The Bill

People I like called Bill.

My Uncle Bill. He's a good bloke.

Bill Oddie.
He was my favourite Goodie. He was always defending the workers. He somehow carried off being the bearded hippy because of his cheeky charm and revolutionary zeal. He did all the music for the show and the Goodies' music was awesome. (Spicks and Specks once featured a kick-arse version of Do The Funky Gibbon sung by the daughter of Bill Oddie's musical sidekick which I wish I could find on Youtube. I've looked. It's not there.)

Bill Bailey
You might know the name from the TV show Black Books. Fixit and I went and saw his sell-out Melbourne shows at the 2005 Melbourne Comedy Festival and I was also lucky enough to be part of the studio audience on Spicks and Specks when Bill made an appearance on that. He had me doubled over with laughter both times.

I think my favourite ever Black Books was The Backout when Bill's character Manny overdoses on coffee and assumes the persona of a police officer circa The Sweeney. When he sits on himself it makes me cry with laughter.

He is also a very talented musician and his musical parodies are superb. The version of the Hokey-Pokey that he used to close his Part Troll stage show is a masterpiece. And I'm not even a Kraftwerk fan.

Billy Bragg
He features very prominently in my CD collection. (Fixit very sweetly recently replaced my stolen Billy CDs) My friend Matt can't stand the tone of Bill's Cockney singing voice but I really like it and the poetry of his lyrics always get me.

When I used to work for Australian band Weddings Parties Anything I had a few opportunities to meet the great Mister Bragg. And guess what? I was too awe-struck to ever talk to him. I'd be there in the same room having just been on the guest list to his live shows, I'd be kicking back with Mick and the boys in the same room as Billy and I couldn't even get the guts up to say Hello. Working in rock 'n roll was completely wasted on me, I was too straight. And kinda shy around all those party-hard muso types. I never thought they should be bothered by the likes of me, even though any other drunk bastard who'd blagged their way into the bandroom never seem to feel the slightest qualm about boring on and on about themselves to the band. I've met heaps of great Aussie rock types and barely said anything at all to them : Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, The Whitlams for example. I did a bit better with the more girly bands like Tiddas and the Waifs.... And anyway, I just wanted to do tap-dance and that doesn't cut a lot of mustard in ROCK!! Even though I probably worked for the nicest bunch of blokes in Australian rock. (Although, I have been recorded tapdancing on 2 cds purely because Mick Thomas knows me. Which is a good thing. The cd I did last year is looking like a July release so I'm excited about that and was really happy with the version Trish sent me in January.)

Anyway. The point of all this is : LOOKIT what I found on Youtube the other night!!!

TWO of my favourite Bills performing on stage together!



Enjoy. I certainly did.