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.
April 27. BIG NEWS! Prole are reforming! The legendary street-socialist punk band who debuted on Son Of Oi are getting back together to record their debut album which will consist largely of songs written in the 1980s but never recorded. The Beast is currently securing a label to release it. He tells us: “Prole were an important band. They had Steve Kent on guitar and vocals and the lyrics had an important message that is still relevant today.” Will live dates follow, we ask? “Never say never,” he replies. Blimey.
COMING SOON: new Gonads t-shirts, hoodies and other merch. Watch this space. Also coming soon: at least two “Oi-Tone” numbers in the live set...
Sandie West is launching a search for “LA’s funniest person”. Surely she is that person?? Spa queen Sandie, who started her controversial career as the stunt double for the pink Power Ranger (we’re not making this up... although she might be) should be the star of a TV “reality” show in her own right... except no one would ever believe she’s for real. What will the reward for LA’s funniest person? Surely not a management contract with a certain S. West? It’ll hurt kids, but look on the bright side, it’ll make a cracking couple of chapters in your autobiography!
Another true story: a new Oi band have emerged claiming to be “extraterrestrial” in origin. Blitz UFO – a four-piece currently walking amongst the good people of Oregon – are streaming their debut EP called Abduct Vermin. The tracks are Drink Blood, Probin’ and Eat Aggressor. We call alien-mad Wattsie to find out what she makes of them only to be told by Fat Col that she’s already “mid-Atlantic flying direct to Portland International” to make first contact. Hang about. What’s Col doing answering Wattsie’s home telephone? If he’s in there all weekend, we dread to think of the state he’ll leave her underwear drawer...
RECORD Noos: Charger’s self-titled 12inch vinyl debut is out on May 10th from Pirates Press... and NOFX’s So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes is now available again on vinyl from Epitaph.
April 26. What fresh hell is this? Fat Col has only got a book review in today’s Mirror. An ashen-faced Paul SkaNad asks: “How does he manage to critique crap JK Rowling novels balanced up a tree, binoculars in one hand, gripping the trunk in the other, opposite Wattsie’s place?” No idea, but as long as that’s all he’s gripping...
PS Paul calls Col “the Plumstead prowler” which is unfair. He gets up to no-good in Welling and Bexleyheath too.
*Here is a link to all of The Selecter’s 40th anniversary tour dates
April 25. The Doc ’n’ Roll Film Festival hits Manchester between May 29 and June 2nd. Film premieres will include: Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records, Stories from The She-Punks and Sepultura: Endurance. (Wot? No unfinished, half-filmed Get Your Gonads USA? Amateurs!) There will be Q&A sessions featuring the likes of Helen Reddington (The Chefs) and Gina Birch (The Raincoats). They’re also promising “exclusive after-show parties”.
Here, pictured, Steve Whale and Lee Wilson audition for a role in Bed, Board & Boned In Berlin on Tuesday night, perhaps unaware that the script currently does not contain any gay scenes...
Whatever became of the comedy and variety packed late night TV talk show Gal filmed with Sandie West in Las Vegas last summer? A frown clouds Fit Bird’s handsome features when we ask. It seems that Sandie told Gal to make the pilot topical as “it could be on air within ten days”. Nearly ten months later, she hasn’t even produced a decent taster tape to flog it with. True, Sandie sent over a two-minute taster in November but it just consisted of visual images and music. Gal pointed out that you can’t sell a talk show without any talk – e.g. bits of the opening monologue, snatches of the interviews and stand-up. And this month Sandie sent over... the same wordless taster with a few visual tweaks. “Gal is catatonic with fury,” Fit Bird whispers (we thought that was in Spain – Dimbo Ed). “’E can’t even mention ’er name no more, can ’e? Well not without punching a wall.” Oh dear. Rip it up and start again, bruv.
*Fat Col is backing Richie Rocker’s call for Oi to return to its brickwall roots. “Everyone on the so-called scene is too fucking nice and too fucking old these days,” the great sage moans. “What we need is a new breed of young working class kids sniffing speed, sinking pints, banging like blacksmiths and attracting a proper cross section of psychopaths. The odd right-hander never hurt no one.” You have your dream, mate, and we’re have ours.
April 24. Here is the motley crew from last night’s St George’s Day Punk Rock Curry Club. From left: Lee Wilson (round-dodger), Gal Gonad, Miss Management, Paul SkaNad, Cass Pennant (ICF), Steve Whale, The Beast, Louise Distras, Barnet Mark, Max “Poppadom” Spartan, Big E, Mandy Crow, Chelsea Dom (GI) and the legendary Steve Kent co-writer of I Lost My Love To A UK Sub, Suburban Rebels, Generation Landslide and many other punk-Oi classics. Apologies for absence were received from the Anti Nowhere League, the Resort, Terence Hayes (PM), Mark Wyeth (QC), Jim Jimmy James & Janine, Clyde Ward, Wattsie Watts and John King’s Beer Monster Elite who had kicked off the St Geo celebrations many hours earlier in Covent Garden. Before things got a bit Lionel, acting chairman Gal made a toast to absent friends and read out the wise words of Brother Wyeth: “I would say to my fellow Englishmen and fair English women there tonight be of good cheer. Do not surrender to doubt or despair. Steel yourself with the thought that under the canopy of our heaven we have given the world much and taken little in return – Turner, Chaucer, Dickens and the Lurkers! Forward as one!” Hear, hear. To order, brethren. Big news is coming...
April 23. Happy St George’s Day! Here’s a blast of England’s Glory to start us all going! Pictures from tonight’s Punk Rock Curry Club to follow.
Richie Rocker has moved swiftly to denounce Lee Wilson’s latest money-raking scheme. The great man writes: ‘Infa Riot beach towels??!!! Fuck me it’s worse than KISS!!! What next? Infa Riot action figures? (Inaction figures surely – Ed) Lunch boxes? Wallets? Locked of course!!!!’ He goes on: ‘Oi is being diluted. Time to recreate the spirit of The Bridgehouse, Oi The Album and Sandra Bigg (Really Big!!) Only a true coming together of working class bands can stop this nonsense. Remember in London, Manchester, Liverpool, we stood strong in 80/81 we must do so again, Wilson will be on X Factor next!!!’ Yes, Simon Cowell always needs good stagehands. By the way, they’re doing Infa Riot SOCKS too (cheaper than wallets but easier to knot up!)
April 22. This is the moment Gal realised he might have jumped off the stage a little too recklessly at our Berlin gig. Eye-witness John King tells us: “I was impressed when Gal leapt into the crowd about four songs in but puzzled as to how he’d get back up. The same thought appeared to be going through Gal’s mind, but then he backed up, lifted himself up until he was sitting on the stage, slowly untangled the microphone lead, and finally got back on his feet during the guitar break. Impressively throughout this procedure he didn’t miss a word of the lyrics. It looked like it had been planned with some precision...” Had it though? Not a chance...
Here are some mysteries we can’t explain: why was Wattsie Watts spotted in Dave Courtney’s Plumstead dungeon last night? Her explanation – that she was getting us on the bill for Polyfest – seems as water-tight as a broken colander. Where was Courtney at the time? (In the gimp mask or off dogging in Dartford? – Ed). If Wattsie was learning S&M torture techniques should Fat Col be worried? Or grateful? And finally, why did Lord Waistrel email an official “hero-gram” to every band member to mark his pride and pleasure in our successful Berlin trip? (Simple, dimples – His Lordship ain’t got JC’s email address, and the one we gave him harrypotter@GillsRcrap.doh doesn’t seem to work. Funny that...)
Some sketches and rants from Gal’s old TV show are now on YouTube... he’s looking for the episode when the Blood played in his back garden! Close observers will spot Clyde Ward in action in a restaurant sketch that could be mistaken for bad taste if you didn’t realise the script was cloaked in ‘post-modern irony’.
It’s St George’s Day tomorrow of course and naturally there will be a full PRCC meet in the evening – pictures to follow. London-based enthusiasts should be advised that some of us will be getting on it from 2pm in That Central London Place.
April 21. Out now – genuinely – this limited edition Infa Riot BEACH TOWEL. Punk-loving sun-bathers can stretch out on the high quality towelling and wait for Lee to expand the franchise with an ep featuring Each Dawn I Fry, Still Out Of Sun Cream, Five Minute (Tanning) Sessions and Kids Of The 80s-plus Degrees Fahrenheit... next a special Lee Wilson beach purse that can’t be opened in the vicinity of any bar, pub or ice cream van.
Controversy corner: a packed emergency meeting of our elite supporters group Club 77 last night called on “all members of the Gonads, their entourage and loyal fans to boycott Sandie West and her so-called Get Your Gonads USA feature film”. More controversially, the meeting also demanded that James “JC” Cruttwell be “fined” for the heinous crime of displaying a Gillingham FC scarf on stage in Berlin. Said an ashen-faced Fat Col: “We have nothing against the Gills or the Last Waltz and would encourage Paul Scally’s ex-wife Lisa Valente to join the band at the earliest opportunity, but whatever Mr Cruttwell’s personal tastes he should realise that the Gonads are a Charlton band and behave accordingly.” The motion was carried with one abstention.
April 20. Here, courtesy Chelsea Dom (GI), is an action shot of the great Gonad vs King table football clash in Berlin last weekend. We don’t want to mention the final score as it wouldn’t be sporting. But, for those who missed it, it was 10-1 to Gal. In fairness John did go on to trash Dom 10-0 (the same score as when Gal whipped Paul “Stalin” Hallam’s Mod arse in Genoa). So it would be only right if Dom now took on Stalin for third place in this inaugural league. Gonads’ gigs may not attract as many punters as Maiden or McCartney but for the record we reign undefeated in our chosen fields of Quasar, table-football and pie-scoffing against the clock.
There has been universal condemnation of Sandie West for showing an unfinished version of Get Your Gonads USA at the LA Punk Film Festival with commentators condemning the producer’s decision as “disrespectful” and “wrong-headed”. An outraged Wattsie Watts even complained about the colour of West’s poster. “Why is the poster pink?” she fumes. “Is she trying to emasculate the boys while Barbie-ing me up?” Who knows? But we do know that The Beast, acting on behalf of Lord Waistrel, is planning to launch a kick-starter campaign to raise the cash for the “properly Gonadian” Bed, Board & Boned In Berlin feature-length anarcho-sex comedy. And, says Effete El “This time the script will be adhered to.” Hear, hear!
RECORD NOOS: OUT now on vinyl, Giuda’s LP E.V.A. from Burger Records, while TSOL’s Dance With Me has been reissued (Dink) as has More Noise & Other Disturbances from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (Taang!) Extreme metal lovers will be delighted to know that Venom’s debut album Welcome To Hell is also now available again on vinyl with a gatefold cover from Back On Black.
April 19. There have been disturbing developments while we’ve been away. Sandie West (Hollywood pest) is today hosting “the LA punk film festival” at her mansion of evil, and has provocatively included Get Your Gonads USA for a screening. Martin Sporrell (aggressive Gooner) fumes: “How the Donald Duck can this mad bint be showing a film that a) ain’t even half-way finished and that b) the band ain’t even seen, let alone approved?” Luckily we managed to stop Mart from jetting off to Venice Beach to “sort the West problem permanently”. But this outrageous development has hardened Lord Waistrel’s resolve – among other things – to ahem “firm up” our punk rock sex-comedy Bed, Board & Boned In Berlin.
Once again Fat Col enters the story, claiming that he is working with Sex Shop Si Spanner to “story-board” the movie. Their early draft reads: ‘The Gonads are booked to perform at an “alternative orgy” in Kruezberg in support of an anarcho-syndicalist protest movement but tension rises when the dodgy promoters swerve paying the band. It’s all a cover to frame the Nads for a big fuck-off jewel robbery. To Wattsie’s disgust, the male members are cornered in their dressing room after the show by a squadron of punked-up German groupies “all tackled up and hungry for love” who steal their DNA “in an unconvential manner”. Unable to cope with the women’s demands the lads draft in their roadies – Col and Spanner – to finish the job, Robin Askwith style... meanwhile Wattsie puts zwei und zwei together and makes vier. She calls in Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) who robs the robbers and we all head for the airport pursued by cops, thugs and broken-hearted boilers...’. Yeah. Very subtle. Col adds “It’s sorta Monty Python meets 70s soft-core porn. All it needs now is for Gal and Micky Pugh to write a few gags and we’ll be sucking on diesel”. Oaf. PS Waistrel has banned Gal from making ANY Gonads related decisions as he is “too trusting”. He adds: “If this West pest had come to me, I would have shown her the business end of my musket. Or at least have ordered Scrotum to do so.” Quite right.
April 18. Here are some more pictures from our blinding Berlin trip, although sadly no shots were taken of the epic table football clash between Gal and John King backstage at Punk & Disorderly last Friday. Result: Charlton 10, Chelsea 1! (And Gal was kicking himself for letting JK score the one...) The other great joy was finding the entire area plastered with gig posters with Gal’s boat-race jumping out at all-comers (see the pics). Talk about don’t scare the Pferde.
After the great hotel debacle (as detailed previously on this blog), the impish Chelsea Dom (Grand Inquisitor) spread the rumour that our hotel was actually a hostel. Not so! True, Wattsie’s heart sank when she clocked the exterior but inside it was pretty cool... except for two things – no bloody bar and no bleedin’ breakfast! “It’s the promoter’s revenge because you kicked up such a stink about having single rooms,” explains our mate bi-lingual Hans Upp. No matter, buzzing from the vibe of the city, we lived on kebabs and lager for two days running. The gig was terrific, with red-hot sets from the Vageenas, Berlin Blackout and Toxoplasma, and a dazzling performance as the FrankenSkin by Chelsea Dom (GI). There were only a few small downers: 1) Wattsie getting her revenge on Gal for blog-related ‘crimes’ by cruelly and deliberately saddling him with a fridge freezer who spoke no English for two ruddy hours! 2) Our sight-seeing trip around Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenberg Gate being hi-jacked by Phil McDermott who turned Friday afternoon into the guitar equivalent of a wild goose chase. 3) We ain’t been paid yet!
Backstage with our old mucker Marco from Klasse Kriminale 
Wattsie and JC enjoying the trip
The outside of our hotel
Inside the hotel... what a difference a door makes
John King furious after losing the great table football challenge 10-1.
Col and Bunty’s caravan of lustPS. The Cockney Rejects were brilliant on Friday night and The Business were stunning on Saturday – well done to the two Steves (Whale and Kent) for ending the south London legends’ career on a high with the sterling support of Millwall Roi, Sebi from Stomper and Mike Brand from the Arch Rivals. We were rather hoping Chelsea Dom (GI) would send us a review of the weekend but the great man was too busy gossip-mongering to take notes. It was Dom who spread the rumour around P&D that we were staying in a “caravan of lust”. Not so. In fact the only occupants of said caravan (pictured) were Fat Col and his barely legal concubine Bunty Bigelow. So why weren’t they seen at the festival? Simple. Col wasn’t in Berlin for punk. He met up with the Berlin State Opera who had turned their Easter festival week into a special celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. “We went to see Wagner’s comedy Die Meistersinger,” he tells us. (Wait. Wagner did comedy? – Ed) “After all, it’s all about the celebration of the human spirit over the forces of repression and that. Just like the Gonads.” Bunty confides that Col managed to blag his way backstage by pretending to be an English opera star known as The Plumstead Pavarotti and even had a half-hour sit-down chat with the boss, Daniel Barenboim, about staging our Quest For The Golden Goblets operetta there next year. “It was all going really well,” she tells us. “Until he asked Colin to sing...”
RECORD NOOS: Roy Ellis & the Transilvanians release new 12-track album Almight Ska on CD and vinyl via the Liquidator label... the Madrid based record company are also releasing King Hammond’s 21st Century Scorchers collection and the Mighty Megatons’ single Atomic Bomb/I Want To Know.
PRANKSTER NOOS: To order brethren! This year’s Ēostre weekender, starting tomorrow in That Essex Place, will now run for four days and not three, beginning with a Meet & Greet in Southend hosted by Terence Hayes, PM. Sunday night’s Ska & Soul DJ sessions will be followed by a Monday night of mirth compered by Dirty Rob himself. See your Tyler for details.
BREXIT NOOS: John King urges all punks who support democracy to fight the establishment campaign to nobble Brexit. He wants volunteer bands to take part in his grand Punks For Freedom rally. Get in touch if you want to know more. JK has also launched a kickstarter campaign to get Gerald Kersh’s Night & The City novel re-published as a quality paperback. You can pledge here.
April 15. Here are some pretty pictures from our brilliant few days in Berlin – live shots from the show at Bii Nu plus snaps of Gal being grilled by the Grand Inquisitor, Chelsea Dom, on the Punk & Disorderly stage. Words may follow at some point. Cheers!
April 14. We’re sad to hear of the shock death of UFO’s Paul Raymond yesterday. The guitarist and keyboardist with the legendary and much-loved rock band suffered a fatal heart attack. Another good man lost. He was 73.
April 1st. This blog is closed by order of Lord Waistrel in the hope that various complex problems surrounding the band can be resolved quickly away from the glare of publicity. It’s a confusing time at Nads HQ and we need space to try and get things sorted. Here is our handy guide to our many predicaments. New readers begin here:
The problems began when Waistrel decided to move the Gonads away from live performances and into other art forms, especially films. For a while it looked like Get Your Gonads USA would be step one in this bold progression but huge question marks now hang over the Sandie West production. The background: the initial filming began nearly 18months ago in California and Nevada, with additional scenes still set to be shot in the UK. What’s the problem? 1) A teaser or taster tape has yet to be produced. Deadlines for it have been given and broken many times. 2) The teaser tape is needed to raise the cash to for the London filming. 3) The movie is supposed to be based on the script for Curry On Up The Gonads but has gone severely off course. 4) Hardcore “Spartan” elements within the Gonads supporters group Club 77 are calling for the project to be scrapped or boycotted. 5) Likely completion date: at this rate 2035.
An alternative film, the “sex-comedy” Bed, Board & Boned In Berlin has been proposed more in keeping with the band’s sense of humour. What’s the problem? 1) The script is not yet complete. 2) Plans to produce a teaser tape in Berlin this month cannot proceed until the film has been cast. Probable outcome: the project will be put on hold until all the pieces are in place.
The film projects have diverted us from the recording studio. We have two albums worth of songs ready – a Gonads album and a GBX one – but no immediate plans to record either. What’s the problem? Clyde Ward is tied up in the USA all year working on his new label Gypsy’s Kiss. The Spartans are calling for the songs to be recorded without him. What’s the problem? Clyde can’t produce the songs at long distance. Probable outcome: 1) A single will be recorded without Clyde 5/1 2) The project is delayed until 2020 3/1.
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