comedy feature
Like a red rag to a bull
We meet 2 Drummers Drumming as they step out from behind the drumkit and prove that, when it comes to Rock’n’Roll stories, drummers can beat bass.
People might come in the same way they might be curious about a talking dog or a parrot that could solve a Rubix cube in a minute,” muses Mathew Priest. ‘2 Drummers Drumming’ is a show that combines the thoughts and experiences of Priest, drummer with 90s band Dodgy, and Maurice Bacon, drummer for 60s giants Love Affair. When the show was announced on MySpace, the first message came from a comedy magazine advising, “Don’t do it, you’ll die”. Luckily for this year’s Fringe-goers, they decided that “it sounded a bit extreme, so we ignored it”.
It was the discovery that a bass player had brought his tales of the music industry to the Fringe that inspired the pair to write their own show. “That’s like a red rag to a bull,” says Priest. “We thought, if a bass player can get taken seriously in Edinburgh, then we’re laughing.” He adds, “Actual drumming is only about 5% of the show, but the rest is us exposing ourselves… talking”.
With his band Dodgy, Priest co-wrote ‘Good Enough’, which reached No. 4 in the UK charts in 1996 and became one of the most played songs on British radio that year. Although this was during the ascension of the ‘Britpop’ scene, Mathew says he “never liked” that phrase, but admits that “the times were good and I like to think that, if it existed, Dodgy surfed the wave of Britpop rather than being part of it”. You could almost say they were forerunners to it, having once been supported by Oasis. “You always knew when you watched Liam that it was going to be something special,” says Priest.
Like Priest, Maurice Bacon is no stranger to the charts. With Love Affair, he ended up playing ‘Top Of The Pops’ on his sixteenth birthday, when the band’s first single ‘Everlasting Love’ went to No. 1. Many teenagers would have been intimidated by TV studios and frantic touring with bands such as The Who, but Maurice simply describes it as “a right old laugh”.
As well as giving people an insight into the music industry, Priest and Bacon have set themselves the task of rescuing the image and reputation of the drummer. Their blog claims that one of the aspects of the show is “fighting back against all those scandalously derisory drummer jokes”. For example, Mathew’s favourite: “What’s the difference between a large pizza and a drummer? A pizza can feed a family of four”. To support their case, Priest and Bacon have invited some of the best professional drummers, as well as celebrity ‘hobby’ drummers, such as Jeremy Clarkson and Jamie Oliver, to fill the guest spot at each show. Maurice declares that they have targeted the best and done everything in their power to get them to Edinburgh, including sending Mathew to the Berlin Film Festival, Chipping Norton Lido, and a gristmill in Ontario Canada. And why are they bringing them all to the Edinburgh Fringe? Because, says Maurice, “it’s a very nice city with nice people”.
Priest and Bacon are by no means finished with the music industry. Both still play with their respective bands, and both have made the move into management. Plans for the future of the show are undecided. “Let’s see how this goes,” says Priest. “If we’re still talking to each other at the end of it, if people still like it, then we’d love to do it elsewhere.”
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2 Drummers Drumming - Mathew Priest from Dodgy and Maurice Bacon from Love Affair - performed at The Bongo Club.
published: Oct-2008
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