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!
Our Shop page is currently closed. For merch enquiries email waistrel@the-gonads.co.uk
Oct 30. Self-styled Gonads mega-fan Walter Simms, aka Red Wattie, has been elected president of Club 77 ousting the over-worked Effete El from the prestigious role. Wattie’s first speech to the club included three demands on the band – 1) They must deliver a new Gonad album in 2027, “including a new street-protest anthem in the vein of Jobs Not Jails and Eat The Rich” 2) an immediate return of citizen flag girls and 3) for Club 77 members to have “FULL UNCONTESTED CONTROL over the band’s setlist played in our 2027 50th celebration year. He told the blog “As much we love the current set, it is time to hear brilliant old favourites played live again like Gob, Oily Rag, C’mon Motherfucker, Fat Cat Splat, The Growler, TNT, Chaos (Herbert Version), Big Balls, Unky-Bunk and of course Lights Out In Charlton”. Gal’s PA Miss Fit dismissed the demands saying “We love our fans but we won’t be told what to do or play by them or anyone else.” But Wattie retorts, “If the band and Lord Waistrel fail to agree to these terms, I shall call an all-out strike and Club 77 will immediately wind down.” Blimey. An ashen-faced Effete El called the threat “madness, mutually assured destruction”. But Fat Col has leapt to Wattie’s defence and upped the ante by bragging that his band, The Rawhides, are ready to step into the breach should the Gonads fail. He claims that he has a whole set of “pure punk rock ‘n’ roll” ready to be recorded with songs like Pink Tent, Indus Road, 18 Stone Of Dynamite, Herpes In Seattle, Free Beer (For all the Workers), David Dickinson Dunked Her Doughnuts, and “a full-tilt psychobilly cover of Mistress Material with the lyrics totally re-written because the person it was written about is clearly not mistress material and should never have been celebrated as such by a band supposedly devoted to 3 chords and the truth.” When told that most of these songs were either Gonads, Pink Tent or Alaska Cowboys originals and he didn’t have a single fresh thought in his fat head, Colin replied, “Yeah but so fucking what? The Gonads ain’t playing them; they ain’t playing nothing, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s fair game. The Rolling Stones had nine covers on their first album, and we’re way better than them old coffin-dodgers ever were.” Double blimey.
Oct 29. Tragedy was averted last night after Mrs Marr’s bold psychic investigation dramatically misfired. If you recall, the intrepid sleuth aimed to project herself backwards, counter-clockwise, via the astral plain in order to reverse the quantum arrow of time and witness the actual moment Lemmy impregnated Bev Elliott, thus fathering Maid Of Ace. But boffins quickly established a fatal flaw in her logic. Our favourite German physicist, Professor Hande Hoch tells us, “Frau Marr seemed to believe the Maid Of Ace sisters were quadruplets. Zis was not the case. They were all born quite separately, usually in ze August of each year. Meaning that there was not eins conception but vier, sorry four, generally in ze December when their fun-loving parents were at their fruitiest.” The vast quantum strain caused by Mrs M trying to reach four separate conceptions simultaneously knocked our entire universe out of kilter, he explained, and for a few hours last night we all existed in a parallel earth where the Gonads were a household name, Oi Mate had gone to Number 1, Wattsie Watts was universally admired for kneeing Jimmy Savile in the nuts, and the feature film Curry On Up The Gonads was not only released but also won an Oscar, two Golden Globes and a Bafta.” Hurrah! Prof Hoch continues. “Mercifully, the system reset itself and we’re back to normal.” Bollocks. What else was different in earth two, we ask the Prof? Not much, he says. “Except Gal had married Gwenyth Paltrow and was having a passionate fling with Maya Jama.” Double bollocks!
Mrs Marr is currently in a coma, but her renowned brain specialist, Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr, assures us she is expected to recover in a week or two, “although I will advise her to knock this insane and deluded quest on the head before it kills her.” Over to you, missus.
On a lighter note, talk of adding an oompah band to the 2028 Pathetique Festival reminded one blog-reader of an incident at the St Petersburg ‘Piertober Fest’ a few weeks back, where organisers mixed Bavarian traditions with the Florida heat. Along with draft Paulaner and bratwursts, an oompah combo, The Apple Strudel Oktoberfest Band, played. Our source reveals “The band appealed to a rough section of the crowd. Their rendition of Sweet Caroline was punctuated with cries of ‘Gonads! Charlton!’ replacing ‘so good, so good’ but the band themselves led chants of ‘Zigger Zagger, Zigger Zagger, Oi Oi Oi’.” We pass on the news to Tonka Ted who said, “If they learn Oi Mate and your Hopper’s Hut/Paulaner anthem, we will book them for 2028.” That’s the power of this blog, chaps.
Breaking boot-boy revelation: Terence Hayes, PM has a shoe collection so huge it has to be housed in an entire bedroom in his Essex palace, with a spill-over wardrobe. The PM revealed his shoe fetish at a pre-pandemic PRCC gathering and was dubbed “street punk’s answer to Imelda Marcos” by Miss Management; Imelda being the former First Lady of the Philippines who had 1220 pairs – two more than El Tel.
Oct 28. The Gonads plans for 2027 were partially unveiled last night along with a few shock twists. To wit: 1) as well as Scarborough Punk Festival, we are negotiating a number of gigs for our 50th year in England and Germany and expect to confirm the English shows within the next few months. 2) A new Gonads t-shirt will be unveiled in Scarborough. 3) We have three albums ready to record and are “looking for a reliable and professional label to work with – no amateurs, no time-wasters, no grifters.” 4) The legendary ventriloquist sketch will feature in Gal’s next TV show, with Wattsie Watts replaced by former Gonads flag girl, comic actress and fitness trainer Zoe Anderson whose comic timing is “impeccable”. 5) Last but by no means least, Gal has announced that last night was the final Gonads’ curry night he will ever attend and that he will bow out of the PRCC after December as hearing problems make these events “unbearably frustrating”. Not discussed in the time available were plans for the long-promised Gonads annual for Christmas 2027 and a new Gonads/GBX video which is “very much on the cards”.
Out now! Riotin’ & Ravin’ a new book of street poetry by Mick Robinson, aka Ginger Mick (ex-Accent). Published by Roual Galloway, the poems relate themes of growing up in working-class London in the 70s and 80s to today, via ‘punk, football, acid house, clobber, shenanigans, hedonism and boredom’. In other words, all the wonderful things that make working-class life on these islands worth living. And the reason it is no longer so for many people, is that what passes for cultural life is now “filtered through a screen with messages that render you as dead and soulless as its instigators”. Irvine Welsh says, “The good times start up again in these pages.” Details here.
Oct 27. Grim news. The Pathetique fest has thrown a spanner into the merry-go-round of harmony and joy that is the Gonads camp, we can report. And the finger of blame is being pointed firmly at Wattsie Watts and her plan to include an extended cowbell solo in the middle of Stop That Drumming along with her trademark kazoo noodling and canoodling. A band insider whispers “Adding a cowbell solo to Stop That Drumming is like adding gonorrhoea to syphilis – too much of a bad thing.” Quite.
Oct 26. An excited Ted ‘Tonka’ Thomas calls to tell us more about his plans to expand his Festival of Frivolous Frolics into a two-day event in 2028. “It’s easily done,” he says. “We’ll just aim to include more big names like Bad Manners, the Macc Lads, the Notsensibles and Judge Dread tribute act, The Judge Dread Memorial, plus a German oompah band and of course Gal and Wattsie’s legendary ventriloquism act” (No way – Wattsie). He goes on, “I shall also be talking to a representative of Lord Waistrel & the Cosh Boys, featuring rock ledge Mark Brabbs, the Go-Mads and Splodge original Desert Island Joe, and I’m trying to find the Alaska Cowboys.” He pauses and adds, “Of course the real coup would be to have Garry Johnson close the event, accompanied by Frankie ‘Boy’ Flame on piano as he croons If Looks Could Kill, the most Pathetique song ever featured on any Oi compilation. He would be our very own Bizarro world Sinatra, a perfect ending. The circle would be squared, infinity reached and breached.” Inspiring!
In other news, foot-fetish fiend Jim Jimmy James has been re-named Skin-derella by his adoring OnlyFans followers. But has he been presented with a glass DM boot yet? This is the question. Next week, more questions. Meanwhile Lord Waistrel has one of his own for us. After discovering that this blog is read in Buckingham Palace, the Kremlin and the White House as well as several pubs in Paddington Basin, the good Lord asks: “Why the bally hell aren’t we running it as a subscription service?” A laughing Miss Fit replies, “We can’t charge for this shit!”
October 25. Lord Waistrel has finally ruled on the contentious John King issue. His Lordship last night decreed that King “although a trouble-maker of low birth with disturbing Bolshevik tendencies” is “a small but vital part of the rich smorgasbord of Gonadian culture”. He went on, “Therefore his associate membership can be re-approved as long as he faithfully agrees to not try and inflate his relatively minor position. In short, he must accept that there is only one King Gonad” – as illustrated here by Chinese artist Ai Wei – “that oik with the beard. What’s his bally name again? Bushmills? Yes! Large one please. Nurse! Matron! Scrotum! Where am I? Get Bonar Law on the blower!”
Rock critic Maurice O’Connor describes next year’s radical Pathetique festival as “a really important development”. The former Hot Press freelancer adds, “For too long, the Pathetique strain of street-punk has been overshadowed by the hard-hitting, hooligan aspect. Younger generations have missed out on a rich feast of variety and comic anthems.” Quite so.
Oct 24. Fearless psychic investigator Mrs Marr will attempt to defy the laws of physics next week by projecting herself backwards, counter-clockwise, via the astral plain in order to “reverse the quantum arrow of time and witness the actual moment Lemmy impregnated Bev Elliott in one long and glorious joint orgasmatron, I’d imagine.” Blimey. Doctors and boffins warn that her incredible mission could prove fatal, and might even “tear apart the very fabric of reality”. But it still beats watching Question Time. A team of paramedics will be standing by, along with a crack squad of opportunist Parisien looters. Stay strong Mrs M. The blog needs you.
Oct 23. Good news! We have been approached to play a grand Pathetique Punk Convention next Spring. The north London all-dayer is set to include The Toydolls, the Postmen, Peter & Test Tube Babies, the Orgasm Guerrillas and Splodge. The organisers have requested a Gonads set that includes “all of your neglected pathetique gems like Stop That Drumming, Pink Tent, JR Ewing’s Barmy Army, Mystic Meg, Tucker’s Ruckers and Karl Marx Supported Millwall”. Sounds good to us. This self-styled Festival of Frivolous Frolics is pencilled in for Saturday 18th April 2027, but chief promoter Ted ‘Tonka’ Thomas tells us his “vision” is to expand it over a full weekend in 2028 with more bands, jesters, punk clowns and “traditionally annoying” punk poets (Outrageous! – Ed). The event will be “free of tedious politics and full of glorious, uproarious laughter,” he says, adding, “A celebration of silliness, satire, slapstick, soppiness, supping, soggy gussets, and sexual fantasia”. Strewth. Venue, dates and ticket-line tbc.
In other news, a source close to Mrs Marr tells us that yesterday, moments after the psychic sleuth had become lost in a transcendental trance, their neighbourhood suffered a huge power surge. “Everything on the estate went out for a few seconds and the mag-lock intercom doors all jammed with no intercoms working at all,” says our spy. “When she came out of it, the power returned immediately and she woke up rambling about moon landings and the Proclaimers, Wattsie Watts style. But then, and this is significant, she received random junk mail from a company called Ace Hardware, which she is convinced was a nudge from the universe to forget the moon and all that sunshine on the Leith, and keep on doggedly investigating the elusive (and abusive) Bev Elliott and her secret Maid Of Ace daughters.” Blimey.
Meanwhile the fall-out from Monday night’s Tower Hill curry night continues to reverberate. After leaving the Indian restaurant, a still-furious Steve Whale insisted on leading a small, elite party on a long march to Lewisham station via Tower Bridge, Bermondsey, the Elephant & Castle, Brixton, Peckham, East Dulwich, Gypsy Hill, Forest Hill and Beckenham. Steve’s oppo The Bear claimed that the route was designed to throw Max Spartan’s scouts off the scent. PRCC organisers claim Max’s men attempted to follow them, but were shaken off the trail when the marchers circled back via Sydenham and Bell Green. Our insider reports, “Max is trying to set up a rival curry club for tough guys and glam dames. He wants our secrets, our recipes, our rituals and most of all our phonebooks, but he ain’t getting them.” Crikey. Casualties included Gal, who has not been able to walk since.
Oct 20. Last night’s Punk Rock Curry Club gathering near Tower Hill had more strange revelations than an episode of Mrs Marr Investigates. For starters we learnt that one veteran club member has two belly buttons and another has no belly button at all – for names and medical verification please subscribe to Gonads Gossip Gold. Or buy Gal a Guinness. More shocking was the breaking news about ace photographer Jim Jimmy James. Unfortunately, we have been firmly instructed that we must not, under any circumstances, publish any information about Jim’s Only Fans side-line as a foot fetish model. So not a word will be printed here about how pretty his toes are, no video evidence will be provided, and we can’t even hint at his ballet career. However, we can reveal that a shocked Miss Management dubbed JJJ “the Lord of Corn Porn” and “the Cinderella of Street Punk”. And we can never unsee those pictures…
Mrs Marr (psychic sleuth), who uncovered his cheesy secret in her dreams, says she has more questions for punk queen of Soho Bev Elliott, who stayed away for that very reason “thus compounding her guilt… what is she hiding? Four daughters in Maid Of Ace, that’s what!”
In other news, a near full turn-out of Gonads committed to several shows next year, The Business will be filming in Jamaica, and Chelsea’s Mat Sargent revealed that his son Alex’s documentary Fix Me In The Mix (about Mat’s HIV diagnosis) is gaining traction after it was featured at the 10th Annual LA Punk Film Festival, along with Gal’s Late Night Vegas TV pilot. Could Jim Jimmy be at the 11th fest with one of his foot-fetish flicks? The Lord Of The Shins, perhaps. Romancing The (Toe) Bone. Fifty Shades of Sole. Debbie The Chiropodist Does Jimmy. There’s Something Inside Mary (And It’s Wriggling) (Cut! – Ed).
The night’s only dark twist came when one furious PRCC organiser condemned the “two-bob time-wasters” who had asked us for the East London meet but never showed up. Club security officer The Bear told the blog “We only came north of the water for these five jokers who didn’t turn up. We’d have had the same turn-out in Sidcup, probably more.” As a result, club organisers have scrapped plans for Covent Garden in December. “Christmas will be in south London,” said The Bear. “Let the undesirable unreliables come to us for a change. And if they’re a no-show we won’t have wasted hours of precious time travelling.” Blimey. Apologies for absence were received from John King, Garrie Lammin, Barnet Mark, Carrie Coaxer, Terence Hayes (PM) and Judge Shed.
September 2026
July 2026
June 2026
May 2026
April 2026
March 2026
February 2026
