Serge Gainsbourg

White card stencil. Stanley blade hand cut out and placed over black card.

Frame 54cmx44cm signed and dated.

One piece of card cut with a Stanley Knife, laid onto wooden floorboards to demonstrate

the stencil technique. Image is produced from the same piece of card - connected

by shirt cuff. Image then mounted onto black card. Signed and dated.

SOLD

Shoegazers Reunited

Went to a proper, ‘Hush Hush’ Hush Puppy Warehouse party last night in Kidderminster.

‘Shoegazers Reunited’ were having their annual convention and I thought I should at least show my face (even though nobody else showed theirs, preferring instead to gaze down at their footwear). The Bootleg Slowdive played a wicked set of Catherine Wheel numbers and ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not My Bloody Valentine’ did a stunning unplugged set including, Blue Suede Shoes, My Adidas and A Profound Gas by The Sandals.

I tried making eye contact with the organiser, a Mr. Bata but he seemed quite intent on staring at his size ten Albemarle Brogues from Shipton and Heneage and mumbling something about, ‘Keeping it Real’. In fact no one was looking at anyone else and furthermore where they were going in general.

At least seventy gazers of the shoe all gazing at their shoes whilst swaying theatrically to ‘Destroy The Heart’ by The Bungalow Of Love (another small scale tribute band) were causing bedlam everywhere one looked – well, just where I looked in fact. People carrying pints of Tanglefoot and Dover Sole sandwiches from the bar were crashing into each other at a terrific rate of knots. Fans were missing the entrance to the WC and causing themselves terrible concussion as they smacked into the concrete wall nearby, and the DJ’s needles kept jumping as dancers went up to ask for requests, missing the booth by a few feet (arf), they continually stumbled into his decks by mistake.

It was also chaos outside as traffic ground to a screeching halt in order to miss the seven or so ticket touts wandering aimlessly on the road trying to sell the few remaining tickets for the event whilst staring at their Box Fresh Gazelles. The bouncers were letting anyone in as they had been briefed to get into the spirit of the event and keep their necks at a 90-degree angle. Not an easy task for people who lack the main ingredient for this type of task i.e. a neck.

Zola Budd, who is apparently an avid fan of the scene was jeered and booed and called a ‘freak’ by a rather zealous group outside for turning up in her usual style of undress, and a burger van recieved so many unintentional head buts from famished ‘Gazers’ that the owner had to shut up shop for fear of his hearing.

I made my excuses and left just after half ten as another collection of bruised and battered convention members were brought out by St John’s Ambulance.

Thankfully my taxi driver was listening to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin on the way home and were it not for this slight deviation in ‘scenes’ I might not have been here to tell the tale today.

Fouquet Records. pron. [fuc-et rec-or-ds]

Fouquet Records
pron.[fuc-et rec-or-ds]

Got to give props to this latest record label on the London scene. Today’s mail out reads,
“Welcome to Fouquet Records, named after the Fifteenth Century Master Painter, Jean Fouquet, and inspired by the connotations with Goya Records, we aim to push the envelope firmly out. In his own lifetime Fouquet was very famous, an artist who, when little more than a boy, had painted the King of France, the Pope in Rome and the Queen on the dunny. While clearly not aiming so high so early, we would be quite happy if Camilla and Charles have one of our records played at their Wedding disco by DJ Corgi Pegg."

Fouquet Records intends to be an unfailingly controversial conceptual record label, mixing fine art with music. The four releases so far, (Fqt 1-4), have been met with great enthusiasm and are apparently already showing up on certain on line auction sites for big money.

(1) MC Ice Louis IV - ‘Dung Dung Dung’ a reggaefied cover of Kathleen Ferrier’s ‘Boult The Door’ includes a large piece of elephant dung pressed flat into the central label, an homage to Chris Ofili and Dumbo. (Fqt recs 1)

(2) The Beetles – ‘Three Pints of Shellac and a Packet of Sugar Please’, the skeletons of Moths, Wasps and Earwigs dipped into shellac and frozen under the grooves of this limited seven inch. It sounds like a million spiders breakdancing on sandpaper whilst humming Neophilia (Fqt recs 2)

(3) Pierre-Eugene Marcellin Berthelot – ‘Wham Bang Thank you Maam!’ Berthelot’s Acid Skiffle Version of, ‘I’m Your Man’ by Wham. Berthelot, discovered the many derivatives of coal tar and his syntheses of many fundamental organic compounds helped to destroy the classical division between organic and inorganic compounds. The record explodes when it reaches the run out groove. Which is good because to be honest, it’s not all that! (Fqt recs 3)

(4) DJ Henry Pluckrose Feltch – ‘Hens Teeth’. Super Super rare 12” from this Southside rapper. Thirty teeth from various Texan hencoops are glued to the edge of the disc, thus resembling a circular saw when played. Pluckrose raps, spits and generally mithers about the price of rare records and the dealers who spend their profits on unethical inorganic eggmeat. (Fqt recs 4)”

Morrissey

White card stencil. Stanley blade cut out and placed over black card.

Frame 54cmx44cm

SOLD

Postman Pat Metheny

18 Hixwille Way

Nerina Pallot Close

Clayhill

4AD 3DCD

Mr Papiercut

Customer Services Manager

Royal Mail

765 Gimp Fils Sack Road

London

LOL CYANT

Re: Postal Service Provided

Dear Sir,

On 22^nd of May, I was expecting a parcel to arrive from my son who lives in Australia. I waited until at least 2pm in the afternoon at the address shown above. No parcel arrived. The morning mail used to arrive without fail at 8pm on the dot. I looked out of my front door at around 2.30pm and was flabbergasted with what I saw. A man in a postal workers uniform was sitting up my apple tree and strumming a guitar. This long haired miscreant had the audacity to not only trespass on my property but to play what I can only describe as ‘drug induced’ music with no discernable structure or melody. I approached him and explained who I was and that he was trespassing upon my property and that he should leave immediately. I asked him who he was and he replied, ‘Hi I’m Postman Pat Metheny, chance-taking guitarist and deliverer of letters and parcels’.

It was an incredulous situation. The fact that he was ‘allegedly’ working for your service and yet had no intention of delivering my mail until, in his own words he, ‘managed to like get some chords augmented man’ was a disgrace to the Queen and her Royal Mail. After some altercation and debate he eventually threw me down my parcel but continued playing his ‘mood-jazz music, maaan’ for a further ten minutes before leaving the tree and eventually, my property.

A couple of days later and I’d still not had any post delivered. I looked out of my kitchen window and once again saw ‘Postman Pat Metheny’, this time sitting by my garden water feature strumming his guitar. I approached him and demanded my mail. ‘Oh Maan,’ he replied, ‘I’m really feeling the beautiful ripples, it makes me want to really stretch my musical boundaries but without losing my core audience’.

I told him I didn’t give a stuff about his ‘core audience’ and that I wanted my mail immediately. After what felt like a couple of hours of what can only be described as putrid abstract wibble music, he handed me over all my envelopes and parcels.

The icing on the cake came a few days ago when, without post for another week, I checked outside my window and saw Postman Pat Metheny sitting in my son’s old sandpit and remarking that, ‘it was just like Del Mar’ and that he wanted to ‘capture its sandy essence and the Balearic wonderment by using modal structures and oblique affectations.’ I yelled at him to give me my mail and leave my property immediately. He mumbled something about me being a ‘jazz fascist’ and comparing me to Kenneth Clarke.

I am disappointed because the Postal service you provided was unsatisfactory, because clearly Postman Pat Metheny is incapable of delivering mail without having to write some God awful song beforehand. This is in breach of contract as laid down by the law.

To resolve the problem I require you to get rid of Postman Pat Metheny immediately and reinstate my previous Postman. Postman Pat Nevin.

I look forward to hearing from you and to a resolution of this problem. I will wait for one week before arranging for the matter to be corrected by a third party at your cost or seeking help from my solicitor. Please contact me at the above address or by phone

Yours sincerely

Kenneth Clarke

Cafe Reviews

The Tristram Shandy - John Dalton Street. Manchester

All the men who work here look like brothers with the same facial whiskers. The new grey haired one is especially chirpy with the breeches of a cad and teeth as sharp as a raven’s beak. ‘A pox on your Luncheon Vouchers Sir, A Pox!!’ he is frequently heard to say. Beautiful PVC sash windows and a chipped hobby horse in the children’s area. Trade has been boosted by a new influx of Town Hall clerks slumming it over the daily special – fortified mutton gruel served in a chamber pot of menk.

The Dogs Bollocks – Lace Market. Nottingham

Since the sad demise of the magnificent ‘Tony’s Donkey Meat Emporium Café and Grill’ The Dogs Bollocks has plugged the orifice neatly by serving the finest Doner dog’s bollock’s kebabs this side of Beijing. Random giblet and offal debris strewn around the counter is a healthy sign that the produce is fresh. The proprietor Arthur Grimshaw  has smooth symmetrical hair thanks to years of Brylcream abuse, skin the texture of leatherette and something decidedly ‘of the night’ about him.

The Copper Kettle – Cambridge Gardens Hastings.

The ideal chill-out zone for those wishing to sign on early. Specialises in ‘milky splosh’ (one tea bag – twenty cups – lashings of Lidl semi-skimmed – Demerara = 6p) and mushrooms saturated in five day old pig dripping served on bleached white Aldi bread. Passive smoking is de-rigueur, as is a built up foot, a nervous tic and a general lack of personal hygiene. Ingrid Pitworker, a Swedish expat, now married to Hermann Snowball, a retired Hastings Fisherman, runs the café with an iron hand, an eye patch and a walking stick with a petrified ram’s head on its end. If you haven’t tried Ingrid’s cabbage and turnip omelette, you haven’t lived.

The Iron Lung – Empire Street Digbeth.

It is still open to debate whether Microbiologist Hesten Blowfeld, discovered Polio in his soup in this establishment or not. Critics point out that he was struck off the scientific register several years ago for trying to disprove Darwinian theory by building an Ark in his garden shed chock full of giraffes, pterodactyls, rhinos, brontosauruses, chaffinches, stegosauruses, mere cats, chimpanzees, tyrannosauruses, poodles, bats etc. Andy Mcintit Professor of Thermodynamics and Prostitution Theory at Grimsby Polytechnic wrote: ‘There is no hard evidence for molecules-to-man evolution but it doesn’t alter the fact that this sad twat obviously just wanted a free bowl of soup.’
However the bad press has clearly affected The Iron Lung with serious consequences. Recently they had to let Orlish Thrump go, the sweaty Scot, who’d successfully managed 3 months of cold turkey and two months without dripping on peoples plates. Sadly he’s now back on the brown and shouts at trees in the Bull Ring with random consequences.

A Modern Day Fairy Tale - Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel

Chapter One

Once upon a time there was a poor single mother who lived with her two little daughters in a tower block by the edge of a dual carriageway. In front of the tower block was some derelict scrubland with two large walls upon which grew colourful graffiti. One wall bore the graffiti of the first daughter, Lady Spittle and the other the sprayed daubings of the second daughter, Wobbly Scoundrel.
The two children were alike in that they were both obese, alcopop swilling chavs and always covered in hickys and burger fat but they were quite different in their choice of shellsuit and in their ‘ways’.
One sister, Lady Spittle was fair-haired (peroxide overload) and she was rather quiet and gentle due to her imbibing too much Hydroponic Skunk on a daily basis. In summer she liked to wear, in each ear, five Argos sovereigns which tended to turn the lobes green if left unchecked.
The other sister, Wobbly Scoundrel was dark-haired. She loved to run about and skip and dance – due to her love of speed bombs and ecstasy – and she was always lively with gays. She liked to wear on her head a Burberry baseball cap which she nicked from Oxford Street the last summer.
Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel were devoted to each other like ‘brethren’ and often vowed that they would stay together as long as they lived, even if they both went to prison. They shared everything, even needles and, whenever they went out, they walked along hand in hand, ignoring the cries of, ‘Fakkin’ Lezzers!’
The daughters spent a good deal of their time playing in the nightclubs of London Town. None of the animals in there ever harmed them; they often came close to the girls and bought them Bacardi Breezers in the hope of a leg over later on. The wild South London scallies used to eat chips from their hands, the bouncers grazed their knuckles on pissed punters faces and the stag nights leaped all around them. The other birds in the nightclubs sat on benches nearby and sang their Girls Aloud songs.
If the girls found themselves far from home as night came on, they would even spend the night in the bus shelter. They used to lie down together on a bed of Kate Moss pictures and sleep until morning. No harm ever came to them. Their mother knew that she need have no fear for her children when they were in the bus shelter because she knew a few ‘men’ who looked after their own and loved their Mothers.
Once when Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel had spent the night in the bus shelter, they wakened in the morning to find a beautiful chav in a shining white shell suit sitting beside them. The chav smiled at them and then vanished. ‘Fakkin’ ‘ell maaan, I’m tripping!’, said Lady Spittle. When the girls looked around they found they had been sleeping all night close to a steep embankment. They would have certainly fallen over the edge into the oncoming traffic if they had moved at all.
When they told their mother about this, she said that the chav must have been their guardian angel who watches over the chemically imbibed.

Chapter Two

Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel kept their mother’s tower block flat so stocked with tat and narcotics that it was a pleasure to go into it.
Every morning in summer, Lady Spittle nicked a bunch of fresh flowers from Tescos and arranged them in a vase beside her mother’s crack pipe. Among the flowers there was always a substantial ‘bush’ of green.
Every morning in winter, Wobbly Scoundrel lit the crack pipe and hung her mother over it. The crack pipe was made of copper and Wobbly Scoundrel kept it polished so that it shone like gold.
In the winter evenings when the snow was falling, the mother and her girls gathered round the bong. While the two girls sat spinning up a ‘J’ their mother read aloud to them from a copy of Heat magazine. Beside them on the floor slept a white Rottweiler while a pile of white doves were stacked up nearby.
Suddenly, one evening, as they were sitting quietly by the bong, a loud knock was heard upon the door. ‘Bollocks!’ cried the mother, ‘I hope it’s not the fakkin’ bailiffs! Open the door slowly Lady Spittle with the chain on and don’t forget the mace if necessary.’
Lady Spittle ran and pulled the chain on. Unfortunately the door flew open anyway. Into the room walked, not a bailiff but a big bear of a mans. Lady Spittle ran screaming towards her mother. Wobbly Scoundrel hid behind her mother’s pile of polystyrene take away curry boxes. The Rottweiler began to bark and all the doves fell down from the shelf.
‘I have not come to hurt you,’ said the bear of a mans in a gentle voice. I only want to warm myself up with a few toots of your bong, for I am half frozen.’
‘Poor bear of a mans,’ said the mother. ‘Come and lie down by the bong but take care that you do not burn your fur coat on a blimp.’
Then she called to her children, ‘Wobbly Scoundrel! Lady Spittle! You need not hide, for the bear of a mans will do you no harm.’
So the girls came timidly towards the bong and the Rottweiler drew nearer and they all dropped a dove.
‘Dear children, will you sweep the gak off my fur coat?’ asked the bear of a mans. Then Wobbly Scoundrel and Lady Spittle took it in turns to sweep the gak from the bear of a mans fur coat. By the time they had finished and half of Columbia was on the floor, they had lost all their fear and the bear of a mans had become their playmate.
When bedtime came the mother said, ‘Stay here by the bong all night, gentle bear of a mans and get ripped to the tits.’
In the morning the girls opened the door and the bear of a mans trotted away through the early morning traffic mashed up good style.
In the evening the bear of a mans returned and, when the door was opened, he walked to the bong and lay down as if he had done this all his life. The next evening he came again and every evening afterwards for the whole winter.
The children grew so fond of him that at night the door was never fastened until their big bear of a mans had arrived. Then they used to play together in front of the bong. The children would pull the big bear of a mans leg about his appalling taste in music – James Blunt, Jamie Cullen, Dido – and roll up Camberwell Carrots on his chest. When he growled at them, taking the piss, they laughed and rolled over with him as they couldn’t remain upright due to the amount of bongwater they’d all imbibed.

Chapter Three

The bear of a mans nightly visits continued until the spring, when the forecourts of pub car parks became green  again with imported skunk from Holland and the birds began to sing their summer R + B favourites once more.  Then one morning the bear of a mans said, ‘Laters Potaters, I is out of here dear children, now that spring is here I must leave you ‘cos I’ve gotta’ do one and I shall not return all summer.’
‘Why must you leave us, dear bear of a mans, and where will you go?’ asked Lady Spittle.
‘I must go up East on business, to guard my treasures and ill gotten gains from the wicked trustafarian dwarf tramps,’ replied the bear of a mans. ‘In winter my ‘manor’ is frozen hard and so they spend their time in soup kitchens and Anarcho-squats, but now the sun has melted the ice, my ‘manor’ and my ‘soldiers’ will become soft and the trustafarian dwarf tramps will begin to have a go.
Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel went sadly to unbolt the door for their dear friend.
As the bear of a mans passed through the doorway, a piece of his fur coat caught on the latch. Lady Spittle thought she saw a glimpse of gleaming gold beneath the fur, but she could not be certain about this.
The girls stood in the doorway waving to their friend and thinking how much they would miss him in the evenings. The bear of a mans trotted quickly away shielding his pinned out eyeballs from the sun and was soon hidden by the crack dealers and traffic.

Chapter Four

Some time afterwards, the mother sent her children into ‘the hood’ to shoplift firewood and fags. They came to a large telegraph pole lying on the ground. Something was jumping backwards and forwards over the telegraph pole but at first they could not tell what it was.
As they came nearer, they saw that it was a tiny trustafarian dwarf tramp with an old, withered face and a long shite beard. He had tried to split the wires of the telegraph pole with his flick-knife to get free calls, and his long shite beard had become trapped in the crack he had accidentally made in the pole. He hopped over the pole again and again and tugged furiously at his beard, but could not pull it free.
When the trustafarian dwarf tramp caught sight of Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel, he shouted, ‘You ugly creatures! You rank slags! Why do you stand there staring instead of trying to help me?’
Although the little trustafarian was so rude to them, the sisters still wanted to help him. After all he looked like he had some good shit on him. They tried hard to pull his beard free but it was held firmly in the crack of the telegraph pole.
So Lady Spittle said, ‘I will run home and find someone to help you.’ ‘You stupid slapper!’ screamed the dwarf tramp. ‘What is the use of bringing other stupid knobheads to stare? Can you not do something?’
‘Let me see what I can do,’ said Wobbly Scoundrel. She took her numchucks from her pocket and cut the dwarf’s beard close to the telegraph pole, so that he as freed.
As soon as the trustafarian dwarf tramp found himself free, he picked up a bag of gold sovereign rings which was lying beside the telegraph pole and turned towards the girls. Not a word of thanks did he utter. Instead, all he could mumble was, ‘You wicked evil children! How dare you cut off a piece of my Jah Bless beard. Bad luck on you. I hope you both get bird flu!’

Chapter Five

Another day, some time later, Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel went fishing by the banks of the derelict canal. In the distance they saw a queer little figure hopping up and down as if it were about to jump into the canal. They ran forward and found that it was the trustafarian dwarf tramp again.
‘What are you trying to do?’ asked Wobbly Scoundrel. ‘Surely you don’t want to jump into the water?’
‘I am not such a fool, and don’t call me Shirley,’ screamed the trustafarian dwarf tramp. ‘Can’t you see that this huge shopping trolley is dragging me into the canal?’
When the sisters looked more closely they could see that the little trustafarian dwarf tramp had hooked a large Tescos trolley on the end of his fishing line. Unfortunately, at the same time his rank beard had become entangled with the line.
Every time the trolley jerked in the canal’s current, the trustafarian dwarf tramp was dragged nearer to the filthy water’s edge. He was clutching at the rusty mooring rings at the banks of the canal, but the trolley was too strong for him. He was being pulled nearer and nearer to the filthy rank canal water.
The sisters quickly grasped the trustafarian dwarf tramp and hung on to him with all their strength. But, try as they might, they could not disentangle his rank beard from the fishing line.
At last, Lady Spittle took out her scissors and cut off more than half his rank beard. Although the dwarf tramp knew that she had done this to save his life, he flew into a terrible rage.
‘How dare you disfigure me in this way you dozy mare?’ he screamed. ‘First you cut off the end of my Jah Bless beard and now you cut off half of it. How can I let people see me in the Anarcho-squat when I look such a fright?’ I hope you have to run until you have no soles left on your shoes! I hope you have to unintentionally snort brick dust and rat poison until you have no septum left!’
Then he picked up a bag of pearl necklaces which he had hidden among the discarded mattresses, swung it over his shoulder, and disappeared.

Chapter Six

Some time afterwards, Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel were sent to town by their mother, to shoplift clean needles and some new threads. Their road led them to a bare stretch of common land strewn with bin bags. There they noticed a large mottled pigeon hovering over a certain spot. Suddenly the scabby bird pounced down and the children heard pitiful cries.
They rushed forward and saw with horror that the huge mutant pigeon had the trustafarian dwarf tramp in his stumpy talons and was about to carry him off. Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel caught hold of the dwarf’s parka coat and hung on with all their might. They pulled so hard that at last the mutant pigeon dropped the trustafarian dwarf tramp and flew away to shit on tourists.
As soon as the trustafatrian dwarf tramp had recovered from his fright, he turned to the sisters. ‘You clumsy blood claaats!’ he raged. ‘What do you mean by handling me so roughly? You have nearly torn my new coat off my back. Could you not have handled me more carefully?’
Then he picked up a sack of pirate DVDs and disappeared behind one of the large bin bags.
Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel were by now used to his rudeness, and not in the rasta ‘rude boy’ way, that they did not expect thanks for their help. They went on their way into town, where they shoplifted the needles and new threads for their mother.

Chapter Seven

On their way home in the evening, they came across the trustafarian dwarf tramp once more, in the same place. He was kneeling on the ground, gazing at all his sovereign rings, DVDs and assorted pikey tat which was spread around him. The pikey tat sparkled and gleamed with such chaviness that the children thought they had never seen anything so beautiful. They could not help but stop and stare due to their lack of taste.
Suddenly the trustafarian dwarf tramp looked up. ‘What are you standing there gaping at you pair of mingers?’ he yelled and his face grew bright red with anger.
At that moment a terrible growl was heard and a big bear of a mans came shuffling out of a housing estate towards them.
The trustafarian dwarf tramp sprang to his feet, terrified. His angry, red face became white with fear. Before the dwarf tramp had time to escape, the bear of a mans was beside him.
Then the trustafarian dwarf tramp, in a shaky voice, pleaded, ‘Dear Mr Bear of a mans, please spare my life-I beg of you. I am so small; I would only be a fistful for you to beat. If indeed that’s what you intend to do. Or batter the shit out of me? I don’t know. If you are hungry for a fight why don’t you beat these two wicked girls? And I don’t mean ‘wicked’ in the bad meaning good terminology either. They are a couple of fat knackers and would be easy to beat in a scrap. If you will spare me, I will give you all my pikey tat.

Chapter Eight

But the bear of a mans paid no attention to the rank little trustafarian dwarf tramp. He just lifted his huge paw of a fist and with a single blow the dwarf tramp lay dead on the ground.
The girls were running off in fright, when the bear of a mans called after them, ‘Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel, don’t be afraid. Don’t you know me?’ The girls recognised, with delight, the voice of their dear friend. They turned and ran towards him as he came trotting to meet them.
As they met, his fur coat fell from him and instead of a shaggy bear of a mans, there stood before them a handsome young East End drug baron, dressed in a shellsuit of gold.

Chapter Nine

‘I am an underworld crimelord’s son’ he said. ‘That wanker dwarf robbed me of all my pikey tat and put a spell on me so that I was changed into a bear of a mans. Ever since then I have wandered the highways and byways of Lahndahn taahn, watching for a chance to kill the smelly little twat. Not until he was dead could the spell be lifted from me. Now I am free and he has received his just punishment.’
Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel were overjoyed when they heard the underworld crimelord son’s tale, as was their mother when the handsome young East End drug baron went home with them for tea, muffins and a toot on their crack pipe.

Chapter Ten

A few years afterwards, Lady Spittle married the handsome young East End drug baron and Wobbly Scoundrel married his brother an extortion racketeer from Staines. The two criminals shared the pikey tat which the trustafarian dwarf tramp had hidden for so long.
They all lived happily together in a large tasteless mock-Tudor mansion in deepest Essex. The mother of Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel went to live with them too. She spent most of her time being a ‘mule’ for the two brothers, bringing illicit narcotics into the country via Amsterdam inside prophylactics which she swallowed whilst ripped to the tits on horse tranquilizers.
In the garden of the tasteless mock-Tudor mansion, below the mother’s window, were planted some hydroponic skunk bushes which she tended on a daily basis. Every summer the nearby walls of the mock-Tudor mansion bore the most colourful graffiti tags of Lady Spittle and Wobbly Scoundrel.
And they all lived happily caned ever after.

The End 

Flyer Archive #4 The Secret Garden

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy – ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy was one of England’s purest and most beloved psychedelic band. – ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’ is one of the holy grails of acid/psychedelia due to all but one copy being destroyed in a mysterious shed fire. Prior to their ventures into psychedelia, The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy had been known as ‘Colin’s Optical Cushion’ and then ‘The Smoking Slippers’.

These groups played a rather ordinary brand of British pop and R+B. The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy debuted in 1967 with their fabulous ‘The Weird Stone of Zesty Kaboom’ LP. This disc featured featured some of the finest psychedelia England had produced up to that point.

More than half the album is fleshed out with lost classics; check out trippy tracks such as ‘Lord Kitchener’s Magnetic Testicles’, ‘Dr Snape: Tincture Woman’, ‘Quaff, Grope and Oneism’, ‘Spy Monkeys and Optical Jazz Poems’, ‘Pungent Monocle’, ‘Schlong Robots Vs. The Penny Farthings’, and the wonderful ‘Opium Erosion on the Clockwork Planet of Tick’.

Many of these tracks are on a par with the best of ‘The Satin Gown of John Merrick’.

The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy was making imaginative music featuring plenty of interesting bird noises, surreal drums and asymmetrical studio shreds. Much of the rest of ‘Weird Stone of Zesty Kaboom’ is superb too, but sales and critical recognition stiffed due to the transgender adventures of the lead singer Kyp Tannahill.

‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’, came out sometime later in 1969. While it may lack some of the key album cuts that made ‘Weird Stone’ so special,  ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’ is consistently strong and features influences as diverse as acid skiffle and banjo cosmic. Some of the highlights include, ‘The League of Moustraps’ a pastoral folk dazzle similar to ‘Pungent Monocle’, the queasy blissed out horror of ‘Count Orlok Vampire of East Mud Dock’ and the bipolar acid drenched title cut. Sand blast numbers ‘Mole Whisperer’ and ‘The Cosmic Cricket Pavilion of Rajasthan’ represent The Wobbly Psychedelic Beetroot Chariot of Alchemy’s new psyche approach while still retaining the group’s subtle edge – these cuts are both peacock feathers in the rump of the opium tsar.

Some songs’ lyrics like that on the tuneful cosmic country soul ‘Comanche, Carrot Juice and Me’ deal with the morality of Peter Pan, General Custer and Snapdragons. The music on ‘Orange Lily, Chrysanthemum, Marigold, Rosemary and Nasturtium Skies of Oedipus’ is an immaculate amalgam of goosebump inducing traction and highly crafted atmospheric jam smiles. Uncomfortable to niche, this record is not to be missed!

A Beginner's Guide To Old School Hip Hop (part 2)

A Beginner’s Guide to Old School Hip Hop (Part Two)

1.) Uncle Marmalade Jamrock, the Michael Faraday of Big Rig sound systems, would throw parties in LA’s disused rock quarries for retired Dr Who villains on a weekly basis. Cyberman Ice T visited these parties regularly and became inspired by the whole scene. Originally a Saluki breeder from Ormskirk he settled in LA when the archaeological dig he was attending had to disband early because the leader discovered an Ornithischian’s skull at the foot of his bed and fled in terror. Archaeological Mob symbols come laded with Cretaceous Mafioso smiles.
Cyberman Ice T was also inspired by poet turned organic gardener-pimp, Iceberg Lettuce Slim. ILS had several hoes which he would use to cultivate his organic cabbage patch and potato crops. It was here, on work experience, that Cyberman Ice T learnt how to deal with hoes and (his gardening) breeches and where he eventually developed his cabbage patch ‘gangsta’ persona.
Unfortunately one day a rival crew broke into his organic crib and, showing no mercy, savagely and barbarically sawed through the branches of all his trees in the apple orchard. Cyberman Ice T responded with the tune, ‘Coppice Killer’.

2.) Dr ‘no-use-in-a-real-life-medical-emergency’ Dre, a construction site worker from LA’s Lower Upper West End East Side never drank milk as a child. Instead he gravitated immediately onto Rusks laced with Chronic. Sometimes referred to as ‘Crusks’ or ‘Da Ronic’, he would nibble on them whilst making Mini Slim Shadys out of his yellow Lego bricks. ‘Would anyone with enough ‘twoers’ for the real Slim Shady’s head please stand up?’
One afternoon whilst on the construction site he hooked up with ‘The Wrecking Ball Crane Driver Crew’ Easy E and Ice Cube. Together they made, ‘Boyz N the Hoodie’, a Blaxploitation theatrical version of Bugsy Malone based in Merthyr Tydfil. Unwittingly, Juvenile-ASBO-Gangsta-Custard-Pie-Splat-Hop was born.

3.) NWA – named after the members of the band, Nigel, Wilberforce and Arthur – produced ‘Straight out of Trumpton’ as a savage indictment of the riots happening down Chigley way. Capt. Snort, Mrs. Honeyman and the Chigley Skins all feature prominently. A savage lyrical blast furnace of anger -
‘Straight Out Of Trumpton,
A crazy MotherF***** named Windy Miller’

4.) A commune of Hebridean Ornithologists was shocked to hear of such a ‘Gangsta’ mentality coming out of their wind-up Argos radio, that they decided to act. The mellow hippies decided to forgo their free and easy lifestyle, living in 500ft high rock nests with puffins, guillemots, storm pestrels and peregrine falcons and move to America and bring, ‘like a consciousness element to Hip Hop’. De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and The Jungle Brothers were all part of the Native Larks Tongue in Aspic Posse. They would stand defiantly in front of Gangstas on the streets of LA and place daisies into the barrels of their Glocks whilst humming Steely Dan tunes.

5.) Gang Starr and Brand Nubian were originally all puppets on Sesame Street. Gang Starr were the two eccentric English refuse collectors, Sparco and Dassler who had a penchant for eating cravats and drinking Toilet Duck (Jim Henson’s Creative Workshop clearly suffering a momentary lapse of reason at the time) and shouting, ‘RUBBISH BLEACH!’ in a Dorset accent to great comic effect. Brand Nubian were three Death Metal Emos who would play Venom and Slayer behind the Snuffaluffagus on their beat-box and terrify the placid beast to great comic effect.

6.) DJ Matted Cack and MC Fetid Matter both met at the 15th Annual Scary Grimmace Competition in LA. They both drew for first prize, a DVD of Marathon Man and a tin of Tate and Lyle and got on like a house on fire. They formed a band called ‘Muck Splatter’ a ‘Straight Edge’ Hardcore Band and released an album called, ‘No Thanks, No W****’, which sold five copies, all to Henry Rollins. One day whilst working in the studio they discovered some ‘Crusks’, accidentally left by Dr ‘no-use-in-a-real-life-medical-emergency’ Dre and they ate them. Hey Presto! Cypress Hill was born.

7.) Snoop Doggy Dog, a man with possibly the most ridiculous name in Hip Hop since, MC Twat Face Bucket Pig, was born in an orphanage for stray cats. So ashamed of his feline background was he that he would constantly make dog noises on record in an attempt to throw people of the scent of the real truth. Facially reminiscent of the Great Dane in that ‘Dogs Playing Snooker’ painting, he has been clearly successful in adopting the persona of a dog in general. So much so that his backstage rider consists of, 10 tins of Pedigree Chum, a ‘squeaky’ bone, a vial of Frontline, a shredded tennis ball, a bowl of tap water with ‘Snoop’ etched into the porcelain and a petrified pig’s ear. All supplied by Neil Tennant.

8.) Two Live Crew ran a Thai Bride Agency from the back of their uncle’s uptown burger Van. At one point it was so successful that they found themselves catering to the whole of LA’s business and military community. A new internet game appeared, developed in their honor. The ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ involved people working out through ‘six chain links’ how they were related to a Bangkok Lady Boy. In LA it usually took just one ‘link’.

9.) Puffy Fetlock’s Hip Hop Chip Shop has been well documented in the hallowed pages of Jazzrig before but it is a little known fact that Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, the original backers for the Chip Shop in question made their money/doubloons working/robbing alongside Ben Rubin Gunn ‘back in ye olde day’. The chief cook at the Chip Shop, ‘The Notorious Deep Fried Mars Bar’ went on to harden the arteries of Hip-Hop for many subsequent years.

10.) And so it came to pass that Gandalf the Wu Wizard decreed a new school should be built. The Old School he argued had served its purpose. He summoned his Seven Wu Dwarfs and a wrap of ‘Snow White’ to help him out. Over the next five years they found a suitable site, assembled a governing body, purchased equipment and hired the teaching staff. 100 students were put on roll and the new school opened to a fanfare of leftfield beats and ‘nuff lyrical spitting. All was going fine until Old Dirty Bastard OFSTED shut them down for not complying with Government decree/dictat. Hip Hop went South and a new chapter began.

A Beginner's Guide To Old School Hip Hop (part 1)

A Beginner’s Guide to Old School Hip Hop (Part 1)

1. In 1873 Bumptious Jamaican ex-pat Kool DJ Herc landed on Planet Rock in his propane propelled Tobago Toboggan. He took up a job as a lab assistant at Playahood ‘dropping’ Science Industries, where he began mixing samples in a Petri dish, ‘just for the craic’. One night he was working overtime – saving up enough money to Pimp up his Toboggan – when he accidentally mixed up the juice of a Kangol with some toast crumbs (Croutons), with essence of South Bronx Pork Scratchings and Hey Presto! Hip Hop was born.
Herc’s part time job as a boating lake janitor also afforded him the opportunity of shouting at people in a rather melodic yet melancholic officious type way.
‘Come in number six, your time’s up’, ‘Stop twatting that duck with your oar you Mother F*&*£$%^!’, ‘Oh it’s not number six, number nine’s in trouble’ and ‘ Yo! Mother^%%$ **%£ %”£%* *”Y%%* $&^ in my boating lake!’ were some of his favorites.
One spring day he took his little Hip Hop Petri dish to the boating lake for a special treat, affixed a small sail and floated it off over the lake. He began shouting at it just for old time’s sake, and Hey Presto! MCing was invented as well.

2. Afrika Bambaataa, another lab assistant at Playahood ‘dropping’ Science Industries sneaked into Herc’s lab one night and found the Petri dish. He smoked its essence in a Lucozade Bong Bottle and experienced several visions. One such vision told him he should dress like Michael Caine in the film Zulu, but he soon realized that that vision was taking the Pith. Another vision suggested he should amass a vast ‘eclectic’ record collection which he immediately did by purchasing copies of ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’, ‘Long Haired Lover From Liverpool’ and ‘Hot As A Dockers Armpit’ by Budgie.
The eccentricity of his break choices within his eclectic sets brought nothing but derision from purists everywhere, but he remained unperturbed. Mixing Cliff’s ‘Summer Holiday into ‘Tonight Long Stick Goes Boom’ by Krokus he irked the purists everywhere and unwittingly invented ‘Big Beat’, for which he is still very sorry and all that.

3. The Littlest Grand Wizard Theodore used to catch bats in caves tunneled for Japanese landing barges during the Second World War. The ‘scritchy scratchy’ noises they used to make once firmly ensconced within his Wizard Bat Satchel would, on occasion, move him to tears. So much so that he decided to emulate their sounds on record by moving the vinyl back and forth under the stylus just before his mother called him down for dinner. A dinner consisting of Batty de Foi Gras, Bat Aloo, and Arctic Bat with sprinkles.

4. Sylvia Robinson, a vagabond proselytizer, who by day wrote gloriously pithy depression-era poverty skits for cruise ships and at night ran a record label called ‘Sugar Hillock’ was another important cog in the development of Hip Hop. Cashing in all her cruise ship tokens she released, ‘Rapper’s Angel Delight’, which although not the first Hip Hop tune, definitely put Old School Pudding Hop firmly on the map. So much so that MC Spotted Dick and DJ Rhubarb Crumble started a beef with Sugar Hillock and a drive-by shouting ensued. Grand Master Flash, a gold painted midget fire eater from Kansas became the first gold painted midget fire eater from Kansas to rap on John Craven’s Newsround.

5. A group from Jamaica Queens, consisting of Jamaica Queens (Rastafarian Elton John fans) attempted to capture the Hip Hop sound as it was played at the original parties on vinyl but failed miserably. Their 12”, ‘Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Afghan Leb’ sank without a trace. It was down to Warehouse Shoelace clearance men Run DMC to finally capture the sound successfully with their tune, ‘Walk Like An Egyptian In Shell Toes’.

6. Spooky bearded hermit type man, Ben Rubin Gunn left his Kosher Labyrinthine cave on Long Treasure Island and joined forces with Jazzy Jpeg Leg. Together they formed Jolly Def Roger Jam Records and took over the pirate airwaves everywhere. LL Blue Cool Beard’s, ‘I Need a Doubloon Exchange’, was their first release, putting both Hip Hop and Pirate Finance firmly on the ‘treasure’ map. Jazzy Jpeg Leg, appeared on Rolf Harris’ Cartoon time where he showed off little digital pictures on his wooden stump.

7. One day Ben Rubin Gunn was passing a pet shop when he saw three squawking whining beasts in the window. He purchased them as a job lot and offered them a recording contract on the spot. The Beastie Parrots were born. ‘No Sleep ‘til Millet’, ‘My Perch (She’s On It)’ and ‘You Gotta Fight for Your Rights to Have Kelp In Your Cage’. were just three of their huge hits. They toured England and gained notoriety for laughing at budgies, stealing mirrors from purses and having an inflatable Cockatoo on stage.

8. Marley Marl’s Cold Chillin’ Ice Cream Factory incorporated such artists as, Kool Lolly G Rap, Masta Choc Ice, Roxanne Mint Cornetto, Biz Lolly, and Mark the 99 King. Eric B and Rakim, two ice cream van drivers for Mr Whippy were also touched by the Cold Chillin’ Ice Cream magic, when they released, ‘The Coconut Magnum Fiend’.

9. KRS-One (aka the Krispy Ruffled Solicitor) met Scott La Pebble at a soup kitchen where Pebble worked as chief soup maker upper. They both began making soup together as Boogie Down Broth Promotions. Classics included, ‘South Bronx Gazpacho’ and ‘The Crouton Is Over’ – an assertion that little fried bread cubes were the spiritual symbol of Hip Hop dating back to Kool Herc’s Petri Dish. Ironic that the croutons were crumbling and Hip Hop was dispersing all over the country by now.

10. Dim but lovable dentist’s nightmare Flavor Flavanoid, was discovered in a watchmakers shop trapped within the confines of a Cuckoo Clock by kindly Campanologist Chuck D. Released on parole by Chuck, they formed a group. Flav suffered recurring nightmares from the cuckoo clock experience and would ask for the time almost every minute of every hour. The original name of the group was ‘Amphibian Sedation Watchmaker’ but this was later changed to PE in honor of Chuck’s PE teacher a Miss Spindle ‘chips’ Triticale.

Flyer Archive #3

Fantastic review of the Prague gig by Picko-d on Brownswood here - http://www.brownswood.co.uk/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/566/picko_ds-guest-monday-post/p1

The Calls Of Twigs And Bog Moss

Field recording seems a dark magus art to many sound designers and composers, yet it is one way to create rich libraries of original material. Put simply, field recording is the process of capturing sounds from the real world, for future use in analysis, archiving, sound design, folly, or composition work. The process of recording these sounds can range from simple to covert to extremely complex. ‘Sounds from the Forest- The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss’ is perhaps the holy grail of field recordings eluding record collectors for over 40 years. Now Zygote Records make the impossible possible with this strictly limited repress of 500.

The wonderfully captured sounds of twigs and bog moss are clearly a spontaneous response to the landscape and habitats they dwell in.

Bryophytes in bogs and mountain forests form a thick carpet, reducing erosion. In forest ecosystems they act like a sponge retaining and slowly releasing water. They provide habitat for other plants as well as microorganisms like N2-fixing blue-green bacteria. 

These evocative recordings range richly from Bog Moss with a dominant Gametophyte to twigs with or without a midrib Thallose liverwort to Liverwort leaf cells with numerous chloroplasts. In some sound passages containing Bryophytes , male and female are borne on separate gametophytes and in other parts of the recordings we get zygotes developing within the archegonium.

A wonderful curio which thanks to Zygote Records is well worth picking up.

Tracklisting –

Side A

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part One: VegetiveTwigs, Fruiting Spurs, Abscission.

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Two: Peristone Spores, Male Gametophyte, Calyptra.

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Three: Bud Scale Scars, Fruiting Spurs, Young Sporophyte

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Four: Sporangium, Female Gametophyte, Sporgenous Tissue

Side B


The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Five: Archegonium, Operculum, Vegetive Twigs

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Six: Sporopollenin Spores, Filamentous Rhizoids

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Seven: Mass Antherozoid, Biodisc Photomicrograph, Prostrate Xylemphloem Spor

Open Decks

‘My Aunt will be down presently, Mr Krunk,’ said a very self-possessed 16 year old B-Boy, ‘in the meantime you can chill here with me baby boy.’

Frampton Krunk endeavoured to offer the correct slang term in reply, thus flattering the B-Boy’s colloquialisms but only managed, ‘Ok’ and ‘Yo’. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits to the Bronx Ghetto, or Planet Rock on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure he was undergoing for his fear of Hip-hop.

‘I know how it will be,’ his sister had said, ‘you will bury yourself beneath the Strokes engine rock and your nerves will be worse than ever from mopeds. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know from my Avon round and hopefully you’ll gradually overcome your fear.’
‘Do you know many people in the hood?’ asked the B-Boy.
‘Hardly a soul’, said Krunk, my sister used to deliver Avon Wu Wear to the good folks round here and she gave me the letters of introduction.’
‘Then you know practically nothing about my aunt then?’ pursued the self-possessed B-boy.
‘Only that she lives here in the Bronx.’ An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation not least from the two empty Technics decks in the corner, wide open and glowing red from the lights.

‘Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,’ said the B- boy; ‘that would be since your sister’s time.’
‘Her tragedy?’ asked Frampton, already fearing a hip-hop related ‘beef’ which had turned out for the worst.

‘You may wonder why we keep those decks open, with the lights on, all day what with no one around using them,’ said the boy, indicating the two Technics 1210s and a mixer in the corner.
‘It does seem strange,’ said Frampton; but have the decks got anything to do with the tragedy?’
‘Off from those decks, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the basketball court to their favourite vantage point they were all three engulfed in a treacherous ‘beef’. It had been that dreadful hot summer, you know, and places that had been safe in other years gave way. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.’ Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. ‘Poor Aunt always thinks they will come back some day, and walk up to those open decks and cut up good in a hip hop stylee just as they used to. Poor dear aunt she has often told me how they went out, her husband forgetting his bulletproof coat, and MC Ron, her youngest brother rapping ‘Straight Outta Compton’. As he always did to tease her because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know sometimes on still quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that door.

He broke off with a little shuder. It was a relief to Frampton when the aunt bustled in with a whirl of apologies for being late.
‘I hope Vincent has been amusing you?’ she said.
‘He has been very interesting,’ said Frampton.
I hope you don’t mind the open decks,’ said Mrs Sappleton briskly; my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting; and they always go for a mix-up fix up before dinner. They’ve been out for a ‘beef’ in the Ghetto today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?’ She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of peace in the ghetto. To Frampton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate effort to turn the talk onto a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open decks. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid a visit on this tragic anniversary.

‘The critics agree that the new Strokes record is a masterpiece, a sonic cathedral of fuzzy guitar heaven and it has caused me much mental excitement each time I have listened to it. Have you heard it?’ asked Frampton.
‘No!’ said Mrs Sappleton in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention – but not to what Frampton was saying.
‘Here they are at last!’ she cried. ‘Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were bloody up to the eyes!’

Frampton shivered slightly and turned towards the B-Boy with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring at the open decks with dazed horror in his eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Frampton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures walked through the door and assembled next to the open decks, they all carried Glocks under their arms and one of them was rapping, ‘Straight outta Compton, ******, ****** named Ice Cube, ******* ******* Attitude ******’

Frampton Krunk grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the door, the tenement staircase, the basketball court were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat.

‘Yo, yo, me and my crew is back ho. Like, who was that ridiculous homie who left like a dirty dog?’
‘A most extraordinary man, a Mr Krunk,’ said Mrs Sappleton, ‘could only talk about The Strokes and dashed off, without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.’

‘Probably your baseball cap!’ said the B-Boy calmly; he told me he had a horror of baseball caps. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs all wearing baseball caps, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve’.

Romance at short notice was his speciality!

(With apologies to Saki)

Jack In The Green

“Peck? PECK!?! Peck, is a lightweight sir! He is balsa wood!” shrieks the Morris Dancer to one of his companions who'd all just gathered by the medieval sandal repair stall. Each swaying like Hogwoort in the breeze, clearly copious amounts of old Beltchfungus had been consumed throughout the morning and the conversation was becoming heated.

“Enough, Leopold, you old curmudgeon, it’s your round anyway, so quell your linseed boots and get to the bar. Four pints of Beltchfungus Ale and a Lager top for Wortley.”
“Lager Top? LAGER TOP?!! Lager top is the liquor for boys! A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk sir! Ale! Ale! ALE sir, in my tankard discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage and bashfulness for confidence. Ale sir!”

“But what of the bar Leopold and our ales? What of them?”
“The bar? The bar? Worth seeing, but not worth going to see sir! In fact, feast your eyes over yonder and hark The Kent Mad Peeps Morris Men with their gimlety eyes and their MDF cudgels. Let’s go and teach them a thing or two about bell maintenance. I’ve heard tales that those knaves now dance to Kaiser Chiefs! Damn them and their intricate XTC inspired floorshow. Damn them to Colchester!”
Welcome to Jack In The Green. A reverential celebration of the coming of summer and an observation of the traditional fertility rites of pre-Christian Britain or just an excuse for a load of pagans to get battered? Hmmm?

A man with a green metal tree bolted into his nostril – not too dissimilar to those air fresheners that hang in cars – staggers around swabbing innocent bystanders with a mixture of green paint and ale (ALE Sir!) soaked in a sponge. People run in terror from the sponge and the wasps. Pallid Goth children with pentagram satchels hobble about on comedy Dave Hill platforms whilst trying to carry off the air of a borough surveyor. Failing miserably. Or should that be failing cheerfully?
A Wagnarian Geoff-Capes-a-like with a dead stag complete with antlers on his head bellows at a pack of timid Japanese tourists perched up on the castle battlements,
“OI GET OFF THE WALL!! GET OFF THE ‘FIRCONE’ WAAAAALLL!!!”
They politely wave back, assuming it to be a greeting of, “Hello and welcome to our quaint little festival, please do try one of the Quail vol-a-vents before you go. Most delicious”

A day when Jesters, harlequins, medieval lepers, the lowliest of cow herders, and hell, even Marillion fans can feel special and wanted. All crawl out of their haemorrhagic bedsits and join in the dance. Nice middle-class families picnic in amongst the marauding Mongol warlords, the dead seamen, the mummers and the pappers, the drummers, frightful bearded Mad Jacks, pixies, wikkas, goblins, orcs, welks, flagellants and stilted doomlords. There are more beards per square meter than at a Greek Easy Fisherman convention in Stellios and yes, that includes the women as well.

Down below the castle battlements it’s a completely different story. It’s the Isle Of Man TT meets Monsters Of Rock, with thousands upon thousands of motor bikes descending on the town in a plume of acrid black ozone bashing carbon. The old Mod and Rocker days are clearly over because I see not a single Lambretta, only row upon row of parked up Suzukis, Nortons, Harleys, Kawasakis, Hondas, Ducatis and Gileras. They thunder through the town preventing any possibility of pedestrian road crossing at all.

This total domination of the greasy biker over the sharp dressed Mod depressed me so much so that I decided to act. I photocopy a life size photograph of Quadrophenia era Phil Daniel’s face and sellotape it underneath my pork pie hat. I purchase a pair of grey shoes from Hush Puppies in honor of the ace face Sting (???). I ‘borrow’ a child’s pushbike and weld two hairdryers to either side of the chassis. I smash up a mirror ball and superglue the pieces to a bit of chicken wire before welding the whole structure to the handlebars. Finally I purchase a green souwester from Millets and spray a stick of candyfloss brown and attach it to my Ariel.

I’m ready! I spin into town and park up outside The Carlisle, the renown and notorious greasy biker’s pub on the sea front. I sit for a moment collecting my thoughts and then at the top of my lungs I shout, “Oi you bunch of unwashed Neanderthals, Margate was only just the beginning! We Are The Mods! We Are The Mods!”

A huge Biker orc walks over to me and grabs my souwester.
“Oi, don’t touch the cloth, moth” I say defiantly.

He looks at me and then beckons his mates over with a claw (He was eating crabs: probably the night before as well!?) In a split second I’m on my Lambretta-wish-it-was and off down the sea front. It doesn’t take long before the bunch of inbreds have saddled up and are after me at speed. I make out at least thirty of them in my rear view mirror disco ball. I peddle even faster. A jazz fan waves at me, “Go on son! Just like in the old days!”

They are almost approaching me so I take a detour. ‘Welcome to Eastbourne’ the sign reads. We continue for a few more miles until I’m exhausted and they’ve nearly caught me. I’m thinking it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Then I see it.

I peddle for all my life my squirrel-tail-candy-floss-type-thing swaying maniacally on the end of my Ariel. “Welcome To Beachy Head. For Samaritans See Yellow Pages (Super Samaritans - X Directory)” reads the sign. We are neck and neck. One of the biker orcs reaches out. He grabs at me. Just at the last minute I swerve to the left. The bikers thunder past me and into oblivion. Like unwashed lemmings they tip over the edge of the vast cliff one by one. Thankfully the tide is high and I’m moving on, I want to be your ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You. They angrily shake their fists at me from the water.

“We Are The Mods” I reply and eat my pork pie hat.

The Collosal Ziggurats

Monster tune alert!  12’’ of the month


The Collosal Ziggurats are a twisted triumvirate of situationist-inspired Acid House heads. A kind of Two Plone Swordsmen meets 3 in a Room, with 808 Heptaphlebium flourishes. Their super-limited first 12’’   ‘Shotgun Frog Fuzz’ is out now on Madrid’s Über cool ‘Los Treaclos’ record label.


The Collosal Ziggurats are at the forefront of that new genre, ‘Mutant Balearic’, which has been creating a buzz in all the right Korova milk bars. Certainly traces within this new Shotgun Frog Fuzz 12’’ features vocalist and guitarist Rodriguez Butterworth, who previously played in the Ibiza post-rave band ‘Courvoisier Punch’ a band that stretches atmospheric elevator compositions beyond the 10-minute mark with the help of Theremin and zither. You don’t get that here but what you do get is a swaggering conchae groove of overwhelming beauty.


The last days of Disco’s gorgeously terrifying snarls and the sexy lupine howl of boogie blended together in Smokey Robinson’s love Jacuzzi with a peppering of post-reunification German plink-plonk. Slinky, but never slick, a paean to raving and an infectious enthusiasm to stone washed jeans and the tanning salons of Cala Bona, The Collosal Ziggurats have surely ‘mutated Balearic’ as far as it can go and back again to see how far it is.

Finding Emo

I found a wounded Emo on my way home from the pub last week. It was lying on the pavement just outside a Kohl bunker, motionless and looked to be in a very bad way. Kneeling down I checked under its Romulan fringe and discovered to my shock that its eyes were filled with blood, like globules of beetroot juice, and upon further investigation at least two of its kindling thin limbs were fractured.  I couldn’t take it to the vets because they were all closed so I decided to take it home instead.

 Picking up the spindly little creature in my arms I was surprised how light it actually was; as light as a feather cut in fact. Who could have inflicted such starvation on this poor defenceless Emo I wondered. I carried it all the way home to my house and just as we crossed the threshold into the hallway the delicate little soul began to stir. The whole of its body trembled and shivered as it let out an introverted whine which reminded me of a Cabaret Voltaire synth line.

 After bathing its eyes in a sink full of Dettol and Sild and scrubbing its oily coat with Pears, I took the Emo to a special bijou-goth nest which I’d prepared earlier and laid it down on a bed of shredded poetry and Kerrang magazines. The Emo said nothing preferring instead to blink at me in a confused lonely fashion. ‘Poor little Emo, which cruel and evil master has restrained you in such tight fitting garb?’ I said, gesturing at the skin tight trousers, studded belt and cardy combo. Still there was no reply, only a melodramatic sigh. Within five minutes the poor defenceless little creature was snoring soundly so I decided to leave it to its introverted dreams.

 The next morning I drew a bath with charcoal and then had a shower. I took a breakfast of kippers and millet to the bijou-goth nest along with a dog bowl full of Moss Icon in order to cheer it up. It ate feverishly and without any word.

‘Poor little Emo, you clearly are in a bad way’ I said. ‘Here, let me cheer you up with some sounds’ and I placed some emotionally-charged punk rock music onto my Bermuda Dansette.

 As the intricate, arpeggiated guitar melodies and top-of-the-lungs screaming began something rather worrying happened. The Emo took the cutlery that I’d given it to butter its kipper and it began to cut itself. Making savage slashing marks to its wrists and forearms. Luckily it was plastic cutlery, and as further luck would have it, the Emo was using the teaspoon at the time but it was still a rather disconcerting sight. I explained to the Emo that self-harm was not really such a strong look, especially with a plastic teaspoon but it seemed unperturbed. This was clearly the dark side of the spoon.

 The Emo looked at me with a derogatory self-pitying stare. Its vacant, wordless face said it all really, something like, ‘You’ll never understand me and my ways’.

I rushed to the Dansette and ripped the needle off.

The music stopped abruptly.

‘We may not understand each other Emo, but mutual as well as self-respect is paramount if you are to make a full recovery.’ I admonished rather robustly.

 The Emo finished off the rest of its breakfast head down and without a sound. All that is apart from a low hum which sounded a bit like Carve Your Hat Out Yourself by Washboard Confessional but I may have been mistaken.

 Later that day I took the Emo to my local park. It just sat perched at the top of a children’s climbing frame dangling its asymmetrical fringe through the bars and glumly humming the words to ‘My Parents Hate Me ‘Cos I Don’t Wash Up’ by My Chemical Brother’s Romance.
 ‘Sweet Moses!’ I exclaimed, ‘I’ve really got my work cut out with you, haven’t I?’

 However as the week progressed, things began to improve. The Emo seemed to get stronger, its eyes cleared of the blood and the Kohl-like oily substance on its coat had almost completely disappeared. Even its spirits seemed to improve; I noticed one day it was writing a poem of unrequited love to a dead teddy bear called Cubic Zircona and scrawling the lyrics to a song about cruising the suburbs looking for a parentless party called, ‘Together In Electric My Space Dreams’.

 As we sat down one evening to a light meal of Husker Du Nachos and Salsa Minor Threat sauce, I decided to break the good news to the Emo.

‘Emo, I think that you’re now strong enough to return to your natural habitat, and therefore I’ve decided I’m going to release you back into the wild tomorrow.’

The Emo looked at me with resignation, clearly we had grown to respect each other though we were completely different and although the Emo seemed to be enjoying the company it knew without a doubt that it had to return to its own kind.

 The next morning after a hearty breakfast of Walkers Crisps and fags I carried the Emo to the local town shopping centre in a cardboard box. I’d cut holes so it could see and more importantly breathe. Along the way it made a weirdly irritating whining noise always rising at the end. Clearly it was ready to assimilate with its own again. Eventually I set the box down several meters from the shopping centre fountain. There was a huge Emo flock congregated around the fountain, squawking, preening and generally emulating broken-heartedness. I opened the box and shooed the Emo out. At first it just stayed timidly put in the box. Clearly some ‘hard love’ was required.

‘Go on damn you!’ I cried ‘get out of the box…go and be with your own! This is hard for me as well you know.’ The Emo slowly climbed out of the box and loped over to the flock. Almost as soon as it had sat down at the fountain three others had surrounded it remarking on its stripes, fringe, polka dots and coat. I took this as a good sign and slowly crept away.