apparently I'm weird even by fandom standards
Fandoms which have recently failed to obsess me: Inception, Leverage, Sherlock (the BBC series).
Fandom which has succeeded in obsessing me: The Doug Anthony All Stars, an Australian comedy/musical group from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Obscurity (outside Australia), thy name is DAAS!
That's them. *hearts their little jackets* I've been watching as much of their stuff as I can find on YouTube and wishing much more were available. All the YouTube-ing has occasionally resulted in my bursting into hysterical laughter at two in the morning (thank god my flatmate wears earplugs when zie sleeps).
DAAS are very funny. They're also sometimes offensive (sort of like South Park if South Park were funny), and at all times they're crude and vulgar. One of their songs is called "I Fuck Dogs," okay?
They sing beautifully, and they include regular songs in their routines as well as comic songs (go to
damned_colonial's post, linked below, and listen to "Throw Your Arms Around Me"). They're inexplicably and quite profoundly sexy, especially Paul McDermott, aka the short, hostile one with the weird hair:
(Paul's in the middle. It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but his hair is cropped short except for one longish braid in the front. I'm amused to recall that I had a similar hairstyle in the same era [late 1980s], except that I never thought to braid the long bit of mine. At a later stage, which you can see on the Live at the National video linked below, Paul wore all his hair in tiny braids. It ought to look stupid, but it doesn't, and watching him DAAS is giving me a terrible craving to wear outdated clothes [I want a jacket covered in badges! I should have had one back in the eighties when I was young enough to look cute in it!] and do . . . things . . . to my hair. Also to do things to Paul McDermott.)
I mustn't neglect to mention that the boys are very slashy, especially Paul and Tim (the tall pretty one):
Let's all pretend Paul's hairstyle in this photo never happened, right? Anyway, here's a video of one of their routines from the variety show The Big Gig. I call your attention to the song at the end, during which Paul cannot keep his hand off Tim's thigh.
They routinely make jokes implying they've all had carnal knowledge of one another. It's stage gay, as far as I know (although apparently there are rumors . . .), but in my reading it's ultimately nonhomophobic, because unlike, say, bromance, there's no built-in denial of homoeroticism. There's no onscreen moment of "ha ha, we're just kidding, of course we're not actually queer." And their routines that I've seen haven't struck me as homophobic, although there's some transphobic stuff (e.g. "The Sailor's Arms," which, like the Kinks' "Lola," isn't overtly anti-trans* but perpetuates stereotypes of trans* women). Given the era, I can forgive them, as I forgive the Kinks. (Your mileage may vary, on this and other issues where DAAS can be offensive.)
As you will have figured out by now, I want to create more sad geeks new fans, so I'll link you to
damned_colonial's excellent pimping post (as she notes, "pimping" is really the most apt term in the context of DAAS). She has the clip where Paul and Tim kiss!
I'd just add a couple of things to what she's covered. First of all, the entirety of DAAS Live at the National Theatre can be found here on hismerrymen's channel (I believe the boys are actually in Melbourne, not New York, despite what they keep saying, and the bit at the end about them all being killed in a plane crash is definitely not true). Second, if you want to watch their 1991-92 show DAAS Kapital, which is extremely strange but sometimes wonderful, use uploads by babelfishsoup, myllamagirl, and CynicalScamp when possible in preference to dunkiesgirl's uploads, which are of poor visual quality. Myllamagirl's channel also has clips of full length DAAS segments from the Big Gig, running about 7-9 minutes, which I think are a better representation of their stuff than shorter clips.
I'm planning to nominate DAAS as a Yuletide fandom, so it would be great to generate some interest. There is a little DAAS fic out there, but, well, Yuletide would produce better more fic! And for the RPF-averse, DAAS Kapital is a fictional show with fictionalized versions of the guys, so it's possible to write non-RPF about them.
Watch some DAAS! Help me feel less like a solitary lunatic, okay?
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.
Fandom which has succeeded in obsessing me: The Doug Anthony All Stars, an Australian comedy/musical group from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Obscurity (outside Australia), thy name is DAAS!
That's them. *hearts their little jackets* I've been watching as much of their stuff as I can find on YouTube and wishing much more were available. All the YouTube-ing has occasionally resulted in my bursting into hysterical laughter at two in the morning (thank god my flatmate wears earplugs when zie sleeps).
DAAS are very funny. They're also sometimes offensive (sort of like South Park if South Park were funny), and at all times they're crude and vulgar. One of their songs is called "I Fuck Dogs," okay?
They sing beautifully, and they include regular songs in their routines as well as comic songs (go to
damned_colonial's post, linked below, and listen to "Throw Your Arms Around Me"). They're inexplicably and quite profoundly sexy, especially Paul McDermott, aka the short, hostile one with the weird hair:
(Paul's in the middle. It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but his hair is cropped short except for one longish braid in the front. I'm amused to recall that I had a similar hairstyle in the same era [late 1980s], except that I never thought to braid the long bit of mine. At a later stage, which you can see on the Live at the National video linked below, Paul wore all his hair in tiny braids. It ought to look stupid, but it doesn't, and watching him DAAS is giving me a terrible craving to wear outdated clothes [I want a jacket covered in badges! I should have had one back in the eighties when I was young enough to look cute in it!] and do . . . things . . . to my hair. Also to do things to Paul McDermott.)
I mustn't neglect to mention that the boys are very slashy, especially Paul and Tim (the tall pretty one):
Let's all pretend Paul's hairstyle in this photo never happened, right? Anyway, here's a video of one of their routines from the variety show The Big Gig. I call your attention to the song at the end, during which Paul cannot keep his hand off Tim's thigh.
Click to viewThey routinely make jokes implying they've all had carnal knowledge of one another. It's stage gay, as far as I know (although apparently there are rumors . . .), but in my reading it's ultimately nonhomophobic, because unlike, say, bromance, there's no built-in denial of homoeroticism. There's no onscreen moment of "ha ha, we're just kidding, of course we're not actually queer." And their routines that I've seen haven't struck me as homophobic, although there's some transphobic stuff (e.g. "The Sailor's Arms," which, like the Kinks' "Lola," isn't overtly anti-trans* but perpetuates stereotypes of trans* women). Given the era, I can forgive them, as I forgive the Kinks. (Your mileage may vary, on this and other issues where DAAS can be offensive.)
As you will have figured out by now, I want to create more sad geeks new fans, so I'll link you to
damned_colonial's excellent pimping post (as she notes, "pimping" is really the most apt term in the context of DAAS). She has the clip where Paul and Tim kiss!
I'd just add a couple of things to what she's covered. First of all, the entirety of DAAS Live at the National Theatre can be found here on hismerrymen's channel (I believe the boys are actually in Melbourne, not New York, despite what they keep saying, and the bit at the end about them all being killed in a plane crash is definitely not true). Second, if you want to watch their 1991-92 show DAAS Kapital, which is extremely strange but sometimes wonderful, use uploads by babelfishsoup, myllamagirl, and CynicalScamp when possible in preference to dunkiesgirl's uploads, which are of poor visual quality. Myllamagirl's channel also has clips of full length DAAS segments from the Big Gig, running about 7-9 minutes, which I think are a better representation of their stuff than shorter clips.
I'm planning to nominate DAAS as a Yuletide fandom, so it would be great to generate some interest. There is a little DAAS fic out there, but, well, Yuletide would produce better more fic! And for the RPF-averse, DAAS Kapital is a fictional show with fictionalized versions of the guys, so it's possible to write non-RPF about them.
Watch some DAAS! Help me feel less like a solitary lunatic, okay?
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.