As it prepares for its imminent execution at the hands of NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, Sydney’s most useless public transport system (and that’s saying something) was offered a final tribute today by musician Brendan Maclean (triple j) and comedian Dan Ilic (Hungry Beast) who teamed up for a ‘low-rent’ spoof on the classic Simpsons monorail song. To get the scoop, we called up Dan to discuss why monorails are like a brother who’s been in jail for a really long time, Sydney tourist traps and how to coerce Clover Moore into being in your video.
So how’d the shoot go? It’s going pretty well. We’ve got one more shot to go. We’ve been roaming around Darling Harbour all day realising what a glorious beast the monorail actually is. And while we’re making fun of it I can’t help but think that it’s really sad it’s going to go. It’s like saying goodbye to a brother who’s been in jail for a really long time. You know, you love him but he’s not the best member of the family.
Yeah, I get that. You’d go to his funeral but he’s not really part of your day to day life. That’s right. He’s not totally part of my life. I might see him occasionally and think ‘oh yeah, he’s part of my family’ but I’ll never go to his house for Christmas. Maybe I’ve gone over there once to borrow a DVD. But at the same time it’s a little sad that he’s been shivved to stretch that metaphor out.
Have you found that other Sydney residents share that sentiment? Well, the thing is, I think they do, including the Lord Mayor. We actually bumped into her on the street and we coerced her into being in the shoot so that’s pretty exciting. Clover Moore is in our shoot. Having said that, whilst riding the monorail this morning we haven’t met any Sydneysiders. There’s no one here from Sydney. We met people from Scotland, we met people from Jakarta, we met people from Tasmania, from Ireland. Pretty much everyone who was on it wasn’t from Sydney. I think people from Sydney must really enjoy walking from Cockle Bay to Darling Harbour.
Can we call it Sydney’s biggest tourist trap? I think that’s a pretty good title. I mean, it is expensive, I wouldn’t call it too expensive though. I feel really sorry for the British couple who each bought a daily ticket for $9.80, I didn’t want to tell them it doesn’t really go anywhere.
What first sparkred the idea and how do you envisage it will look in the end? I actually have fond memories of the monorail as a kid from when my mum took me on it when I was a wee tacker and I think it’s cool, you know. I do like it, this machine that flies above the city streets. The only problem is that it doesn’t go anywhere useful. It’s kind of sad to see it go. Anyway, Brendan Maclean suggested to me on Twitter that we make a spoof of The Simpsons monorail clip. So I said ‘that’s a great idea, lets make it’. I pulled in Aaron Smith from Hungry Beast because, let’s face it, we’re all unemployed now so we’ve got plenty of time on our hands to make things like this. And the idea was for Brendan and I to roam around the monorail, finding whoever we could find to be in it, and make a clip. So it’ll be a low-rent clip that we made off our own dime for a bit of fun.
So there will be Sydney specific lyrics? Yes, original lyrics to a very similar tune. We’ve got references to Barry O’Farrell, Clover Moore’s in it, references to Tasmania buying it, it’s all in there.
Well Dan thanks so much for your time and we really can’t wait to watch it. I can’t wait to edit it! I’m going to try and edit it this afternoon and it should be on the Sydney Morning Herald website tomorrow.
