Minstrel who mocks

Neil Innes has performed at the Hollywood Bowl and has acted in some of the classic film comedies of recent decades. Paul McCartney produced one of his records, and Innes also co-starred in the cult-beloved Beatles spoof “The Rutles.”

His songs for that 1978 NBC mockumentary were ingeniously crafted gems, each one approximating a Fab Four moment while asserting its own identity and charm. In addition, Innes can claim membership in one of British rock’s ‘60s favorites, the Bonzo Dog Band.

It sounds kind of like a career, but that concept seems alien to Innes, who’s in town to play his first L.A. show in nine years.

“It’s just a bit of a fun party on the way to Melbourne,” Innes, 58, says of the performance tonight at the Sixteen-Fifty club in Hollywood. “It’s hardly a serious attempt at establishing a career.

“Who needs all the angst of big promotions and record companies and all that crap?” adds the singer, who’s stopping here en route to the Melbourne Comedy Festival. “I just don’t want it anymore. I don’t want to play to more than 500 people -- 500 people’s too many.

“I’ve been very close to people who have had all this terrible fame and renown,” he says. “It’s really not for me. I’d rather be able to talk to people, my neighbors, or be able to be in a shop and nobody thinks I’m a freak. If that means I only do tiny things here and there, then that’s fine. At least it’s working the way I like it to work.”

One corner of Innes’ Culver City hotel room is occupied by a pile of instruments, props and some retrospective CDs that he’ll sell at his shows. Sitting on the bed and sipping coffee, the black-clad musician bears a resemblance to the middle-aged Picasso -- as befits a former art student.

Art school was the breeding ground for the Bonzo Dog Band, which formed in 1965 to send up the pomposity of the music world. With its madcap stage show and surreal recordings, the group drew the attention of some of rock’s elite.

“The Beatles used to come to gigs,” Innes says. “A lot of bands that were in the god strata used to be dead jealous of the Bonzos ‘cause we could muck about, and they couldn’t. Eric Clapton said, ‘I wish I could do what you were doing.’ ... ‘Cause it’s too much for anybody to take all this idolatry.”

The Beatles featured the Bonzos in “Magical Mystery Tour,” and McCartney produced their recording of Innes’ “I’m the Urban Spaceman,” the group’s only chart success in England.

The Bonzos also appeared regularly on a children’s TV show called “Do Not Adjust Your Set,” written and performed by the team that soon would be better known as Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

That connection has served Innes well. Eric Idle instigated the Rutles, and Innes acted in or provided music for the comedy troupe’s films “Life of Brian” and “Holy Grail,” among other projects. He was the musical component on the memorable stage tour that included the 1982 Hollywood Bowl show.

“He’s a great showman,” says Python mainstay Michael Palin. “As soon as he starts, people just love him. It’s a magic ingredient. He has a kind of slight sweetness and innocence the way he starts his songs. The songs can be quite dark, but he has this feeling of someone who’s searching for the answers, like all of us.... He’s a minstrel really, in the best tradition.”

The music business doesn’t always go easy on modest minstrels with an aversion to the game. Along the way, Innes had to shell out money to defend his Rutles work against the threat of a lawsuit by the Beatles’ publisher. More recently, he was forced to sell his house when a second Rutles album incurred a large debt.

But Innes, whose circuitous solo career currently finds him writing and performing a program for BBC Radio called “Innes Own World,” says he wouldn’t change a note.

“I’ve been extraordinarily lucky,” he says. “Without putting much thought or planning into anything, things have happened, I’ve worked with some terrific people over the years and I couldn’t regret a minute of it.”

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Neil Innes

Where: Sixteen-Fifty, 1650 Schrader Blvd., Hollywood

When: Today, 8 p.m.

Cost: $20 in advance, $25 at door (cash only at box office)

Info: (323) 465-7449.

Where: Lava Lounge, 1533 N. La Brea Ave., L.A.

When: Saturday, 7 p.m.

Cost: Sold out

Info: www.neilinnes.org