Tripod Articles/Reviews

[Fiona Rohana]

Tripod: Lady Robots

Lady Robots is a must-see. Tripod's crisp three-part harmony and lush original songs are good enough to stand by themselves, but combined with consistently funny lyrics, a clever parody of a sci-fi musical, a collection of slick and well-used props, excellent direction and lots of endearing, clever banter between the three pods and you'll do well to find a better hour or so of entertainment at the Festival. Having the best poster as well is just showing off.
Tripod have infectious charm and manage to combine an incredibly tight show with easy delivery that belies the amount of work that's obviously gone into it. They seem to really enjoy their work, and you will too.

Rating: 5/5 chasers.
The Chaser, Edition 55, Apr 5-Apr 12 2002.

[cyborgsnail]

yeh, better than the half-chaser rating that barfoot and cantone got *g*.

'This show ultimately proves that toilet humour without the humour is just plain shit.'

[Beckslee]

There is this article with a very yummy picture in the Age today
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...950092586.html


From a pub in Yarraville to the Edinburgh and Melbourne festivals and points in between, this clever trio is concocting fun, writes Jo Roberts.



Want to hear a song about former United States president Bill Clinton and the Queen having an affair? With a compulsory reference to vanilla slices? Yes, can do. What about a rap tune about Eminem's childhood security blanket? No problem. Or a three-minute pop song, featuring the word "forsooth" 10 times, about Madonna's desire to perform Shakespeare?

No topic, however ridiculous or enhanced, is too hard for Melbourne musical-comedy trio Tripod to fashion a tune around. The trick is, they write it in an hour, complete with three-part harmonies, and perform it live to an Australia-wide audience on Triple J's breakfast show, after being given a topic by their hosts Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson.

Tripod is one beast with six legs. Three Melbourne lads who sing together in seamless, three-part harmonic humour - the bespectacled Scott Edgar, the big-eyed Simon Hall and the imp-faced Steven Gates, who prefer to go by Scod, Yon and Gatesy respectively. And they know what you're thinking: that perhaps they don't write these songs in an hour, that it's all pre-planned and pre-written. But Scod is adamant. "We do, we promise we do," he says. "Honest to God."

But it is Honest Yon who reveals the shocking truth. "They did offer to let us cheat . . . should I say that?"

"Yeah, sure," shrugs Scod.


Yon continues. "Well, Wil goes, 'we can give it to you the night before, or the week before, if you want', but we're too lazy. 'Cause ultimately, why spend more than an hour if you can mash something together in an hour?" They receive the topics at 6.30am and sing the song an hour later. "It takes about 15 minutes before we've got anything," says Yon, "and that bit is excruciating."

They've been doing it most Tuesday mornings for the past two years, and the best results are available on a new CD, About an Hour of Song-in-an-Hour. You can hear about Eminem's security blanket (or "woobie", as his mother told the media he called it), and the hypothetical love tryst between Clinton and the Queen, the topic inspired by the two being in Australia at the same time earlier this year.

Anderson and Spencer put forward the idea - as disturbing as it was cheeky - of Clinton and Ma'am having an affair, but Tripod were also required to include a reference to Shane Warne and vanilla slices. The resulting tune (featuring the soaring chorus, "I found love at the arse-end of the world") caught the attention of one of Clinton's aides, who called Triple J to ask for a copy. "We don't know whether (Clinton) actually heard it," says Yon. "But his minders - or his lawyers - did, we don't know," says Scod.

"It's one of those things that we're really proud of doing, the song-in-an-hour thing, but they did only take an hour to write, so they're hardly our most polished material, y'know what I mean?"

Says Gatesy: "We have another CD of our polished material, but that," he says, pointing to the new one on the table, "has far outsold our stuff we actually worked hard at."

Tripod has released three previous CDs, but is best known for its live shows, having had a show in the Melbourne Comedy Festival every year since 1997.

Tripod began as a band that was sometimes funny, at least that's what friends thought when they saw the trio performing cover tunes at a Yarraville hotel. Yon recalls their takes on covers were "always a bit wacky", given all three had backgrounds in theatre.

"We didn't change the words, all there was was some choreography and some weird arrangements and people would laugh at that," he says.

"Really, what we were, were cabaret," says Scod.

"That was when people started laughing at us," recalls Gatesy. "Yeah, because they could see us up close," adds Yon.

Whatever the reason, the audience's laughter convinced Tripod to give the Comedy Festival a try. The three haven't looked back, performing at festivals comedic and musical across Australia every year since - even at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in Scotland in 1998 and '99.

These days, they're even comfortable calling themselves comedians. "As soon as we were part of the Comedy Festival, people were calling us comedians," Gatesy says. "That was a weird label to get used to, 'cause as far as we were concerned, we were singers in a singing group that just had fun doing it. So the expectation went up a notch for us to be funny. That's when we started writing our own funny songs; covers just don't cut it at a 15-minute spot at Edinburgh," he says, laughing.

Since 1998, Tripod has also performed a season of Christmas shows every year, with this year's kicking off last night at the Prince Patrick in Collingwood. They like the idea that A Very Tripod Christmas has become something of a tradition. And it's the one time of year they get to perform all the Christmas songs they've written. "It's good, too, because a lot of people, deep down, like to enjoy Christmas and the music that goes along with it," says Yon. "But there's too many naff ways of . . . there aren't any slightly 'piss-takey' ways of doing that." And for the first time, Tripod are heading north to debut their Christmas shows in Sydney - at the Opera House, no less, says Gatesy. "So mum and dad are proud - finally - with what I do," he says with another laugh.

They'll have even more reason to glow with parental pride next year when Tripod makes its regular television debut as cast members of a new sketch comedy show being produced by Rove McManus.

The show's name is under wraps, but other comedians involved include Scott Brennan, Damian Callinan, Tom Gleeson, Peter Helliar and Corinne Grant.

"It's very exciting," says Scod. "We've been guests on other people's shows for years."

Yon puts it into the perspective it deserves. "Suddenly, we have our own trailer."

- A Very Tripod Christmas at the Prince Patrick Hotel, Victoria Parade, Collingwood, 9pm nightly until Saturday. Book online at www.3pod.com.au.

About an hour of song-in-an-hour is out now through Universal.

[mish]

For Sydney people there is a Tripod article in this week's Drum Media.
There's also a review of Dave McCormack & The Polaroids new single "The Faith Healer"

Then there's another Tripod article in today's (11/12) Daily Telegraph, p54.

Sorry, I'm not going to be able to type them up.

[Munchkin]

I was surprised to discover this was a Tripod article
Opera House attacked over 'sacrilegious' website ad
and you can check out the picture in question here

Opera House attacked over 'sacrilegious' website ad
By Kelly Burke, Religious Affairs Writer
December 16 2002






The Sydney Opera House has been forced to remove an image from its website that orthodox religious leaders have labelled sacrilegious and offensive.

Advertisements for a satirical show that opened at the venue's Studio theatre last week depict a montage of religious icons with the superimposed faces of the show's actors. The images have been used in the Opera House's December diary, in a what's-on guide for The Studio, and on the website.

Father John McPherson, of the Russian Orthodox Church's Holy Trinity Brotherhood, said that the advertising material for A Very Tripod Christmas (There's Something about Mary), had made a mockery of multiculturalism and the principles of respect for other people's religion.

"If the same treatment was given to Aboriginal, Muslim or Jewish sacred symbols there would be enormous outcry and great offence," he said.

The leader of Sydney's Greek Orthodox community, Archbishop Stylianos, also decried the artwork yesterday as a symbol of "deplorable spiritual poverty". "They should not be entitled to ridicule religion and religious persons, persons of the history of the people of God," he said.


"We are all offended, and I do not know how to characterise such a sacrilegious gesture."

A similar furore erupted almost five years ago with the release of the 1998 Adelaide Festival poster depicting a Byzantine Madonna playing an accordion. The festival's director, Robyn Archer, weathered a storm of criticism that came from a wide range of religious leaders over the image.

A Very Tripod Christmas's creators, the Melbourne-based comedians Steven Gates, Simon Hall and Scott Edgar, who are regular guests on ABC Radio's Triple J breakfast show, were unavailable for comment yesterday.

The show's publicist, however, said the group had no input into the graphic design used to advertise the show.

The Opera House's chief executive, Norman Gillespie, said that the artwork had been in the public domain for six months and up until last Thursday he had not received a single complaint.

"People who are familiar with our programming know that the Sydney Opera House and The Studio have a strong commitment to the presentation of multicultural events and the breadth of voices across our community," he said.

"There has been no intention, in the use of the artwork, to offend any groups within our community."

However, Mr Gillespie said that as a gesture to avoid any unnecessary offence over the Christmas period, the Opera House would remove the image from its website within the next few days.

[hellokitty]

damn it's already been taken down

deary deary me..some people get their knickers in a knot don't they!

[sugarplum fairy 85]

Funny that such a little thing seems to have turned into a pretty big deal.

*pfft* no offense but gee people get touchy over things these days.

*shrug* well that's what i think anyway.

[Didymus]

Wow...that's some kind of hysterical. But I'm not sure if I know exactly what kind...

I showed my sister the picture, then the article...You should've seen her jaw drop. She said "Nup. They're playin' with the big boys now. They can't be doing that sort of thing anymore." (Yes, she models her speech patterns on characters from Seinfeld.) Which is true. They stopped being that little comedy trio who plays at the Commercial hotel a long time ago.

But, still...bloody hell....Sensitive much?

It's a little bit

[Munchkin]

Originally Posted by hellokitty

damn it's already been taken down

ummm no it hasn't. here's the link for the pic http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/thestudio/...ges/tripod.gif
and the full one http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/thestudio/...ges/tripod.jpg

[Mythor]

Perhaps Tripod should just stick to mocking Christianity for it's great pulling power amongst paedophiles.

Seems fairly tame to me. But I'm not going to tell them to shut up... At least they only express their displeasure verbally. :lookarou:

[hellokitty]

ooh ok i could only see the one of gatesy's head which didn't look like much at all so i assumed they had replaced the big picture with that..

thanks for that

deary me

[Alisso]

*snorts* That's ridiculous...I've seen a much worse shot of the Dougs actually dressed up as religious figures, and there's a whole lot of filth implicit in the fact that Paul is on his knees *G*

Honestly, if you can't take a bit of a joke, you must not have a lot of confidence in your beliefs...

The Daas piccie was from an article in rolling stone advertiseing icon i have it at home somewhere.
I really liked that poster and the idea of gatesy as the virgin mary appeals to my sense of humour for some reason, damm being away and missing the tripod chrissie show

[Abundance]

smh.com.au have a bit in their multimedia section - Merran White speaks with the Melbourne comedy trio about their Christmas show.

[Sugarbabe]

The photo is really good, pity the writer is a cockspank

Not sure how clear the file is to read ...

Tripod's fair game when Timezone tops list of city charms
HOW boring is Brisbane? Pretty, if the touring Tripods, pictured, are arbiters. These guys have been here a week now doing shows at the Powerhouse and the best local attraction they've found (apart from going to see Matrix Reloaded, but you can do that anywhere) is Timezone, the gaming mecca in Albert St, which we thought only attracted 12-year-olds but clearly we couldn't have been more wrong -- Tripod's collective ages add up to about 100. Still, we say good luck to you if you can make a stage career out of arrested development. Worked for Larry, Curly and Moe.