Here in Australia we inherited an English music hall hybrid, American Stage show style of vaudeville. It had the echoes of our English past and all things found entertaining by the motherland and her people, along with the pop culture of the 1920’s as seen in publications brought here predominantly by American soldiers in WWI.
At its height, Australian burlesque programs would host a wide variety of acts including singers and dancers, jugglers and acrobats and a solid mix of novelties including a dancing penguin, the ‘World’s Fattest Boy’ and all manner of other amazing performance types. But there in their midst was a stock standard favourite that was loved by all ages, and popular all the way through to the bitter end of the vintage vaudeville genre. The song and patter comedy duos (usually male) would punctuate brilliant quizzical stand up and satire with comedy and novelty songs. Great examples of this genre include Bing and Bob, Gracie and George and follows even by the likes of Morrie Field and Auntie Jack who got about the Australian traps in their hey day.
But now, in a day of full throttle appreciation of variety, brilliance and all things rare and exotic, we at Speakeasy HQ are thrilled to be able to bring to Nuevo one of the only veteran, music hall, funny men musicians in the entire country!
Appearing at Speakeasy Nuevo on February 15th in our Valentine’s Vaudeville show we will be presenting Sunny and Cloudy. This amazingly gifted and timelessly talented duo will be performing their comedy songs, hilarious patter and slapstick madness for our well deserving audiences.
So we took both of our timeless funny men aside and threw them a stack of questions as they polished their array of weird and wonderful, home made instruments.
Responses from Sunny:
What’s the most important thing that you try to achieve when you’re performing?
We hope people will take from the Sunny and Cloudy experience a deeper appreciation of the tragedy of being a Bluesman from the wrong river. Being from the Maribyrnong Delta gives one a certain ‘hue’ on life.
What has the highlight of your career been so far and why?
Our World Tour of Rivers gave us the opportunity to see that the so-called “great” rivers of the world. It was eye opening. However, we came home with a clearer understanding that nothing compares to the Mighty Maribyrnong!
What other performer have you drawn your greatest inspiration from as an artist?
When I was growing up out West there was this harmonica player we called T. B. Harpman. That wasn’t his name – he was just a man who played the harp. Those weren’t his initials, either – he actually had TB! The most important lesson he taught me was – never share your harps with anybody, especially if you’ve had TB!
What will you be performing at Speakeasy Nuevo on Feb 15?
We will be performing out majestic theme song The Mighty, Dirty, Muddy, Murky Maribyrnong and a couple of numbers from our short-lived incarnation as a bush band – “The Sunnydowners”.
Responses from Cloudy:
What’s the most important thing that you try to achieve when you’re performing?
That’s a tough question.
Obviously we firstly attempt to achieve world peace. Some people think we are aiming too high, but I think Sunny and Cloudy have single-handedly almost achieved this.
Our second objective is to achieve a breathtaking level of entertainment excellence. This will set an enormously high standard for the hordes of Maribyrnong delta bluesmen who will follow in our footsteps.
Perhaps we might just stick with trying to achieve world peace.
For the information of your south of the Yarra readers the Maribyrnong River is a very big river in the western part of Melbourne….and yes there is a western part of Melbourne, and no we do not have a chip on our shoulders.
What has been the highlight of your career been so far and why?
There have been so many it is hard to choose. If I had to select one it would be our longevity in the often fickle world of show biz.
Admittedly we have shamelessly jumped on every band wagon that came along but hey who hasn’t, and I’m looking at you Roy when I say this.
That reminds of another highlight …..we never went disco and never will, except if there is a tasteful disco comeback. (Apologies to music lovers for even mentioning the possibility of such a cataclysmic event)
What other performer have you drawn your greatest inspiration from as an artist?
Following a fairly ugly plagiarism trial our legal advisers have particularly asked us not to answer this question. However, we can say that when we steal, we steal only from the best. Sorry, I’ll put that another way…. we never steal from anybody but if we did decide to steal for other artists we would steal from the best.
No, that’s not right either, we have never been influenced by anybody…particularly those people we sound like.
What will you be performing at Speakeasy Nuevo on Feb 15?
As Sunny said we will be performing our ever popular anthem the Mighty Dirty Muddy Murky Maribyrnong (our fans demand this, and we are nothing if not shameless panderers to popular taste, also see previous note about what is a Maribyrnong River)
We have also chosen a couple of items from our “iconic” Bush Band period (yes, it was another bandwagon, but we really were fairly good at this one…and at least it wasn’t disco.)
We thank the amazing Sunny and Cloudy for their clear demonstration of what we can expect. Our hands will no doubt ache from clapping too hard and our sides will split, but we just… Can’t… Look… Away!!!
Get your tickets to Speakeasy Nuevo’s Valentine’s Vaudeville show for Feb 15th online while tickets last at http://www.Speakeasy-HQ.com
