thejohnfleming

[thejohnfleming]

Comic lyricist Ashley Frieze on why AI country music "is a lovely thing" (Part 3)

Ashley Frieze. His ideas; not his music; not his voice… Concluding my chat with comedian Ashley Frieze about his three AI music albums…   His new Christmas album Oh No! It’s a Monkey Paw Christmas is out now under the pseudonym of The Incredible Jukebox… His previous AI albums were Monkey Paw Cowboy and Monkey Paw Too: Electric Boogaloo. JOHN: Do you yourself like country music or is there…

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Ashley Frieze (Part 2 of 3): Can AI music and comedy really be creative?

In my last blog, comedian Ashley Frieze  talked about  how he combined music and comedy using Articial Intelligence. His third AI music album Oh No! It’s a Monkey Paw Christmas is out now under the pseudonym of The Incredible Jukebox… JOHN: And you’ve done videos… ASHLEY: The video I sent you was a rare example. Because I want to have a sizzle reel for the album and because it’s an AI album,…

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Comedian Ashley Frieze and his new Artificial Intelligence music album...

Ashley Frieze and I chatted in London’s Soho. Ashley is a musical stand-up comedian. He says, “I’ve been around for about 22 years doing mainly live comedy club stuff.” But now he has released a new music album – Oh No! It’s a Monkey Paw Christmas – co-created with AI. ASHLEY: I’ve actually released three AI albums. I launched the first album in April… I discovered AI music on a Thursday and,…

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I thought is was only the Chinese who had wise sayings... until yesterday

I thought is was only the Chinese who had wise sayings. I was wrong. Yesterday I had tea in London with someone who told me of an old Italian saying: Fidarsi è bene ma non fidarsi è meglio This translates as: Trusting is good, but not trusting is better. Wise words indeed. I asked GenCraft AI to illustrate this and the resultant image was: The moral to this is clearly that we can not yet…

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"The doctor was dressed as a cowboy and... fireworks were exploding..."

It’s been quite a while since I/we/you have heard from this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent – Anna Smith in Vancouver. Now she has sent a slightly belated update on what happened to her over Halloween… Ironically Anna used to perform, several moons ago, as ‘Nurse Annie’… and you have to be aware that Anna lives by a forever interesting alleyway in Vancouver… Now read on… ‘Nurse Annie’…

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Janey Godley. The most creative person I ever met. A lovely human being. RIP.

Janey Godley, who died this morning, was without any doubt at all the most all-round creative person I ever met in my life. Live performance, books, articles, blogs, online videos; there was nothing she could not turn her mind and talent to and succeed. And did I mention kind and warm-hearted? She was very kind and very warm-hearted. And very very very funny. A sharp, intelligent, sensitive and…

[thejohnfleming]

Becky Fury's show on British-ish-ness

WARNING! Asterisked swear words appear in this piece! Comic Becky Fury and I met for a chat in a coffee shop in a London church called Sacred Grounds. The coffee shop not the church…  JOHN: Your Edinburgh Fringe show this year sounded like it was a success. BECKY:  It was, but I’ll treat it as a Work in Progress.  JOHN: What was it called? Is the inclusion of C*nt good for effective…

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RIP comic Gareth Ellis 1990-2024 (Part 2)

Yesterday’s blog was the first in a two-parter in which Rich Rose remembered his comedy double-act partner Gareth Ellis (above) who died, aged 34, in May this year. Now read on… In 2014, we were nominated for best alternative act at the London Cabaret Awards. The ceremony took place at Café de Paris in Leicester Square. Deciding we needed to look the part, we ditched the shabby Waiting for Godot…

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John Dowie on Victoria Wood, the Mona Lisa, a banana and his new book

John Dowie (Photograph by Steve Ullathorne) This is the second and final part of a chat I had with the unique British performer John Dowie. (The first part is HERE.) We were supposed to be plugging his latest book Before I Go. But I just like chatting randomly with creative people. Mea culpa. ME: There’s a little-known 2003 anthology called Sit Down Comedy (put together by Malcolm Hardee and…

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Before I Go: John Dowie has thoughts on both Kens Dodd and Campbell...

John Dowie has a new book out entitled Before I Go… We chatted via FaceTime… John Dowie (Photo by Steve Ullathorne) ME: Wikipedia calls you a “humourist” and says that, among other things, you are an “arthouse proto-alternative” comedian whose work mixes parody, fantasy, impersonations and taboo topics. What is an “arthouse proto-alternative” comedian? JOHN D: No idea.  ME: Am I allowed to…

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Lebanon and Beirut back in 1993/1994: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

A Beirut street in December 1993 I’m writing this a few hours after Iran attacked Israel with a reported 180 missiles. so the recent ‘unpleasantness’ in Lebanon may have already turned into Yesterday’s News. But there may be a nostalgic interest of some diary entries I wrote about visiting Beirut and Lebanon around 30 years ago… The Syrian Army was still in Beirut. I posted these extracts as…

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The final performance by The Iceman shows the impermanence of existence

Last night, I witnessed what was allegedly the last ever performance by legendary act The Iceman. It had not been billed in advance as his final performance, but there was a sense of anticipation before the show started. It was totally sold-out well in advance with, it seemed, loads of audience members who had never see The Iceman perform before but only knew of him as a misty legend, a…

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Jeremy Murphy - The Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie years...

Jeremy – the highly-esteemed New York PR man Yesterday’s blog was about outrageous US PR man Jeremy Murphy’s new book: Too Good to Fact Check: Flying the Skies with Stars, Scotch, and Scandal (Mostly Mine). Now read on… JOHN: Harrison Ford is mentioned in the book. Are you sure you really want to annoy Harrison Ford? JEREMY: Oh, he was the most boring movie star I’ve ever met! JOHN: Do you…

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Jeremy Murphy - The New York PR man too outrageous to be fact-checked

Jeremy Murphy: the owner of “a respected US PR agency”. But does he want to be respected? In this blog two years ago, back in June 2022, I chatted to American PR man Jeremy Murphy about his book F*ck Off, Chloe: Surviving the OMGs! and FMLs! in Your Media Career. Now he has another book out (published tomorrow): Too Good to Fact Check: Flying the Skies with Stars, Scotch, and Scandal (Mostly…

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Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (3rd of 3)

In the last two blogs, British singer Dave Dawson has been talking about his new autobiographical book Pop Idle. Now read on… JOHN: You mentioned you admired the Cardiacs, I’ve never heard of them. DAVE: Cardiacs are this English, punk rock, progressive rock hybrid band that formed in 1977. And they’ve influenced a wealth of musicians. They’re a musicians’ musicians band, but they never made it…

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Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (2nd of 3)

Dave Dawson with his latest book Pop Idle In yesterday’s blog, Dave Dawson talked about how an English National Opera star trained him, he turned down potential TV fame and he sang in pubs, clubs, restaurants etc and had a jam-packed work diary… JOHN: You worked with strippers… DAVE: Yes. Male strippers. I was pretty good looking in those days. I was working, doing golf clubs, doing the crooning…

[thejohnfleming]

Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (1st of 3)

Dave has a book out titled: POP IDLE: 30 Years on the Road as a Professional Singer. He performs 200-250 shows every year. We had trouble arranging a chat because he was working every day… JOHN: You have more than one name. Who are you? Dave Philpott, Derek Philpott, Dave Dawson, Diggy Dawson, Dave D music… Who are you really? And why Diggy Dawson?  DAVE: Diggy Dawson? I don’t know. It’s just a…