| Gregg Turkington | |
|---|---|
Turkington as Neil Hamburger in Portland, Oregon |
|
| Born | November 25, 1967 Darwin, Australia |
| Occupation | Comedian/Musician |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
| Spouse | Simone Turkington |
Gregg Turkington (born November 25, 1967, Darwin, Northern Territory) is an Australian-born U.S. comedian, best known for his stand-up comedy character, Neil Hamburger. He has also participated in a number of avant-garde and post punk bands. Turkington founded Amarillo Records.
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Turkington was born in Darwin, Australia, of American parents, and grew up in Tempe, Arizona and San Francisco, California. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his Australian wife, Simone Turkington. He has been a vegetarian for over two decades and supports animal welfare causes.
He rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as the co-publisher of underground zine Breakfast Without Meat, which brought punk respectability to "square" musical artists such as Tiny Tim, Jimmy Webb, the 101 Strings, and Richard Harris through feature articles. A frequent contributor to the zine was Derrick Bostrom of the Meat Puppets.
In the 1980s, Turkington also performed in obscure San Francisco bands such as Hello Kitty On Ice and Bean Church, and was rumoured to have been a founding member of Caroliner.
In the early 1990s, Turkington operated the Amarillo Records label, which released works by many artists from San Francisco’s burgeoning post-punk avant-garde music scene. He was a member of Totem Pole of Losers and the Zip Code Rapists (with John Singer). He collaborated with Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle) in the Three Doctors, Faxed Head, Secret Chiefs 3 and the Bon Larvis Band. Many of these bands appeared on 1996's landmark Amarillo Records compilation CD, You Gan’t Boar Like An Eabla When You Work With Turkrys, along with the likes of Sun City Girls, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, U.S. Saucer, Harvey Sid Fisher, Dieselhed and Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was also a tour manager for both Link Wray and Mr. Bungle. He contributed lead vocals to two tracks by the Secret Chiefs 3 for Sony Japan.
By the late 1990s, Turkington had abandoned Amarillo Records and all of his musical projects and moved to Melbourne, Australia. Since then, he has written the book Warm Voices Rearranged: Anagram Record Reviews with fellow Three Doctors alumnus Brandan Kearney (of World of Pooh, Caroliner, and Archipelago Brewing Co). He was also a contributing editor to the British version of Maxim magazine in 2005 and 2006.
In 2005 and 2006, after 10 years of inactivity, his musical duo Zip Code Rapists began doing sporadic shows again, performing in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Toronto, and Montreal.
Recently, he has done miscellaneous voices for the Cartoon Network animated series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, and for an upcoming episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. A parody screenplay co-written with Tim Heidecker was published in McSweeney's #36 in December, 2010.
Turkington is best known for creating anti-comedian Neil Hamburger. In 1993, Turkington released an album of prank phone calls with several tracks featuring the character, and soon afterwards began developing a full-figured comedian persona. Hamburger's pacing is off, constantly clears his throat, and most of his jokes fail. Neil's unique brand of comedy has thrilled, perplexed and repulsed audiences worldwide. Since 1998, he has released a number of records on the Drag City record label.
In the 2000s, he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Tom Green Live, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and Fox News' Red Eye. He also appeared in the short film Left For Dead In Malaysia, and had a brief cameo in the 2006 film Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. The Neil Hamburger character plays the role of Osric in the 2011 film, Hamlet A.D.D., a live action and animated version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.[1] He was rumored to appear in his Neil Hamburger persona in Greg Mottola's 2011 ensemble comedy film Paul, but in fact, did not.[2]