Youtube Jukebox: Step Inside Sam Simmons’ Mind, With His Playlist To Cure Your Hangover
"A playlist for when you are hungover and not feeling that great about life and you just need a little something to make you feel okay about it all."
Sam Simmons has been lurking around your subconscious in one way or another for around a decade now.
As a presenter and regular guest on triple j, he single-handedly mind-fucked the concept of trivia for the entire nation, and had a picture of a goat tattooed onto his arse as part of an inadvisable 24-hour radio marathon. And as a stand-up comedian he’s pretty much bagged every major award in existence. Last night he was named as a nominee for the Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival — the top honour of the festival which he’s been nominated for twice before.
If you’ve never seen one of his shows, they’re often described as “surrealist”, “existentialist” and “what your dreams look like when you’ve drunk too much absinthe”. But, because you really need to experience it properly, here is a musical TED talk he gave in which he at one point Magic Mikes his way out of an astronaut suit:
Between this, his cameo on Conan, and the impressively strange new online series he made with Channel 4 in the UK, Simmons has had a number of high-profile gigs, and it’s apparently something we should get used to. “I’m totally selling out to TV, crappy panel shows, broad studio sitcoms, celebrity-based reality show, the lot,” he told us. “I have no comedic morals left. I’m currently trying to put on weight so I can be on I’m A Fat Shit Head on Channel 9 next year.”
Though he wouldn’t let you know it, he’s actually one of our most successful comedy exports (now based in LA). Last year, his show Death Of A Sails-Man — a cathartic sea voyage with a muesli bar entrepreneur having a midlife crisis — earned him the Director’s Choice Award at the Sydney Comedy Festival and a nomination for best act at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe.
Having worked in both the UK and US now, he says “[Australia has] a ways to go accepting nontraditional routes in comedy, but our comedy history is brilliant, from Dame Edna to Dave Hughes … We are undeniably funny. Look at Claudia O’Doherty’s work; we have a brilliant new generation of young talent like Corey White, Fancy Boy and Becky Lucas.”
While he’s back in the country, he’ll be performing alongside nearly all of these comedians at MICF with his new show Spaghetti For Breakfast. And, though it’s described in the program as “one man’s journey in search of the perfect poached egg”, Simmons also promises it will have “issues, food abuse, angry ranting, my favourite ever moth joke, rice bubbles, a feather boa and a hard-on in tracksuit pants.”
To ease us into whatever that is, he’s given us a glimpse at his YouTube history. Simmons describes it as “a playlist for when you are hungover and not feeling that great about life, and you just need a little something to make you feel all okay about it all”.
Oddly enough, he tweeted this around the time of writing:
If anybody witnessed me "being weird" at the emporium foodcourt, apologies I'm very hungover.
— Sam Simmons (@samsimmonss) April 11, 2015
The dude is method.
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1. Jenny The Pug, 2009
This is Jenny the pug heading out for a stroll with her baby. What’s not to love? It’s a dog doing human stuff. That, combined with melancholy piano — it just makes me get all “feelings”.
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2. Penis Police, 2013
Take your hands off my penis and a succulent Chinese meal? Such an erudite well spoken Australian man, who caused a scene in a Chinese restaurant over the quality of the lemon chicken.
Articulate well-spoken blokey brains = 1
Penis police = 0
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3. Birds Of Britain, 2006
This is both soothing and hilarious. From the makers of Look Around You comes a tale of backwards skippers and piggy birds… dirty bird.
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4. Solo Advert, 1986
I watch this to rebalance my man-chi.
I model my look on that guy, but I realise as a bald man, I can’t quite pull off the look completely. Remember that bald moustache guy from Baywatch?
Yeah, he was hot.
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5. Kristen Wiig’s Forehead, 2013
Oh my! It’s only Kristen Wiig being freakin’ HILARIOUS! Two of my favorite people ever, both celebrated for GOING BIG and being ridiculous! The bubble claps at the end are the best. Long live idiots!
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6. Dragon – ‘Rain’, 1983
The synth riff in this Aussie Classic makes me SOOOO HAPPY. Maybe I had some particularly joyous moment when I was a kid listening to this song. There really is something so great about the Australian sound in the ’80s. We really were VERY good.
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7. Sam Simmons – Wallstud, 2015
This little dickhead — this is me in a Channel 4 Comedy Blap that I made in the UK. It’s very close to an Australian series I made called Problems, which I still maintain was murdered by ABC to make way for Wednesday Night Fever. Remember that stinker???
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SAM SIMMONS NATIONAL TOUR
Sam Simmons’ new show Spaghetti For Breakfast is touring nationally from now until May.
MELBOURNE: March 26 – Sunday 19, ACMI — tickets here
SYDNEY: April 21 – 26, Giant Dwarf Theatre — tickets here
PERTH: May 1 – 2, Heath Ledger Theatre — tickets here