EP.220 - FRED ARMISEN

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin.

Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening.

I took my microphone and found some human folk.

Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke.

My name is Ad Buxton, I'm a man.

I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

The beautiful bucolic sound of the wood pigeon.

That is what woke me up this morning at 7.30 a.m.

It's a Saturday

So I wouldn't have minded sleeping a little while longer

and and it would have been fine if the wood pigeon wasn't quite so close to the bedroom window.

But I suppose there's worse sounds to be woken by.

And even though it is grey and cloudy now that I'm out here on my walk with Rose Dog, who's doing fine, aren't you, doglegs?

I'm patronised, Mary.

It's not quite as windy or as rainy as it has been recently.

So all in all, I'm gonna say winning!

Charlie Sheen called back there.

I wish we heard more from Charlie Sheen.

He should run for president.

Hey, how are you doing, podcasts?

It's Adam Buxton here.

Okay, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 220, which features a rambling conversation with American actor, comedian, voice artist, screenwriter, producer, and musician, Fred Armison.

Here's a few bullet points from the Fred Facts sheet.

Feredun Robert Armison was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1966, the son of a Venezuelan mother and a father of mixed German and South Korean heritage.

In the late 1980s, after attending the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan for a while, Fred moved to Chicago where he served as the drummer of a punk band named Trenchmouth, with whom he played and toured for nearly a decade.

During the 90s, Fred's focus shifted from music towards acting and comedy, and after a handful of TV appearances in the early 2000s, Fred became a cast member of the American comedy show Saturday Night Live, or SNL, where he remained for 11 seasons between 2002 and 2013.

SNL was where Fred formed his friendship with comedian and former podcast guest, more importantly, Bill Hayder.

Bill, Fred, and former SNL cast member Seth Myers started the documentary spoof series Documentary Now in 2015.

They've made four seasons so far.

And then there's Portlandia, the sketch show set in the town of Portland, Oregon, that Fred created in 2010 with his friend Carrie Brownstein of the seminal indie rockers Sleeta Kinney, who are still going strong.

Along with Fred and Carrie, Portlandia, which first aired in early 2011, features a cast of comedy performers including another former podcast guest, Matt Berry, as well as cameos from dozens of left field musicians who popped up in sketches that, over eight seasons, lovingly took the piss out of the preciousness and pretensions of the community Fred and Carrie knew best, artists, musicians, and creative types in general.

In addition to all of that, Fred has appeared in films including Anchorman, Euro Trip, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, and Zoolander 2, and TV shows that include 30 Rock, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, What We Do in the Shadows, and the series Moonbase 8, which Fred wrote along with co-stars Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric and John C.

Riley.

Fred also does live comedy, and my conversation with him was recorded the morning after I'd seen his show Comedy for Musicians, but everyone is Welcome at the Earth venue in Hackney, East London, back in late November of last year, 2023.

That show featured Fred on stage with guitar, keyboards and drums, all of which he played in the course of doing a stream of jokes about music, filled with observations, parodies, deconstructions and impressions of some of the artists and genres closest to Fred's heart, with British punk and pop featuring heavily.

The day after the show I met Fred face to face for the first time and it wasn't long before we got into the subject of music with conversation turning Bowie shaped after a mention of Bowie's producer Tony Visconti and his friendship with Matt Barry.

Incidentally at that point in the conversation we mentioned the Japanese vocalist who features on the first track of Bowie's album Scary Monsters.

and I failed to recall her name while we were speaking.

She's called Mishi Hirota.

She was a member of Japan's Red Buddha Buddha Theatre and she is also, fun fact, one of the two women on the cover of the Sparks album, Kimono My House.

Michi Hirota is the one holding a fan

and it is her who declaims so impressively at the very start of Scary Monsters.

As well as other music chat including times when Fred met his heroes David Byrne of Talking Heads and Paul McCartney of Beatles, I talked to Fred a little bit about how he came to be on Saturday Night Live and why he wasn't nervous for his audition.

And he told me about the Portlandia sketches that he felt summed up the show best.

But we began with me setting up mics and Fred admiring the strips of black and pink gaffer tape artfully arranged on the back of my laptop.

Back at the end for a bit more waffle, but right now, with Fred Armison, here we go.

Round old chat, let's have a ramble chat.

We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that.

Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat.

Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat.

La

la

la la la la la la la la la

Look at your laptop.

Wow, you got some.

I'll tell you, you may be able to relate to this.

It's from doing shows and staying in hotels.

Yes.

And realizing that there's a very bright light on the smoke alarm, and you turn the light off, and suddenly the whole room is sort of in a pool of jade green light.

And you can't get to sleep.

And And I always think like, shit, I wish I had some tape with me.

And so rather than carry a roll of tape around, I have these strips of gaffer on the laptop.

So there's always enough tape to do some sort of job.

Good idea.

Without actually carrying the whole roll around.

But it looks like an art piece, too.

Yeah, thanks.

That's one of my very few life hacks.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Someone taught me a life hack of closing the curtains at a hotel.

Yeah.

Using a hanger, like a so like the hanger for your jackets and stuff there's clips oh yes for pants or trousers you use those clips on the curtain to really

stop

stop the light coming in in the morning yeah that is a good hack that's a good one i was at your show last night Oh, thanks for going.

That was fantastic.

Thank you.

I loved it.

That was a good venue.

I saw Tim Heidecker at that same venue a while ago.

As I said on stage a million times, I love England.

I love being in England.

And just being at that venue was like, to think that anyone from England would show up, you know, just because I've been

such a fan of everything from here, it still blows my mind.

There was a lot of love for you in that room.

Oh, that's, I hope so.

It was cool, man.

It was a really packed house.

Very attractive crowd, I noticed.

Oh, good.

As a creepy 54-year-old man walking through and thinking, oh, look at this attractive young crowd.

Wow.

I I was jealous of your audience.

I couldn't, you know, I can't really see from the stage because of all the lights and stuff, but they sounded great.

Yeah, they were good.

But

I will say about Tim Heidecker, he's, you know, he's one of the funniest people I've ever met.

And

about his music thing, I sometimes think of him as like a Matt Berry type.

Even though I always wanted to be a Matt Berry type, I feel like Tim really is just because of the way he does music.

He approaches it in a more serious way.

What is a Matt Berry type then?

I know.

Like a Matt Berry.

An insane guy who's talented at music as well.

It's so hard to describe without sounding like someone who writes for

a publication or something.

But like that approach to music, which is like he clearly loves it, but he's not a show-off about it.

Yeah, yeah.

He's not like, oh, look how much I can do.

It's more like, I'm obsessed with recording.

Yeah.

He is a massive nerd.

He tracked down Tony Visconti at some point and chewed his ear off for hours about all the gear that Visconti used on Lowe and things like that.

And Visconti was delighted to furnish him with all the info.

So Matt constructed a sort of

hybrid version of a low song like a from Bowie's album Lowe.

Yeah.

Using a lot of the same gear that Tony Visconti used to try and get the same

drum sound with the even-tide harmonizer and all this kind of stuff.

Wow, he's so into it.

But did he have Tony like produce it or anything like that?

I don't think so.

I think he enjoyed the challenge of doing it himself.

I might be wrong about that.

Have you met Tony Visconti?

I did a Zoom call with him,

a Zoom interview during the pandemic.

And I was nervous about doing it because I have a sketch that I did that's on YouTube.

And it's actually, it was animated by.

It's the animator.

I've seen that 100%.

Yeah, yeah.

Who did his voice?

I did.

I did.

All the voices on there, yeah.

But it's not me.

It's just.

No, it's not.

The joke was that it was Tony Visconti complaining that everyone thought Brian Eno produced the Berlin trilogy when actually he was at the very least the co-producer.

And he keeps saying,

Is Tony Visconti doing more than people think on this record?

But then I got an email from Brian Eno,

who I'd never met at that point.

Somehow he got my email address.

And he said, I loved your Tony Visconti in the studio sketch.

It's very accurate, he said.

And it's one of the funniest things I've seen on YouTube.

I was incredibly flattered.

And he said, however, I keep bumping into people who think that that's what it was actually like with us in the studio.

And that Tony was always complaining about not getting enough credit.

Actually, that's not what it was like at all.

And we couldn't have made the album without him.

And he's one of the funniest, nicest people I know.

So I feel a bit bad for him.

So then I was nervous about doing the interview with Visconti, but he was totally fine.

Did you address it?

Did you bring up.

I think we did, yeah.

I think I sort of glossed over.

I didn't want to make him feel like he was on the spot.

Yeah.

So, but it was totally fine.

He, um, I met him once, and I went to his studio in New York.

And he's got that sort of half-American, half-English accent.

Yeah.

But

he played tracks from Scary Monsters Isolated.

Oh, wow.

So just a vocal track.

And,

you know, it's incredible hearing how like strong.

I can't believe I'm saying, I'm like pitching that David Boy's voice is strong, but it is really like, it's so heavy and loud.

It was so, so great to hear it that I thought Tony Visconti should go on tour and just have tracks and just have people listen to, you know, you could raise your hand and say, can I just hear the bass?

I do feel like nerds would show up for it.

Oh, definitely.

I would go.

You must have seen that clip on YouTube where he's isolating tracks from heroes.

Yes.

Which is great.

The synthesizer.

There's that weird synthesizer patch that's...

He describes it as cheesy or corny or something, but it's totally necessary for the song.

Of course.

Yeah.

I love all that stuff.

And Bowie in 1980, like when they did Scary Monsters, which would have been...

recorded in 79 or 80.

79.

His voice was at his best then, I think.

So, so good.

He was really good.

I agree.

I was in art class at school, and the teacher put it on the stereo, put like a record on the actual.

That's a good teacher.

Yeah, really good teacher.

And I remember hearing It's No Game coming on and all the clunky sounds at the beginning, and thinking, What is this?

And then it just blows up into this mad sort of punk squall of shouting.

Yeah.

Oh, it's perfect.

Tony described that the Japanese you hear in the beginning was a filler.

She was...

I think she was narrating what you're supposed to, what you should be saying in Japanese

so that they could translate it or that someone else can do it.

But then they liked her take.

By the way, I could be getting this totally wrong, but this is just what I remember.

I think that's right.

She is saying silhouettes and shadows, isn't she?

Oh, she can't.

In Japanese.

Can you think?

How do we both not speak Japanese?

Can you do, like, in my mind, I can hear what she is saying.

Yeah.

Even though I don't know what the words mean.

Oh, that's so good.

No, I can't do it verbatim, but.

It's probably, I mean, I'm sure I'm way.

But it's like so dramatic the way she's doing it because she puts like drama into it.

Yeah.

I just looked over in the room that we're in.

I see you have a Haircut 100 record.

Yeah, did you like them?

Yeah, they're great.

Oh, they're so good.

Yeah.

Have you ever met him?

He's very funny, Nick Hayward.

And are they at Liverpool?

No, where are they from?

I would imagine they're sort of home counties guys.

Or just Londoners, maybe.

But he's really...

I don't know why I thought that.

He's very funny, Nick Hayward.

He's got quite an eccentric sense of humor.

Haircut 100.

That is one of my favourite albums.

It's great.

Pelican West.

It's funny that whatever they were a part of doesn't have a name, Haircut 100.

like...

Well, I mean, they started out quite punky.

There's a demo of Fantastic Day that's like a straightforward punk song.

Really?

They're from Beckenham in London.

Haircut 100.

Ah, and I just said Liverpool.

And now...

Haircut 100 are going to be offended and mad.

And then you're also, you're going to see me as not knowing anything about the British city.

I'm sure you know way more than I do.

I don't know.

I certainly, I got that city wrong.

Haircut 100 are cancelling you.

But going back to Matt Berry,

obviously he's amazing, but he sort of just does his thing.

That's, he just more or less stays himself and the world around him changes and he adapts to whichever comedic environment he's in.

But he's basically just Matt Berry.

Yep.

And every time I see him or

talk to him or whatever, I'm like, that's the way to be.

Yeah.

He seems like, he's just one of those people who's like figured out how to live you know

whereas you are something of a chameleon

yeah i guess i mean you obviously you're able to do every accent under the sun and you do characters in a way that you know matt obviously does characters and he plays roles and there is some acting going on there but

He doesn't really do like madly different accents.

I guess not.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like a different.

He sounds more like him.

Yeah.

All the way through.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And were you like, what's your

forgive me if I'm asking you stuff that you've been asked a million times before, but how did you get?

I could never be mad about that.

Can you imagine if I was in a place in my life where I was like, listen, I can't get asked that anymore.

That would be really bad.

But that's what musicians are like, aren't they, though?

They don't like being asked about the past very much.

Have you found that?

Yes.

It's really weird.

Some are into it

and some have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder about it.

And I'm thinking of two examples.

There's some people who are like love talking about it.

They're into it.

But there's one, I won't say who, there's one guy I met and I was talking about his band and then I'd seen his band and I can tell, this wasn't even an interview.

He did not want to talk about it.

I can just tell, he did this thing where he became

a stranger in.

in his own conversation.

Meaning he just turned into a person who it looked like I I was telling

someone who'd never heard of the band.

Oh, really?

Oh,

this is like, who are you talking about?

Oh, that band.

And he put such a distance me.

But

I read the room and I was like, oh, he does not want to talk about.

That's fine by me.

My theory is that music journalism is so terrible that they become traumatized.

Yes.

No disrespect to the music journalist listeners.

We love you, music journalists.

Some of them are amazing.

Definitely.

Some of them are great.

I just can't get over the fact that there's such a thing as a bad music review because

just over the years, now that time has gone, I think back to music reviews.

I'm like, why

did you criticize this person who's dead now?

Why did you, in that month, just create, I don't know, just a bummer?

Unless you've written a bad review about a band.

Oh, you know what?

I did.

I used to be a real little twat.

Not anymore.

I'm great now.

But when I was at university for all of one term,

I wrote for the student magazine and I wrote a review of a band called Hue and Cry.

I remember Hue and Cry.

I think they were Scottish.

I think you're right.

And they had a single, I think it was called Looking for Linda or something like that.

I can't remember.

Anyway, it wasn't my sort of thing at all.

I thought it was too drippy.

And so I just wrote this really snarky, horrible, sarcastic review.

And I thought that maybe they were, I didn't like the lyrics.

I thought they were too pretentious.

And I just went for it.

And

it was awful.

But you can forgive yourself in that you were just young.

I suppose so.

Yeah, you're just, that's when you.

You can imagine being in your 20s, making up your mind.

Everything that comes out of your mouth is just, it's just dumb.

No offense to 20 or a whole.

I'm just saying, for me, when I was in my 20s, the stuff I would just say, you know, that band sucks.

Yes, exactly.

Or whatever.

Yeah, because music is important.

And when you care about music, you feel very passionate about it, you're very partisan.

Yes.

If your favorite band lets you down, or god forbid, sells out.

Oh my god, what a crime.

Were you one of those people, massive snob?

Come on, I was supposed to say the 90s was all about

it.

It was such a thing:

if you're on a major label,

if your song is in a commercial, it was just like death.

Death to that band.

You were like, you were so offended that they would do something like that.

What were you like as a 20-year-old, apart from being a music snob?

Where were you?

Actually, when I turned 20, I was here.

I was traveling through, I had midway through college or the university.

I just wanted to go traveling.

And so I got like a work visa for England.

I ended up in Scotland for a while and I was there for like six months but it seems like a much longer time but I was in Edinburgh and yeah this is where I wanted to be.

I love you know I just love it here.

And you came because you were already a fan of British music and things like that.

Yeah.

It was like it really was like someone going to Hollywood or something.

I was like I'm going to go to England and then Scotland.

Ferradon.

Is that your real name?

That's my real name or that's the name I was born with because that was my dad's name.

But we both changed our name

because everyone was calling us Fred.

Right.

What was your dad up to?

He worked for IBM.

Oh.

And we should plug IBM while we're on the business.

Of course.

So IBM, international business machines.

They're for all your business machine needs.

What did your dad do for them?

He was...

He did like internal auditing towards the end of his run there.

But other than that, I have no idea.

You know, know, businessman, briefcase,

goes to the, you know.

He wasn't writing code.

No.

No.

I asked him, I was like, dad, are you writing code?

And he was like, no.

I was like, all right, let me know if you're writing code.

He wasn't someone that you sort of thought, oh, I want to do what dad does.

A little bit, and then he traveled all the time.

Right.

So he was always traveling.

And there's something about it that I was like, oh, that seems pretty great and i remember him being like no it's not great it's just hotels but then i thought i love hotels which i do yeah and when did you join a band high school uh

i was in a hardcore punk band called the kgb the kgb yeah which gives you an idea as to like what you know this is 1983 or something

so that's quite a good name but it's very of the times though you know what i mean like that's around the time that Red Dawn came out.

The one where Russian paratroopers land in a high school and execute the teachers.

Yeah, in Alaska.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're in the KGB.

Yeah.

Age 16.

Yep.

And what were your songs like?

Were you writing songs?

Kind of.

Imitation Fast.

So there's bands who really played fast, but we tried to play faster.

You know, we're too young to really master it.

But one of the songs was called fight back that was like that gives you an idea and sort of this tempo like

you know it was fun kind of like at the time we thought it sounded aggressive now when i hear it i'm like it was pretty regular yeah were you singing then nope my friend kenny was singing and he loved god he was so into hardcore and he introduced me to all in fact you know so many british bands like who

well we opened for a band called GBH.

That was like the sort of second wave of punk.

Yeah.

By then, it must have been like the third wave of punk.

They were quite big.

Yeah, they were great.

He was so cool that the Clash was already passe to him.

He was already

advanced into Gang of Four and all that stuff.

Right, okay.

But I was, I loved the Clash.

I got to see them.

Yeah, well, your Ian Rubbish character on the internet, it sort of says, Ian Rubbish, oh, it's a parody of John Lydon.

But to me, it's that the vocal mannerisms are much more Joe Strummer.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Living in the gutter.

You remember that one?

It's like

a mix, you know, but it's mostly Joe Strummer.

But

he does say be decent, which is like a John Leiden thing.

He talked about humanity.

Humanity.

Last night, you played the Maggie Thatcher song by Ian Rubbish.

Yeah.

That really made me laugh.

Oh, thanks.

You know, as much as I love punk and love all that,

that sketch was written by Seth Myers.

Oh, yeah.

It was his idea to do a punk, the only punk who was a fan of Maggie Thatcher.

Yeah, he came up with the lyrics and I just came up with the chords for it.

What are some of the lyrics?

Can you remind me?

Hey, Maggie Thatcher, you're right.

Thanks to you, I sleep night

You keep England safe.

Your father was a grocer

Well you did you imagine that you would be a musician at that point a professional musician or did you have another career path in mind?

No, no, I was like

the fantasy I had the ambition is exactly what I'm doing like somewhere between like Devo and David Byrne and Keith Moon

and the clash Somewhere in there, I was like, there's got to be a version.

It's because I saw bands on TV.

That's where I saw the specials on TV.

Whatever that world is, that's where I wanted it to be visual.

I am a massive Talking Heads fan as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, I agree with you.

They're the sort of, they're the ultimate proposition as a fun thing to do

because there's no way someone like me was ever, well, I was never in a band anyway.

Don't say that.

Yes, you were.

But

the bands I liked seemed to have that punk aesthetic, the DIY thing.

But they were also interested in the presentation and the lyrics were important and the album covers were important.

Yes.

It was a whole art project.

Absolutely.

Did you ever meet David Burns?

Oh, yeah.

We've hung out a bunch of times.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

And kind of recently, too.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, we did a parody for Documentary Now

of Talking Heads, and then he was aware of it, and we've talked about it and stuff.

Oh, he's great.

He's quite comfortable talking about the old days, right?

Yeah, and he, I asked him a really good question,

or he had a really great answer.

There's the new, there's the restored version of Stop Making Sense, the film.

In the film, he, you know, I saw those tours.

Did you?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that would would have been 83, I think, for speaking in tongues.

And he comes out and he puts down a boom box and he presses the boom box and you hear the drum machine.

Yeah.

For psycho killer.

Yeah.

So watching the restored film, I see that he puts down the boom box, he plays it, and then I felt foolish because I was like, oh, I thought that was real.

Clearly, there's no cable connected to it.

So how is it going through the PA system?

So I felt like, oh, show business, they fooled me.

And I told him this, and he said, No,

we did play it.

It's there's a transistor in the back

that was a real cassette.

And I was so excited for him to tell me that.

You're such a massive nerd.

I was so excited that he remembered.

Yeah.

You know how some people are like, oh, I don't remember.

He like, I love that he was like, no, that was real.

And we had a transistor in the back.

What a great answer.

Yeah.

Because I didn't feel foolish anymore.

No, he obviously cared about every single aspect of

the shows and costumes and their choreography and all that stuff.

Did you see any of the interviews that Talking Heads did to promote Stop Making Sense on chat shows and stuff?

Yep.

And I went to this one.

They did a few sort of screenings and premieres.

I went to one in Los Angeles and it was wild to see them together.

Yeah, very odd, I thought.

Like watching it.

I don't know them, obviously, and I haven't met them, but I am aware that there's tension within that.

And I read Chris France's book,

and there was quite a lot of bitterness in that book, I thought,

about their relationship with David Byrne, as well as a lot of love and appreciation for him.

But there were certainly stories about the tensions between him and Tina Weymouth and

Chris France, you know, about the usual sort of things,

credit for who wrote what.

And bands, you know, I feel like the majority of them, there's just always issues.

It's so heavy.

The fact that they break up while they're successful is amazing to me.

Like, there must be some serious tension.

Yeah, because you think, come on, guys.

Totally.

Get it together.

You can still do some good music.

I'm like, I don't know.

Figure it out, but just

show up on stage.

We love you.

Yeah, I mean, that is true.

On the other hand, it was weird looking at talking heads all sat there

trying

to be nice.

And I noticed that for every interview they did, the configuration on the sofa was the same with Tina Weymouth closest to the interviewer on one side, and then her husband, Chris France, next to her.

And then

there's Jerry to separate the two camps.

And then there's David Byrne on the other end.

And Tina would never look at David Byrne.

Like, she would always just look at the host.

She wouldn't turn her head to acknowledge anything that David Byrne was saying.

That's amazing.

I mean, they turned up.

There is that version where

some people refuse.

Oh, yeah.

So I'm glad at least that they.

What would you do if you, I mean, what if you had all four of them here?

I mean, it would be, it would be so weird, wouldn't it?

Because I would just find it incredibly uncomfortable.

i'd want to acknowledge the tension i would want to broker a piece and say come on guys let's let's talk about this

i would just play dumb

so that like it would bring the niceness out of them yeah if i was like okay so what

i don't know anything about your band

what's the name of the kind of music you play Did you ever put out records?

So

this way I'd simplify it.

So they'd be like, they'd actually get along maybe with.

They'd rediscover what unified them in the first place.

Yes.

Yeah.

I always feel like I want David Byrne to acknowledge.

I want someone to acknowledge the tension in the room.

I want David Byrne to say, listen, I understand that

Tina may have been annoyed with me in the past.

She may have felt that I didn't give her enough credit, that I broke up the band in the wrong way without letting everybody know the way I should have done.

And I'm sorry about that.

Oh, I like your version.

That was so well put.

You should send that to him and say that that's the quote he should put out.

That's really good.

Is the comedy world like that?

Was SNL like that?

Were there tensions?

And with us, the group that I was with was fantastic and supportive.

And

there's not the same sort of ownership of sketches because we have writers with us.

So that's...

we write with other writers.

And it's just all one show, as opposed to song credits.

So, it's because of that.

I think there's less of that kind of thing.

You don't have to years later go, I wrote that.

You know, there's none of that.

It's all like, it's just the show.

And

the group that I was with were still friends.

So, who were they for people who don't know?

Well, if people don't know out there, then you shouldn't be listening to this.

This is for SNL fans: Bill Hayter, Jason Sudekis, Kristen Wig,

Keenan Thompson, Andy Samberg,

Amy Poehler was there for part of that, Maya Rudolph.

Will Forte.

Will Forte.

It was just, you know, Daryl Hammond was there throughout, and it was just a great, great group.

And that is a mad collection of brands.

It's insane.

And I just remember how I felt when I was there.

Because like when I think about people supporting each other, it's a common thing to say like, oh, everyone is a great family.

But like, I do remember when someone else had a sketch going.

I'm gesturing like there's a table because we would read it as a table read.

Like there'd be like, we'd act it out or whatever.

Yes, I saw the James Franco Saturday night.

Perfect.

That's it.

This is on YouTube.

Yeah, that's a perfect example.

And it has a lot of those table reads in it.

Yeah.

And I remember my feeling.

when a sketch was going well that I had nothing to do with, I remember feeling great.

Like, oh, that's so great.

I hope this makes it on the air.

Andy is so funny in this, or whoever.

And

that's how I know, like, that we were supportive of each other.

That feeling, I feel like it was mutual.

It looks fun in that documentary.

In fact, it was someone at your show last night as I was walking out who said, Oh, I like the podcast.

And I said, Oh, I'm going to talk to Fred tomorrow.

Oh.

And the guy said, Oh, you should, have you seen the Saturday night documentary?

It's on YouTube.

So I watched it last night when I was like, Oh, great.

How did you have time?

Oh, I just went to bed late.

I got home.

I was to where I'm staying and I was so, I was exhausted.

Yeah.

Well, you were performing a show.

I was just watching it.

But that's an active thing to be doing.

Yes, it is.

My brain was engaged.

Yeah.

But I was lying on the sofa.

had some Pringles and watched the Saturday Night Doc.

And it did look fun.

It was a good counterpoint to so many stories I've heard, many of them on Mark Maron's podcast,

of the

what seemed like a really stressful environment that Saturday Night Live could be for some people.

And

I loved every second of it.

Yeah.

I mean, the documentary was great, but also as a side note, I can't believe I was there.

So you didn't have, you didn't experience those moments of extreme mental anguish at the

unfairness of certain decisions that were made.

I guess you were, you and Bill carved out a pretty good

little

scene there, and it seemed like a very productive,

yeah.

And anything that like didn't end up in the air, now that I look back, I'm like, oh, rightly so.

There's no reason that I.

The stuff that didn't work just didn't work.

And then we had the next week to come up with something else anyway.

So yeah.

We're halfway through the podcast.

I think it's going really great.

The conversation's flowing like it would between a geezer and his mate.

Alright, mate.

Hello, geezer.

I'm pleased to see you.

Ooh, there's so much chemistry.

It's like a science lab of talking.

I'm interested in what you said.

Thank you.

There's fun chat and there's deep chat.

It's like Chris Evans is meeting Stephen Hawking.

Did Carrie Brownstein act before Portlandia then?

Because obviously Maybe a few bits and pieces here and there, but

I don't think like with

that kind of intensity.

Intensity meaning schedule.

Like she was never like working on a TV show, but she'd done a couple things here and there.

And how did you know her?

Through her drummer.

Sleeter Kinney is or was my favorite band.

And I was friends with her drummer, Janet, the drummer for Sleater Kinney.

Then Carrie and I met, and then

right away we were like best friends, you know?

Like I we just knew we were going to be friends and and then it turned out that way.

Was she living in Portland?

Oh yeah.

It still does.

So describe Portland to people from the UK.

I think in many ways it's similar to the UK and that it's like cloudy.

But it's...

Where is Oregon?

Just picture the West Coast.

There's California.

And then as you go towards Washington State, right in between is Oregon.

So just picture pine trees.

Okay.

Kind of stormy and really beautiful, but very dense and very green.

Seattle is like the bigger city to the north of it.

Just picture like a lot of coffee and bicycles.

Yeah.

That kind of place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very nice.

You started doing it when?

2010?

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

Do you remember any of the initial spurs for the idea, like

seeing something and going, oh, we should do a video about this?

You mean for Portlandia?

Yeah.

In general?

Oh, there's so many.

Well, the very first sketch that Carrie came up with

was put a bird on it.

And she really just simply said, like, Every time I buy something, there's like, now there's like little birds on things.

Today we're going to go to a store on Mississippi Avenue.

Nothing has birds on it.

But you know what we're going to do?

We're going to put birds on things.

Screw this it up.

Make it pretty.

Thank you.

Put a bird on it.

Putting a bird on this teapot.

It's a bird.

I bet you it's flying all over the beach.

What a sad little tote bag.

I know.

I'll put a bird on it.

Did you see this bag before?

I didn't.

Now there's a bird.

It's flying.

It's free.

And then

also going to a restaurant.

You know, like there was this thing, and I guess it still happens, where they tell you so much about where the food is from.

Yeah.

We, you know, now we all accept it as like part of being at a restaurant, but I think at the time it was kind of newer.

You know, we locally source this, and this is local, and that's local.

And so that definitely.

If you have any questions about the menu, please let me know.

I guess I do have a question about the chicken.

If you could just tell us a little bit more about it.

The chicken is a heritage breed, woodland-raised chicken that's been fed a diet of sheep's milk, soy, and hazelnuts.

Okay, this is local?

Yes, absolutely.

I'm gonna ask you just one one more time.

And it's local.

It is.

Is that USDA organic or Oregon organic or Portland organic?

It's just all across the board, organic.

The hazelnuts, these are local.

There's one that we did, whenever people ask me about Portland, India, there's this one sketch we did about recycling, which was like there were so many colored bins.

This is for bottles, this is, and then we just made it more and more ridiculous.

That that to me is like the example of like what the show was about more than anything.

Like this sort of, we're trying to do something good, but then you just trip over yourself doing it.

I'm Marcus Harris.

And I'm Madeline Harris, and we're here to tell you, Portland, about all the new recycling bins.

Yes, sir.

We're twins.

You should say you're twins together.

No, you're right.

Sorry about that.

Coffee cups, please.

Orange.

Stir stick.

Brown.

Cups, periwinkle.

Lid, fusia.

Oh, wait.

It says lipstick on it.

See?

Oh.

Oh.

Lipstick lids.

Rose.

We did it.

Once it's all sorted, everything is recycled into one of three categories.

Clean air, fresh water, or good luck.

The other 97% of the trash is dumped into the ocean.

What is this, The Atlantic?

You got to work with a lot of your musical heroes in Portlandia.

And were these people that you knew already just through the music scene?

I'm thinking specifically of the sketch you did with Henry Rollins.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Karen and I have both known him for a little while.

Right.

Yeah, he was great.

And no, we had everybody on there.

Jello Biafra,

Glenn Danzig.

That was one of my favorites.

They were all, yeah, we really got to work with a lot of heroes on that show.

Yeah.

Your band supported Fugazi at one point, right?

Yep.

So you had a member of Fugazi in that.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's a real, you know, that's someone

I feel like that was an easy sort of friend to say, do you want to come up to Portland and

do this?

Trenchmouth, were you called?

Yeah, yeah.

So this was your proper sort of serious band back before.

Cool 90s, yeah.

How long were you together then?

Let's see.

I don't know, six years or something.

Six years seems about right.

Six or seven.

Were you doing stand-up at any point?

Nope.

Not then, not when I was in a band.

I just did a video where I was interviewing

bands, like different characters and stuff.

Oh.

And then after that I started doing stand-up.

And by stand-up, I mean like I would do different characters on stage.

Yeah.

What was your transition then into making a living out of comedy?

I

made this video of interviewing bands

and then showed this VHS tape at a club in Chicago where I was living.

And then people turned out for it.

And then

I did it again, and then would show the video in New York and LA and stuff.

And right away, there was a sort of, I don't know, like a new interest in what I was doing.

And then HBO, I think there were actually a version of HBO called HBO Zone, asked me to do little videos for them.

And that first paycheck was like where I was doing comedy for a living.

And then I moved to LA.

I really wanted to live in LA.

Did more stuff on stage.

And Bob Odenkirk had a sketch show, a pilot he was making, and he put me in that pilot.

And that sort of really got things going where

I could audition for more shows, and I auditioned for SNL from there.

Were you crapping your pants?

No.

Because

I had already been through so much like

with the band

that

it wasn't in my sights.

You know what I mean?

Like I wasn't like, oh, someday I'll be a cast member of SNL.

I loved SNL.

I always did, but it was so insane that I couldn't be nervous for it because it was like, this is crazy that I was just playing drums and that I'm here at NBC Studios doing an audition.

This is already beyond my wildest dreams.

So I really felt like I had nothing to lose.

I didn't didn't feel like,

oh, please let this be the moment.

I was like, I cannot believe I'm getting to meet Lorne Michaels.

And you aced it.

I did okay.

Do you like those documentaries about the comedy world?

Do you ever watch those?

The comedy store documentaries?

I haven't seen it.

I was thinking, I wonder if you guys would ever do one of those or is it too close to home on Documentary Now.

Oh, that's a good idea, actually.

As you were telling me that, I was thinking,

you know, because people have ideas all the time.

And now that you say it, I'm like, that actually would be pretty great.

Because they're so full of it, stand-up comedians.

Oh, yeah.

Especially when they talk about comedy.

Yeah.

There's nothing worse.

Yeah.

Breaking down what works and what doesn't work.

I can't

handle it.

Oh, it's too much.

As I wrote down a line from a trailer I was watching.

Oh my God, I can't.

It's just too much.

When Rogan is up and he's destroying, and you're after him, it's hard to put yourself out there and take a risk.

I can't.

First of all, I don't want to know who said that.

But those words are just like

it's just hell.

Oh my god, it's the worst.

As if you're going into battle.

Yes, exactly.

It's that thing, that willingness to take comedy so seriously when the whole point is to take the piss.

Yeah, and also that goal of like when you're destroying, yeah, who cares?

What does that mean?

Oh, the whole room was really laughing.

So what?

Because there's an argument to be made, too.

Just I can't get

when you're destroying.

It's just like, ugh.

Yeah.

I'm

watching comedy, and sometimes if it's not that funny, it's great anyway.

How did you like the new Beatles song, the last ever Beatles song now and then?

I loved it because

it kept us all active in the Beatles.

So I like that.

I like the sort of like,

you know, active listening everyone was really like like tuned in yeah and that melody is great and the Ringo's drums sound like Ringo's drums it was great but I like that original recording too yeah like that's really cool and you must have watched get back presumably oh I couldn't get enough of it I watched every second like I really soaked it in it was very intense wasn't it because especially coming out of the pandemic I mean the pandemic was still going on really when Get Back.

Yeah, yeah.

But that was one of the reasons it felt like such an intense experience.

Yes, experience.

I didn't think about that.

I guess that would have been part of the psyche behind it.

I think so.

Just that.

I mean, just by chance, but still.

Or maybe they designed it that way.

They're like, let's wait till there's a pandemic.

Well, they had time, I suppose, to pull all the stuff together.

Yes.

Fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And pay attention to it.

Yeah.

But, God, I loved it.

I loved also just seeing Ringo

just be reminded that he's like a drummer.

He's just listening all the time.

He was just listening and so patient.

What a great drummer.

So you never had any time for that whole thing of, he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.

No.

And I think

I have an opinion that it is a myth that people don't think he's a great drummer.

I think that's like, it's its own made-up thing of like that he's ever criticized.

I think that drummers, when they speak privately, you know, like with comedians, you speak privately, like, I don't think so-and-so is very good.

Yeah.

Even in like, in silence or whatever, in private moments, every drummer is like, that guy is the best.

He's so musical.

And we all know those drum parts.

We all, you could picture them in your mind.

That I think everyone agrees that he is great.

The fact that they were so good on the rooftop.

Oh man.

I got a little emotional.

I got very emotional.

I've not experienced that very much, you know.

Just because they were so tight and I mean that it was amazingly beautifully well recorded.

Yeah.

Glenn Johns down there with.

Yeah.

Oh, and also like you felt like you knew them better and that it really was a victory to like actually get somewhere and actually play.

It was a very satisfying journey.

Yeah, but it was a satisfying journey and it made sense.

Like, because there's that part where they're talking about like, let's go play in a boat somewhere.

And George is like, who's paying for that?

Yeah.

I like the idea that they're not so trippy that they're like, yeah, whatever.

That someone was like, no, that's something too expensive to do.

But if you look at the footage from the rooftop, something I didn't notice before is that they had built, someone took the time to build a stage on there.

You You know, there's like new wood.

So when you're a kid, you think, let it be.

They just went up there with guitars.

And I like seeing the sort of show business part of it of like someone actually took the time to like make it a proper stage.

Yeah, to reinforce it, make sure the Beatles didn't just fall through the woods.

Yeah.

They're like, let's take this seriously and make it look last minute, but there's some planning.

It would be a shame if one of them died.

Yes.

How do you feel about the technical trickery, though?

The extent to which from now on there's no such thing as the past anymore that you'll be able to revive anything and tweak anything.

I know.

That's just, we have to accept it.

Yeah.

You know?

Maybe they'll do that with this podcast, with this interview.

They'll do it, you know.

And I mean, can you imagine what it's going to be like?

what they'll be able to do in 20 years.

It's wild.

It'll be possible to have sampled your voice and all the impressions that you've ever done.

Yeah.

And then just write new sketches and get that voice to perform them, whether you've signed a waiver or not.

They could also maybe improve some impressions.

Maybe they could take some

accents I've done and just tweak them a little.

You know, I wish I could do every British accent.

I wish I could do all of that stuff.

Well, you have a bit in your show, the live show, where you go through the whole of the American.

Yeah,

but I wish I could do Britain.

You know, I watch videos of it.

Yeah.

And there are people who can do it, and it's amazing.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

Birmingham, Liverpool, Wales.

Oh, my God.

Do you have an accent at the moment that you particularly enjoy doing?

Oh, I really like breaking down New York City, but I like doing even like

smaller parts of it,

of New York City and Manhattan and stuff.

But New York, because that's where I grew up, so it's like a little bit like I can,

you know, I like breaking that down.

Yeah.

Can I put you on the spot and ask you to take a little New York tour?

Let's see.

When I do New York, I usually do Brooklyn.

Brooklyn, I think of as in here, you know, kind of,

it's tough, but then the Bronx is more from the lungs.

There's more pride in the Bronx.

And Manhattan,

I think of people who are in the medical community, want a procedure done.

Queens

is more high-pitched.

Nobody told me.

Queens.

Sometimes if I took Greenwich Village, I think of people in Greenwich Village.

People who've lived there a long time, I mean.

Speaking of this volume.

And then

when I think of Long, I grew up in Long Island, so Long Island,

I think,

is the most New York of all the accents.

You know, they stall for time.

That's why I grew up, Valley Stream.

And then as you leave New Jersey,

you start to lose the accent a little bit, but there's still a little buzzing.

And yeah, that's just some of them.

That's great, man.

Thank you.

So where are you off to next?

That was the first night of your tour.

Yeah, Birmingham.

We play there tomorrow.

The one thing I had to do today was this

and they really had to push me.

They were like, you gotta do it.

To be honest,

a friend of mine from Australia told me about this, Saya.

She was like, she really, this was like during the pandemic,

just really into you and into this.

And, you know, that you're so funny.

And I was like, great.

And then, so I started listening.

And then by luck or whatever, you know, I guess maybe it's a year ago, then you interviewed Paul McCartney.

Yes.

Gosh, you did a great job.

Thanks, man.

I was absolutely.

Was that here?

Bricking it.

No, that was on Zoom.

Okay.

Yeah, because

that was in the pandemic.

That was at the end of 2020.

It was?

Yeah.

I feel like it's more recent.

I think you're wrong.

No, I think it's 2022.

He just released McCartney 3.

Oh, that's already that.

Wow, that's right.

2020.

God,

everything goes so fast.

Have you met him?

Yep.

How was that?

Oh,

a dream.

It was awesome.

A bunch of times because of SNL.

Right.

His friends with Lauren Michaels.

And he hangs out.

He likes people's company.

He's funny.

He just likes talking.

Oh, it's the best.

It's the best.

And were you able to ask him nerdy Beatles questions or were you playing it cool?

I played it cool by not bombarding him with

only I think you're great, or I know this song or that song.

I asked him about

Harry Nelson,

and then I asked him about his bass because he uses that Hoffner.

And he was just

saying that wood just becomes so much more resonant as it gets older.

So

it felt more like a conversation as opposed to just I think you're great.

Yeah.

You know?

And oh man, it's the best.

He's just like, I think also because of SNL, I think he likes the environment of comedians.

So, well, there is that mutual appreciation society between musicians and comedians.

Yeah.

They envy something that the other one has.

Always.

And I love it.

I love seeing old pictures of did the Beatles of Peter Sellers or whatever.

But

yeah,

it was,

he's the best.

Great.

Wow, that must must have been an amazing moment.

Yeah.

Who are you listening to at the moment?

There's a band called Def Rain, who I love.

D-E-F-R-A-I-N.

A band called Real Estate.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Are they still putting stuff out?

Yeah.

Right.

They're great.

Kurt Weil.

Yeah, he's fantastic.

He's great.

Courtney Barnett.

Have you done albums of your own stuff the way that Tim Heidecker has?

Nope.

I don't think I have the

capacity.

I don't have that urge.

I don't have that want to like make...

That's not in me.

But if it's a parody of something, if I am asked to do a parody or if I want, that flows so easily that I just, you know, I'm like, that's where I should be.

That's what I can do.

Yeah.

Because of the ease of that.

Do you enjoy doing that?

I love it.

Yeah.

I love it.

If it's something that I like, like Talking Heads parody, yeah.

I think I want to work on a sound effects record next.

Like, you know how the sound effects records we used to have when you were a kid?

Or even for like production, there used to be sound effects records, like a bottle breaking and stuff like that.

I want to do one of those.

But it's, you know, that I did it, that I break the glass or whatever.

No disrespect, but how is Fred Armison breaking a glass going to sound different to someone else breaking a glass?

That's, you know, that's like saying, how does

George Harrison playing a guitar sound different than someone else playing a guitar?

Or Johnny Marr playing a guitar.

And so that was disrespectful.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, that's great, man.

That sounds really exciting.

That was more supportive.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And what other sound effects will you have on there?

I think I do want to do like

crowds.

So like

an audience of you know, eight people at an open mic, so I could over-dub like

you know, like different

or like you know, a bigger crowd, or or

is this you playing every member of the crowd?

Yeah, I would just overdub it, so it's like multi-tracked.

Have you got?

Do you do stuff on logic or on other, yeah, logic?

Yeah, it's not easy.

I'm really excited about this record.

Yeah,

it's not easy, yeah, because you've got to double up all that, you got to create a new track, yeah, and make it sound convincing and good.

Yeah,

yeah,

there's a guitar over there, Fred.

You don't fancy is that a gift?

What What a nice guitar.

You could have it.

Thank you.

That stickers.

Oh, it's in tune.

Yeah, I tuned it.

In case you fancied playing something.

What would you like to hear?

What is there?

I mean...

How about something

what I'll do is I'm gonna since you said like do you you know, do you ever play serious music?

I said no

So why don't I come up with like an earnest, earnest song?

And I'll we'll do, I will do no tones that sound jokey.

Uh-huh.

Like, I'm gonna really,

just for a verse,

try my best to write a serious song

with serious lyrics.

Serious lyrics.

There's a man

speaking on his cell phone again.

It sounds good.

That was good.

It's impossible to do.

You've set yourself

an impossible challenge for this is the challenge that I've had.

I've been making an album and

it wasn't wasn't supposed to be a comedy album they just said do an album and so I was like shit I love music so I've got an opportunity to write some actual sincere music so I tried and it was really really hard I was beaten by it in the end really yeah I had to just go stupid again see

It's where it's like it's like you're just falling into like a groove of some kind that like

what is it though?

It's feel it's a fear of being judged, isn't it?

Isn't it?

It's a fear of.

I don't think it's fear.

I think it's just like...

Oh, I think it is.

Oh, I'll debate you on this.

Oh, I love a good debate.

Yeah, no,

I don't think it's fear.

I think it's just like not being able to paint something

in a certain way.

And then it's just like, it's just like, oh,

this doesn't come naturally to me.

That's what I think.

I think that it's just...

Because you don't seem like a...

You have fear.

You're not like, I'm worried.

You don't seem like a worried person.

You get it together to do this.

You haven't listened to enough episodes.

Well,

I don't know.

I think it's just like you either want to do something or you don't.

I'm just going to play a rock and roll song.

That's it.

That's the answer.

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Continue.

Hey, welcome back, Podcats.

That was Fred Armason

talking to me there.

His beautiful, relaxed energy.

And I'm very grateful to Fred for making the time to talk to me.

It was good to meet him.

I have stuffed the description of today's podcast with a load of links related to some of what we were talking about.

You've got, well, obviously I've got to put my Bowie and Eno and Tony Visconti sketch in there with animation by the Brothers MacLeod.

Just in case you haven't seen that one,

I've also put the video of Tony Visconti and Erin Tonkon

talking about recording heroes with David Bowie.

That's a clip from a BBC show called Music Moguls, Masters of Pop from 2016.

But it's very similar in form to an episode of Classic Albums, which for me is just about as good as it gets for visual comfort food.

I've also linked to the show

that I got that Matt Berry clip from.

The clip of Matt Berry doing a pastiche of a track from Low by David Bowie comes from a show he made for Radio 4 called Matt Berry Interviews Brian Eno.

I think it was 2018 that he made that.

And it is one of those shows in which the host has

inserted themselves into interviews that they've chopped up and reworked.

Quite good because there are some funny jokes in there.

as well as some genuinely interesting bits of interview with Brian Eno.

And then Matt does a few musical spoofs.

You will will also find links to the videos of those Portlandia sketches that I played short clips of.

There's a link to the history of punk sketch with Ian Rubbish from SNL, and there's also a couple of other SNL clips of Fred with Kristen Wigg doing their Garth and Cat improvised song sketches, which I really love.

There's a link to Canadian pranky journalist journalist Nardois interviewing Fred back in 2013.

Are you familiar with Nardois?

I think he's Canadian.

He wears a Tam o' Shanter

and he's a bit like a cross between Dennis Pennis and a music journalist, although that makes him sound prankier than he actually is.

He's definitely a huge music fan with deep level knowledge that he wields in his interviews, but I think sometimes, you know, it's a quite extreme style that he has and it's hard to tell if he's winding people up or if he's just playing an extreme version of himself.

And there's a few clips on YouTube of some of his interviewees getting quite annoyed with him.

But he has a good chat with Fred Armerson.

I've also included a link to a book by someone I met towards the end of last year.

a London-based ICU doctor called Jim Down.

If you listen to the rest is politics, then you might sometimes hear Alastair Campbell mentioning Jim Down.

I think they go swimming together in the Lido up in North London.

And actually, I think they met there

when Jim was coming out of a period of depression following the pandemic,

when for various reasons he found himself

pushed to the brink like so many others, especially in the NHS.

Anyway, Jim has written a book called Life in the Balance.

It's not just about that, although he does talk about that part of his life in there.

But there are stories from his life in ICU so far.

I'm quoting now from the blurb, with honesty and a dark streak of humor, Dr.

Down describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU, a place which sits at the cutting edge of medical technology and where a split-second decision can make the difference between life and death.

From headline-grabbing cases like that of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by Russian agents and admitted to Downs Ward, to the appalling aftermath of a train crash, Life in the Balance offers an inside glimpse of intensive care medicine, its immense challenges, deleterious effects on doctors' mental health, and enormous rewards.

I really recommend it.

Jim writes very well, and it's interesting that for someone so accomplished and skilled, he still struggles with such a lot of doubt in his life, and he writes about that brilliantly too.

I met him towards the end of last year when I went to see a play,

Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which had been adapted by Tom Basdon, who I hope will come on the podcast one day.

Anyway, Jim Downe was there and introduced himself.

And I read his book and I thought it was really good.

It's out in paperback towards the end of this month, February 2024.

Link in the description.

Alright podcasts, that's it for this week.

I'm hoping to put out another episode within just a few days.

I thought it would be a good double header because

last year I also recorded a conversation with Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric.

And Tim was mentioned a couple of times in my conversation with Fred.

I've described Tim and Eric before before as a bit like Vic and Bob,

but it's a very different sensibility, whereas Vic and Bob I think are quite sort of end-of-the-peer and music hall-ish.

Tim and Eric are a bit more kind of art schooly or film schooly.

They went to film school and they never really used to give kind of straight interviews.

They were always quite arch and in character and weird.

My conversation with Tim was him more or less being himself, I think.

And again, it was recorded the day after I saw him do a show, which I mentioned to Fred there.

Anyway, I was able to grab him for a brief ramble, so that is coming up next on the podcast.

Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support, conversation editing, etc.

on this episode.

Much appreciated, Seamus.

Thanks to everybody at ACAST for their continued sponsorship, sponsorship, liaison, assistance.

Thank you to Helen Green.

She does the beautiful artwork of my great face, which probably needs to be updated at some point.

But thanks most of all to you for coming back, for listening to the end again.

Ah, you're just terrific.

Come here, come on.

Hey.

I just think everything that you're doing at the moment is working and keep doing it.

Not that stuff.

No, you should stop that.

But the other stuff, the good bits.

All right, take care.

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