The Bedroom Philosopher Departs On A Return Tour.
With his third album Songs From The 86 Tram fresh on the shelves, The Bedroom Philosopher is teaming up with his partners in crime The Awkwardstra for a massive national album launch tour. As The Bedroom Philosopher himself puts it: “my live show is both a remarkably memorable life changing experience and cause for major concern.”
The Awkwardstra were handpicked from ’Indie Snobs Anonymous’, a self-help group for displaced Melbourne musicians (feat. members of Paradise Motel & The Brunettes) and provide pitch-perfect tightness to the Philosopher’s helter skelter. Featuring sitar, electric and double percussion, gags and wordplays play second fiddle to break beat rock outs, folk-rock jam outs and jam funk breakdowns with a pinch of earnestness and about five seconds of jazz.
Currently getting tons of rotation and featuring cameos from Tim Rogers, Kram, Angie Hart, DC Root and more, is the clip for lead single Northcote (So Hungover).
Released in April, Songs From The 86 Tram is as comedically profound as it is musically diverse; it’s essentially a full-blooded concept album about Melbourne’s iconic 86 tram route.
The album was crafted from writer/performer Heazlewood’s award winning Melbourne International Comedy Festival show of the same name, which won the ‘Director’s Choice’ award in 2009 and the Green Room award for ‘Best Production’ in 2010. To turn the show into an album, he enlisted the help of producer Chris Scallan (Avalanches, Akon, Cut Copy), Harry Angus (The Cat Empire) on brass, and his hipster slayin’ band The Awkwardstra. The album was mastered by Greg Calbi of New York’s Stirling Studios whose credits include David Bowie, John Lennon and Bob Dylan.
Songs From The 86 Tram follows in the footsteps of The Bedroom Philosopher’s previous hits ‘I’m So Postmodern’, ‘Folkstar’ and ‘Golden Gaytime’, with his ironic wit hot comedy finding him a cosy niche on Triple J and community radio Australia wide.
Here’s a brief Q&A conducted with The Bedroom Philosopher conducted by The Bedroom Philosopher.
Hi, I’m the Bedroom Philosopher and today I’ll be interviewing myself:
Q. So tell us about…
A. No.
THE END.
Day two of my expose on the world’s most talented musician slash comedian. We are at his desk with a blocked nose.
Q. What was it like being on heroin in the 70’s?
A. I think you’re thinking of Marianne Faithful.
Q. Oh yeah. Do you know her?
A. No.
THE END.
According to his Wikipedia page, The Bedroom Philosopher is the fourth largest lake in Arizona. Talk about not trusting information on the Internet! I tried to do digging around to find extra information on this intriguing blight on the Australian entertainment landscape. Here are some friends and family members that I found through a basic police search and their thwarts.
His Mother: “As per my agents email, $4500 is my minimum fee. $2 is my minimum chips” (she works at a fish and chippery in far-east Western Australia)
His ex-Girlfriend: “We were going out six months and he didn’t even cut me a key to his share house yet. Having said that, the new album Songs From The 86 Tram is a bit of a genre defying marvel of fiercely intelligent satirical lyric writing, pitch perfect performances surmising the iconic nuances of modern Australia and the kind of full, smooth yet eclectic production you’d expect from Beck or the Pointer Sisters.”
His Band, The Awkwardstra: “Yeah man we’re like trying to make this organic fusion of like music and ideas and we want to have something to say you know? We have this unique opportunity and so we’re writing concept albums about things that are important to us like Melbourne Tram Culture and tuna fishing. Did you know that most canned tuna brands use wide-net fishing that also kills turtles and sharks? Ow, my overwhelming sense of powerlessness! Only one thing to fix that – Christian yacht-rap, 90’s style!”
THE END
IN CONCLUSION:
The Bedroom Philosopher rose to fame in 2002 and then some other stuff happened which involved him performing and people hearing him and some liking it and others not being that keen but enough radio talkers playing his songs so that eventually he was known enough to get a photo in the street press and have his arty friends get jealous and weird. Much like the Bible misses out a lot of what happened to Jesus between 12 and 33, we too shall skip to the chase and tell you more about the present happenings. There is an album of songs called Songs From The 86 Tram that The Bedroom Philosopher did. He is a funny music singer who is also clever and has quite nice cheekbones and a dimple. He plays with a band that has four in it and also a sitar and drums. Together it makes for a brilliant kind of presentation that is worth spending some time on, especially $50.
THE END – Fools stop.
REVIEWS FOR SONGS FROM THE 86 TRAM
Rave Review.
Music Feeds.
Au Review.
Rave Brisbane.
REVIEWS FOR NEW SINGLE TRAM INSPECTOR
“….The Bedroom Philosopher’s hysterical skewering of meat-headed ticketing inspectors falls somewhere between a Fame-era Bowie slink and inspirational Hunners balladry. I like my musical comedy to, as the name suggests, be musically captivating first, funny second. Luckily, with Tram Inspector, both come equal first.” Clem Bastow, Inpress.
SINGLE OF THE WEEK DECEMBER 16, 2009.
REVIEWS FOR BROWN & ORANGE
“There is a fine line between madness and genius, separated only by the thinnest of margins of subjective taste. From the opening lines of Strange Piece of Music, you are immediately introduced to the core elements of Brown & Orange. The shaky vocal delivery, self-referential lyrics and schizophrenic musical arrangements that move through folkish verses and flute solos only to end in a psychedelic sitar-driven outro. It’s a confronting introduction, and one that will deter as many listeners as it will entice to persevere further. But for the brave souls that weather the seven-minute introduction piece, there is a treasure trove of gems that unfold over the course of the album.
From the rollickingly jaunty Party In My Head and What Am I supposed To Be Doing? To the introspective For The Love I Have For You, Brown & Orange traverses a broad palette of styles, melting them down into a fine soup of entertaining and predominantly poppy moments. And sure enough, there are some fantastic lyrical moments, as evidenced from Jesus On Big Brother and the melancholy Circus Bear. But the highlight of the album comes with the penultimate track, YouTube “hit” Wow Wow’s Song. Over a verse progression that sounds eerily similar to Coldplay’s God Put A Smile On Your Face, The Philosopher adopts a Cookie Monster voice, only for it all to break down in the most ridiculously catchy chorus this century has produced. Six minutes chock full of sublime gimmick pop.
Brown & Orange is a dense, multi-layered affair documenting, at least for the moment, The Bedroom Philosopher’s unique perspective on the world around him. It’s a lavish production and a thrillingly entertaining and equally exhausting listening experience. And while comedy concept records are few and far between in today’s marketplace, The Bedroom Philosopher may just be the dapper dresser to start a whole new fashion.”
Symon JJ Rock, Inpress.
“The Bedroom Philosopher, aka Justin Heazlewood, revealed himself as an hallucinogenic hybrid of Tripod and Syd Barrett on his 2005 cult hit I’m So Postmodern, inevitably putting him in danger of becoming a one-novelty-hit wonder. The BP’s second album Brown & Orange is less explicitly bizarre than the tune that brought him (sort of) fame, placing his eccentric streams of consciousness and oddball stories amidst an apparently earnest style of folk-rock and gentle experimentation (such as placing a taped ‘70s monologue alongside hypnotic Phillip Glass-style repetition).
The swelling orchestral ballad For The Love I Have For You sounds like a straight, serious song, but closer investigation reveals Heazlewood cramming lots of syllables into tiny song spaces, at one point blurting out “Okay, granted, that’s not a very romantic lyric”. Tongue still wedged in cheek, then. The spoken-word short story Jesus On Big Brother is fun as well (“More people watched Jesus than The Simpsons and the news and the CSIs combined”). The record is less successful when he goes deliberately ‘wacky’, such as the “comedy” Muppet vocals in Wow Wow’s Song (La La La). But the record’s charm is revealed in the almost Dylan-esque rant Party In My Head and the laid-back country-rock strum of What Am I Supposed To Be Doing?”
Matt Thrower, Rave.
“It is (like the man himself) entirely enjoyable, entirely likeable, and entirely odd. Only The Bedroom Philosopher would try and make brown and orange chic, only he would write the lyrics “I want a Missy Higgins film clip (for Christmas)/I want a long term relationship with an Irish optometrist”, and only Heazlewood would tell us all that “La, La, La, can only take you so far” (there are a lot more great lines, probably better than the ones here – just go and get the album to find your own favourites). Henceforth he proves that he is a master at word-smithing and clearly can’t get enough of being different. The surprise, highlight and almost religious experiences on the album are the tracks (Brown and (Orange), where The Bedroom Philosopher has sampled a recorded letter and joke, respectively, over simple music, and by doing so, the one and only, the wonder kid, The Bedroom Philosopher, has made Brown and Orange chic.”
Timothy Bocquet, BMA.
“The fact that The Bedroom Philosopher is a talented musician with a highly polished production is obvious from the first few bars. A folk-guitar style, the sound of fingers slipping from chord to chord along the strings throughout a ballad with seventies-style jazz flute (a double flute solo, no less) makes me want to weave daisy-chains and skip through the nearest field. The music jumps from song to song between seventies styles, raw old-school Brit pop, folk guitar chords, and psychedelic sounds created by the Philosopher and his Awkwardstra. I laugh out loud on at least four occasions during the first song (Strange Piece of Music) alone. I’m won over by the lyrics –one of a few songs on the album to employ story-teller narration, backed up with beautiful guitar.
The Bedroom Philosopher is a particularly talented and funny writer. As a listener I identify with every single word – which is the hook. But the usual brash take-the-piss Aussie comedy-music style is replaced by the gently hilarious musings of a poet. I almost fall in love. The original 1970’s home-recordings (apparently discovered by the Bedroom Philosopher in a Canberra Op Shop) peppered between a few songs make for some compelling listening. Really, really odd, and really funny.”
Emma Johnston, Artshub.
REVIEWS FOR 2009 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL SHOW ‘SONGS FROM THE 86 TRAM.’
“I implore, nay insist, that you see this quintessentially Melbourne show as soon as you can: it’s as close to perfect a comedy production as I’ve ever seen.” **** 1/2
Richard Watts, RRR
“We’ve previously called the quirkily tweedy Bedroom Philosopher ‘the Jarvis Cocker of stand-up’; and you can almost certainly add elements of The Kinks’ Ray Davies and, almost inevitably, Flight Of the Conchords to the mix.”
Steve Bennet, Chortle.
“Songs from the 86 Tram is drenched with a bring-spare-knickers level of hilarity. This is the most thoughtful, well-conceived show I’ve seen so far, replete with unique observation, heartfelt characters, and extremely skilful musicianship. This performance is ingenious, uproarious, a must-see. I give it my highest rating so far.”
Chuckle Factor: 9.5 / 10
Gemma King, Rabbit Hole Urban Music.
“…deftly observed, heart-felt and achingly funny. The show has beautiful wordplay, with a novelist’s ability to capture moments of truth through seemingly mundane comments. The show is an undeniable triumph and easily one of the highlights of this year’s festival.”
John Richards, Aussie Theatre.
“I love it when comedians do this. I love it when they produce shows that prove conclusively that comedy is an art form, and that, as an art form, it can scale great heights. The Bedroom Philosopher – Songs From the 86 Tram marks the coming of age for this talented comedian. There are still some moments of vintage Bedroom Philosopher surrealism, but what marks it out is the delicate structure which makes this such a terrific show.”
Annette Slattery, The Groggy Squirrel.
REVIEWS FOR BEDROOM PHILOSOPHER LIVE
“The shoeless and emerald-shirted Bedroom Philosopher comes across like a hurricane of inspiration and witticisms. It’s lucky for us that his musical chops are strong enough for him to leave behind the go-for-the-gags hilarity and move into the more observational folk rock as proved by songs like What Am I Supposed To Be Doing, For The Love I Have For You and The Happiest Boy. Thankfully the laugh factor and songwriting skills see the therapeutic effects extend to the audience and judging by this show, his forthcoming album will be a corker.”
Inpress (2007)
“The Bedroom Philosopher, AKA Justin Heazlewood, turns in a cracking performance at the Bosco; sparklingly funny songs, stage banter that provoked audience responses from chuckles and belly-laughs to “deep growls”, and an increasingly sophisticated musical repertoire combined to form an excellent show. In another country Justin might be the driving force behind a Belle & Sebastian-style indie pop group, which combines humour, delicate pop melodies and sensitivity. Clearly in this country that would make you a bloke of questionable manliness and when one is so gifted with actual wit, fey and foppish abilities as BP, you’d better put yourself out there as a ‘funny guy’. He is extremely funny. Of course there was I’m So Post Modern, which he almost seemed embarrassed to play, it being as close to a ‘hit’ as you could expect to hear tonight. At one point he described the best alien economy I’ve ever heard of: they buy things with hugs, “and make change in kick-boxing”. Endearingly sweet, hilarious and occasionally heartbreakingly sad in a glitteringly beautiful way.”
DB Magazine (2007)
“A blend of musical comedy and measured theatrics presents a heartbreakingly funny, touchingly awkward and delicately offbeat retrospective of life, love and lego men. In the small and intimate space of the Lithuanian Club’s loft, you’re close enough to the stage to catch every inflection and nervous glance behind his thick coke-bottle bifocals and identify with his self-conscious imperfections as if he were singing your own. Yet the performance never gets bogged down in too much self-criticism, rather it’s kept light and fanciful with a hint of irony. Singing whimsical reflections on pop culture references, we share the pain of a childhood trauma experienced from the Neverending Story, a parody of Thom Yorke’s depressed persona through a song titled ‘My Nan Really Likes Radiohead’, and the understandable tragedy of a bad haircut. Sweetly socially awkward and at times hilariously relevant, The Bedroom Philosopher is sure to tap into the acoustic folk funnybone of your inner-indie whimsy.”
RRR Radio (2006)
“If Bob Dylan had spent his time growing up in Berwick he might have more in common with the Bedroom Philosopher…one of the few artists making a genuine attempt to explore the oddness of our age.”
The Age (2005)
“A champion of geek chic, the gawky, shy and awkward Bedroom Philosopher is the Jarvis Cocker of stand-up. With so much time on his hands, this self-confessed ‘snooze-button junkie’ becomes delicately introspective, reminiscing about schoolboy loves or endlessly replaying bad comedy gigs through the medium of song. As a show, Pyjamarama is a flimsy shambles, a jumble of deliberate and accidental fluffs giving it a delicate fragility; as if it’s always on the verge of utter collapse. It’s all wonderfully touching, quirkily individual and always unexpected, perhaps a product of living in the hinterland of Tasmania. His folksy songs vocalise his misfit angst, with self-effacing titles like I’m So Over Girls or I’m So Postmodern, a keenly observed take on a life where everything becomes ironic. If you liked Flight Of The Conchords, you’ll love this. And there’s a visual treat, too, in the fantastic display of maladroit physical comedy as he performs the most flamboyantly unsexy come-on dance around. This boy is possibly the worst erotic dancer in the southern hemisphere, and proud to prove it. It’s a miracle that this odd juxtaposition of delicate songs and such over-the-top stage antics works at all, given that it demands the BP be both modest and a shameless show-off simultaneously. But that it’s such a delightful piece of whimsy is entirely down to his irresistible self-mocking charm.”
Chortle (2005)