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!
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Nov 24. Shaking with disgust, Lord Waistrel last night closed this blog in protest at the “tide of filth” unleashed via his Exceptional Gossip Clause. Any serous Gonads developments can once again be found on the news page. Regrettably this means there is no available space for Wattsie to register her disapproval of Gal’s latest song, No Harm Done, which she describes as “another step deeper into the sewer.”
Nov 23. Extracts from recent interviews Gal has given to German and Brazilian magazines. Question: We understand that you have retired, what are you doing currently? A. I’m working on a few books – a collection of short stories and the next two Sounds Of Glory volumes. I’ve been asked to write a proper memoir, which I will be giving serious thought too.
Q. Is it true that the Gonads will return in 2027? A. It’s true that it has been discussed, but no decision has been made.
Q. Is it true that the Ska-Nads will play in 2026? A. Again, I would say it’s a possibility. We will be working on a full Ska-Nads set, but to perform the songs properly we would need a brass section and a Hammond B3 organ. I would like to record some of the new songs, like Sir Ska-a-lot, TV Times and Beer Belly Wobble, before we considered playing any gigs.
Q. What has happened to the Oi 45 compilation. We have the tracks, we have the artwork but the record label can’t release it this year, which is hugely frustrating. It will come out, I just don’t know when.
Q. What can you tell us about GBX? A. I’m either writing or co-writing new songs.
Q. What songs do you wish you’d written? A. Blimey. Tutti Frutti, New Rose, Jungleland, Anarchy In The UK, Fairy Tale Of New York, All Along The Watchtower…All Or Nothing. Hurricane, In My Life, Sex & Drugs & Rock n Roll, What’s Going On? A Change Is Gonna Come…too many to list.
Q. What new bands and acts do you love? A. Kingfishr. Amyl & The Sniffers. The Punchdrunk Saints. Leon Thomas. The Modern Syndicate. The Split Dogs. The Take. Loads of bands. I’m waiting for Carrie & The Coaxers to release a game-changing single.
Q. Who were your favourite punk bands after the first wave? A. Off the top of my head…The Ruts, the Skids, the Cockney Rejects, Magazine, the UK Subs, the Upstarts, The Specials, Stiff Little Fingers. I loved the Dead Kennedys but Jello is deranged. Also The Cramps, Blitz, The Business, The Bruisers, Rancid, The Lurkers. Loads more obviously.
Q. What music cheers you up? A. Ska. Swing. 60s and 70s Motown. Barry White. Nicky Thomas’s Love Of The Common People. Marty Robbins’s Gunfighter Ballads. Old country music in general. The Blue Danube… Tommy Cooper’s Don’t Jump Off The Roof, Dad… Bowie’s Sound & Vision gets me every time.
Newsflash: Fat Col retiring (From what? – Ed) and moving to Littlewick Green, according to sources close to Wattsie Watts.
Nov 22. Reluctantly, we have to give Fat Col right of reply after he threatened to sue us and Wattsie for a Trump-like $1billion apiece over “reputational damage” for running yesterday’s “distressing” post. His legal spokesman, The Beast, tells us, “My client is rightly offended by detrimental claims published on your so-called blog. Mr Gannon is a performance artiste of some standing in beer belly wobbling circles, and your claim that he will ‘exposing his hideous gut’ is a libellous deprecation of his art. We have experts ready to testify to his level of skill in the competitive international stomach surfing scene, and Mr Gannon himself has invited the perpetrator Ms Wattsie to jump on his belly and “ride the waves from top to bottom, experience expert lapping and enjoy the fulfilling thrills as the final tremors splash against her thighs”. The Beast has also procured a court order for the immediate release of Gal Gonad from incarceration in Salem Clinic, Swanley. He tells us their chief clinician, Dr Oswald Oregon, agreed stating “Mr Gonad isn’t having a break-down, he has merely been possessed by the supernatural spirit of the late Judge Dread”. Well that makes perfect sense. All together, “Ai yai ya… Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, right on, name of the game.”
Nov 21. Approved News Update. Ace photographer Jim Jimmy James last night tweeted: ‘Hot off the press! The Gonads 50th anniversary tour confirmed 2027 but Shhhh! It’s a secret’. A grim-faced Miss Management dismissed the post as a mischievous unconfirmed rumour. So why has Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) set off to ‘politely grill’ JJJ in order to “discover the source and take appropriate action”?
In other news, Gal’s highly successful book launch last night was marred after the event when he was snatched off the streets by two burly psychiatric nurses. Eye witness Steve Whale reports, “It happened so fast, none of us could stop it. Not even Cass or Max Spartan.” Gal has not been seen since. Our gumshoe investigator Mickey Chandler reports that the nurses were summoned by Wattsie Watts after Gal had played her a demo of his latest Ska-Nads song Coming From Behind. “He claimed it was about Grimsby Town coming from 2-0 down to beat Man U in the Carabao Cup. But I heard the words and it’s not a football song at all, just more filth,” she says sternly, when we call, adding, “Gal has clearly had some kind of breakdown and an emergency intervention was required. He has been taken into care for his own good – and the good of the band.” So who will lead the Ska-Nads in the meantime, we ask? “Obviously I will,” she replies. “I will cut all the juvenile smut and concentrate on classy covers. A bluebeat take on Bowie’s version of Sorrow is far more tasteful than having Fat Col on stage with us exposing his hideous gut to Beer Belly Wobble. Just the thought of that makes me retch. And what if it means he gets so popular he joins the band like Chas Smash did? No, no, no, it can’t be allowed to happen.”
Nov 15. Despite this blog’s suspension, Lord Waistrel is today allowing the Wattsie Watts Fan Club to rebut “shocking smears” that were made about her here on Monday. Says informal fan club chairman Effete El, “It is outrageous to accuse Wattsie of trying to take over the Ska-Nads when all she is attempting to do is save the project from premature cancellation.” Another Wattsie-loving informant, a certain MG of Mottingham, testifies that the sultry singer had been “disturbed and perturbed” by some of the new songs Gal has been writing for the spin-off band saying, “She feels songs like Beer Belly Wobble are playing to the lowest common dominator, and that Gal’s latest alleged football ditty, From Behind is pure filth.” Our own mole concurs, saying “A lot of these numbers, like White Tights, Indecent and Hot Dog Style-ee, are ‘overtly and overly sexual’ and ‘the product of a diseased mind in meltdown’.” Golden Goblets is said to be particularly infantile and disgusting. The mole adds, “Gal’s inner circle are urging him to change course, although everyone agrees with him that doing covers is NOT the way forward.” So large is the growing split (not another song title – Suspended Ed) that the band have been driven to resurrect the cancelled Christmas curry for next month and will summon special sage advisers such as the PM and associate Gonad Carrie ‘Caz’ Smith in order to thrash out a workable solution over the festive board. So mote it be.
At the moment the Pranksters’ resident bookmaker, Honest Ted Lemon Junior, is giving 2/1 odds on the SkaNads NOT playing next year and 10/1 on them not playing ever. (His other odds include 50/1 on Wattsie marrying Fat Col, 60/1 on Paul SkaNad marrying Miss Management, 15/1 on Thrashing It Out (Over The Festive Board) being the Gonads’ next new Christmas song, and a surprisingly confident 1 to 3 on the Gonads reforming in 2027. Odds on Gal giving it all up, cutting off ties with the world, and fucking off to Puerto Banus have plummeted from 500/1 in January to 3 to 1 today.
Meanwhile, here’s associate Gonad John King in full flow…
Nov 10. Good news! Honest Hack! Thanks to Vive Le Rock for their short but sweet review of our Berlin farewell performance at Punk & Disorderly. Their ace reviewer, Dom Warwick, concludes that although Sham 69 played a decent set, it was “predictable – and the night belonged to the Gonads.” Honest journalism from VLR that the BBC could learn from.
Bad news! Hostile Hack: We the GRL (Gonads Restoration League) take no pleasure in hacking this noble website with information that definitely meets Lord Waistrel’s Exceptional Gossip clause. For we can reveal that Gal’s plans to re-launch the band as the Ska-Nads next year are already falling apart like a drunk’s dropped kebab in a midnight downpour. Firstly, our well-placed source reveals that Wattsie is attempting to take control of the Ska-Nads. She has RECRUITED a saxophone-player, TOLD the band they will have to wear suits, and is DEMANDING that most of the set should consist of covers, including Ska versions of David Bowie songs. Gal’s PA Fit Bird told our source, “Gal is furious. He has always said that the Ska-Nads would never be a covers band. He thinks the band, who after all are his creation, should stand or fall on his original songs.” True the Ska-Nads did record Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees but she went on, “He only done it because it was a neglected classic about the Trojan reggae era, didn’ ’e?” Troublingly, we hear that the band have yet to agree a rehearsal date in January. “They can’t even organise a Christmas curry,” Fit Bird sniffed to our mole.
We at the GRL see this fiasco as an entirely positive development. GRL leader, Neddy Seagoon-Ludd, states, “The Ska-Nads might be a laugh for a few gigs, but they are very much a side-show. The Gonads are the real deal and we are building a powerful alliance to convince so-called Lord Waistrel to resurrect them in time for 50th anniversary shows in 2027 which will, we hope, be full of the proper ‘pure punk’ southeast London sound. We already have the support of Club 77, Barnet Mark, and Chelsea Dom (the grand inquisitor). Everyone agrees the Gonads we want are the Gonads who played Jobs Not Jails with Klasse Kriminale down New Cross on Friday night – not Ska-Nads doing a bluebeat version of Velvet Goldmine.” Pausing to down a pint of Paulaner, Gonads style, Ludd adds menacing, “And don’t nobody go looking for our source neither cos she can’t be found – or silenced.” (Yeah I married someone like that once – Fat Col.)
Nov 4. One-off Blog Alert. Although we are still out of action, one of our unemployed blog monkeys, Ephraim Hickey, stumbled upon a mysterious “Sidcup Film Club” meeting in south London last night. The club had taken over the fabled Hopper’s Hut for a private party, and our man was shocked to observe the arrival of huge subculture names including Charlie Harper, Lars Frederiksen, Cass Pennant, Sir Gal of Gonad, Steve Whale, Brendan McGirr, Animal from the League, Miss Management, Max Spartan, Shona Wattsie Watts, Paul SkaNad, Eugene Butcher, Jim Jimmy James, Mrs Marr, Barnet, Liberty Hayes and many more. (Pictorial evidence on the band’s Facebook page and Instagram). After a 90-minute meeting, the rowdy 24-strong crowd departed for the Darjeeling. Ephraim tells us, “As soon as they left, I entered the pub and nonchalantly purchased a bottle of under-chilled Paulaner before engaging the delightful barmaid, Delores Hopen, in casual banter. I quickly established that the film in development will cover the life of a notorious southeast London figure although she wasn’t sure who due to a problem with her blocked pipes. When I said I was a trained gynaecologist and offered to have a look, she got all Wattsie on me and told me to leave.”
