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Neil Innes
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Before Python, Neil Innes was the guiding songwriting hand in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. The Bonzos began as an art school joke, making fun of self-important pop stars. They were clunky and surreally comic. Songs about ideal shirt lengths, about the seduction potential of camping trips or about dandruff — "King of scurf, I've got it everywhere, king of scurf, I've got greasy hair!" — were made all the more bewildering by singer Vivian Stanshall's Old Etonian delivery. To hear Viv sing about hunting tigers out in In-di-AH — "Tigers don't go out on rainy nights/They don't need to whet their appetites!"
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Clearly Neil Innes was the man the crowd came to see. A musician/comedian from the U.K., Mr. Innes is best known as a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band, as well as writing the songs for and performing in The Rutles (a mock documentary spoofing the Beatles) and collaborating on several projects with Monty Python. He performed a few bars of the song “Sir Robin the Brave” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and played other such crowd favorites as “Eye Candy,” “I’m the Urban Spaceman,” and “I Must be in Love,” all songs which the audience sang along to. He is a natural comedian and an accomplished musician, alternating his songs between guitar and piano, all while keeping the crowd teetering with laughter from anecdotes about his family, his days with The Rutles, Monty Python, and The Bonzo Dog Band. Just as the Trachtenburgs, though, his silly music contains some serious subject matter, such as the dehumanizing forces of the Information age in “Facemail in the Meatzone” and the dangers of television in “Eye Candy.”
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Neil Innes has had an amazing career spanning nearly forty years. His most famous collaboration was with Monty Python, (which gained him the title of the seventh Python). He has collaborated with the Python crew on films, albums and tours and went on to feature in Do not Adjust Your Set, with Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, David Jason and Denise Coffey. You can currently see Neil’s songs in Eric Idle’s new musical, Spamalot, due in the west end this year.
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Neil Innes really has had an odd career, but why not? His return to public absurdity began with a television series on the English language, Away with Words, that put him back in front of the sort of public who liked comedy that played with ideas and language. He then concocted the one-man show, Innes Own Words, which will be coming in some form to Australia. All in all, he seems to be busier than ever. No wonder he knows how to keep a cold at bay.
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Neil Innes' first song, "Cheese and Onions," was passed off as a Beatles outtake on several bootlegs. The song would be re-recorded for the Rutles LP and TV special. His second song, "Shangri-La" was re-recorded for the Innes Book of Records series and LP, and again for the second Rutles LP. (edit)
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Neil Innes performed several songs from the Bonzo period and told some hilarious stories centred around the Bonzo's tour of America - 'Legs' Larry Smith and Viv Stanshall being two of the greatest characters in British music-lore! After a brief interval he moved on to his time as 'The Seventh Python' when he worked alongside Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin on Monty Python and The Holy Grail. The friendship with Idle lead to the creation of Rutland Weekend Television, one episode of which featured a sketch which parodied The Beatles and it's popularity was so great that's Idle and Innes decided to make a feature length version. It was called 'All You Need is Cash' and The Rutles had arrived… Much to the delight of the Rutle-loving audience, Neil performed many of the songs from the film including 'I Must Be In Love', 'With A Girl Like You' and 'Cheese and Onions', and we all sang along with Ron Nasty!!
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Neil Innes