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!
May 14. Ooh, some unexpected book news. Jim Iron & John Steel have just published the follow-up to their 2016 Mod pulp fiction best-seller, Glory Boys. Glory Boys II: Days Of Change continues the story of East End Modernist Chris Davis and his sharp-dressed Glory Boy buddies as they are beset by new enemies and aggro from all sides. It’s a fast-moving, well-written, old school youth cult novel with a solid gold ring of authenticity. Buy it here (or on Kindle) if you like.
Book News 2: and the new pulp fiction novella from Tim Wells is due out in early June. The follow-up to Moonstomp, it finds skinhead werewolf Joe back stalking a London cursed with Mod witches. Readers we nearly married one, but that’s another story altogether.
Good news for fans of punk rock, ten pin bowling and Las Vegas – Punk Rock Bowling returns to Sin City next May. PRB have confirmed that festival is back on for 2023. We’d play ourselves… if they chucked in flights, showgirls and a few well-comped suites in the Wynn (although the Mandalay Bay wouldn’t be a deal breaker).
STOP PRESS. Contrary to rumour, we would like to clarify that we are NOT the reason why the Cockney Rejects’ Australian and New Zealand tour has been cancelled and can state categorically that we are definitely not the other band involved. We aren’t looking at going down under until 2024. See their FB page for background.
May 13. Happy birthday to Sir Gal of Gonad, 67 today. Just two more years until the jokes write themselves.
May 12. This is a boom time for band merchandise. There’s the Iron Maiden samurai warrior (£199.95), Metallica’s mini-instrument set (£95.82) and now a quality range of six-inch wall-mounted busts of legends like Angus Young, Bowie, and Lemmy from Out Of Hand Studio (£30 a pop). There is even talk of a Maiden fire pit. Sadly Lord Waistrel is in no mood to invest in Gonads merch, not even a limited edition, diamond-encrusted solid-gold vibrating version of the stage cock with adjustable girth (£999.99). His Lordship this week axed plans to launch NadCoin. Scrotum, Waistrel’s wrinkled retainer, tells us: “The harse is falling out of crypto-currency, so hit’s no go. ’Is Lordship thinks there’s more chance hof making money by betting hon Wattsie Wattsit becoming Mrs Gannon by 2025.” Well, stranger things have happened… we just can’t think of any off-hand.
STOP PRESS. RIP Trevor Stmad, singer with The Black Dahlia Murder. He was 41.
May 11. Word reaches us that Fat Col was so furious about 18 Stone Of Dynamite being dropped from our new album that he threw a full pint over a passing vicar, kicked a cat and didn’t eat a single pork scratching for at least half an hour. This is denied by his closest and only friend, Plumstead barfly Jonno ‘Joycey’ Joyce, who tells us, “Colin is very busy putting the country-punk Rawhides ep together. He already has a UK label and has had ‘significant interest’ from Nashville, so you can understand why he is completely uninterested in the trivial shenanigans of a minor UK gutter-rock band and what he calls ‘that bloody woman’.” Quite.
May 10. There were a few surprise absences at Saturday’s big book launch. Hoxton Tom had a medical emergency, but where were Lee Wilson and John King? Word is Lee swerved the occasion after hearing that other legendary round-dodgers were likely to be present, to wit Spizz and Eddie Piller. Spizz was indeed there, and true to form, his wallet never left his leather strides; but Eddie was far too busy being grumpy elsewhere to make it. In the event, all of them were out-done by Mod author Terry Rawlings! Rawlings approached our insider at the bar, said “I’ll make this a round”, he then ordered a large white wine and brazenly walked away, leaving our shocked source to fork out for it. The Gonads do not endorse round-dodging in any sense, but it was the most masterly display of shameless poncing since the notorious exploits of Paul Devine back in the 1980s. As the word spread, Spizz, accepting he was outclassed, drank up and left heading straight for Nicky Tesco’s wake and several more hours of guaranteed free beer. RIP Nicky.
PS. John King’s absence has been blamed on a political split in the PPGB. Whispers Effete El, “John is very much a unionist and a statist and takes a dim view of Gal’s friendship with revolutionary anarchists of the ELF”. Anarchist poet Tim ‘Teething’ Wells was at the launch, along with Chris Pope from the Chords UK, VLR’s Eugene Butcher, several Mod faces, and the various street celebs pictured on Gal’s own blog.
May 9. What a weekend! On Saturday Mods (and rockers, round-dodgers and Rhoda Dakar), turned out for Gal’s big book launch in Waterloo and yesterday we finished the mix of our brand-new album, Revolution Now! – but not until some extremely tough decisions were made. Exec producer Wattsie Watts took the lead demanding they we AXE ’18 Stone Of Dynamite (Half Inch Fuse)’ from the album in a final and definitive snub to Fat Col who now has no songs on the record whatsoever. Wattsie then cut ‘Can You Take All This?’ for the less convincing argument that “ten tracks make more sense than eleven”. Hmm. Maybe. The CD version is likely to come with bonus tracks but neither of those two songs will be included. Paul SkaNad tells us, “It’s the right decision. Hand on heart Revolution Now! is the best album we have ever made. It’s better even than Back & Barking.” We will announce the release date as soon as we hear from Randale Records. In the meantime, here are some pix of Wattsie working her magic.
In other news, the band wrote a new song yesterday – Wattsie’s These Lips Were Made For Blowing (about her kazoo, of course, your minds!) – which may feature on the next studio album, Onwards To Glory (due 2024). Before that we should get The Gonads Official Bootleg II, which could well include live recordings of unreleased rarities such as Whelks (written in 1976/7), Ruptured Foreskin Blues (2012) and The Great Sidcup Salami Scandal (2013). The Gonads return to the studio next month to record a track for the big Oi/Ska Unity Project.
For pictures from Gal’s book launch, see his blog http://www.garry-bushell.co.uk/ontheblog.htm#. later this week.
May 3. We interrupt our self-imposed blog shut-down to announce the good news that we have finally made contact with Randale Records and everything is now back on track for our blistering new album, Revolution Now. Meanwhile Lord Waistrel has over-turned Gal Gonad’s “half-baked” plan for the band to semi-retire after Rebellion. The compassionate peer apparently told him, “Oiks like you never retire, you just work until you drop for your betters and masters.”
Reminders: it’s Gal’s book launch on Saturday afternoon! We play the 100 Club on 21st May! And we headline a benefit gig for domestic abuse charity Refuge at the Queen’s Head, Brixton on the 29th May playing a different set which will include Hey You, Yeti and Beer Can Boogie.
Here we are rehearsing for the 100 Club gig on Sunday. But where’s Paul SkaNad you ask? Unconfirmed rumours suggest that our drummer might have been left locked up in a cage and stranded semi-naked in a gimp suit while wife-to-be, Mistress Management, was out soaking up the bucolic splendour of Central Croydon.
Gal tries to persuade JC that Gob would sound better with sensitive flamenco guitar licks…
Shrinking violet Phil shuns the limelight.
Wattsie – 95% confident that the ruling class lizard-men can’t get inside her brain through the medium of herbal tea.
JC before revealing the shock news that his near-miss father-in-law was Doctor Who!
New songs arising from the rehearsal session: Doctor Who Is My Father-In-Law aka Who Put The Turd In The Tardis, Bird Drummer, Dublin Calling aka Guinness Shits and Free Paul Ska-Nad (from his bondage cell) – aka Mistress M Please
