mostly david ephgrave

A number of years back – I forget when, but it was more than a decade ago – I wrote a comedy song with my friend (and ex-Big Day Out drummer) Chris Hollis. We had a habit of doing this when we were in a band together. In fact, we never collaborated on anything serious. Our songs were written informally, with no intention for use, other than to amuse ourselves – and this one was no exception. I’d recently bought a ukulele, whilst touring the Netherlands, which became the song's starting point. I strummed a few chords on it while we sketched out the lyrics, which took an hour at most. This is what we came up with: The day I met my baby I was playing ukulele in the sunshine. Her name it was Talula And she travelled from Bermuda just to be mine. She loved me and my Hawaiian melody So Talula from Bermuda was my baby My ukulele girl. Well, sometimes I think that maybe That by playing ukulele I annoy her. And when she throws it in the ...

Whilst sorting through some paperwork this morning, I stumbled across mine and Glyn’s original notes to decide a name for Mostly Comedy. I’m not surprised I still had them, as I’m a natural hoarder. It takes me years to get rid of anything. If it weren't for the obvious hygiene implications, I’d have every piece of toilet paper I’ve ever used, neatly filed away. I say “neatly”; they’d be festering in a bin bag in my garage. (Let’s move away from that train of thought.) It struck me how quickly we'd settled on the name. It only took one side of A5 paper. Mostly Comedy was clearly the best choice; Mad Half Hour Comedy Club sounds like something presented by Pat Sharp. I’d been toying with the word 'Mostly' for a few years. It started life as an adlib at the end of a solo acoustic gig. I'd signed off my set by saying “I’ve been mostly David Ephgrave”. If the show hadn’t been recorded, I would have forgotten the phrase. Mostly David Ephgrave becam...