Three Chords And The Spoof

Stand up comics – real gnarly, unamused hardcore stand up comics: guys with a microphone callous on their thumb and scorch marks on their soul from hot late night sets in heaving comedy rooms – really hate for anyone to waste time and stage space in a comedy club if they are failing to abide by the rules of stand up purity. These are roughly and in no particular order:

1 – No props
2 – No sketches
3 – No Improv
3 – NO GUITARS

In fact many of them would equate having a guitar with the first of these cardinal sins, believing that a guitar is just a coward’s refuge; the prop of an impostor who can’t cut it naked, as ’twere, in front of the audience with just the microphone and their words from which to weave comic gold.
Our battle hardened speech-only protagonist can point to myriad examples of low-grade guitar hackery to back up their argument for the demotion of guitar comics to the status of mere entertainers. No badge of Comedy Art for the troubadours: they are cheats who can’t come up with enough funny words to make the audience laugh so they hide behind lightweight parody & pastiche, and the easy option of using the fact that people like an old sing-song in a show. They are taking the work form the real guys and should be shunned.
The case for the prosecution needs a rest there. It’s hard work being that righteous and they need a breather. Let the case for the defence tune up and take the stage.
Being pro-guitar myself, what with me being a guitar comic and all, I have to point to another of the rules of comedy to counter those listed above. Any funny man of the road will say you should “Never follow a guitar act”. The reason for this is, people really do like music in a show and a comedy show is no different. At its best music is not merely a tricksy time-filler in a comedy set, but an extra gear and one that allows access to some of the more visceral wordless planes where words simply will not suffice. To argue that a skilled verbal communicator is inherently superior in some way to an equally skilled musical communicator is nonsense. Anyone who has beheld, for example, Bill Bailey’s use of his command of the grammar of popular music to brilliant effect in his live shows will know that there are comedy treasures in the well-placed chord, belly laughs in the perfectly timed twang of an acoustic guitar string. Even a less-luminous guitar comic can be assured of a rousing reception for a reasonably judged closing number, leading one to suspect that the anti-music comic is at least as much afraid of the power of musical comedy as he is disparaging of its comedy credentials.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that there was no case to answer with regard to accusations of hackery. Not every guy or gal on a comedy stage with an instrument is a Bill Bailey, and there have certainly been weaker stand-up acts who have used the general popularity of a bit of a tune to lend weight and dynamics to an otherwise shaky act. Recognition laughs are often the easiest to get, and even ham-fisted parody of a popular number can often yield results with a typical audience. The bigger and broader the audience the more this is the case. Adding rude words to a universally known tune has paid mortgages before now and no mistaking.
Most often the worst offenders in this regard are comedy “newbies” making their first uncertain steps into the abyss. That was certainly the case for funny Laois axe man Bernard O’Shea. “It was parodies when I first started,” confesses the wide-eyed madman of the midlands, “but once I saw the likes of David O’Doherty I realised that wasn’t the way to go.” Bernard moved to original composition and he has the chops to do it being a traditional musician who “played trad in pubs and clubs since the age of 13”. He believes that it is actually more difficult to write a true gem of comedy song than it is to churn out some of the less distinguished spoken word shtick around. Certainly the impartial observer would be hard pressed to claim it was “easy” to compose some of O’Shea’s wonderfully surreal excursions into song.
Someone who might have more of a case to answer is Sligo comic John Colleary; avowedly a parody man whose sole musical methodology is to affix alternative words to the tune of a popular song. The Bon Jovi anthem 'Living On A Prayer' is dragged further into disrepute (astonishingly) by John’s rewording 'Moving To Kildare'. Meanwhile he makes perhaps less of a leap changing Christy Moore’s 'Ride On' into an Irish non-working man’s lament 'Sign On'. Perhaps this behaviour is explained by John’s musical roots playing in pub cover bands in his native Sligo. Further probing gets him off the hook, as he admits he is trying to leave this behind him. Not that he makes any apologies for the parodies, having a pragmatic approach and stating baldly that the reason for doing them is that they work. The audience recognise the tune and he gets a laugh for the reworking. Badda bing. Nonetheless he is currently using more straight stand-up and would like to use the guitar “in different ways”. He pauses for thought. “Maybe hit the audience over the head with it.”
Newer comics are often subject to the sneers of older heads. It’s probably a defense mechanism as the holders of the turf protect their share of the scarce comedy resources. But even an established act like Joe Rooney sometimes finds himself fielding adverse comment on the central role of music in his act, as when the owner of a reputable Edinburgh comedy club invariably remarks, “Of course, you don’t do real comedy”. Joe understands this purist viewpoint; but the fact that the same club regularly books him and other music acts gives the lie to the moan. He points out that when you move up from the standard short club set to playing an hour or more for theatre audiences, it simply becomes hard to listen to anyone, even the likes of Eddie Izzard, just talking for so long. “With a theatre show you have to think about the visuals and music gives the show a lift too,” he observes.
Now a veteran of theatre shows all over Ireland and about to return again to Vicar Street ahead of a nationwide tour in late 2005, Joe speaks from experience. But perhaps the significantly less experienced Bernard O’Shea puts it more succinctly when he says that if you take out a guitar on stage in Ireland, “they’ll clap at the end of it. It could be a bucket of shite, but they’ll still clap at the end of it”.
And when the man who named his guitar Susan after dreaming it had been stolen by Irish C&W singer Susan McCann speaks thusly, it behoves us all to listen. Especially if he bangs it out over a few chords.

Bernard O’Shea plays Kavanagh’s in Port Laoise on April 1 and 2, as does John Colleary. Joe Rooney (www.thejoerooney.com) is at Vicar St, Dublin on April 15.