Please note the items you are about to read consist largely of scurrilous gossip, vicious back-stabbing and idle speculation. As Jon Stewart might say, its stories are not fact checked. Its informants are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through.
THE GONADS! CHARLTON! SOUTH LONDON! STREET ROCK N ROLL! COCKNEY CULTURE! COCKNEY ROCK! OI-TONE! SKA! BEER! CURRY! WORKERS’ RIGHTS! FLAG-GIRLS! ENGLAND! OI OI OI! THIS IS WHO WE ARE!
April 11. Fat Col today made an urgent plea to blog readers to load vintage Gonads songs up on YouTube. “It’s outrageous that classics like (Rise Up) London Boys aren’t properly available,” Col fumes, adding “There’s no Re-Infected, Fat Cat Splat or Badly Done, and Lager Top is wrongly uploaded as a Splodge song.” Why don’t you do it yourself, we ask innocently? “I can’t be arsed,” he replies.
April 10. Hot news: we’re set to play our first ever gig in Devon next February; watch this space for confirmation… our three new tracks are all mixed and mastered and the tougher business of getting them released by a serious label begins… Gal’s new Harry Tyler novel will be published on 9th September (but will the 79 rock/NWoBHM book, now nearly two years late, beat it to the punch?)… and finally, Gal tells us that he is mulling over a couple of offers to revive Bushell On The Box on TV. If you recall the original show ran for fifty episodes in 1996, topping the ITV late night ratings, and featuring, among others, The Blood playing in his back garden, Lenny McLean and Roy Shaw, Barbara Windsor, Penn & Teller, the guitarist from X Ray Spex whose name we forget, the first and only performance of our unreleased classic Mystic Meg, stars of Gladiators and The Bill, Crystal Palace’s Sagi Burton, Ted “3-2-1” Rogers and a host of comedians including Bob Monkhouse, Vic & Bob, the legend that is Micky Pugh and Lily Savage. Fit Bird tells us “He’d like to do it, wouldn’t ’e, but it’s a shit-load of work.”
April 9. Could this really be in the running for an Academy Award in 2022? The film has everything – sex, violence, drama, star quality… everything, that is, except a physical form. It currently exists as a fashionable, online-only “work of art”, with a digital authentication stamp (an NFT – non-fungible token). Academy insider Wesley Sanderson tells us “Dirty Garry would have romped home for best picture this year if only it had been available in a more conventional format.” Bugger.
April 8. The latest in our series of lost or forgotten albums is Green Day’s Cigarettes & Valentines. It was meant to be their follow up to Warning and should have been released in the Spring of 2003. But in November 2002 the master tapes were stolen from their studio by persons unknown, and instead of re-recording it from scratch the lads binned it entirely and started work on 2004’s game-changing American Idiot. C&V is said to have been punkier, and very much in the vein of their earlier albums Insomniac and Kerplunk. The masters were finally recovered but has never been released, although Green Day did re-record some of them and release them as the B-sides of American Idiot singles – such as Too Much Too Soon and Letterbomb. A live version of Cigarettes & Valentines itself was however released in 2011.
April 7. Here’s an unseen shot from our 2017 gig at The Viper Room on Sunset Strip with Gal and Clyde joined by Shira Leigh and Geoffrey C. Palmer. (Trotsky and the Tripod are out of shot so as not to frighten the children). We’ll be back next year, folks. But don’t tell Wattsie.
April 6. Irate Prankster Sid Guildenstern, MA (failed), calls Nads HQ to complain about our “partial” coverage of their Easter weekender. “If you are going to defy our injunction and write about our spiritual gatherings you should at least get your facts right,” Sid storms. “You only covered half of the variety bill for one night. There was no mention of the great blue comedian Arthur Lobon, an absolute master of filth, or the Sutton Hoo Jazz-Ska Orchestra, or the giant inflatable Jennie Bellestar bouncy castle donated by QAnon. And there wasn’t a word said about Sunday afternoon’s pathetique synthesiser duo, Gruntfuttock & Horne. Nor did you cover the great earth-bonding ceremony conducted by those of the 13th degree and higher wherein elevated brethren released their spirit selves to merge with nature at a transcendental level.” Blimey. “By the way,” he continues. “We did not just burn effigies of Boris but also Keir Starmer and the LBC radio buffoon James O’Brien. Get it right or don’t bother.” Well, that’s told us.
German model Ivana Koch contacts saying she wants to be in the Gonads video. Which video, we ask? “Any video,” she replies. For god’s sake keep her away from Fat Col.
April 5. The Prankster’s big Easter gathering took place without a hint of ag, despite Essex cops launching a county-wide hunt to close it down. The 120-strong brethren, plus barmaids, evaded arrest by switching the location to a farm near Woodbridge in Suffolk. Although reporting restrictions are still in place, we can reveal that the reformed pathetique revivalists Donkey Laugh closed the event with a performance best described as “stonking” (a technical term) before an effigy of Boris Johnson was burnt on a huge bonfire under a banner proudly proclaiming ‘Beef, Beer and Liberty’. Our anonymous tipster, Brother X (whose identity must be forever secret), tells us that Fat Col’s Saturday night variety bill was an uneven affair. “The highlight was a Wilson, Keppel & Betty sand dance tribute,” Effete El – whoops, Bro X – reports. “And there was a great magic act modelled on the fictional Victorian duo Michael Magister and Phoebe Le Breton who did wonders with a disappearing snake. The fire-jugglers were pretty damn impressive too. The worst performance was from Col himself who came on dressed as Chubby Brown and mimed to a recording of the fat bastard’s 90s stage act. Col lasted precisely two minutes and 18 seconds before ashtrays and pint glasses full of piss started to fly. He was finally knocked out by a well-aimed slab of rock-hard suet pudding which hit him square in the mooey. Thankfully no harm was done as the pudding was still fully edible.”
April 4. The Cockney Rejects have covered the Stray Cats song Runaway Boys as a taster for their forthcoming new album. All possible West Ham/Runaway Boys jokes have been filed under ‘Too Risky’.
April 2. Cheers for all your nice comments about Federales. We reckon our three new songs are just as hot – and Gal and Clyde are already working on another trio of gems – Scream My Name, One More Sip and The Kelly Gang. The boys must be butter cos they’re on a roll!
April 1. Our version of Saturday Night (Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees) is finally up on YouTube.
