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!
Sept 12. Gal’s latest Harry Tyler novel, Harder Than The Rest is out now. It’s based around a fictional East End hard rock band who operate as a front for a violent gang of drug-running thieves. ‘What if the Krays had guitars’, says the blurb, except the hard-hitting novel is set in the early 90s. It’s the fourth book in Gal’s Harry Tyler series which began with The Face in 2001 and you can buy it direct from the publishers, for a limited period, for just £5.99. Caffeine Nights are also running a FREE eBook promo on Amazon for the book until Wednesday.
Sept 11. John King’s tasty book-zine Verbal is back with an Alan Sillitoe special, details here. Previous editions of Verbal have featured ‘boot generation’ fiction, Irvine Welsh, Club Ska and the Ruts, and short stories by the likes of Pete ‘Manic Esso’ Haynes, Gal, Cathi Unsworth and Martin Knight…
9/11. God bless New York. Never forget.
Sept 9. Spotted in Oxford, this fine sculpture allegedly of Gal’s great-great grandfather, the distinguished professor of intoxication, and Music Hall performer, Nadbush Llewellyn, of whom more will apparently be heard next year…
Sept 7. Mercifully Shazza is getting better and is now able to leave us relatively short voices messages of just under two hours duration. However, we have reason to suspect that it wasn’t the Rona virus that laid her low but the hex power of a certain female band member who didn’t take kindly to the thought of her clothes being stolen on stage while she was wearing them… Fat Col, who has experienced Wattsie’s magical curses before, warns “Watch yerself, Shazz, that woman is evil. I upset her once and she turned my knob into a button mushroom.” It’s never recovered. And when Bruce Foxton pissed her off, an unexplained cascade of lager and urine drove From The Jam off stage in North London…
Sept 5. Good luck to our pal and North East agent Shazza who is currently self-isolating. Wishing you a speedy recovery, pet.
Sep 4. Our North East gigs are looking good for next year, but there are significant risks involved. Local Gonads fan club organiser Shazza has pledged to “invade the stage, sing with ye and steal Wattsie’s clothes while she’s wearing them!” We naturally can’t encourage this kind of immoral mayhem, but in a related story Fat Col has just volunteered to film it.
Sep 3. Just as things were going smoothly, Gal throws a spanner in the works. Although pleased with the early work on the Revolution Now album, he has announced his intention to record a Music Hall ep which will include skapunk versions of Two Lovely Black Eyes and The End Of Me Old Cigar, a punk take on Knocked Em Down The Old Kent Road and a moving pubrock rendition of It’s A Great Big Shame. Fat Col has warned against the project calling it “a needless diversion from the pure-punk plan”, but Fit Bird tells us “The ep will be quite separate to the album, wunnit, so it won’t be no diversion, will it?” Miss Management agrees, stating that “As fans know, the Gonads have long acknowledged their debt to the Music Hall tradition. It began with Annie Auldiron on the first ep, continued with the pub side of the live double album and the moving version of Half A Pint Of Ale, and according to completists it will reach its peak when Gal performs The Lunatic Asylum and A Mother’s Lament live, as he has threatened to do many many times…in fact, every time he has had a skinful.” Actual completists will know that Curry House Lizzy recorded a number of music hall songs for us during the Old Boots album sessions in Fulham in 2006, and Gary Lammin recorded an unreleased acoustic version of Two Lovely Black Eyes during our Glorious Bastards recordings in approximately 2011.
Sep 2. Fools Errand from Las Vegas sound like this. No mess, no stres. Just oi-oi music for the disposssed. We like em!
Sept 1. R.I.P. Mick Crudge from veteran Blackpool punk band The Fits who has reportedly died while cliff-walking. He was a brilliant frontman. Our condolences to Orsi.
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