Friday 23 October 2009

Electric Proms - BBC6 Music has the visual evidence

The dictates of my heady social life have made this update a little tardy. I'm fairly pleased I didn't go into some lengthy waffle yesterday because I believe this little film says it all, or at least, quite a lot.

A bulging thank you to Adam, Joe, James and all the other people involved in bringing this wonderful hour of fun to us (or just under 13 minutes if you weren't there).


I know the BBC media isn't always available worldwide so you can find this split into three parts on YouTube.

I'm in a mood for some pointless drivel so I'll start by saying how warm and stupidly relieved I felt to see Adam togged up in his cycle gear. His L-bone must have fully recovered and his sudden chin alopecia seems to have abated as well. Buckles order has been restored.
Update: Really sad to say that either the MRI link on Saturday's show was a total sham, or the Lbone is not so painful as to prevent him at least wearing his cycling gear. So just when he starts to feel a bit better, someone steals his bike. This is rough justice of an extraordinary kind......just because of one indiscretion with an umbrella.

Was that Danny Wallace's voice doing the intro?

I was surprised that Joe didn't know why Adam's Quicktime/VLC comment caused a giggle or two. VLC is the final refuge of the stubborn media file but it's so bloomin' unstable. You don't want to go there unless you really can't 'Ctl, Clk. OpenWith' your way out of trouble using another media app. That said, at one point, Adam started to launch FinalCutPro and we'd still be sitting there waiting for it to load, if he hadn't swiftly aborted. I guess Joe must have a runner to open his media files for him nowadays, hence his confusion.

As with BUG, the show was driven from Adam's Mac and he had a nice bunch of silly files on his desktop. I'd seen some before but there were new ones too. Joe mused that the only genuine file was the one marked "Pictures of my genitals".

The compilation of some karoake entries was very satisfying, especially as several contributors were in the audience. It's a pity the video doesn't feature the Emmett family a bit more. You can see them sitting near the front of the audience but Joe talked to them quite a bit (and very sweetly, at some length after the recording). He should cast them in his film. Where else would you find an entire family so closely attuned and ready to perform?

Take a moment to see what a miracle young Ben Mercer worked with Joe's already wonderful song, bleeding fingers and all. All that talent and yet he looked so sweetly nervous sometimes.

Didds & Trish entertained everyone waiting in the entry line by emerging for a quick coffee swathed in scarves to hide their chin make-up. Their performance on the day was even better than their winning YouTube entry. If they were nervous, it didn't show and they really looked like they enjoyed themselves.

It's a shame Joe only sang over the fully mixed version of Dr Sexy but that concern pales in comparison to Adam's attempt to undermine the entire performance by pretending he'd never heard the song before with his weirdly detached portrayal of Nurse Totties. He was even trying to steal the limelight with a silly dance at the beginning. (Had to say that to balance the bit about Joe not knowing why VLC is a problem).
If you're wondering why Joe chose to serenade Ben, it was because he was the only person in the room with tight enough jeans. That's not entirely true because my jeans were very, very tight but I'd had a big breakfast and there's no cure for the particular strain of sexy disease that I have. Joe would have been all night trying to sort me out. Anyway, as you can see, Ben felt dirty after all that and from where I was sitting, it looked like he employed the international symbol for "I'm not yet comfortable enough with my sexuality to have a man almost twice my age run his mike up and down my body" but what do I know?

In reply to Joe's rendition of Dr Sexy, Adam did his Sushi song which he told us he put together some time ago in order to save the rhino (mission accomplished, I believe). Time didn't allow it to be included in this video, apparently but I enjoyed it. Joe doesn't like sushi. How does that work?

Adam told us of a pitch idea he blamed on Joe, to make a show called Silly Question Time and proceeded to pick random silly questions previously written down by the audience. When the author of the enquiry had been located, they were accosted with inappropriate touching and forced to read it out. The replies were the usual freeform we have grown to love.

Joe wanted to give us a teaser for some of this weekend's made-up jokes and delighted in the contemporary nature of an HD based item. Adam would have preferred a Blue Ray gag so put your thinking caps on.

Boggins the dog made a brief visit to the stage area but Adam managed to wrangle him into a box. Sadly, said box was a little bit too small for him which made it impossible for him to move his jaw. Joe wanted to take the temperature of the humane culling climate in the room and I think he seemed fairly pleased at the general enthusiasm to keep the sweet, stinky, old thing alive.

Edited to add that I completely forgot they showed their 1998 pop promo for Sweet Johnny couched in a brief anecdote about Dom Joly (had any new ideas lately?) and The Chart Show. Happily, this particular nugget is on the Tube for You.

It all went by too quickly but was gratifyingly rounded off with the much talked about silly home movie featuring the impossibly young Joe, Louis and Adam jerking around to Dee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart". This was shown at the Greenwich BUG and one of the BUG 15s and I was quite miffed that I had previously missed it. It was demented. Thank you.

Here's the main Adam And Joe, Electric Proms page in case you missed it. It has about a dozen (that's twelve, Joe) photos.

I snagged one myself (see above) and in the video you might have noticed the extraordinary backdrop with a bearded Joe. Goodness knows why I find that strangely erotic. (shut up, Goodness. Keep it to yourself)

Finally, you may like to check out the day through the eyes of another blogger, here.

2 comments:

  1. I think it was me and my boyfriend laughing the loudest at the VLC joke. We love our MacBook Pro like a child.

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  2. I wouldn't be without VLC because it can get you out of trouble sometimes but it's a nasty little thing - like a Lexmark product. Nothing needs to be that ugly.

    I cuddle my Mac sometimes. Just need to let it know I never take it for granted.

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