| >> Articles
Artwork Big Gig DAAS Kapital Downloads Links Lyrics Merchandise Pictures |
The Doug Anthony Allstars are taking a mid-show break and Paul is commenting on the audience they have just left seething and writhing in the Uni Activities Centre. "It's been a long time since we've played to such an interesting and barbaric group, it's like playing to the Visigoths at the moment."
A lovely warm Hobart welcome, then? "No, they're classy! It's a classy Hobart crowd.' says Richard. "Like, you know the parties at the end of every Asterix book? That's what this is like..." Tim adds. He and Richard point out the obvious similarities.
Richard: "A wild boar on a spit..."
Tim: " ...and there's a fuckwit tied up in the corner hopefully."
Richard: "...which is normally me..."
"The wild boar?" quips Paul.
Everybody in the room laughs.
"No, normally I'm the Cacophonix tied up with the lute in the corner there."
"Much fun had by all." Tim concludes.
People at the Hobart show will remember the man christened "Fuckwit" by the Allstars simply because of his uninhibited and uninspired heckling in the early part of the show. Halfway through the show, however, Fuckwit was taken outside and "accidentally" shot dead by DAAS hitmen. "That's a shame," reflects Richard.
Paul: "Because he was such a gem of a character."
Tim: "We were using some of our best lines on him."
Paul: "But they just bounced off him, didn't they? You use your best lines on people like that, because of their weight problem or their hair colour, but he thought it was an Alice Cooper concert."
Tim: "I did like the way he was standing there saying 'Oh yeah!' when thrown these put-down lines: 'Yeah, not bad! But you can do better, guys!'"
The Doug Anthony Allstars formed in Canberra (not Hobart, as they'd have us believe) in the mid-eighties. Their first claim to fame was winning the Fringe Award at the 1986 Adelaide Arts Festival. They rose to prominence in Australia through their constant touring and appearances on ABC-TV's The Big Gig. In 1992, the group based themselves in England. They returned to Australia late last year to promote their new album and video, Dead & Alive, which is what brings them to Hobart again.
I ask if English or Australian audiences are more easily offended. Or can't they tell?
Richard: "It's very hard to tell, we don't really find that people really get terribly offended when they're face to face with it. Sometimes we do get a very offended reaction on certain campuses, where the extreme right is in control, or the extreme left. That can create enormous problems for the students association that's hired us sometimes, so we've actually had to hold debates after our shows in Britain, and that can get rather interesting when people ask us to jusffy what we do."
Tim: "We refuse. I think the troubie that we get into actually is not offending little old ladies, I think they're beyond it. Old people have seen everything. Certainly we have the odd group of Marxists sending very angry and frustrated letters because our politics are ambiguous and they can't bear the fact that we might be on their side and not say it. We just don't believe in shoving our opinions down people's throats, it's not our fucking job. Our job is to tell jokes and sing songs: it stops there and our own political agenda is our own private thing. And people can see the politics of what we're trying to achieve, but they're not on the surface, you have to look underneath. We never set out to offend people, every once in a you do, but that's only people who haven't assessed what we do properly and taken it on its merits. We don't do what we see as being bigoted, we don't do any sexist humour, or racist humour, or agist hurribur, and if we do mention sensitive topics we do them, hopefully, with the right sort of attitude. But sometimes just the sheer mention of a sensitive topic will make people assume the worst, but we can't help it!"
Despite their obvious musical talents, the Allstars have been fairly restrained when it comes to releasing their songs on record. Their first Album, Icon, was released on their own DAAS Kapital label, and went on to become the highest selling independent album in Australia. Icon also yielded two singles: "I Want To Spill The Blood Of A Hippy" and "Bottle", but their long-awaited second album, Blue, is yet to surface.
"Yeah, we were going to release it this year but we decided to release the Warner Bros. thing instead," Tim explains. "We went to the States, couldn't get a record deal in Australia, so we went to New York. We're the only Australian act to ever get a United States record company deal... well, a film, video and record company deal. So we thought we'd better do what they want which is a comedy album/video combo. Blue is an album of ballads, we might release it on Mother's Day next year. We don't envisage it being a huge commercial success but it was certainly fun to do and we were happy to take the risk on it. Now we've completely sold out to Time-Warner."
DOUG ANTHONY ALLSTARS IN CORPORATE ROCK WHORE SHOCK!
Have the Allstars fOUnd themselves "tabloid fodder" in Britain?
Tim: "Oh no we're sort of outside of that TV Week kind of mentality. Conedians are found to be very uninteresting. OH NO! COMEDIAN HAS GROUP SEX! is not front page news normally, because people assume comics are alcoholic sex offenders. There's no real story there, you know. We know comics over there who have been busted for bloody all sorts of ridiculous crimes, it never makes the newspapers because people assume the worst from comedians. If you set yourself up as a soapie star..,"
Richard: "Or a Tory politician,"
Tim: "...or a Tory politician, then you're fair game."
Several weeks ago, the Allstars stood in for Ian Rogerson and Debbie Spillane as hosts of Triple J's "Hard Coffee" programme. Could they do a show like that regularly? "You heard that, did you?" asks Richard. "It was fun doing that. Yeah, we loved it. Down the track we'd like to do some of that sort of thing. It was a bit of a special show that week, because it's not every week that David Hill comes into the studio, as he did. Shouted at us, which was fantastic."
Tim: "The ABC gives you a lot of freedom in that sort of regard. Because we were only going in to do one show that made it a lot easier, we could do what we liked, but if we were going into it on a long-term basis it would be in a lot different sort of style. But yeah, radio is a wonderful medium which is not exploited often enough."
Certainly the medium in which the Allstars have had their greatest success has been in television. Their early Big Gig appearances coincided with their British television debut, a sci-fi series called Bland and a live comedy programme, Friday Night Live. In 1991, they produced a seven part sitcom for the ABC called DAAS Kapital which later spawned a second series. In the UK, they appear on Viva Cabaret, yet another live comedy/cabaret show; and their recent return to Australia has seen them make regular appearances on the Today show. The question on everybody's lips, however, is will they be making an appparance on Absolutely Fabulous (as sensaionally reported by TV Week in January)?
Richard: "Oh, probably not, that's a bit of a beat-up I'm afraid. That's TV Week. That was just information, that was a maybe. It's just a remote possibility."
Tim: "We're not sure if we want to be on it."
Paul: "Basically what was happened was the TV station was trying to get us a bit of profile and they thought by putting us in a couple of other series that we'd get our profile up. At the moment we do a show called "Viva Cabaret" and they wanted us to do a couple of sort of crossovers and they mentioned 'Absolutely Fabulous'... well, we mentioned it, it was a telephone interview and we'd just heard that morning and they just ran this massive story about it."
Richard: "It's been really hard, we've been putting out brushfires everywhere basically, every interview we've done everyone's been saying... you know, the answer is possibly but..."
Paul: "Slim..."
Tim: "We're not sure it's what we want to do next, we'd rather do our own sort of projects than go on somebody else's."
DAAS return to the stage to perform the second set of their Hobart show (see review). When they return, I'm left watching TV with Richard while Tim and Paul bring joy to the masses: signing autographs, doing interviews, kissing babies, meeting the people. I ask Richard if the Allstars are frustrated Uni students at heart.
"Ah, no, we're frustrated graduates, well I'm a frustrated graduate. So's Paul. Tim isn't. I did a Bachelor of Arts. Paul did a... Bachelor of Arts... er, painting? Fine Arts!
And Tim?
"He's a Bachelor of Arts in the School of Life. He took, all the drugs instead of doing what he should have done."
How did your image and costumes come about? Did they develop or did you start out like that?
"No, we used to do a very political show, and we used to have this sort of image in the early eighties when we started out, in the mid-eighties we had these strange sort or maroon dinner jackets, then we changed those jackets for some similar to the ones we have now. We've had to change them a few times but we've kept that same jacket image because it's easy to move around in. Unfortunately our original jackets have long since completely disintegrated because we never clean them. Ever. You can have a sniff of them later if you like, they really stink really badly. You can testify that if you like. The image is just something we wanted that was easy to get around in, that looked similar of course to bring some unification to the whole thing, and a slightly militaristic feel, but an ambiguous one which suited us as well."
You've appeared on the Today show with Liz Hayes and Steve Liebman. Does Steve wear a toupee?
"No he doesn't. We had a good look and it's definitely not a rug on Steve. Steve's a really nice guy, he's like a dad, a real regular dad. Very nice man, very pleasant to be with, never swears. He has a strange rapport with Paul, calls him "Grumpy", which suits him. So they have a strange father-son rapport which is inexplicable and quite... fuckin' hell!!! Hollywood Babylon's on TV! Have you ever read that book?"
I admit I have read parts of it, Richard stares transfixed at the screen while he relates his favourite stories from Kenneth Anger's book of Hollywood scandal and tragedy.
Many of you would remember the 1990 Federal Election, in which Tim Ferguson ran for Parliament in the blue-ribbon seat of Kooyong against then Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Peacock. The Allstars' "Vote For Tim" campaign took place over several weeks on The Big Gig, and he managed to score a surprising 5% of the vote. Does he have any further political aspirations, and who is John Hewson more scared of, Tim or Bronwyn Bishop?
"Definitely Bronwyn Bishop, because Tim has absolutely no power in politcs at all. Any power that Tim has is given to him by Paul and I. Tim will freely admit this; he is the empty vase in which we arrange the flowers. He has no political aptitude whatsoever. He's never read a decent book of politics in his life. He's struggling through the first chapter of The End of Certainty by Paul Kelly at the moment. He's quite happy to admit this too, he admits that he's just simply a pretty face. And he can read a script. We write the scripts for him, for his political speeches. Therefore [John Hewson] is not really scared of Tim at all. Of our combined forces however... no, he's probably still not scared of us either.
But Tim's certainly no threat. Tim's terrified that John Hewson, or particularly Andrew Peacock because Tim ran against Andrew Peacock in the 1990 election, would actually challenge him to a debate because Tim knows nothing at all about issues.
So no more political plans then?
"Who knows? Maybe, down the track. We had one plan where we'd run for the West Australian Senate 'cos those two greenies can get elected on zero point nothing of a vote, it would quite easy to get elected just with our fan base, because all you have to do is be in Perth to win a Senate seat in Western Australia, you don't have to worry about the rest of the state. Since Keating's talking about reforming the way Senators are elected, that whole thing would be pointless to us because we'd never be elected."
As I leave Richard to watch Hollywood Babylon, I ask what the Doug Anthony Allstars do to relax.
"We never relax! The Doug Anthony Allstars are like a shark, if we stop moving we'll die. So we don't relax, all we do is go to one thing after another. Eventually, at some point when we're forty or something we'll probably just drop dead."
The Ultimate DAAS Experience (review)
The second I saw the poster clinging to the bar window a bolt of excitement charged around my frame. The Doug Anthony Allstars were coming to Tassie? To Hobart? To the Uni? GOSH! (and other associatcd type comments).
I got to Uni at 9:00am the first day of sales (my first lecture wasn't until one, but for the Allstars even I could manage unnecessary consciousness prior to Midday). I was astounded to discover that people hadn't camped out the night before, and managed to score ticket number 3... my lucky number (as of now).
The big event drew closer; my bestfriend (let's call her 'Fiona' because, after all, that's her name) and I had planned every minute detail, attire, arrival and departure times, beverages and how we'd stay conscious until 8:00am Saturday morning- the Allstars deserved an 'all nighter'.
The countdown diminished from days to hours, we'd prepared, schemed and plotted, guffawed uproariously at the ignorance of siblings ('Are the Allstars a basketball team?') and even cut our usual Friday arvo bar session to prepare for the big event. Meeting place set, drinking tactics memorised, endorphins charging - we were set for a night to remember.
Somehow, somewhere, something sort of went wrong. An old friend phoned and enquired whether my friends and I wanted to have pre DAAS drinks at his flat... "why not?"... it was an improvement on the previous plan of casually swigging Mercury Cider as we meandered down Regent Street. A little decorum might actually add to the evening. So we arrive and partake in a few social drinks and a few more and well... unfortunately, folks, Fiona and I suffer from a sadly weak-will and a nonexistent resolve... whether it is missing lectures or that third bottle you really don't have to ask us twice.
So we're riotously pissed right, (bug ger it, not even Cher can turn back time) but fortunately someone remembers to ring a taxi - 5 seater no less, and we make it to Uni in time to get a good spot and hear the support. Fortunately Fiona had this guy coming onto her. Fortunately he was old fashioned and bought her drinks. Fortunately Fiona's the sharing kind (tee hee) . We grooved and sang and were at the point of spontaneous combustion when the Allstars finally came on stage.
Hmmm, that's the last thing I remember really, except for Fuckwit, numerous visits to the loo (my friends tell me that I did away with refastening my belt andjeans after one of these trips) and non-stop laughs (not solely at DAAS). I have a friend who might lend me the Dead and Alive CD, maybe I'll borrow it sometime and find out what was so funny?
Despite my partial amnesia I had a top night. Although next time I might stop and re-think that 49th drink.