A Musical Comedy Break: Bill Bailey Bonanza on Youtube
Peter’s fantastic, historic and educational vintage tape looping and Dr Who posts made me think of the BBC and theremins (yes, I’m fully aware that there were no theremins used for the Dr Who theme, but the myth is too strong), and the person who best combines the BBC and theremins: Bill Bailey.
If you’re not familiar with Bill Bailey, have I got a treat for you! I’ve never encountered anyone who combines music and comedy to such great effect (If you know of someone else with these skills, please tell us in the comments). Fortunately there is a huge volume of his stuff available on Youtube, so I can share some of his genius with you.
Tribute to Kraftwerk
There’s a little bit of theremin in that video, unfortunately his best theremin/electronic music bits aren’t included in any of the short clips I could find, so I’ve added some choice cuts, and if you feel the need for more theremin you can spend some quality time on Youtube or buy his DVDs: Bewilderness or Part Troll.
Catastophic Technical Failure at a U2 Gig
Foreign Police Sirens
The Power of Guitar Effects Pedals: Hillbilly Bowie and Stairway to Heaven
CBS and BBC News Themes: Apocalyptic Rave
By now you probably have an idea if you’re ready to waste the rest of your day watching this troll-like figure. If you are: Youtube is your buddy, and as a final prize for anyone who made it this far: he has been working on some medieval porn music.
17 Comments
Leave a CommentRobin
Fantastic ! ! ! :D
March 21, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
Manuel
Hi, an Argentinian group Called Les luthiers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Luthiers ) are quite good too. check youtube’s videos, maybe there are subtitled Videos.
March 21, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
manuel
An argentinian group called Les luthiers are quite good. Check youtube for videos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Luthiers
March 21, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Niall
Goddamn, Kevin Eldon is everywhere, you can’t escape him!
Bailey does everything so very well.
March 21, 2007 @ 3:56 pm
Niall
Peter, do Chris Morris, or the boys from _Look Around You_ count?
March 21, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
Erk
He’s no Victor Borge…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcV19rylSZc
March 21, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
Nicholas vegas
What a Huge and Hilarious Rofl
March 21, 2007 @ 4:52 pm
Grum
Bill Bailey is hilarious. Obviously a very good musician too.
March 21, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
_object.session
that *totally* (almost) made up for the phone interview i bombed today. :-)
March 21, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
Peter Kirn
I’d say he’s continuing the grand tradition of Victor Borge.
By the way, for my fellow non-Brits, his rendition of the BBC News theme is barely parody. It really IS that bizarre.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/5004688.stm
I dare you to sneak it into your next DJ set. Seriously.
March 21, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
Michael Moncur
Wow, thank you.
It’s worth digging through Youtube to find all 10 parts of “Part Troll”, it’s incredibly entertaining and the reason i’ve had a completely unproductive evening.
March 22, 2007 @ 5:42 am
Orbit
Brilliant! Thanks for the laughs!
March 23, 2007 @ 12:28 am
Hans Hafner » A Musical Comedy Break: Bill Bailey Bonanza on Youtube
[...] A Musical Comedy Break: Bill Bailey Bonanza on Youtube [...]
March 23, 2007 @ 2:32 am
jason
lame… i don’t think the kraftwerk “parodie” is even remotely funny.
March 23, 2007 @ 3:05 am
susan
Yes he is brilliant. Liz Cotton is also worth listening to (http://web.mac.com/lizcotton)
She has stuff on myspace
http://www.myspace.com/lizcotton
Very funny
March 25, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
zkk
哈哈哈哈，郭德纲
March 27, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Wortfeld » Follow us
[...] Ein kleines Update zu den bereits erwähnten BBC-Countdown-Videos: Der britische Comedian Bill Bailey war schon 2003 der Ansicht, dass sich die Titelmelodie von BBC News 24 wie ein apokalyptischer Rave anhört. [...]
July 29, 2007 @ 8:30 am
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