EP.215 - DAUDI MATSIKO

Audio snapshot:

The kitchen, Castle Buckles,

towards the end of November 2023.

Even though it's not yet 4 p.m.,

the sky outside is dark,

and within the hour, all the light will have gone.

The clouds, which have been angry and grey and chucking down rain

all day,

are beginning to clear a little bit over there on the horizon towards Norwich Airport.

But it's not raining right now.

Rosie is curled up on a special dog bed that my mum bought for her.

a few years back and which she never really used and my mum always said oh she doesn't doesn't like it, does she?

But she's got into it recently, and she's looking very comfy on it today.

And I think the idea of going outside is not high on the agenda.

Is it dog legs?

Come on, sweetie.

We should go out, get some fresh air.

It's good for the old mental health, you know.

What do you think?

My mental health is extremely nice just at the moment, so why don't you piss off outside outside into the cold and leave me here on my dog bed?

Folks,

no, come on, Rose, you've got to get out of the compound.

Rosie, walk.

Good times.

Crunchy gravel.

Lovely grass.

Chasing deer.

Bad time.

Tell you what, listeners, I'll stick on the intro theme, and hopefully, on the other side of it, me and Rosie will be in nature.

See you in a bit.

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 Adam Buxton, I'm a man.

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

Hey,

how you doing podcats?

It's Adam Buxton here.

Oh yeah.

Reporting to you from a muddy farm track in the east of England, Norfolk County, to be precise.

And I'm happy to say that my dog friend Rosie is here.

She's on the lead.

She's got the orange padded harness on, which enables me to encourage her forward.

when she is particularly reluctant.

But I think she's enjoying being out in the fresh air, aren't you, Rosie?

Are we going back now?

No, we've only just left.

It's nice out here.

Look, it's not raining.

Come on, Rosie.

It'll be fine.

You can't just lie in the dog bed all day.

Almost positive I can, actually.

Yeah, well, it's not good for you.

Come on.

We both need a bit more exercise.

look i think it might be a lovely sunset

oh dear she's very grumpy how are you doing podcats not too bad i hope thanks for joining me for another podcast this is a slightly shorter episode for you today with a bit of music in it from my guest for podcast number 215

Dowdy Matsiko.

Here's a few very brief Dowdy facts for you.

Dowdy is a British Ugandan singer-songwriter.

How old is he?

I don't know actually.

I think he's in his 30s.

I'm not sure exactly when he was born.

But he's around there.

He's younger than I am.

I'll tell you that much.

He is currently based in Nottingham, out there in the English Midlands.

And that's where Dowdy teaches music when he's not playing his shows.

I think I met him around about 2016 and I listened to some of his music and liked it.

And we've been in sporadic contact ever since.

Dowdy's first EP titled A Brief Introduction to Failure was released in 2014 and he followed it up with another EP, The Lingering Effects of Disconnection in 2015.

That was the year that Dowdy was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder.

having lived with depression for several years before that.

Various aspects of these mental health challenges sometimes feed into the lyrics for Dowdy's songs, which are delicate, intimate and deeply vulnerable, bringing to mind one of Dowdy's musical influences, Nick Drake, especially on Pink Moon.

Rosie,

can't skip me out of this thing.

There you go, you are free, Rosie.

Now gamble.

Over the last few years Dowdy has toured with British artists like Go-Go Penguin, Keaton Henson, and Portico Quartet.

And he also played songs as part of a couple of My Ramble Book tour shows in 2021.

This year, 2023, has seen the release of new singles, Oh Mo, I Am Grateful for My Friends, and Fool Me As Many Times As You Like.

which have received support from DJs Giles Peterson and Lauren Laverne and have been featured in several Spotify editorial playlists including the most beautiful songs in the world.

That's good that he got in there this year

because next year that playlist is going to be clogged up with all my songs.

Wow, look at the moon, doglegs.

Speaking of pink moon,

over there behind the clouds, is it full?

It's hard to tell.

It's a spectral presence.

Oh, it's cold.

The conversation with Dowdy that you're about to hear was recorded in London at the beginning of this month, November 2023, and we talked about how he started playing music, what it takes to maintain a musical career in the social media age, and how his depression and bipolar disorder have affected him over the years, a subject that Dowdy is able to talk about with characteristic directness and good humour.

His songs are serious, but when he speaks, Dowdy is always smiling.

If you want to see Dowdy play live after you listen to this, on the 14th of December, he is playing a headline show at the Alphabet venue in Brighton.

He played an ecstatically received set at the Great Escape Festival in Brighton earlier this year.

So let's get into it.

I'll be back at the end with a bit more waffle, but right now with Dowdy Matsiko, here we go.

Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat.

We'll focus 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.

Dowdy.

Yes.

Good to see you.

How did you get into music in the first place?

Like, what's your deal?

So my parents are Ugandan and...

So you grew up in the UK, did you?

I was born in Ilford and most of my childhood was spent in Cambridge.

We moved around a lot, but the kind of Cambridge here was where most of my growing up happened.

I think my dad had read something in the Times, something along the lines of like, if you want to have well-rounded children, they need to play piano.

Sounds like something the Times would say.

Yeah it feels like you know my dad was trying to give us the best future possible and he was like all right I'm gonna get you piano lessons and so me and my brother and my sister big brother little sister we all had piano lessons and we went to this one teacher called Richard Batty who phenomenal teacher and my brother was doing jazz piano and he was really good and my little sister was doing classical and she was really great and I was trying to learn like I did my grade one and it was fine but I struggled but like I got to grade two and I decided I wanted to learn that Brian Adams tune from

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Of course.

Everything I do, I do it for you.

So I'm trying to learn that song.

Wow, did you want to learn that?

I just loved it as a kid.

I absolutely.

Prince of Thieves, despite it, like when I was like 11, I didn't care about the inconsistencies of the film.

That film was just...

It's just fun.

It's just a fun movie.

I haven't seen that in a while.

That's one of my wife's favourites.

But that song was at number one for that entire summer, I remember.

Wow.

Look into my eyes.

It's a great opening line.

You will see.

Is that what the line is?

Don't tell me.

That like the pre-chorus.

Yeah.

I wasn't a fan of the mid-late, actually.

I remember not.

I'm not really a mid-late fan in general.

No, no, no.

So you're sitting there in Cambridgeshire.

I'm sucking at this song.

You are channeling Brian Adams.

And I'm failing.

And

every lesson,

when I went to Richard's house, he had a Les Paul on his wall.

It might have been the 60s or 50s, Les Paul, like a dead expensive guitar when I think about it.

And I would ask him every lesson, oh, can I have a new guitar?

Can I have a go on your guitar?

Can I have a go on your guitar?

And every lesson, he'd be like, no, no, no, no.

And she was like, fine, have a go.

And he was like, this is a D, this is a C.

And I picked these chords up really quickly.

And then before we knew it, we were having guitar lessons in secret.

And he came over to my house for dinner.

and he kind of told my parents that I'd been having guitar lessons in secret and their response was kind of a bit perplexed and they were like okay but they were quite keen on me um playing piano so they were like half and half the guitar yeah boy is a piano boy he's a decent piano boy not a dirty guitar boy

and what was funny is that my dad actually had a guitar as well like he had a nice little tangle with it was incredibly difficult to play like the action so the distance between the strings and the fretboard was really high Yeah.

But I wasn't too bothered by the discomfort of it.

Like I used to,

my first job when I was 16, no, 14, like work experience was in a skate park and me and my mates would fling ourselves off the high things.

Work experience in a skate park?

Yeah, man, I knew what I wanted.

Like I was.

What were you doing?

Just like sweeping ramps, basically.

Like it was an indoor skate park.

It was called Why2 Skate in Peterborough.

Yeah, it was, I was dead.

Me and my friends were dead into skating and that's all we wanted to do.

And, you know, I didn't want to go and work at like an accountant's thing or like just file in fucking sky.

Exactly.

When is this then?

The early 2000s?

That would have been like maybe 2000, yeah, 2003 perhaps.

Yeah.

That would have been like 14, 15.

But yeah, that was cracking.

That was good.

That was good luck.

But that was just to give an example of like just the recklessness of which my youth was further.

Just, yeah, I've got a memory of jumping out my buddy Mark's window and just for fun.

Why, really?

You're a danger-free.

Not anymore.

I'm so risk averse these days.

I could never imagine do I never had it in me to do that.

Really?

Ah fair.

Did you spend a lot of time in the countryside as a kid?

Yeah.

Okay, well I was going to make a mad claim then.

I was going to say maybe the boredom of like stuff we did out of boredom was just like ludicrous.

Because you were out in the country.

Yeah, we were just out in the Svens just messing around and it was fun.

Get a lot of good summers.

Wow.

Luckily, you have redirected your efforts to something productive, respectable.

Respectable, yeah?

Yeah.

Music.

Good for you.

I mean, music doesn't mean...

I feel like music in 2023 does not mean the same thing culturally that it did just 20 years ago, even.

Do you feel like that?

I think it's got to be genre-specific, though.

I think, yeah, it looks totally different now, like in terms of how to be successful.

Like, I've started my own little label and I have a lot of conversations with people that I work with just like in terms of how do we like break through and what's being asked of artists.

Well, it's probably quite similar to what it's always been like, but it just feels like I so I'm running a campaign for this album release and there's a to-do list I can never get on top of.

Like the ideal of what it is is like

no middlemen, direct connection to your audience.

You've got full creative control.

Yeah.

The reality is a bit more like a treadmill or like a hamster wheel.

Like you've got a carrot in front of your head and you're always chasing it.

That's how it feels emotionally.

I don't know if that's true.

Absolutely.

I mean,

I crap on about this all the time.

I mean, I'm aware I'm lucky in that I've been around for a few years.

I've got certain bedrock of audience members who will come with me and do stuff.

I don't have to constantly be reminding them that I exist.

I have the podcast.

But I just think if things are good, people will hear about them somehow.

Yeah.

Do you think that's totally naive?

No, I think you have to be a little bit wise.

Like if you're starting your music now, like say I'd never had an like'cause I've my first EP came out in like twenty fourteen and and I've had loads of support.

Like Giles Peterson on BBC Six Music has been such a like positive force in my music career and the algorithm gods smile upon me and I get tracks playlisted and stuff and and that stuff's so fickle in it.

You can't like you can't really take it for granted, but you also can't hold on too tight to it either.

I mean, I just feel really bad for people who feel that they have to do social media as part of

connecting with an audience.

I just think it's a whole other job.

I've met people who are absolutely like the numbers on social media are amazing, like hundreds and thousands of followers and that kind of thing.

They have like a look in their eye of sort of mild despair

Because it takes so much energy from a practical point of view it's not totally easy just no it's real and you kind of like i have to think about like the quality level as well quality level there's technical things that go wrong you have to figure out all sorts of fiddly bits and pieces so listen before we um talk a little bit more how about you play us a song is that all right yeah i'll get my guitar out okay and then um it might be a whiplashing mood we'll see how it goes it's musical performance time of the podcast

go studio I've got to resist the temptation to do my Jules Holland impression now.

Oh please just do it.

Over in the corner the marvellous Dowdy Matseko

with his superb beautiful guitar sitting there in his black boiler suit with his footstand for his right foot.

Why do you like the footstand, Dowdy?

It elevates the guitar slightly so picking is easier.

Beautiful.

And what are you going to play for us today?

This is Nog.

I apologise.

Don't apologise.

I think that's it.

It might be the closest I ever get to Jules Holland, so I really, yeah, I thank you.

What are you going to play?

For me as many times as you like.

And this is from the new record.

The new record, yeah, it's called The King of Misery.

Nice.

Yes.

That's what the world needs.

Exactly.

Just more.

And

that.

But I should clarify, I'm not the king of misery.

And I explicitly say that on the record.

It's an ironical title.

And that comes out in January of 2024, we hope, right?

Yes, yeah, it's on my own little label called Really Good, with help from another label called Albert's Favourites.

Shout out to Adam Scrimshire.

Yeah, it's going to come out 19th of January 2024.

Hold my breath till

I forget time.

Stop using sight,

give up on trying.

Cause my chest's been tight

for the longest time.

fool me as many times

as you like

hide behind doors

in extinguished light

pick the right time

to give me a fry.

Cause I've said I want

too many times

Fool me as many times

as you like.

Fool me as many times

as you

like.

I have always hidden parts of myself out of view

I chose not to see

it

And in the pit of my stomach I think I always knew

The dark was always waiting

My feet won't turn before but my eyes don't tell the truth

And I'm too scared to move

on

So just make me a part and rebuild me something new

I don't do much changing

I never did much

I'll keep falling into fire.

Call me a fool

if I am a fool.

I just want to feel less tired.

I don't want to

keep breaking into

Inside.

I can see a liar.

Every mirror I choose

whispers shame

you.

Scared to admit my heart's expired

if I say that I do,

will it mean that I lose?

Did he catch the tummy rumble at the end there?

Possibly.

I think he would have done a nice.

That's not the kind of song that I would expect from the Brian Adams-loving

young dowdy.

At some point, I got incredibly depressed.

And when did that

chapter of your life begin?

So that was kind of around 2009.

I was in Brighton and I didn't know anything about depression.

And I didn't really know how to handle what I was experiencing.

And you'd never felt anything like that before?

No, not at all.

And then that, you know, that journey, like, um,

so I struggled with depression for the next, like,

the next three years were pretty, pretty hard.

But I think as well, I felt a bit displaced.

I think I didn't really

was struggling with my identity, and I didn't know where I fit.

I think as well, that was one of the big issues.

But the depression I experienced far exceeded like the catalysts that the catalysts that sparked it, I think.

When you say you didn't know where you fit, like, describe the kind of things you were thinking about that were preoccupying you that used to get you down.

So I think when I was definitely from when I went to university, there was this idea, I think I had a lot of, like, everyone has a lot of potential when they're a young person.

And like, I was gigging a lot and I was playing a lot of,

from all of my A-levels, I kind of played shows and didn't study very much.

But I kind of had it in my mind that I was going to be a a songwriter.

And then when I went to uni, I kind of got a bit distracted from that initial goal.

And I just didn't know what to do.

Like, essentially, I was putting myself in multiple directions.

And I had lost confidence in myself as well.

Like, for some reason, I remember at 21 years old, I remember thinking about having a life in music and thinking I was past it.

Like, I had somehow missed the boat and I couldn't, you know, I'm too old to be playing music now.

And I'm just too young.

I know.

Madness, right?

But that's my, I think that was just the impression I got, I think, from working in the industry at the time.

And And it was the wrong impression because it's not like that at all.

But for some reason in my head, I convinced myself that I was too old.

And also, I probably thought I wasn't good enough, I think, at the time as well.

And that was difficult.

And then also, as well, there's like family pressures to impress your parents.

And you want to do right by them.

And then in the backdrop of all that as well, I had this

religious upbringing.

that I wasn't great.

I'm grateful for.

I don't resent it.

But I definitely had

those years I was plagued with like a sort of crisis of faith, I guess.

That was difficult as well, because I think it was quite foundational to me as a young person, my like religious beliefs, and I don't hold them now.

And I and I think I struggled because I think ultimately I didn't

believe it, but I didn't know how to navigate that.

And you felt sort of anxious and guilty about it.

It felt like I'm just sort of imagining.

Yeah, yeah, I think I felt guilt, a lot of guilt,

especially like when I went to uni, like I had a good time, shall we say?

And you thought, now I'm going to have to go to hell.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, sign the papers, let's get this done.

And I struggled with that, so I felt incredibly guilty about that.

And then, on top of that, I was so depressed in the 2010s.

Well, in 2010, particularly in 2009, that like I was

like I was working in nightclubs and we were doing like Coke and Ketemin.

And that, like, I spoke about this before recently.

Like, I was, um,

I was probably like a bit suicidal.

Like, I, I was, I was so depressed.

Like, I, um, I was listening to your podcast.

Um, yeah, that'll do it with uh

with the gentleman who was Doctors Without Borders.

Javid Abdelmano.

Yeah, and he said that he saw that when he gets very depressed, obviously, to compare to make any kind of comparison to the life he's lived is not what I want to do.

But he did, he described a depression as sort of like a blackness, like a silence like your internal voice kind of just goes like an absence of feeling almost yeah yeah and like for me it was um it was more grief like I felt a lot of grief but then also I would think about the future and I would just see like nothing just blackness and I couldn't I just couldn't see myself existing

and

I've got bipolar affective disorder.

When were you diagnosed with that?

So 2015, I think.

Okay.

And

I had psychosis in 2012.

What's the difference between those two?

So spipoli is like the condition and psychosis is just like one of the one of the potential stages of the condition that can happen.

So you go through like quite long patches of being depressed and they might be followed by a period of like mania.

And mania like you kind of get pressure of speech so you talk really really fast and you're very excitable and you have you have loads of ideas and it's quite a productive time.

You know, if you're manic you can get loads of stuff done.

It's just that you will probably annoy your friends and like people will be worried about you.

But then the next stage from mania, hypermania, I think I'm getting that right, is psychosis.

And that's when you completely leave the room.

Like, I saw things, like, I had hallucinations.

I had to move back to my parents.

And like, I thought there were like snipers on the roof.

gonna shoot me somewhere.

I was crawling.

Paranoia.

Oh, it's crazy.

It's really heavy.

And I would like crawl around.

you know, I wouldn't go walk past a window.

I thought there was a lion outside my my door and so I couldn't leave the room.

And that was really bleak.

How were your parents?

Were they freaked out or were they?

They're amazing.

In terms of like

all children and parents have their ups and downs and stuff, but

they are rocks.

Okay, glad to hear it.

Yeah,

they just kind of got to it and business only.

did it got me through it got me back on my feet and and because it for the first time it happened to me was um 2012 And then I had like eight years of good times.

And then after making this album, King of Misery, I self-produced it.

And that was maybe a factor, like an engineering and recording.

It was quite a high-pressure experience.

But also when the pandemic hit, I again, like, I sort of, I went into action mode, right?

What are we going to do with our money?

Because I was a freelance musician and I had...

no like backup plan

during the pandemic and stuff and so like I didn't have any income coming in and and um yeah previously you'd been making a living as uh doing gigs and playing shows yeah doing a bit of teaching here and there and suddenly that was gone yeah everything just disappeared and it was in one day as well it was like you know a lot of people experienced it but it was like shock and awe like everything just went in a moment and it was like I don't know I'm gonna pay rent and I don't know how this is all gonna I don't know if my career is viable anymore and I just got worse and worse and my mental health dipped and I think because when I was making the album I was also a bit depressed picking apart experiences and emotions and that were like incredibly heavy that I that I struggled to talk about I basically was just like look what am I afraid to talk about what am I afraid to sing about and do that

and naively I thought it would be easy and it wasn't but I did my best I don't know I hope when people listen to it they'll

they'll connect with it but it was a really difficult thing to do and I didn't anticipate

like I I have to even now I get a bit like kind of emotional I can feel my eyes getting weird but like

but it's sort of like you yeah I wrote about having bipolar and and the existential crisis that it brought on the record itself it's like I think it's quite life-affirming what I made ultimately like it takes you on a journey from a place of guilt to gratitude they're like two fairly distinct paths like end points to a beginning and an end of the record But I, yeah, it's a slight, it's a slight incline.

And what's one of the things I love about the record, I think it's quite truthful in its ambition of just progress, is slow and small.

I find kindness through introspection.

Yeah.

You know, if I'm mindful of my interactions and

how I am in the world and its relationship to me and that kind of thing,

I find I'm more

kind and I'm empathetic.

And

so, with my record, I wanted if there was going to be a heavy emotional aspect to it, which there is, it's an honest one.

It's not like we've not reached the destination at the end of the record.

How do you feel about playing another song?

Yeah, so I'm going to play you a tune

called I am Grateful for My Friends.

Oh, yeah, great.

During 2021, I went and did some shows where I read from my book, Ramble Book, and you came out a couple of times and played a few songs.

And this was one of the songs.

Was it?

Yeah, it was.

Yeah.

And I really liked hearing it.

Oh, nice one.

Do you know you?

There was a line, because when I was writing it, we were messed with emailing about something or other.

And we leave long gaps between emails.

And I would sort of write an email and then I'd lose confidence in it, and I wouldn't send it.

And that line, there's a line about emails which was sparked by that experience.

Oh, okay.

By my late replying.

No, but it was me.

It wasn't you.

I wasn't good.

I think you're right.

I think it was me not being very good on emails.

Alright.

Not much fun these days, I guess.

Humour, well, I used to have it.

I don't laugh so easily.

I wish that I was less depressing.

Terror lives inside my chest, and yes, I find it overwhelming

Disappear into thin air Oh my hope there's not much left

Underwater

taking breaths My lungs they have much to desire

I had swimming lessons as a child I hope I still remember

Was feeling dark but now it's death.

Shadows they whisper, surrender

embarrassment up ahead.

But I am grateful for my friends.

I am grateful for my friends.

Oh, I am grateful for my friends.

Oh,

I am grateful for my friends.

I am grateful for my friends.

Write an email, don't hit send.

I lied, I didn't even write it.

I just said it in my head and let the words delete themselves.

When I speak, I second guess

as they leave my mouth, my words they tumble and undo themselves.

While I'll just keep on rambling at you.

It was feeling dark, but now it's death.

Shadows, they whisper, pretender.

My bones, they are filled with dread.

But I am grateful for my friends.

I am grateful for my friends.

Oh, I am grateful for my friends, oh, I am grateful for my friends,

I am grateful for my friends.

Thank you, Daddy.

That was wonderful.

Oh, thank you.

And that's on the new record?

Yep,

that's the final tracks.

I was giving away the ending.

Okay, spoiler.

Spoiler.

I think it's good to know though, if you're going into it's not going to be like the roughest ride.

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Continue.

Look into my.

Hey, welcome back, podcasts.

Still a little bit of light out here in the Norfolk Fields as I record this.

Big old moon on the horizon, still coming up.

Not pink exactly.

It's more custard.

Custard moon's going to be my depression album when that one comes out.

That was Dowdy Matsico there before.

Very nice to see Dowdy.

Don't forget his album, The King of Misery, is out on the 19th of January next year, 2024.

And the songs are on the record, embellished beautifully with saxophone and harmonium, cello, pocket pianos, bass synthesizers,

all sorts of nice little

understated production tricks there to flesh the whole thing out and give it some scope.

I've heard the album myself, it's lovely.

I've put links to a couple of the videos for Dowdy's tracks in the description of today's podcast.

And there's also a link to that show he's playing in Brighton on the 14th of December at the Alphabet venue.

Go along, support Dowdy, support live music, support Alphabet.

Feel the healing power of music.

Speaking of which,

This is a good segue because I wanted to give a shout out

to a great charity that I hope you might be able to support.

This one is called Music for All.

They're based in the UK and they help disadvantaged individuals and community groups access music-making opportunities through donations of cash grants and musical instruments.

I know that a few of you podcasts are musicians.

Maybe you have a few musical instruments lying around that you don't use anymore.

In which case, maybe Music for All can find them a new home.

To find out more, you can visit their website.

There's a link in the description.

At the moment, they are running a Big Give Christmas challenge.

One donation, double the impact.

If you're able to help out with that by fundraising or donating, that would be greatly appreciated.

If there's one thing I am certain of,

it is the incredible therapeutic value of music.

I do think music has got magic powers.

In fact, I went to see some live music.

Well, it was live music/slash comedy, courtesy of American comedy legend Fred Armerson, probably best known for his many years in Saturday Night Live and the hilarious Portlandia that he did with Carrie Brownstein.

Documentary now that he still does with Bill Hayder and Seth Myers.

And he started out playing in bands, hardcore punk bands in America before he got into comedy and music is still a huge part of his life and his obsessions.

So he's doing this tour at the moment called Comedy for Musicians, but everyone is welcome.

And the guy that is promoting my podcast shows next year, my live podcast shows, link in the description to the Palladium show.

in March

is also promoting Fred Armason's shows.

So he was nice enough to get me a ticket to Fred's show in Hackney

last week on Friday at the Earth venue.

He had Martin Newell there from Cleaners from Venus playing support.

That was very good.

And I don't know if Martin is doing more dates on the tour.

But anyway, Fred comes on and does an hour plus of

music jokes, basically, that involve him playing the guitar and playing the drums he's a brilliant drummer very good guitarist so if you're into your comedy and your music it's a strong recommend from Buckles but if you need even more cheering up I've put a link to a couple of the Garth and Cat sketches from SNL which I wasn't familiar with before.

I'm not like a deep level Saturday Night Live fanatic so I hadn't seen these before but it's Fred Armison and Kristen Wigg.

And they do these characters who are kind of a cheesy sort of singer-songwriter duo.

And they write songs for public holidays and special occasions for Halloween and Mother's Day and Christmas.

And anyway, they turn up, and it's part of the news update section.

So the ones that I watched are with Seth Myers and he says, Garth and Katz, oh, you've written a new song for Mother's Day or whatever it happens to be

and you're gonna perform it for us now and you've been practicing really hard and they go yeah

and then the deal is that Fred Armerson improvises a song and Kristen Wigg has to sing along with him and anticipate where he's going with each line as closely as possible.

Perhaps it's the kind of thing that they do in improv classes, I'm not sure, as a sort of trust slash symbiosis exercise, but it is, apart from being very funny,

it's so amazing watching them do this thing and watching her

anticipate what he's going to do and try and join in with each line, sometimes amazingly accurately, as if she knows what he's going to say, even though she doesn't, like he genuinely is making it up on the spot.

They haven't rehearsed it.

They're extraordinary.

Kristenwig is

supernaturally funny.

Anyway, there's a couple of links in the description for you.

See what you think.

Don't worry if you don't agree.

That's okay.

We can still be friends.

That's it for this week.

Come on, Rosie, let's get back before it's totally dark.

I didn't bring the head torch.

What a jerk!

Thank you very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support and conversation editing.

Much appreciated, Seamus.

Thanks to Helen Green.

She does the beautiful artwork.

Thank you to all at ACAST.

Thanks, most of all, to you.

I appreciate you coming back and listening right to the end.

Wow.

Come on, come here.

Come here.

Hey.

It's good to see you.

That's okay.

We can't love all the same things.

The main thing is that you're here.

Till next time.

Oh, you've got to tread carefully out there.

But look, I love you, and that's something.

Bye.

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