Last the 1948 Show
The best advice I have been given about performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is also the piece of advice I have been given most: decide before you go exactly what you want to achieve.
This is what I wanted to achieve before I went to Edinburgh: I wanted to see if I could write and perform a 50 minute comedy music show that would keep a discerning, international audience entertained, and I wanted to see if I could do it on my own, with just a guitar. I wanted to get out from behind the safety of Mark and Chris and see if I could wing it by myself for a bit. I wanted to play some of the old Drowning Hitlers songs that don’t get played much anymore. I wanted to play some new songs that I quite liked, and see if other people liked them too. I wanted to see Edinburgh again and eat haggis and drink Irn Bru and Guinness. I wanted to see my friends Nicko, Joe, Clint and Sarah. I wanted to walk away with a renewed faith in the kinds of songs I write, and the kind of performer I am. I wanted to be reminded that international touring isn’t as scarey or as impossible as a lot of Australian acts think it is.
I achieved all this and now I wish I’d asked for a million dollars and some sweet supermodel handjobs.
Many people come to Edinburgh to perform with dreams of being discovered, getting onto TV, winning awards and being the next big thing. Most people who think this way are disappointed, and this kind of success usually goes to the people who were probably going to get it anyway, Edinburgh or no Edinburgh. I felt I held my own as a solo performer, and it is an amazing feeling for me, as I have never been a solo performer in my life. I got to try something new in a city far away from people who would tell me it was good, whether it was or not. I wish I could describe to you how exciting it was to walk into the Nicol Edwards everyday and KNOW that people were going to come to your show. And that some of them would really like it. I sold a lot of Man Bites God CD’s and hopefully made us a few fans in the process. Even as I write this now I am very excited, and proud of myself, and very thankful to everyone who helped me.
One thing that happened that I was not expecting was that I am a NICE GUY on stage. Without Mark or Chris to pick on, and not wanting to pick on the audience, because I was so grateful that they came, I assumed this sort of decent guy persona. Once again, after many years of performing this was something different for me and exciting.
I got to play in front of 400 muddy people in a tent at Fringe Sunday. I performed some songs at a packed late night comedy room. It was all good.
My personal highlight of the show was a new song I wrote called Rose Marie. It is a folk song, with a story and a section where the audience can sing along. Every night I invited the audience to sing along, and every night they did. Our voices filling the cave… it sounded great. That is the moment I will take with me from Freeloader.
My friend Robyn came over with Circus Oz and saw my show. I was raving to her, as I am raving to you now, and she said that I would be returning to Australia with an even bigger ego than usual after this. That may be true. But hopefully performing my little comedy show in Edinburgh will give me the confidence to pursue other opportunities and take other risks that I might not otherwise have taken. If so, bring on the ego.
That’s what I take with me from Edinburgh – a heart swollen with pride and achievement and a head swollen with self-important arrogance and arteries swollen with Haggis and sausage fat. Isn’t it great that you only have to read this shit? Imagine sitting through me telling this to you, with a polite fixed smile on your face and a headache cracking the corners of your composure. The written word is so much easier to put down than the individual.
I care not. I am joyous.
Mar 28
Here is a (mostly) complete list of my writing, directing, podcasting and performing credits…
DISCOGRAPHY:
Solo:
Man Bites God:
Ang Fang Quartet:
The Drowning Hitlers:
Guest Appearances:
THEATRE & FILM:
Founder and director of the Drama-rama Theatre Company (1994 to 2000)
Director, producer, musical director, actor, except where specified:
Early Shows
PODCASTS:
MUSIC:
GUEST ARTIST:
SOUNDTRACKS:
Composer, arranger, producer, performer, except where specified:
FESTIVALS and TOURS: