What's a Website without links?
The links are divided into 6 categories. The comedy links are about the business of comedy, while sites that make me laugh have been filed under funny. Most websites are about something but others just are, so I've put together a few sites that are just beautiful. There are a couple of links to work I've done and there are even a couple of sites that I'm alarmed to say are inspired, one way or another, by me, so they're under Dave. One of life's essentials: music gets a section of it's own while weird sites, friendly sites, useful sites and anything else that doesn't fit elsewhere can be found with the others.
Music Links:
Helen Love make fresh, funny, upbeat, lo-fi, punk pop. And we all know there isn't enough of that in the world. They've even recorded a special song about my Googlewhack Adventure. The song (with a specially made video) is my favourite of the DVD extras on the googlewhack DVD. There's a free download of it on their site too. They're great. You can buy Helen Love music here.
Misty's Big Adventure have a great knack of not doing too much in their songs. It's always just the right amount. Fab. Like a happy Cake. You can buy Misty's Big Adventure here.
Dead Dog In Black Bag are two girls with a sense of humour, great tunes and potty mouths. 21st Century low lifes, and sleazebags seem to be the favoured subject matter. Some of the tunes are so catchy I have to make a real effort not to sing along in case someone thinks I'm really craving some love meat. Which I'm not. Top stuff.
There's a musical lay-line of sorts linking Misty's Big Adventure to The Boy Least Likey To. While they don't really sound alike they definitely both have something childlike and charming going on that makes me smile whenever I'm listening to them. Hurrah for things like that. You can buy The Boy Least Likely To here.
If you've been around my site, you should already know that I'm a massive fan of Ian Dury & The Blockheads. This is the official site of the late, great Ian Dury, this is the official site for the on going Blockheads and this is a really good fan site. You can buy Ian Dury and The Blockhead's music here.
The first band I really got into were Madness. You can buy their music here. Two former members (well, they're never really former members as they seem to keep re-uniting for something or other, but you know what I mean) Lee Thompson and Chris Foreman, are now CRUNCH. They're good. Obviously.
Spunge : They can't spell sponge, but they can play great music. British ska-punk. You can buy Spunge music here.
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine were always favourites of mine painting a bleak British landscape but underscored with great wit and humour. Both Jim-Bob and Les are doing great solo projects now.
I don't think there's anyone else doing stuff like Chris Murray. Formerly known as Venice Shoreline Chris - he makes solo, acoustic ska on a 4 track studio. It shouldn't work, but it does. A must have. You can buy Chris Murray music here.
Half Man Half Biscuit - amongst the great lyricists of our time. You can buy HMHB music here .
They Might Be Giants is a beautiful website from a fantastic and incredibly prolific band. Good tunes and silly songs that aren't really silly. You can buy TMBG music here .
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players sound a bit like They Might Be Giants crossed with Ben Folds Five. Only better than that. They buy second hand photographic slides and write songs about them. And they're a family. Dad's on keyboards, daughter's on drums, Mom's on slide projector. What more do you need to know?
I was so delighted when we got permission to use one of Eliza Carthy's songs for the theme music to The Dave Gorman Collection. If you're interested, the tune we used is called "The Accordion Song" but there are loads more where that came from. You can buy Eliza Carthy music here.
The Queensberry Rules. My favourite Stoke folk blokes. They gave me a thanks on their second album and I can't tell you how childishly excited I was when I saw it.
6Music is a great radio station. Like the fools that they are they seem to be quite keen on letting me talk-and-play-records when one of their proper presenters goes on holiday. The best radio station I've found on my travels is Australia's Triple J... but you can save yourself the airfare and listen online.
Talking of digital radios... surely the bug is hard to beat. You can even rewind the radio and play stuff again. And it has eyes. You can buy one here
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Comedy Links:
Chortle is a very comprehensive and frequently updated site full of news, views and reviews of the UK comedy scene - highly recommended. Not quite so highly recommended is the forum which seems to be largely occupied with new acts complaining about how unfair the world is. When I was a lad we had to have those conversations in dressing rooms. Now they can bitch about each other 24 hours a day... all thanks to the internet.
NotBBC is a forum full of highly opinionated people talking about the current state of UK comedy (amongst other things). I've come in for a bit of a pasting in the past but it's often fascinating and at least they're passionate about comedy.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe isn't specifically a comedy festival although newspaper coverage could easily lead you to that conclusion. But it is the largest Arts Festival in the world and there is a lot of comedy there.
The most relaxed and enjoyable comedy festival in the world happens in Melbourne.
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Funny Links:
b3ta.com has loads of links you'll want to know about - and loads of things like the what's new pussycat? game. I like this site so much that when I wanted someone to make a pop-video for a DVD extra I asked the man who runs b3ta to do it. And a fine job he did too.
I like Mr & Mrs Wheatley because their website is full of funny, clever (if a little twisted) things. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think about this ... either they don't like me very much or they like me too much... which is much scarier.
It is obligatory for every website to put The Onion on their links page. Who am I to argue? You can buy some very funny books from The Onion here.
Tanya Headon hates music. All music. Which means she's wrong... but her blog is very funny.
Rather Good is better than that.
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Beautiful Links:
In Sausalito, California I saw a man balancing rocks by the ocean. His name was Bill Dan and I think
his art is fascinating and beautiful. This is a very comprehensive site about him and his
work with links to loads of other balancers too. I've done a few myself and I'm proud to be on the site's
learners page and to have been credited with
some kind of pioneering work for my contribution to the field of pocket rock balancing too!
I've created a profile at the photo-sharing site flickr.com in order to display the not so beautiful pictures of my not-so-beautiful
rock balancing ... it's here. I take
other pictures too.
Words. Words connected to other words, floating in space, it's the Visual Thesaurus. Beautiful.
Home to all sorts of small stuff, and often with an interactive make-your-own-art thing going on too: FlipFlopFlyin. For more great design, look at the links page too.
lebonze.co.uk: Animations. If you haven't already seen this in your inbox, you will soon.
Strange dancing - but loads of other stuff: zefrank.
Do you want to know the time? Take a look here. You won't want to look away.
If you've ever wanted to look at a picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat looking at a... I think you get the idea... then InfinteCat.com is the site for you.
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Dave Links:
I'm managed by Avalon. That's not this Avalon. Or this one.
As an author, I'd be a fool if I wasn't pointing you in the direction of Amazon.co.uk
My first book seems to have inspired the most unlikely of people. Take a look at this rather surprising reference on a friendly vicar's home page.
That's odd, but this is odder. A group of people have compiled a collection of photographs of my head grafted onto female bodies. Why they've chosen to use their scary photoshop magic on me I can't tell you. I think it's better if I don't know. (At least I hope it's photoshop. If not it means that somebody drugged me then dressed me up while I was asleep your honour)
There is now a Yahoo Group for enthusiasts of... er... me, where not many people can meet and ... I don't know what they do. But they're here.
I mentioned this above as well with reference to the beautiful rock-balancing of Bill Dan. I have a profile on flickr.com where I post photos. Not all of them are of rock and pebble balancing.
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Other Links:
I've done a fair amount of travelling in my time. The most extreme example being the journey that eventually became the googlewhack adventure. I was having something of a breakdown at the time and I didn't exactly stop to consider the environmental impact of jetting wherever at a moment's notice. With hindsight it's obviously not a very clever thing to do to the world. I know it doesn't completely undo the damage but offsetting the carbon emmissions does do something and it has at least helped to salve my middle-class conscience. I think a lot of people don't even explore the option because they're worried that it will be so expensive and they'd rather put they're head in the sand and ignore it but I was surprised by quite how affordable it is. I've now offset the Googlewhack Adventure and my latest project too and I'll do the same for everything else I do at ClimateCare.org. Why don't you offset your holiday too? I just looked up a return flight from Heathrow to Lanzarote... at time of writing, they ask for less than a fiver!
I first heard about isketch while I was writing a book that explains how I failed to write a novel because I was distracted by the internet. I didn't take a look until after the book was published and I'm glad I didn't or I might have had to write a book about how I failed to write a book about how I failed to write a novel because I was distracted by the internet. It's basically online pictionary and in case you haven't gathered, it's very distracting.
Does signing up to a website just to read one news story annoy you? Get round it with bugmenot.com the site that bypasses compulsory web registration and claims to have liberated over 29,000 sites.
Wikipedia is a free-content encyclopedia. If something isn't listed... then add it.
A beautiful idea, beautifully rendered. Book Crossing is, in its own words "a global book club that crosses time and space". It is as well. Ladies and gentlemen, the world is our library.
I first met Gawkagogo in Edinburgh when we shared a venue way back when. Their shows: bizzare, camp, kitsch, funny, puppet shows for adults, quickly became one of my must-see shows each year. Go and see them; they're great
Frankie are a new theatre company doing new work that I really like. Their play, Photo Story, is a beautifully simple and innovative piece of theatre. If you get a chance to see it, or anything else that they're doing, I highly recommend you take it.
While I'm responsible for the content this version of my site was originally designed and built by Richard at gowebdesign. I've learnt enough to maintain it myself, but all the complicated scary stuff was put together by him. If you'd like someone to build a web site for you, I'd recommend Richard, he is currently available for work. Tell him I sent you.
My first website was designed and built by Jon Primrose of Lightheart.co.uk. Jon taught me how to update it myself and was always on hand to help me with anything that was too clever or scary. He still is. As my work has spread out so has the site and Jon undertook two or three major overhauls over the years, largely simplifying the complicated and disorganised mess that I'd turned it into. Jon's great and designs sites for loads of comedy bods nowadays and I can strongly recommend his services also.
My site is hosted by the nice people at Studio 51.
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