Comic Relief

Players in a band who are the comic foil for the usual straight (serious) people in the band.

Flava Flav - Public Enemy
Buckethead - Guns & Roses
Angus Young - AC/DC
Keith Moon - The Who - mostly offstage
Fred Schneider - The B52s - Fred will put his comedic chops on the silver screen when he plays Reverend Fred Phelps in a movie about the Westboro Baptist Church. The casting director said he was "only looking for someone also named Fred."



Post Edited (10-22-10 23:03)

Oooh, careful there, Hoip! You besmirch Fred Schneider's good name by associating him with that genetic mistake, even in jest.

Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick)
Ben Carr (Mighty Mighty Bosstones)
Bez (Happy Mondays)
Bob Nastanovich (Pavement)
Einar Örn (Sugarcubes)
Courtney Love (Hole) ... and anyone who doesn't agree never saw the band live.

(I thought Axl was the comic foil for everyone else in Gn'R.)

Ringo Starr - The Beatles

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Ringo Starr - The Beatles

I can see why you'd list Ringo ... but isn't Charlie Watts a lot funnier? Every time I see him in an old Stones clip, the look of boredom on his mug is so pronounced that it always makes me laugh. Has the man spent his entire career rolling his eyes in apparent disbelief?

Ringo is much more loveable. I'll grant you that.

And his "I'm a mocker" reply to the "Are you a Mod or a Rocker?" question has got to be the best Rock & Roll interview one-liner of all time.

"Are you a Mod or a Rocker?"

"I'm a rod."

not sure if it this correct but u2s adam clayton is a hard partier as opposed to the other 3 members who lead a more christian life.
not sure if that means he has more humor or is more lighthearted.

Ringo Starr vs Charlie Watts == Happy Clown vs Sad Clown

Noel Crombie (Split Enz)
Ron Mael (Sparks)

The Sex Pistols

Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten - clowns

Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock - straight men



Post Edited (10-24-10 09:35)

Joe Walsh - The Eagles

Mick Jones - The Clash - funny facial expressions.

The Cars - Ric Ocasek - well, sorta funny. I mean, I could never picture Ben Orr in the You Might Think video.



Post Edited (10-24-10 09:45)

Would it be too harsh to nominate every single member of Men At Work?

Talk about a goofy crew. In one of my shipping tubes full of old rock posters, I have an image of that band (printed by a company called ANABAS, I believe) that I rescued from the garbage back in the early Nineties. My decision was based solely on the fact that each band member was making the fruitiest possible facial expression.

I tacked the image up in my college dorm room for a few weeks back in the day and it was a real treat to see how uncomfortable it made visitors. It was always good for a laugh.

I've searched all over for the image online, but I guess that the band must have taken legal action against all possible sources. If you could see it … you'd know why.

I'll see if I can't get a digital picture of it taken. I love to share. It's heinous.

Paul Hester – Crowded House (the fact that he killed himself confuses matters, but he was definitely zanier than his cohorts)

Steven Van Zandt – The E Street Band (in fairness, the whole band seems pretty lighthearted much of the time)

David Lee Roth – Van Halen

Bob Stinson – The Replacements

Kevin Barnes – of Montreal

Phife – A Tribe Called Quest

Linda McCartney – Wings (I kid)

Greg Norton – Hüsker Dü (probably 75% of this pick can be attributed to his facial hair, the other 25% would be the fact that he wasn't as obviously misanthropic as his bandmates)

Alex Levine – The Gaslight Anthem (the last time I saw them, my friend Jason described Levine, the bassist, as "looking like he's playing in a completely different, much gay-er band" throughout the show. Think "Snake" in the movie School of Rock...could this describe fellow bassist Peter Hook in Joy Division/New Order/etc.?...)

Freddie Mercury – Queen

Jerome Benton – The Time

Jools Holland – Squeeze

NWA - That's easy. Easy E.

The Geto Boys - Bushwick Bill

Gwen Stefani - sexxy clown

Jerome Benton, yes...but I think you can definitely say Morris Day is comic relief as well. I laugh out loud of some of the stuff I hear in those old Time songs.

Billy Zoom (X) - that wry grin on his face the whole time

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Einar Örn (Sugarcubes)

Never has anyone had such negligible musical input (a few off-key horns blats here and there, as I recall) but been so entertaining nonetheless, e.g.: "Hello, we are the Ice-cubes from Sugarland."

butts
everybody but the bassist