People Like Us

created by Zulu One

(thing) by Zulu One (6.6 y) (print) ? I like it! Sun Jun 25 2000 at 13:09:42

This radio (and now as well a TV) show starring Chris Langham as Roy Mallard is a series of spoof documentaries in which Roy Mallard goes around meeting people who do particular jobs (such as an estate agent, a headteacher, and a solicitor). I cannot fully describe how funny this show is- try to find one of the BBC cassettes of the series and listen to it yourself. The comedy is so slick that if you didn't know, it would take you most of the show to realise that it's a spoof. This show shows that British comedy from the BBC is still going strong after all these years.

Chris Langham also writes and co-stars with Caroline Quentin in Kiss Me Kate.

(person) by steev (2.8 y) (print) ? I like it! Sun Jun 10 2001 at 15:46:29

A music/video project of Vicki Bennet, based in the UK. People Like Us has been doing sample-based work since around 1991 and released many CDs of music on the Staalplaat, Soleilmoon, Hot Air, and Audioview labels amongst others.

Noisy, silly and fun, PLU chops up ridiculous cheese and ephemera from British culture and beyond and turns it into a surreal sound collage odyssey. Probably the most well-known PLU CD is "People Like Us Hate People Like You". This was followed by "People Like Us Hate People Like Us", a remix compilation featuring a variety of artists remixing Vicki's work, including Coil, Boyd Rice, Stock, Hausen, and Walkman, Negativland, Farmer's Manual, Dummy Run, and many more luminaries. Most recently PLU has released "A Fist Full of Knuckles", a collection of plundered campfire and western music.

(thing) by Superunknown_GP (5.2 y) (print) ? 1 C! I like it! Sun Oct 07 2001 at 23:19:47

A 2-hour documentary aired on PBS in the United States. People Like Us deals with class in America- what defines class, the difficulty of switching classes, and the relations between the classes, using personal interviews to illustrate the points. To demonstrate, for example, the film takes the viewer to Burlington, Vermont, where a battle between a multi-national supermarket chain and a local food co-op has brought class division to the forefront of that community. The film also touches upon upper- and upper-middle- class people who "slum it"- hang out in "dive bars", wear outrageously lower-class clothing, etc. It also take on a couple of case studies wherein a lower- or middle- class woman is trying to "better" herself, as it were.

Don't expect good cinematography or a lot of polish- this is a non-Burns PBS documentary, and it shows. The music is grating (although the lyrics are certainly appropriate). But for people like me, there's a lot of raw humor. A high school geek has to explain to a ditzy blonde what "sardonic" is- "an S.A.T. word". Another girl at the same high school remarks that the school is not empty on due to the region's lack of nearby cliffs. (See Lemmings)

In my opinion, the film is an excellent exploration of who we are as Americans, and perhaps, who we should become.

(person) by CommunistDaughter (3.1 y) (print) ? I like it! Fri Nov 12 2004 at 5:16:15

Just a quick addition to steev's writeup above:

People Like Us released their entire discography for free download in 2003, and on July 19, 2004 released an online-only album, Abridged Too Far. The accompanying press release states:

We strongly believe in the power of profit through free distribution. Often people have never heard of an artist because they aren't being distributed through as many channels as they should be, due to the very poor state of music/media distribution for non-major label music coupled with ignorance of the way that avant garde art forms infiltrate mainstream culture. Also many prints of a work are allowed to go out of circulation or are deleted for no reason other than cost effectiveness by a label/publisher. This makes perfect sense financially, but no sense whatsoever that a year's work by an artist should also disappear for such reasons. So get all of this while you can, and we completely endorse getting one's work out there, no matter what. If you don't share, your profit is limited.

As well as using ephemera from British culture, People Like Us remix audio and video from the Prelinger archives, and nearly all of their work is licensed under Creative Commons.

All info from the official People Like Us site, http://www.peoplelikeus.org.

printable version
chaos

I'm just realizing, at 20 years of age, that I enjoy classical music	Things Musicals Have Taught Me	Don't call me white	Spies Like Us
damaged goods	Hot Air	British comedy	Patrick Bateman
The Excellent and Most Lamentable Text Adventure of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark	Is Everything 2 making me more or less intelligent?	The movie in her mind	the objective meaninglessness of life
Kiss This	Godspeed You Black Emperor!	Massive Attack	Creative Commons
The Wild Party	April 27, 2006	Thieves Like Us	WFMU
Ariane Mnouchkine	Prelinger Archives	Aaron Tippin	The Bill

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