Thursday 28 October 2010

Big News Of The Week
Song Wars Volume Two announced


There's more information that I can be bothered to paste if you grab the pdf on this page at Dreamboat Records.
*They have a download of Festival Song available.
*There's hi-res artwork!
*It's going to be available on VINYL!
*The vinyl has a gatefold sleeve.
*The hold-in-your-hand CD has a six faced thingumy.
*Hopefully there'll be lots more artwork lovingly collated by Adam and lazily endorsed by Joe. Unless my tired old memory is failing me, there are some dupes from Volume One in the listing but perhaps they are remixes! (Dr Sexy, extended grubby mix Feat. DJ Nippy Nips)
Tracklisting:

Side A
Festival Song
Nutty Room
Special Bath
Birthday Time!
Quantum Of Solace
80's Song
Australia
Bob Dylan's DVD Box Set
Bums & Binge Drinking (Kate Nash Song)
Coming Home From Holiday Blues
The Mind Of A Pirate (Legal Version)

Side J
Santum Of Quolace
Antiques Roadshow
Baz Luhrmann's Australia
Incredible Song
This Week In Grazia
Itchy Bum
Song For Margaret Mountford
Bathtime For Bowie
Dr Sexy
La-La-La Lumley
Hello Mr Ghost
Bonus track


Edited To Add: The official news page at Dreamboat says that pre-ordering will be mid-November.

As soon as I have an iTunes link for Song Wars 2, I'll tweet it or blog it or mumble it under my breath in the middle of Oxford Street, or something.

I know the press release says they will return to 6Music soon and I had really hoped to have something more concrete to post about this but I am still treading cautiously until we get the official nod.

In other information-too-tardy-to-describe-as-news, Adam was invited to host the Vimeo Awards in New York so he managed to squeeze in some gigs as well. You can read his very own blog for more details of how it all went. The lovely, furry comedy pumpkin was so excited he blogged. three. times. about it. It's all I can do to stop myself from plopping some crass hearts emoticon in there.

Caroline Harstsell was kind enough to share a picture and so did Ben Collins while Twitter's Widow Spider brought us this.

This prompted me to have a poke around and I found Carrie Matthew's lovely photos from one of Adam's gigs at The 100 Club.

While I'm thinking about Adam's gigs, Catherine Bray's blog entry popped up too late for inclusion in my 6Fest post so I'm putting it here. Sadly, her companion dragged her away on some spurious food-based pretext before she could see Adam's main show but she caught the joyous raffle.

Sinister Dexter has a beautiful shot of Adam with John Shuttleworth from that same event.

To complete the 6Fest content, Adam was kind enough to customise and sign (including a forgery of Joe's name) a radio for a charitable Ebay auction. Some dementedly generous soul paid £ 223 for the lovely thing.

There are still some 6Fest items available for purchase here.

Adam has been so busy lately. He's no doubt been spending lot of time and consideration arguing with Joe about how the new Song Wars Album should be put together but he's also been doodling.

Furthermore, the BBC have released the second episode of Country Man. Are there really going to be twelve of these? Will there be a boxed set in time for Easter, I wonder?



He is also hosting another BUG Special on 12th November for Ninja Tunes. It has sold out but tix will be released on or around the day.

If you can think about next year already, Adam is doing another gig at the lovely Tabernacle. Tickets are available here.

I'm going to finish up with a link to The Guardian's piece on Studio Canal, whose logo will most likely be the first thing you see after the certificate when you sit down to enjoy Attack The Block. There is also an entry for the film at Digital Cinema Media. It's all coming together nicely.

B E L O W - T H E - L I N E

Attention Londoners: Film4 have a FrightFest special all-nighter at the Empire this weekend and theBFI IMAX have something similar. The Ritzy are a little more civilized with their Halloween show. If you're at a loose end and want to scare yourself silly the choices are endless. If you're not in London, the chances are you will find a similar event somewhere in a 20 mile radius of your home.

Edgar Wright has done a 6 MixHalloween Horror Special which airs on 6Music this Sunday with John Landis guesting. He's had his little rest and has recommenced blogging in preparation for the US disc release of Scott Pilgrim v. The World.

When leaving home is something you can't be arsed to do for the sake of getting into the Halloween mood, the least you can do is watch this wonderful film from clay-botherer Lee Hardcastle.

If you're visiting London, you may want to have a copy of the Underground Film Map in your pocket.

I am still awaiting the adoption papers but in proud Auntie-like fashion, I'm going to draw your attention to Song Wars Electric Proms winner, Ben Mercer's latest video via an article about him.

I can't remember whether I linked this before. The comedy area of the BBC webworld has a 'collection' suggested by Stephen Merchant which not only includes Adam's "Nutty Room" but also some other corkers.

Finally, if you don't already watch Varsity TV, change your habits. This is a star in the making. I do urge you to also look back over the work from previous terms.

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Crossing the Teas and Dotting the Eyes

Make yourself a brew and pass your peepers over these few bits that I didn't want to wedge into my last missive.

Since my award wining post, Ken Korda has visited the Adam And Joe blog to say a little something about Adam's success.



The ITV2 coverage barely included any of the acceptance speeches. You can see the sum total of what we got here but as Sam Clements pointed out, that is begging to be turned into a gif so I done it.
Gallifrey's own Vidjam had a particularly demented way of viewing it.


Our happy, beardy winner kindly gave a special BUG presentation during a students day at the BFI last week. Is there no end to this man's tender generosity? Perhaps Joe managed to syphon some of the young people off afterwards to test his film on them. Time to dust off my pig-tails wig and dental restrainers.

One of the films Adam has been showing at his gigs lately went up on YouTube a couple of days after my last main post so I'll pop it in here now.



With any luck, by the end of the week we will have the full version of Chris Bowles' latest incredible animation, bringing the Glastonbury football commentaries to life. This is just a teaser...


If you haven't seen what he's done with the original Stephen story and Adam's video games chitty-chat, take the time now.

Adam and Joe featured on The Weakest Link question list and this time, I was able to capture it.

Friends of.....

Sontum of Qualace's own Ben Mercer got a mention in Music Week News a few days ago.

After his exhausting schedule for Scott Pilgrim, Edgar took a little rest but he's been back with blog entries from time to time and the twitter seems to be firing up to speed again.

Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith have been lending their lovely weight to A Town Called Panic and that gives me an opportunity to plug the Picturehouse's own, sweet podcast. Frankly, subscribing is the best way to deal with these people. You'll find their jingles a little confusing when familiar strains don't manifest into the well loved Song Wars track you were pre-conditioned to expect.
If you're in Greenwich or Brixton, do listen to the details of the competition towards the end for some lovely goodies.
The really wonderful news included in this podcast is that Hammer And Tongs are releasing a video of all their promo work with behind the scenes stuff. It's coming out in November and it sounds as though it will be double plus good.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Everyone's A Winner

There was only one other serious contender in the Best Radio Show or Podcast category at the BT Digital Music Awards.
Adam & Joe podcasts
Adam Buxton’s Big Mixtape show and podcast
Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio 2 podcast
Melodica show
Jim Gellatly’s New Music podcast
For this year at least, the best man won. It would have seemed odd for the Adam and Joe show to have walked away with the prize after such a l o n g absence when Adam's own show was so wonderful and well received. Joe was there, though. The Metro included a photo of them together here.

It took a while for the official website to confirm the award but Twitter was first with the news and James Stirling quickly updated with two photographs on the BBC 6Music Blog.

Naomi grabbed a photo with Adam. This was a jury awarded prize rather than a public vote and it didn't get much screen time on ITV2.

Adam had this to say to 6Music News.

The hard working organisers of 6Fest enlisted Adam's help and winning magic last night by asking him to pick tickets in the first main raffle they held. There were two stages at the venue and the festival was running for almost twelve hours so some people left for meals and some air. This meant that for the first few draws, there were no takers. The official line was that the prize should be set aside until the ticket holder came to claim it but after dutifully doing that with the first one, the revellers were less accepting of this dictate and urged Adam to draw again. It seemed like a repeat of Thursday night at the BTDMAs when the first five awards were given to luminaries that could not be present.

Put on a spot and now with a baying crowd of heavy drinkers, Adam promptly ate the unclaimed raffle ticket and drew another one. This did of course, set a precedent and I think we have all witnessed Adam when he's on a comedy roll. I believe he consumed a total of four tickets. In his completely reliable style, he made an otherwise dull-as-ditchwater part of any event absolutely hilarious.

The third prize had no immediate claimant so he ate the ticket and then the holder finally made themselves known. The next prize had two claimants and the fineprint serial numbers had to be compared for the genuine winner. I'm not even sure what Adam ate in this case but I'm certain he didn't go hungry. He went on to lead a Happy Birthday chant for one audience member and you'll be thrilled to hear that he stayed with the traditional version rather than delight us with his questionable alternative.
Many thanks to Chris G for that wonderful photo. You can find more in his Flickr album.

Earlier in the evening, Adam gave a twenty minute set which included him showing the Saltman's wonderful Save 6Music film with Adam's version of Changes, an hilarious presentation of his appearances on Channel 4 News, and a live rendition of his clean 'Help the Police' skit followed by the enraged YouTube comments.

He also gave us the news that his Gwen Stefani Hollaback Girl video will probably not appear on YouTube because he is concerned that the copyright catching filters may result in his channel being revoked which would be like chopping off his w'lloy, I'd imagine. He did show it to us though (the film, not his w'lloy) and somebody grabbed a few seconds to give you a flavour if you've not seen him do this.

He finished his set with a live literal rendition of Grace Jones' Pull Up To The Bumper Baby. If you have not collapsed into helpless giggles when he's performed this at one of his shows before, take a look at these lyrics and step into Adam's brain for a moment. You'll get the idea.

There are a few more photos of Adam at the main 6Fest website. It was a really fun and diverse evening. So many of our favourite 6Music DJs were there, pouring their love right back at everyone who took part in the preservation of this beautiful station. The wonderful team also included an Adam And Joe based puzzle in their programme.

I think I've got a lot of other nonsense to relate but I don't want to clog this post up too much.

There is however, one more piece of winning news. According to the Film Distributor's Association we finally have a tentative release date for Joe's film, Attack the Block. If you type the film title into that search box, you'll be rewarded with a date of April 8th 2011. This is no more set in stone than the return to 6Music in November but on both counts, we can remain optimistic.