On The Record

Bullett and Gunn's favourite songs are as follows:

1 Temple of Love, The Sisters

of Mercy

Matt: "Gunn and I were in a Goth rock act, the Scary Sisters, inspired by this one.  I was ultra-cool uber-vamp, Claviticus Shadow…"

Brett: "And I was Slosh; metal guitarist with the wildest hair, lightning quick fingers, and an urgent desire always to go wee - wee."

Matt: "Temple of Love reminds me of our Goth heyday when all you needed was a

stick of mascara, a pair of dark glasses, and a quart of methadone in a beaker nicked

from Biology."

2 If I Was Invisible, Clay Aitkin

Matt: "This hit the charts in 2004 when we first started our pop careers, apparently appealing to pre-pubescent girls.  With lines like 'If I was invisible/ I'd just watch you in your room', Clay promoted us to write our own scarily obsessive love power ballad, Your Love Is My Everything To Me, with the lyrics: 'I'd lie for you / I'd cry for you / I'd die for you / I'd laser that sty in my eye for you.'"

3 Theme Tune, Thundercats

Matt: "The perfect solution to any bad gig. People always perk up when they hear something from their childhood so when we're having a shocker we just dope up the horde of mindless drones with this and then they're happy until their beer and nachos arrive."

4 Brettcetera's Medley,

Brett Gunn

Matt: "Never fails to not impress. I first discovered Brett's unrivalled talent in the Spinning Wheel in Paignton, Devon, playing cover songs. In this song, he combines the lyrics 'My my my Delilah /  Why why why does it always rain on me / Is it because I lied when I was . . . just 17 / You know what I mean / and the way she looked was way beyond . . . Thunder, thunder, thunder, thundercats!'"

5 Love Me Tender, Roland Rat

Matt: "The most touching love song ever written absolutely murdered by Roland and Kevin the Gerbil. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and then it just made me insanely jealous. From that point on I was committed to stardom, professionalism, and the extermination of all rodents with a half decent vocal range."

6 Fighter, Christina Aguilera

Brett: "It's nice to see that rather than scorning her abusive ex and publicly humiliating him she can actually admit that his beatings helped her. It's encouragement to violent misogynists everywhere."

7 Thank You, Jamelia

Brett: "See above."

8 Yellow, Coldplay

Brett: "I prefer our version, Orange, which proves that contrary to popular belief, there are many words in the English language that rhyme with Orange, such as blancmange, lozenge and syringe

Matt:  "Minge…"

Brett: ". . . and that's just the first verse."

9 Theme Tune, News At Ten

Brett: "When we were younger we'd make up lyrics to television theme tunes. News at Ten was my favourite . . . Nnnneeeewwwws at ten / new new new news at ten / n n n news/ news news news news at ten / at ten / the news / at ten / the news / ten ten ten ten/ BONG!"

10 This Woman's Work,

Kate Bush

Matt: "I should be crying but I just can't let it go / I should be hoping but I can't stop thinking / Of all the things I should have done but I never did / Oh darling make it go away."

Brett: "Whenever we gig in Bristol we always drive down the inner city streets in Matt's Renault Clio with the windows wound down and Kate Bush pumping out as loud as our stereo can hack it."

Matt: "It's so versatile. Ideal accompaniment for when you want to pick up some ho's, whack a gangland nemesis in a drive-by shooting, or have a picnic on your own in the countryside."

This article by first appeared in The Bath Chronicle and appears here in an expurgated form.

Saturday 20th August:-  I think the best place to start a run of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe is in Venezuela.  Yep, I've been stuck in the capital Caracas for 36 hours because our airline has overbooked an international flight (yes, overbooked.  Like a restaurant).  "Bullett and Gunn's Massive Pop Explosion" is going to arrive a day late.  I tell Brett, who decides to cobble together a one-off solo show - "Brett Gunn's Stupid Little Pop Guff" for the first spot.  To avoid him feeling jealous, I neglect to tell him that the airline put me up in a $300 per night hotel with jacuzzi and 17 main meals all available on self-service.  I ate everything.  It was like the pig taking over the sty (I found the roasted peppers stuffed with tuna a little undercooked for my palatte but the Champagne enema made up for it. 

Sunday 21st August - I rock up 2 hours before the gig, totally jetlagged to hell, having spent the plane journey to Scotland sitting next to some big shot promoter, who seems impressed that I am able to form coherent sentences and tells me she'll come see our gig.  Through bleary eyes I insist, "That's great but don't come today.  We'll be awful today".  She agrees.  I meet the staff at our venue, The Jekyll and Hyde pub, who all know me as "that idiot who missed his plane".  Me and Brett get out on the streets to distribute some flyers I designed and printed up very cheaply.  I'm pleased with what I've done -- it's an image of me furiously blowing my brains out with a revolver, whilst Brett stands gornlessly next to me, oblivious that he is also about to be full of lead.  Punters on the street seem a little bemused.  The gig goes OK but we only do about 25 minutes.  We walk back to where we're staying - my mate Laurie's house - and drink very cheap Venezuelan rum.  Laurie, who is in marketing, returns and tells me my flyers are "total shite".   He very kindly redesigns the lot and prints them for us in colour. 

Monday 22nd August

I am starting to write this on the back of a manky festival ticket envelope, stuck in a flimsy two-man tent, the rain pelting down, next to my friend and colleague Brett who has just been injected in his arse to prevent deterioration in his food poisoning condition.  As cloudy as my head feels, I think I can safely assume that if we are not in a refugee camp we are at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival. 

Yes - Brett and I have been employed by the festival to do street theatre as our alter egos, The Scary Sisters, Britain's greatest ever industrial goth rock duet.  I am Claviticus Shadow, the Vamp overlord, and Brett is Mercedes, the rough-house rock slut with wealthy parents.

Thursday: – I am about to leave for the festival to set up camp.  I can't wait to get into the spirit of things!  The weather forecast says it looks like rain so I chicken out and spend the night in a nice warm bed at home in Bath.  Home – sweet, sweet, warm home (sorry – it's a little uncomfortable here).

Friday: – I actually get here.  The clouds miraculously part… thereby releasing all the water held inside them.  I set up our tent in the downpour and go to meet Brett.  We dress up in obscene outfits and do the gig at the Bandstand.  The night soon degenerates into a maelstrom of herbal highs, black makeup and Pears' Cider.    

Saturday: – I soon realize why you never see refugees wearing rubber trousers.  And it isn't due to the lack of a third world goth music scene.  I develop a horrendous sore on my inside leg which at one point during the day I have the honour of showing to Billy Bragg (unfazed and nice). 

Our gigs went well again.  Perhaps too well.  Not content with giving away free CDs, singing songs and roaring inanely, Brett dares me to belly slide into the mud at the front of the stage.  Thirty seconds later and the rubber trousers are ancient history, split from seam to seam by my (over) weight sliding across the floor, and destroying the circuitry in our mini-keyboard during the process.  Next time I feel like being rock 'n' roll I am going to ensure that I speak to my bank manager and insurance company first and have a comprehensive back-up plan to cover the essentials.  Mercedes, incidently, ignored the cries of the crowd to join in the mud-fest and instead delicately lifted her skirt and tiptoed back to her tent.

Sunday – Despite my apparent self-destructive streak I was sensible enough last night to avoid eating the burnt and bleeding chicken.  Whilst Brett throws up and generally looks like he's method acting rather too well, I give out the remainder of our CDs and black balloons and we get on our merry way, sloshing through the mud back home.  If anyone asks how our festival went… in a word, ahem, "swimmingly".

A version of this article was published in The Bath Chronicle on Friday 28th June.

Reviews: 2006..:

"Extremely quick witted and funny... I enjoyed this show and would pay to see Bullett and Gunn next year"
Edfringe.com

"Perfectly timed musical act with a difference... Nothing short of fab with a wide variety of audiences."
Mac Starr, Edinburgh Festival

"Real personality and more than a hint of quality... well worth catching"
Bath Chronicle

"Great lessons"
Porter, Bath

Reviews: 2005

"Style and verve... professionalism to match"
Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk

"A daring and original act... very funny"
XS Malarky, Manchester

"Original, witty and downright funny"
Leeds Guide

"Weld both comedy and music together better than anyone else... left the entire place gagging for more"
Groundswell, Bath

Early gigs

"Get out and don't come back"
Just the Tonic, Nottingham

"Offensive and unfunny"
Guildhall, Gloucester

"Bullett & Gunn, loose cannons of the circuit, gave it both barrels, shooting off their mouths in this starkly original and hilarious chaotic musical set that triggered explosive volleys of laughter from the audience. Rising stars with a rare comedy calibre"
Tom Adams, itchymanchester.co.uk

by Brett...

We first met on the tough back streets of downtown Torquay, Devon, and soon found that a way to express our disillusionment with the mayhem that surrounded us was the underground cult artform of comedy song.  All the kids were doing it but only the best and most determined comedy song double act could win over the notorious crowd at the Pitt on Friday Nights.



We both worked two jobs for over a year to save up the money to pay for some studio time, and then once the demo tape was ready we gave it to Crazy Brian, the manager of the Pitt.  He said the tape was aaa-ight, and gave us a slot at the comedy song-off the following friday. But then disaster; on the way to the show me and Matt were each shot 9 times in the face in a drug related drive-by shooting. Hideously deformed and half dead, Matthew was determined that the show would go on. 



The DJ took to the decks and dropped in a fat beat as we took to the stage.  We launched into the first number and I feared the worst as Matt's jaw fell clean off, but when I looked up at the crowd... they were laughing! And they laughed louder still as we reached the punchline and I vomited blood onto the newly-wed couple in the front row.



By the end of our set we were well and truly screwed but the laughter rang in my ears; we'd done it!  Our closest rivals, Electric Forecast, could only look on and applaud as our eyes connected in mutual respect.

In October 2006 we entered the BBC's "Dragon's Den" with our "Methane Converter Underpants".  Although we were talking total bollocks, a producer called us back.  They seemed to get suss when Brett told them we had developed an Anal Silencing range for Men.  Anyway, here's extracts from the pitch we sent them...  

"Have you ever been stuck in a tightly enclosed space?  Maybe in a lift with a group of important clients?  Or maybe in a small car with your mother-in-law? Then the unthinkable happens… you break wind.  And what's worse... you're a woman.

Flex your funny muscles with Bullett and Gunn's test!

MATHS
Bath is 106 miles from Coventry, Swindon is 32 miles from Bath, and Coventry is 70 miles from Swindon. Bullett and Gunn are driving a car at 61mph from Bath to Coventry, Charlie Chaplin is riding his bike from Swindon to Bath at 14mph, and Billy Connolly is going at 42mph on a scooter from Coventry to Swindon. Assuming they are all travelling at a constant speed, and that the Chuckle Brothers are directing traffic, who arrives at their destination the funniest?

POLITICAL SATIRE
Is Noam Chomsky...?

a/ An irresponsible tubthumper for the lunatic fringe of leftist liberalism
b/ The world's most incisive dissident intellectual
c/ The noise a Russian makes when chewing a Fudgy Toffee Cake!!

HEALTH
What's the funniest disease (we have put some clues in brackets to help you)?  

a/ cancer (not remotely funny),  

b/ AIDS (horribly unfunny),  

c/ assburgers (massively funny!!)
 

It may seem strange to you, the reader, who has known us as devil-may-care revolutionary comedy crooners, but there was a time when we were much younger that our lives could have forked into quite another direction.  Me and Brett had been working on a killer script for the Variety Show an annual performance of comedy sketches and songs performed by our class at school for the local MenCap (see other blogs).

But there was a problem.  An alternative script had been put forward by my nemesis, Luke Gaywood, and the class of 8B were required to vote according to which script should be used.  Luke Gaywood.  I remember those two words with a mixture of hatred, fear, and genuine respect.  Even after the victories to come, our face-offs with Gaywood will remain amongst the hardest fought of all contests.

As our form tutor Mr Hallett read out parts of the two competing scripts, my eyes met with Gaywoods.  He looked confident and chuckled smugly as Mr Hallett read out one of his jokes.  It was no surprise.  Gaywood was already credited with writing a healthy portion of the previous years show, in which the Robin Hood myth was effortlessly parodied with Robin wearing a silly hat and pretending ride a horse whilst actually clicking together coconuts.      

This year, Gaywood's ideas had matured further and taken new directions.  Alongside the nods to Python and outrageous costume design was an interplay with genuine invention.  The comic highlight of his second script was the idea that an elephant should fall out of the sky which was, despite budgetary constraints, a brilliant conceit.    

In comparison with Gaywood's slick, grammatically polished, word-processed tome, our handwritten offering seemed a little amateurish.  But there were two of us and Gaywood was quite widely disliked for his name and hairstyle.  The vote was going to be tight.  The schoolchildren of 8B thrust their hands into the air.  Gaywood polled fourteen votes.  I frantically counted the remainder.  Just thirteen!  Brett just looked sad and vacant (although that may have been the recurrent problem with his brain).  We had lost by a hair's breadth.  Our future was in ruins.  A tear formed in my eye as I contemplated my fate outside comedy scriptwriting. 

"And hands up for Alford and Morton's script," said Mr Hallett. 

"The idiot," I thought.  Mr Hallett doesnt even know how many people are in his class.

"And forteen for Alford and Morton's script too," said Mr Hallett, sounding compromised.

I looked up.  What was this?  How could it be?  Then I saw Titterington had put his hand up twice!

"Titterington!" I cried across the room.  "You've voted twice!"

For David Titterington, it was the first time in living memory that he had not been referred to as Tit. 

"Well, Tit," said Mr Hallett, "Which is it to be?"

With a good deal of gratitude, Titterington nodded his approval to my side. 

The day was ours.  We had won it!  The taste of victory was sweet.  It was like sucking on a sugar booby.