I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: CAUTIOUS CLAY-“Sidewinder” Tiny Desk Family Hour (March 12, 2019).

These next few shows were recorded at NPR’s SXSW Showcase.

The SXSW Music Festival is pleased to announce the first-ever Tiny Desk Family Hour showcase, an evening of music by artists who have played NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert, at Central Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, March 12 from 8-11pm.

Cautious Clay is the “far-reaching and breezily soulful project of singer and multi-instrumentalist Josh Karpeh.”  I love his stage name, but I wasn’t that crazy about his music–it was a little too soft and flat for my liking.

And yet I really enjoyed this song.

The song is remarkably simple–a rubbery bassline (that never changes throughout the song) and simple slightly jazzy drum beat.  Karpeh sings in his gentle voice and strums occasional delicate chords.  The chords, while gentle, bring in some nice sharp high notes to the otherwise bass-filled song.

But the real joy comes when, after a couple of verses, Karpeh puts down his guitar and picks up his…flute.  He plays a wonderful flute solo and it totally makes the song shine.

[READ: March 17, 2019] Toast on Toast

I have never seen the BBC show Toast of London, but I love Matt Berry and assumed this would be a very funny read.  I see that this also came as an audio book and I assume it would 10 times funnier if it was read by Berry instead of by me.

So this book is an autobiography and “helpful guide to acting” from Steven Toast.  Since I haven’t seen the show I genuinely don’t know if Steven Toast is any good at acting or not.  I can tell from the book that he is a pompous ass (which is 3/4 of the humor), but I don’t know if he is justified by behaving that way.

I’m also unfamiliar with BBC practices and with British stage actors in general.  So, while I assume that most of the names are made up (the more outrageous ones, surely), there may be a few who are real which might make the jokes even funnier.

Best of all, the book is fairly short, so while there are plenty of laughs, it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

The book opens with his warnings against the BBC, especially a fellow by the name of Mews Frumpty who offered Toast several positions at the BBC only to slash them at the last minute with the rather amusing phrase (which I can imagine Barry saying): “sling your hook and fuck off home.”

Then it jumps into his life.  “I was once a fertilised egg travelling at full speed down a metal-like fallopian tube….”  His childhood is one of challenge and heartbreak, and the perversity of a man named Frank Forfolk (author of Forfolk’s Sake).  He also spends a frankly inordinate amount of time writing about flogging.  I don’t know if this is part of the show.  But it’s pops up several times in the book (with varying degrees of humor).  We also learn that at school he was given the nickname “Arseface.”

He decided to be an actor when the school guidance counselor asked him what he wanted to be and it was alphabetically the first thing he thought of.  He realizes right away that he is too good for RADA, The Royal Academy of Dramatic Acting (footnote: EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts).  I enjoyed that there were lots of footnotes and that some of them were the editor’s corrections and others were just kind of weird or funny.  Like William Shakespeare* (*seventeenth-century playwright).  There’s also a lengthy footnote discouraging the use of footnotes.

He talks about securing his–terrible and crazy–agent Jane Plough.  And his rise through the dramatic circles.  There’s color broadsides of many of the plays he was in: London Sex, Nuts, The Dolls Eye, Jesus in Love.  And there’s talk of some of the actresses he has bedded.  Including a lengthy story of a woman he bedded whose husband has no idea about what they did.

He gives tips throughout–on auditioning, on jealousy and on getting your name on the top of a bill (if your name begins with A-E fight for alphabetized listings, otherwise considering changing your name like Ziggy Zagreb who changed it to Aaaaaaalan Aaaaaaaaadams).

I especially enjoyed the section on radio acting.  “As both Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne have pointed out, the problem with radio acting is that the listener at home can’t see you.”  He offers this tip for live radio productions: “when your name is read out by the announcer at the end of the performance, make sure you cheer extra loudly or give a loud ‘whoop’ of approval.  It may not look good in the studio, but he audience at home won’t know it’s you.”

He talks about giving Julian Assange acting lessons (he was hopeless).  Indeed, he uses a 1-10 system whenever he teaches anyone and has never given a pupil anything over a 2.

The end of  the book laments the dumbing down of television.  He also suggests that the best way to help the arts would be to cut the NHS entirely and give all the money the arts.  Far fewer people die at the theater than at the hospital.

The end of the book includes reviews of some of his performances.  The ones where he was attacked are ones which he brutally rebuts.  Which is quite funny.

I read this all pretty quickly, but I would certainly enjoy hearing Berry read it for maximum punch.