Music world honours Conchords

Flight Of The Conchords, New Zealand’s self-styled ‘fourth most popular folk parodists’, have won a Grammy award.

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie won the best comedy album accolade at the prestigious music awards for their EP The Distant Future.

It is the first Grammy to be won by a New Zealand act since opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa took a prize in 1984.

The Conchords’ six-track EP was released in the States in August last year. Their first full-length album will be released there in April 22.

The pair, from Wellington, star in a cult HBO comedy, which has been commissioned for a second series, currently on hold until the US writers’ strike is resolved. They were in New Zealand last night, and did not attend the Los Angeles ceremony.

Lisa Lampanelli, George Lopez, Steven Wright and Harry Shearer had also been nominated in the comedy category.

Flight Of The Conchords came to prominence at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe, where they were nominated for the Perrier award. An appearance at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, in 2005 brought them to the attention of American TV executives, and won them the accolade of best alternative comedy act.

Click here to buy the Grammy-winning EP from Amazon.

Published: 11 Feb 2008