Bill Hicks and George Carlin get a musical tribute

(CBS News) We'll be posting up the always-amazing Friday music round-up in just a bit, but before we do I want to kick off the music a little early today in the form a tribute to two legendary comedians: Bill Hicks and George Carlin. You really need to check this one out.


The touching musical remix of two comedians who have personally inspired me a great deal over the years is entitled "Bill Hicks + George Carlin: The Big Electron" and was created by one of our favorite media-made-into-music artists, John D. Boswell (aka melodysheep), who has been featured here on The Feed numerous times in the past, and who writes about his latest:

Two legendary comedians offer their perspectives on life, through song.

Another masterful piece of work by Boswell that has earned him a big triple-rainbow salute of awe from us here at The Feed! If you'd like to check out more by John D. Boswell (aka melodysheep) you can click here to see our past posts of him or click here to go to his YouTube page.

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Comedy gold: Bill Hicks's Relentless (The Guardian)

Leo Benedictus
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 October 2012 12.49 EDT

Early death does wonders for an artist's reputation, it is true, but Hicks was a major talent – raw, angry, sincere, unhappy, weeping and yelling at a complacent world


Exceptionally sincere ... Bill Hicks. Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Features

The setup: While he was alive, nobody, I suspect, had a higher opinion of Bill Hicks than he did. And certainly no other comedian inspires the same devotion among his fans that he still does today. (People actually sit down and transcribe his shows.)

One thing needs knocking on the head immediately. Early death does wonders for an artist's reputation, it is true, but Hicks was a major talent, and the world would still be saying so if the cancer hadn't got him in 1994, when he was just 32. Like the music scene that overlapped his short career, Hicks delivered a kind of grunge comedy: raw, angry, talented, sincere, unhappy, a weeping yell into the face of a complacent world. Nowhere in the recorded shows is he what you could call likable, but neither does he cease to mesmerise.

It's tough to choose one show to recommend, because there's barely a flaw in any of them. Relentless gets the nod for revealing a little more of his personal experience, and a little less of the great preacher-man. Although, that said, One Night Stand and Revelations share much of the same material. "I don't fit in anywhere, that's my problem," Hicks says in this show. "I'm the little dark poet, that's who I am."

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