That said, and just to prove to you that I haven't gone totally squishy, the aforementioned respect for Gibb does not as yet prevent me from presenting this hilarious live parody of the Bee Gees from Swedish TV in 1982.
I posted this clip several years ago, but until recently thought it had disappeared from YouTube. In any case, if you've never seen it before, I think you'll have to admit its right on the money. Those immoveable scarves are a particularly nice touch.
I should add that The Hee Bee Gee Bees -- who were in fact fellow Australians -- made three (count 'em three) full length albums, which is a pretty good run for a novelty act.
The first (from whence the song above derives) was the incomparable...
...and the last was the even funnier (IMHO)...
None of them seem to be on CD at the moment, but perhaps some antipodean PowerPop reader can enlighten us otherwise?
5 comments:
I laughed until I cried, if I were eating I would have choked to death - should come with a warning label. and I agree about the scarves, spot on detail
kizmit! just posted here... http://mrweirdandwacky.blogspot.com/2014/02/heebeegeebees-never-mind-originals-heres.html
- Josh in Portland
The HeeBeeGeeBees were not Australians, but were British comedians. They first showed up as one of the recurring pop song parodies on the BBC Radio 4 series "Radio Active." Phil Pope was the writer of these parodies, most of which are pretty spot-on funny, although very specific to the time they were made.
The HeeBeeGeeBees parody was so popular that a whole special "The HeeBeeGeeBees Story" episode of Radio Active was made after the first series ran.
A bunch of these parodies were re-recorded and released on a couple of albums (not three), which are pictured in the blog. They also released four singles from the albums, none of which charted in the UK. "Meaningless Songs" hit #2 in Australia, though!
I regret the errors and thank you for the corrections,
Steve,
In the interest of historical perspective (and possible further hilarity), you should, if possible, post the piece you wrote for STEREO REVIEW back around 1979 or "80, in which (tongue-in-cheek?) you compared the real Bee Gees, who were then at the very peak of their falsetto-driven popularity, with late 50s novelty act the Chipmunks. At one point you observed - and this line sticks in my head to this day - "hell, they even look like Chipmunks, especially Robin."
J. Lag
Post a Comment