COMEDY VIDEOS
'Kieran Butler - Stand up comedian' - WMV Video (2006)
Buckfast - The Music Video (2005)
STAND UP COMEDY PERFORMANCES
Live performance of 'Porn' in Edinburgh, October 2004
Live stand up from Manchester, September, 2005
Live stand up and music from Edinburgh, March 2005
COMEDY SONGS
The UNAustralian National Anthem - with Greg Fleet (Words by Greg Fleet, Music by Kieran Butler)
Purple Comedy Theme tune - with Austin Low
Collingwood ruined my Life Audio & Video Files
Video footage from the final night in 2006
SONG FOR CHRIS TARRANT - from the 2007 show
COVER SONGS
The following samplers were edited from a live solo performance at An Sibin, Frankfurt, Germany, January 2004
Live Covers Sampler 1 Star of the County Down - Tell me Ma - Wild Rover - Loch Lomond - Never gonna give you up
Live Covers Sampler 2 Downunder - Don't dream it's over - Bright side of the road - Mr Jones - Teenage Dirtbag
Live Covers Sampler 3 Help - Tub Thumping - Concrete & Clay - Is she really going out with him - Father & Son
Live Covers Sampler 4 Good Riddance - Dirty Old Town - Whisky in the Jar - Faith - Weather with You
SOME OBSCURE RUBBISH PENNED BY KIERAN IN 2005
Buckfast - a derivative diatribe
When he first arrived in Glasgow prior to the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe festival, Australian comedian Kieran Butler first noticed that some Glaswegians were prone to leaving green wine bottles in the strangest of places; bus stops, alley ways, public toilets, convenience stores. However, a quick read through the Metro letters page contained all the information he needed to ascertain where these bottles came from, what they had previously contained, and how the contents affected the demographic who consumed them.
'There is definitely a certain paradigmatic beauty to it' he thought to himself whilst sitting quietly on the train to Airdrie one rainy Saturday night. He was quietly observing a rowdy group of Celtic supporters clutching their bottles of Buckfast with a discernable sort of affection.
The role of the artist in society is too often viewed by members of the lower classes through cynical eyes. That is understandable, even American rappers have lost touch with their roots and stand accused of lampooning the very people who line their pockets and fund their various drug addictions.
Kieran Butlers education as a songwriter and comedian in Melbourne, Australia armed him with the ability to see into the souls of the people that other less street credible artists have left behind; to hold up a mirror to a society that seems to be in constant denial of the madness it has created. It is true that Jesus did not believe that the sound of bare knuckle on flesh was a pure form of Stanislavskian performance art, but by the same token, it wasn't him who wrote Jesus Christ Superstar!
In 2004, when Kieran Butler was asked by a listener on Beat 106 to write a song about Buckfast he knew what he had to do. He knew he must record the rallying cry of Buckfast drinkers everywhere for posterity. Who the fuck are you looking at? could have been said by the aforementioned Jesus to Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, it could have been uttered by Robert the Bruce on the battlefields of Bannockburn; and nobody has disputed that it wasn't yelled at Robbie Burns by any number of the cuckolds he undoubtedly pissed off from time to time.
In a matter of weeks Buckfast the music video will be unleashed on an unsuspecting Scottish public. It will be controversial, it will be litigious, and it will be funny! But most of all, it will give Buckfast drinkers a sense that they have finally found a legitimate place in the artistic landscape. No one can ask for more than that, and they will have a humble Australian comedian to thank for it!
THIS IS FROM 2004...
An actual true story - The Osama Bin Laden cigarette lighter
NOW COMPLETELY SOLD OUT
Aussie comedian stopped at Hanoi airport in piss poor attempt to smuggle commemorative September 11 cigarette lighters
On
his way to Edinburgh to prepare for the 2004 Fringe, Australian comedian Kieran
Butler made the most of his budget flight with Vietnam Airlines by indulging in
a short stopover in Hanoi.
A chance meeting with a vendor in the street resulted in the purchase of a
cigarette lighter that could only come out of an Asian country run by socialist
party. With a cultural penchant for laughing in the face of tragedy, and a
healthy skepticism of American foreign policy, some bright spark had designed a
lighter inscribed with the numbers 9:11; adorned with a drawing of the twin
towers, a plane and a likeness of Osama bin Laden! When you flipped the lighter
open it played a familiar French instrumental tune and lit up a red LED light on
top of the twin towers!!
Sensing an opportunity to flesh out a punch line of an existing joke, Butler haggled over the price and eventually bought one. Realizing that they would sell like hot cakes at the Fringe festival, he then scoured the streets of Hanoi for a supplier and eventually headed to Hanoi airport the next day with four boxes of the novelty lighters; two in his baggage and another two in his hand luggage.
A search of his hand luggage by airport security led to the comical sight of Butler attempting to explain he planned to give the lighters to his family as gifts. However, the security officers were quite rightly concerned about the fact the offending articles were full of butane gas. In desperation Butler pleaded with them; “I’m just trying to take some of your Vietnamese humour to the West”. This comment produced a roar of laughter amongst the throng of security guards who were poring all over the potential explosive devices.
This tactic seemed to work. A compromise was struck and it was agreed that the
boxes would ride with in the cockpit of the plane in a special security locker.
This would at least put an end to any plans Butler may have had to hijack the
plane with two boxes of lighters bearing the visage of the world’s most wanted
man! The irony was delicious.
The ever helpful airport security man then proceeded to approach a female member of staff from Vietnam Airlines to put his compromise plan into action. However, it was plainly obvious, even to a non native speaker of Vietnamese, that she thought he was completely mad! Turning to Butler to translate, he tried in vain to not lose face. Sensing all was nearly lost, Butler made one last appeal in an attempt to hold him to his word. It was at that point that the somewhat perplexed security guard flipped the top of one of the lighters absent mindedly, and upon hearing the ghastly noise it made hurriedly explained that the sound would distract the pilot from flying the plane! Both boxes were duly confiscated.
The good news is that the rest of the shipment contained in Butler’s baggage made it through the Charles de Gaulle, Dublin and Birmingham international airports, and sold like hotcakes after his appearance at the Ludlow Gob Akimbo comedy festival. They went on to court controversy at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and were banned fom sale by an overly sensitive venue manager who deemed them offensive! Can you imagine that?