UK comic Bob Slayer tells me up a back alley about his thrash metal music plans

Bob Slayer last night held court in an alley – soon to Sweden

When comedian Bob Slayer introduces you to someone as his aged father and they believe him, you know you should consider urgent Botox treatment.

This happened to me last night (the introduction, not the treatment) at one of David Allison’s This Is Your Laugh events in which a fairly prominent person is accused of some unlikely ‘crime’ and ‘tried’ before a comedy audience.

Phil Kay, storming the ‘courtroom’ at Dirty Dick’s last night

Last night, Time Out editor-at-large Alexi Duggins was prosecuted by comedian Barry Ferns and defended by Bob Slayer, with Frank Cassidy as judge plus extraordinary improvised songs from Phil Kay and magic/mind-reading from Paul Martin. That’s more entertainment than you get in most English courts and provided probably about the same level of justice.

Afterwards, I had an encounter with Bob Slayer in an alleyway, a type of meeting to which I suspect he is no stranger. It is worth remembering that, as well as being a comedian, promoter and, at the Edinburgh Fringe, a venue-runner, Bob used to be a tour manager for and a manager of rock bands.

“I’m going to Europe!” he told me.

“As if they don’t have enough problems,” I said. “When?”

“April and May,” he told me. “I’m getting back on the road with bands. When I toured with bands, I moved my way up from DIY bands to… well, the last tour I did was with Snoop Dogg.

“But my favourite bands were Electric Eel Shock, who I started with and managed and then this obscure Swedish band called Quit Your Day Job who I think I first met in Hamburg and I just fell in love with them.

“And I was quitting my day job at the time – I had – and they are beautiful. They do two-minute pop songs of beauty. They’ve supported big bands like The Hives and Turbonegro and Danko Jones who are big in Europe. Ace bands.”

“So,” I asked, “you were a frustrated musical performer.”

“I was,” said Bob, “but I’ve gone beyond that and fortunately I’ve now gone on stage and I can get naked in front of 2,500 people at the preview for the Leicester Comedy Festival.”

“Or for one person if they pay a lot,” I suggested.

“Or for one person if they pay a lot,” confirmed Bob. “I’m not fussy. I don’t demand a huge audience but, if it’s there, I’ll do it. The point is I’m going back to Quit Your Day Job, I’m going back to the touring, but I’m going back as a support act to Quit Your Day Job. We’re playing small, shitty venues, touring in a really shitty car and the four of us will go around Europe and I’ll get to be me and I don’t have to be tour manager – weve got someone else to do that. He’s a doctor who is taking two weeks off work to be our tour manager. I’m not sure if he will need his doctoring skills, but I’m glad that they’re there just in case they are needed.”

“On that video you showed me where your beard grows,” I said, “you had SLAYER on your T-shirt. What are you going to be called? You can’t be Slayer, obviously.”

“I am Bob Slayer!” said Bob loudly. “Why would Slayer sue me? I am Bob Slayer! They’re more likely to sue over my video. Look, I love Slayer, but their fans come up to me and go Oh! You’re Bob Slayer! You must love Slayer! Death to false Metal! but I love false Metal. I don’t think they should be mutually exclusive.

“Slayer fans love to put rules on Metal. So I’m taking a band I love and re-interpreting the gods of thrash Metal in a disco style. So far, I’ve had three angry Slayer fans get in touch with me.

“But also as a result of that video going online, people have contacted me who I’d lost lost contact with. There’s an old friend of mine called Doug who has mastered lots of albums and he and his friend Jared were in a band called Living With Eating Disorders. Now we’re planning to record the next song so I think, by the end of 2113, I will have an album.”

“But,” I asked, “are you going to be a musical person at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe.”

“No,” said Bob. “Well, I’m not going to be a musical person with Quit Your Day Job either.”

“You’re not going to be a musical support act for them?”

“No, I’m going to be Bob Slayer, what I always have been. I am Bob Slayer.”

“Are you going to be Bob Slayer doing what you do in the video?” I asked, “Or are you going to be a stand-up com…”

Bob Slayer interrupted: “To be honest, I haven’t really thought it through.”

“Are you going to be an anarchic comedian?” I asked.

“Your first question was Are you going to be a stand-up comedian…”

“…and,” I agreed, “you’ve never been a stand-up comedian as such.”

“Yes,” agreed Bob. “When have I ever been a stand-up comedian? Some of the biggest laughs I’ve ever had were falling out of a wheelie bin and I was not standing up then, unless you call falling on your neck and breaking it stand-up.

“The point is I don’t know what I’m going to do on tour. I’m going to be me and I am Bob Slayer.”

And I am pleased to confirm that he is.

The drunken death of British comedian Bob Slayer on tour in Australia

When I reached puberty, obviously, I started to masturbate. And some might say that wanking figuratively continues with this blog. Especially if, as I am about to, I describe the aim of this blog as quirky peeps into various sub-strata of society in the early 21st century.

A sort of Peeps Diary.

See?

Still wanking.

One thing which I have tried to develop is a cast of subsidiary characters threaded through the blogs – Hello there comedians Lewis Schaffer, Charlie Chuck, Bob Slayer, the late Malcolm Hardee et al.

I still have hopes of persuading Kate Copstick, doyenne of Edinburgh Fringe comedy critics, to contribute occasional offbeat reports from the slums of Nairobi in Kenya and to blog myself about seeing a haggis piped-in in Kiev and eating ice cream in North Korea. Stranger things have happened.

In the meantime, Bob Slayer has reached Perth in his mini-comedy-tour of Australia and, despite large intakes of drink and his larger-than-life fingers having to type on an iPad’s keyboard, his contribution perhaps gives some hints of what the hell is currently happening to him Down Under:

________

SO IT GOES IN AUSTRALIA
with Bob Slayer

I am an ex-Bob. It is hot and I have expired. An intravenous flow of Coopers Pale Ale is somehow keeping my clinically dead corpse in suspended animation until they can find a cure.

But, before I became recently deceased, I managed to go to the Wai-Con anime convention at Perth’s Convention Centre. Unfortunately I defied convention by not dressing as my favorite Japanese animated character, but fortunately that did not bar me from cashing-in on the free hugs being offered by young girls dressed as boys, cats and nuns with rabbit ears.

The event was co-hosted by the very funny and very boy, girl, nun-like John Robertson and his banjo in whose spare room I am currently living. He also performed his show: Dragon Punch! for me, his mum and around fifteen hundred 90s and noughties anime kids. This was the show I booked into The Hive last Edinburgh Fringe, only now it’s anime’d up with props and biscuits and runs an hour and a half. The kids loved John and Tweeted and Facebooked their approval afterwards like mad, in a sort of extended virtual applause…

How exciting it was. And very thirst making.

I found Marcel Lucont propping up the bar in my venue, supping a red wine and looking all mysterious. He shrugged his Gallic shrug and informed me that Bob Log III is in town.

Oh!

How much do I love Bob Log III?!

He is my spiritual father and hero.

He used to be the drummer in a band called Doo Rag. He regularly swapped his drum kit for drink until he gave up on owning drums altogether and would make up his kit entirely out of things he found in and around whatever venue he was playing. The band dissolved before they killed each other.

Now he tours the world near constantly as a one-man band. He sits magnificently behind a single bass drum and a low-slung high-hat cymbal at the front of the stage. He wears his spandex jumpsuit and a crash helmet with an old telephone receiver stuck in the visor as his microphone.

He plays the most amazing and raw blues guitar. He informs the audience with his southern drawl that he has not made one mistake tonight so we can all put away our Bob Log mistake books. He shrieks and wails his way through classics such as Clap Your Tits, I Want Your Shit on My Leg (a love song) and Boob Scotch (Put Yours in Mine).

I first saw him in maybe 2000 supporting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Forum in London. He totally and brilliantly split the audience. I was firmly in the blown-away camp and ended up in the flat of some music writer with a dozen strangers who had all been similarly affected and we stayed up all night discussing our new hero.

The next day, I caught a train to Bristol to visit a friend. After a boozy lunch, he had to go back to work for a couple of hours so, to kill time, I went to a music shop, bought a guitar and went busking for the afternoon.

Bob Slayer, street performer, was born.

I have seen my spiritual father many times since in Europe, America and Japan. He has become an underground legend around the world and recently, after marrying a pair of erotic dancers, he has moved to Australia.

Did I tell you how much I love Bob Log III?

My Perth gigs start tomorrow with a few slots and then my own shows are from Wednesday onwards. Tickets for Bob Slayer Will Out-Drink Australia are selling, but anyone who knows anyone in Australia should send them along for me to fall in love with…

Please also send money and clean underpants, as I am running out of both.