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!
April 30. The Gonads are now taking bookings for 2021. Serious enquiries only to his Lordship.
Fancy having your name as a villain in Gal’s next Harry Tyler novel? Just email us with the subject line: THE FACE and the first two people who reply will become part of pulp fiction history (following in the footsteps of a certain Clyde Ward who played a dodge-pot in Two-Faced). Please note, for legal reasons you can only nominate yourself.
This is disturbing. Fat Col says he has been approached by a production company who are keen to turn his sexual fantasies into a pay-per-view TV series. He tells us that the screen Col would play the part of a roadie who has to “fully satisfy” a range of famous women ranging from Beki Bondage and Aimee from the Interrupters to Rihanna. He has already “story-boarded” a range of scenes including one where he is “seduced by Pauline Black” and “punished by Rhoda Dakar”. The disreputable series will be a low-budget job for “adult channel” using “lookalikes” sourced by his pal and near neighbour Mr Courtney of Camelot Castle. Surprisingly Wattsie welcomes the development. She tells us: “The more Col uses the names of real people in his disgusting sexist fantasies, the more chance there is of his fat arse being sued or better still landing up in jail. Rhoda would bash the granny out of him.” Yes, but he’d enjoy that...
Podcast Noos: Our pal DJ Twista has uploaded some of Gal’s podcast onto Mixcloud. These include:
A Rancid Sounds from February 2019, here.
A 70s Rock themed Sounds of Glory from 2018, here.
And a Highway To Hell from last September, here.
On this day in 1978, The Clash headlined the first Rock Against Racism carnival in Victoria Park, Hackney. Many thousands, including Gal and Rudi Guerre, marched from Trafalgar Square for the concert which also included Steel Pulse, X-Ray Spex, Patrick Fitzgerald, the Tom Robinson Band and a surprise appearance by Jimmy Pursey who jumped up and hollered his way through White Riot with Joe Strummer. (The next carnival, with Elvis Costello, Aswad and SLF, was in Brockwell Park, Brixton, that September. It was reviewed by Gal in Sounds, and attended by a young Wattsie Watts. {In a schoolgirl uniform? – Col} {Not on a Saturday – Ed} {What if you asked nicely? – Col} {Piss off, perve! – Ed}). White Riot, a film of the Vicky Park carnival, is live streamed tonight from 8.30pm via Curzon Home Cinema. It will be available until Monday May 4th, and is due to be released in cinemas this September.
April 29. Serious moment: has anyone heard from Garry Johnson recently? He has been off the radar, and not responding to emails or calls, for months. If anyone knows how he is please get in touch to reassure us.
This trailer for Gatwick Gangsters makes the film look much better than it is. If you recall the low budget movie featured Gal as East End George, a slippery Cockney businessman, with Wattsie as his cheeky yet sophisticated PA Lucy Linfield. Also appearing, as if in some acid-induced vision, were snooker legend Willie Thorne, David Courtney and darts ace Bobby George – and yet somehow the Daily Mirror still saw fit to dub it “the worst film ever made”. Well, there’s no accounting for taste. Our memories of the movie are vague – possibly suppressed for reasons of self-esteem and self-preservation – but as we recall, there were also sheiks involved, a gold heist, and George and Lucy ran off to get married. Mercifully no record of their “vigorous yet sensual” honeymoon scenes exist, except in the fevered imagination of that odious oaf Fat Col.
April 28. Bad news! We hear that Dom Cotton – our very own ‘head of the punk police’ – has quit EastEnders before he even filmed a scene. Our soap correspondent, Liverpool Likely Lad, writes: ‘Dom , the bastard son of Nasty Nick and a Cock Sparrer vinyl rarity, was gutted when scripts arrived calling for him to appear in a ‘raunchy sex scene’ with Albert Square’s latest gerontophile, hard-man garage mechanic Phil Mitchell. Dom, someone who isn’t afraid to ‘get creative’ when the lights are off, was due to sit at table with a pot of tea, reading passages from grandma Dot’s Bible so that Phil could draw spiritual inspiration from them. Before you could say ‘Your rod and staff they comfort me’, they were tearing each others’ clothes off and climbing the stairs... After that explosion of passion, Dom would have been making regular visits to The Arches where viewers would be both shocked and amazed at how often he liked getting his spark plugs changed. His big end would have been serviced regularly.” Friends of Dom tell us that he was incensed by this “betrayal” of his character. We managed to catch up with him at his local Happy Shopper where he was involved in a supermarket brawl over the last pack of toilet rolls. Dom had been attempting to secure bread, milk, eggs, Wagon Wheels and other essential grocery items when a fight broke out. Our team were stopped at the door by PC Rob Swindell who told us that there were a number of fatalities, and that one person had been “impaled rectally” on a French stick in the mêlée. Dom later emerged with a solitary Wagon Wheel but told us he had no comment to make. An insider says that “he wants to focus on poking his nose into everybody’s business just like his on-screen character”. Dom Cotton will be missed by the soap-loving English public. He never made the screen but his character is already part of Walford folklore. So much so that we hear Corrie may come calling...
April 27. Seven of your genuine questions answered straight, by blunt-speaking Mr Honesty himself Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner):
1) Geoff from Dunstable asks: Will there be any new Gonads releases this year? MS: We hope to get back in the studio in September to record a new Christmas single. This obviously depends on when the lockdown ends. The band has enough new material for two new studio albums and a new live ‘official bootleg’ is in the can, with finished artwork and everything. We can’t record anything new at the moment and Lord Waistrel will hold the live album back until we have gigs scheduled.
2) Various people: Will the Gonads be willing to play South America? MS: the short answer is we will play anywhere as long as legitimate promoters are involved. We have looked into South America and Latin America before and Gal and Clyde have also expressed their wish to play south east Asia, Australia, Canada, Croatia and so on. We would play shows from Moscow to Melbourne as long as the shows are properly organised.
3) Joanna from Swanley: Will Gal be writing a 40th anniversary Oi book similar to the 2-Tone and New Mod ones, and when will book four of The Face series come out? MS: That’s two questions, Jo. See me after class! Here’s the honest truth – Gal has started working on the 40 Years of Oi book but we cannot guarantee that it will be finished, let alone published, this year. I note that the 40th anniversary NWoBHM book has still not seen the light of day. Similarly he has made a start on the fourth Harry Tyler novel but doesn’t expect that to be published until the Spring of 2021.
4) Belgian Frank: Will there be any special compilations for the 40th anniversary? MS: There will be a six-album box-set of the first Oi comps and work has begun on a very special vinyl platter. It remains to be seen if new tracks can be recorded in time to meet the record company’s deadline but I am sure that they will be flexible.
5) Filthy Phil from Kent: Have the Gonads done away with flag girls? MS: No. Flag girls are part of our tradition and we are always happy to consider new ones. However potential candidates should be advised that a certain Colin Gannon of Plumstead is not involved in the selection process, whatever he tells you.
6) Vix Bevan: How long can you keep this blog going when fuck-all is happening? MS: As long as Waistrel wants it open.
7) West Ham Lloyd: When is your next gig? MS: Tufnell Park in December. See the news page for details. Oh and PS to all who asked: yes Bush World food courts will include curries and kebabs, but I get the feeling you’re taking the piss now and the next person who asks about this subject will get a clump. End of.
April 26. Is this the Jolly Pranksters demonstration that has shocked the government and their lockdown lackies to their very core – hundreds of the beer-loving brethren on the march through South London last night, led by Terence Hayes, PM (second flat-cap from the left) angrily demanding that British public houses should be re-opened immediately? Will they take our advice and “storm the pubs and light their fags?” And will beer-drinkers all over the world now rise up and follow their example, flying the flag for liberty, lagers, stouts, ales, porter, cider and the beautiful thirst-quenching rest?? (No, no and no – Ed). Oh well, it’s a beautiful dream.
April 25. What became of Harry May? According to the Business, the fearsome south London villain retired at sixty and went permanently on the piss. But maybe that’s just what he wanted the Old Bill to think. Here, courtesy of intrepid reporter Chelsea Dom, is the fishy business that H actually got up to. Surely this calls for some new Business songs – Keep The Plaice, Out In The Cod, Disco Gils, Spirit of the Skates... Record them Mr Whale, just for the halibut...
A new Facebook page opened in honour of Terence Hayes, PM, last week but for some reason so far only 21 people have liked it. Why so? A Prankster insider tells us: “Obviously we all love the PM and in a less hostile world the entire brotherhood would have gladly endorsed this page. But Pranksters prize the discretion of our order and have decided to boycott the page to prevent suspicions about our membership. If 50,000 brethren had liked it over night, the gutter press would have been all over it and would be leaking our names willy-nilly.” Scum! The anonymous insider (Frank “the Plank” Jolley of Mottingham Lodge) goes on: “It’s a privacy thing – we are not a secret society but we are a society with secrets. It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enema.” Blimey. So those who have liked it? “Are all East End Badoes fans,” Frank says firmly. “Frankly I’m surprised there are so many of them, but there’s no accounting for taste.” Indeed.
We’re indebted to Gonads fan “Skinbyrd Susie” (“48 and still cracking” – Fat Col) who has unearthed a little-seen 2009 interview with the fragrant Mary Anne Hobbs talking about her ground-breaking XFM show of the late 80s. “There was no alternative radio in the UK whatsoever and we felt it was the revolution,” she said. “For instance we’d do this thing called Bushell & Bragg, obviously Garry Bushell in one corner and Billy Bragg in the other, and they’d pick the topic of the week, we’d open the phone lines and they'd just go at each other like rottweilers. It was just one of the most fantastic pieces of broadcasting.” Mary Anne, now a Six Music stalwart, goes on to talk about the UK rock press in the early 80s. “Sounds was the punk and rock paper: NME was much more concerned with Marxist politics... So, I would really count the days until Sounds would arrive at the newsagents and it was evidence along with Peel that this other world existed. It was like a glittering bauble that existed somewhere far away, hanging in the ether, and it’s what I knew I had to head for. Eventually, I was kicked out of home at 15 and a half, I was working in an egg-packing factory – but my dream was to write for Sounds, I thought that would be the threshold to this other world.” Mary Anne’s dream came true. She freelanced for Sounds and then blotted her copy book by working for the other lot. But the girl dun well. Fat Col says he has a dream that Mary Anne could help come true, but he’s just getting tiresome now.
Record Noos: the Bar Stool Preachers have rushed out a new single Soundtrack To Your Apocalypse and it’s free to download. Head over to THEBARSTOOLPREACHERS.COM to get both songs.
April 24. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Oi! – The Album this December, Captain Oi! will release the first six Oi! comps in a special box-set. This is great news you would think, but naturally Fat Col begs to differ. Incandescent with fury, Col storms: “There were seven Oi! albums in the initial years, four of them compiled by Gal and the next three by Garry Johnson. What the hell has Captain Mainwaring got against The Joys Of Oi?” When we asked, the Captain said that this seventh album came “much later and was unfinished”. Col calls bullshit. He says The Joys Of Oi was actually recorded in 1984 or 5 and was only released years later (in 1990 – Ed) because of “record company tomfoolery”. Says Col: “Joys has the pretty much the same mix as The Oi Of Sex with strong songs from Blitz, The Business, The Gonads, Cock Sparrer, The Strike and the 4-Skins.” He goes on: “Then there was Prole and the Orgasm Guerrillas – both brilliant Gonads spin-offs – and more notably Lord Waistrel’s incredible first song, Reg & Ron (with Gal on guitar and Mark Brabbs from Tank as Waistrel).” Plus, “the Gonads recorded the brilliant closing number, The Drinking Song, as Sober Cyril & The Oi! Oi! All Stars with JJ Cantwell as Cyril.” Impressive. “It was a stand-out album and the Gonads had the title track,” he says. “It’s crazy to say it was ‘unfinished’. If anything deserved to be left off this historic collection it is Garry Johnson murdering If Looks Could Kill on The Oi Of Sex.” Some say Gal J was sabotaged by Frankie Flame playing piano in the wrong key, but Colin claims that the real problem was Gal J who was “so far beyond auto-tuning that he made Katie Price sound good.” Ouch.
April 23. Happy St George’s Day! Here’s a song to warm yer cockles! And some pretty pictures from happier times. St George he was for England and before he slew the dragon, he drank a pint of English ale out of an English flagon! Oi! Oi!
April 22. What’s this? Only a new online Lads mag, sauntering between youth cults, rebel music, working class style and the underworld. Can only be a matter of time before we’re in it, surely...
NOOS: LA punk legends X have released their album ALPHABETLAND on Bandcamp. The surprise album, out on Fat Possum Records, is their first for 35 years and features the original line-up... Beastie Boys Story, a movie by Spike Jonze, is available on Apple TV from Friday. It’s a love letter to hip-hop’s golden age...
April 21. Terrible news. The Pete Way Band’s world tour has been postponed as a result of the coronavirus. Bloody shame. It would have been the greatest comeback since Lazarus. Pete and the boys played Chesterfield triumphantly in January with the great man on vocals, Clive Edwards on drums, Tym Scopes on guitar and Nacho Jase on bass. But then the virus put the kibosh on it. Unannounced dates in the USA have been put on hold – news that some experts are calling “Gonads-esque”. Who needs cynics though? Rock ledge Pete will be back on the road later this year. The man is nearly as indestructible as his liver.
Thanks for your suggestions of which other Gonads songs should be included in our next big Sunday night NO GIG (if we do one – we’re still recovering from last Sunday’s marathon effort). The best nominations so far are: Re-Infected, Eat The Rich, England’s Glory, Lager Louts, Karl Marx Supported Millwall, Fat Cat Splat, Hitler Was An ’Omo, British Steel and Lights Out In Charlton. (Wot? No John King Is A Veggie? – Ed). Thanks also for your questions although we’re genuinely puzzled as to why so many of you are asking about the menus at Bush World, a theme park that hasn’t yet been built. We can confirm that faggots, pease pudding, “Kate & Sidney pie”, fish and chips and saveloys will definitely be included in the park’s food courts. We can’t answer questions on the cost of the enterprise because we aren’t in the financial loop (Some things never change – Ed). Independent experts put it in the region of £1billion, however.
April 20. Gal is interviewed by renowned hooliganologist Cass Pennant in the latest Casual Chat with Cass podcast released today. It’s not exactly new – they did it back in September 2019 to plug Gal’s new books All Or Nothing and Hell Bent. We’re not quite sure why Cass is moving at Hallam speed, but having heard it we have to say: move over Chelsea Dom, there’s a new Grand Inquisitor in town... savour every word at apple.co/2DgQenM
Prankster Alert: due to the revelation that bumbling Boris wants to keep all pubs shut until December, the Jolly Pranksters today issued orders for lodges to open the entire nationwide network of speakeasy bars in time for St George’s Day. To order, brethren. Fuck the lockdown! Liberate the drinking classes! Drink for England!
April 19. Actual NOOS: Gal’s new website is up and running at www.bushell.biz. Here you will learn all about his soon-to-come one-man show, plus GBX, book and TV developments, all happening later this year when the lockdown is lifted.
Record Noos: Out now! Our great pal Doug Kane tells us Doug & The Slugz have released their debut LP, Smash! Hits Vol. 1, nearly forty years after they wrote it. Doug and the chaps were the first authentic LA Oi band but never got around to releasing anything back in the day. Now the original band has re-recorded all of their early anthems for this gutsy Resort-influenced platter available from LSM Vinyl... our Italian mates, Klasse Kriminale have a brand new album called Vico Deo Regazzi out from the elusive Randale Records. All the links and lyrics can be found here.
Meanwhile The Godfathers will release a brand new double A side single – ‘I’m Not Your Slave’/‘Wild And Free’ – on 17th June to celebrate their 35th anniversary... New Joisey ska-punk party band Molly Rhythm release new album Dark Matters tomorrow (via Little Rocket records)... and Australia’s Hard-Ons have unbuttoned their 12th studio album called So I Could Have Them Destroyed on Wallride Records (not to be confused with the Plumstead hard-ons often found at Camelot Castle).
Keep watching this space for the juice on Dom Cotton! Bush World! The fall-out from Fat Col’s “bird-table”! And much more... although sadly we have agreed not to report details of the Pranksters’ recent Great Easter Gathering because of the brethren’s renegade status and “establishment hostility” to their lockdown busting activities.
April 18. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: tomorrow night from 9pm until 10.15pm the Gonads will be staging a unique 27-song NO-GIG with this incredible set-list: 1) Valhallaballoo 2) Alconaut 3) Gob 4) Oi Mate 5) Cemetery of Lost Souls 6) I Lost My Love (To A UK Sub) 7) Dogging In Dartford 8) Infected 9) Ruptured Foreskin Blues 10) Rise Up London Boys 11) Jobs Not Jails 12) SE7 Dole Day 13) Charlton Boys 14) Attack of the Zombie Skinheads 15) Lager Top 16) Dying For A Pint 17) Half A Pint Of Ale/Soles 18) Punk Rock Will Never Die. Encore: 19) Hey You 20) Grant Mitchell 21) Tucker’s Ruckers Ain’t No Suckers. Second encore: 22) Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees. 23 Dance Fat-Boy Dance 24) The Growler 25) Whelks 26) Skinhead Girl 27) Punk Rock Till I Die/Joys Of Oi. This 75minute set will not be live-streamed or shared on Facebook and Instagram at 12midnight, 2am and 7am on Monday morning. Said executive comrade director The Beast: “Some ‘punks’ are playing solo acoustic gigs in their living rooms which is frankly wank. It’s just showing off and virtue signalling. We are the only band in the world playing a pure punk, pure Oi, pure Cockney NO-GIG that no bugger will ever see. It is the ultimate in performance art and street subversion.” Yeah. Have that, Gaga! (All monies raised will go to nurses Jinjing and Tung-Mei c/o the Happy Ending Massage Parlour, Plumstead).
*What other Gonads classics would you include in our next non-set? Email waistrel@the-gonads.co.uk and have your say.
A furious Fat Col is kicking off about our discussion of his Bird-Table yesterday. He fumes: “You liberty-taking nerks! Claiming I would put one of Terry Hayes’s daughters in my Top Ten list is totally out of order. It’s going too far and I apologise to the PM on you idiots’ behalf. Obviously all three of his girls are high on my list.” Asked about Tel’s wife Jackie, Col shook his head and replied: “She’s not there because she is unobtainable. How do you follow perfection? Jackie has been blessed with a prime sample of masculinity, a man of rare honesty and fidelity, one of the world’s best.” Very true. “However,” he adds. “If she does ever fancy a night of rough cider, red hot curry and rampant disappointment, then I am her man. She knows my number.” We all know your number, fat-boy.
April 17. Dire news for lovers of Sandie West, Hollywood Pest. You might have expected the visionary director to be using the long weeks of lockdown to complete at least one of the scripts for the many micro-budget movies she claims to be making. But no. Instead Sandie is spending her time quarantining her cats and worrying about whether the ocean spray is spreading Coronavirus... or perhaps bringing in a fresh batch daily from China. One frustrated film “partner” tells us: “I seriously doubt if any of us will see a completed script this side of Christmas what with all her hippy dippy stuff going on and the monumental emotional effect of looking after her cats and walking on the beach talking to the sun and the waves.” Frustrating yes, but you can’t rush cinematic genius. Sandie has international meditation sessions to attend too, and vegan soup recipes to share.
Fat Col comes on the phone in a foul mood. It seems he confided he was feeling low to his ex-wife Jeanette. “She told me to snap out of it and do something practical like make a bird-table,” he reveals, adding: “She didn’t half go into one when she wasn’t in the Top Ten...”
So who is in Col’s list? Bex from Bexatron, Kyria, at least one of Terry Hayes’s daughters, Carrie ex of Buster Shuffle, Miss Management, Flogging Dori, Rudi Guerre and so on. And at Number One? “I won’t say,” the sexist dinosaur snaps. “Cos you’d tell her and I don’t want that bloody woman to think she’s still got a chance with me.” Hmm. Mysterious. But Wattsie aside, we can reveal that Number 2 is Elin Larsson of Swedish blues rockers the Blues Pills whose new song Low Road is up here.
April 16. Good old Skippy at Pirates Press has put together a bumper line-up of entertainment for Saturday night to celebrate his and Hannah’s “Quarantiniversary”. This will include: Jesse of The Aggrolites, Lenny Lashley, Glen from The Slackers, Rev and Andy from The Drowns, Matt from NOi!SE, Ben from Downtown Struts, Linh from Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Spike from Me First and The Gimme Gimmes/The Revolts, The Barstool Preachers and many more. “There will be entertainment for the whole day,” he promises, starting at 8pm GMT. All details at ROCKTHESOFA.COM.
Our new soap correspondent, Liverpool Likely Lad, reports that new character DOM COTTON will be joining EastEnders later this year. Dom, the bastard son born to NASTY NICK after he raped a pile of second-hand Cock Sparrer Shock Troops albums, is said to be arriving in the Square as the self-appointed head of the punk police. A soap insider reports: “Much like his grandma Dot, Dom Cotton is a notorious busybody and untrustworthy gossip who spreads rumours wherever he goes. We feel he will be a promising addition to a soap opera in terminal decline.” The Dom character was due to start filming before the lockdown for an early Summer screen debut, but now is expected to hit the Queen Vic in August at the earliest. More news as we get it. This one will run and run.
CALLING all comics! Top ducker and diver the Beast is looking for “working class comedians” to join his new comedy stable. If you’re funny, he’ll make you money! (Are you sure? – Ed)
April 15. We have received the following offensive answer machine message from The Bitch: “Welcome back you lazy tossers. Only you idiots would bring back your blog when there is fuck-all to write about. Shit-heads! I see that Wattsie is getting above herself again, having a go at flag girls. She started off as one! How soon they forget. Wattsie’s head is so full of David Icke shite it’s a wonder she hasn’t denounced you all as lizards. Col’s cock is scaly enough. Anyway, why do you fucking bother? The Gonads might actually play some gigs later this year if you didn’t have to compete with all the other bands you tolerate your members belonging to. Phil, Paul and JC should count their blessings that they are in such a classic band and sack their other shitty little combos. What a waste of space you all are. Bring back Nacho Jase and Mick Mav. At least they wanted to play gigs. And don’t give me shit about GBX because that ain’t never gonna happen. You’re all as reliable as a pound shop condom. Clyde fucked off as soon as the film fell through. And as for Gal, even he is getting up himself. He ain’t been in the Hopper’s Hut for weeks. Does he think he’s too good for it or what? Mr Fuckin’ Lah-Dee-Dah. Shut? Of course I know it’s shut. That ain’t the point. He should support it! Buy take-away lager from there and march up and down outside with a placard demanding it be re-opened and fuck the government. I see all the “anarchists” are doing what they’re told and staying home too. What a bunch of useless cunts. Fuck the lot of you. And fuck your mate Dom too, the so-called “punk rock writer” and his tight-arse bestie Lee Bloody Wilson, the fucking round-dodger. At least Kevin Bloody Wilson was funny. He’s just a joke. Like that useless lump of blubber Cherry. And where’s John King’s PPGB now? He must be Joe King. You losers deserve each other. I’ll cough and spit and piss on the lot of ya. Get Coronavirus and die you mugs...” (continues for several hours). How pleasant.
April 14. It’s one thing for people to say “Bring back the blog” and badger us with petitions, threats, insults and promises of sexual favours (thanks, but no thanks, Winifred, 92, of Upper Dicker, even if you can take all of your teeth out). But it is quite another thing to have to deal with the constant bombardment of complaints from pettifogging pedants about every blinkin’ update we post. So okay, listen, we are sorry that we failed to include “bread ’n’ dripping”, jellied eels, bacon bones and meat pudding in the Bush World food court coverage – but at what point did we claim to be reproducing the entire effing menu? Similarly yes we did miss out the Super-Yob theme-park attraction (a hybrid ride combining roving motion vehicles with 3D projection, elaborate physical sets and tactile effects) but again the word “including” does not suggest our coverage was meant to be comprehensive. Besides all of which: THERE IS NO BUSH WORLD YET! You’d like there to be and we’d like there to be, but at the moment thanks to Covid-19 (the disease, not the punk band who played at the Pranksters’ do on Sunday) the money has dropped out of the project. We must all wait patiently until the end of the pandemic to see if the great dream can be salvaged. We must also pray that Fat Col’s “Lucky Dip” is not really one of the fairground side-stalls. (Ditto the proposed automated Jeff Turner punching booth.)
Meanwhile: pop-punk poppets Blink 182 have posted a C-Virus themed video for Happy Days.
April 13. A huge shock today after a bored Fit-Bird, in lockdown at Nads HQ, unearthed a number of cobwebbed Gonads demos in a long-forgotten corner of the loft, including – you won’t believe this – the original version of ‘Tucker’s Ruckers (Ain’t No Suckers)’. This recording, although probably beyond salvaging, has a different and arguably better chorus than the version that appeared on Carry On Oi. Fit-Bird tells us: “It’s got more words for a start, innit? An’ more Lord Mayorin’. An’ a bigger ’ook.” Blimey. “It’s still a bleedin’ racket mind,” she adds with a sniff. Thank gawd for small mercies. Fit-Bird says she’ll get round to “sufferin’ the rest” of the demo tapes once she has Hoovered the bar and checked on the vodka stocks for the 97th time. “Grey Goose?” we ask. “Maybe,” she replies. “But you’ll ’ave to buy me dinner first.”
P.S. This shock find has stoked hopes that the Romulan (unseen since 1998) might be up in the loft too, hopefully buried under misplaced royalty cheques from Martin Hooker, Fatty Lol and Captain Oi...
*The controversial three-day Pranksters’ Grand Gathering, that ends this afternoon, has been condemned as “irresponsible” and “barking mad” by Kent police. But officers sent to disperse the brethren failed to find the location (possibly due to the presence of a Chief Superintendent, two MI5 bods and a junior minister on the top table – Ed). A report may follow.
April 12. Many of Gal’s old interviews are up and running at Litopia, including Steve Diggle, Dennis Stratton, Pauline Black and many more. Lars is there too! Treat yourself! You’re worth it.
The shock collapse of the Bush World project, temporary or otherwise, has had unexpected side effects. We hear that shady “entrepreneur” Flash Harry Edwards has been in touch with Lord Waistrel’s office attempting to purchase both the animatronic Terence Hayes PM and the holographic Gal Gonad. When asked why he was making enquiries, Flash Harry claimed to be representing unnamed members of the East End Badoes who felt the animatronic Tel “might remember a few more things and be a little less ‘wossname’.” Harry added that a holographic Gal would be “more reliable lyric-wise” and be “less prone to wandering off”. Asked who wanted to buy it, he replied “Miss Ma...” and then the phone went dead.
Other people who have lost out in the Bush World “delay” are Si Spanner (chief supplier of replica stage cocks and “inflatable Growlers – for the bloke who likes to be belittled”); and our ineffable webmistress Batttttty whose world-renowned fancy dress emporium (believed to be a front for the Jolly Pranksters – Ed) in beautiful downtown Derbyshire had the franchise for the theme park’s clothing range and Franken-Skins masks. Last night Club 77 members demanded that Waistrel raise the cash for the funfair to go ahead via crowd-funding, an outcome that is believed to be about as likely as seeing Wattsie walking down the aisle with Fat Col without a gun in her back. Scrotum, his Lordship’s wrinkled retainer, whispers, “’Is Lordship his not one for sharing... with the Hinland Revenue or hanyone else”.
NOOS: Charger have released a double-A sided 12inch single on Pirates Press coupling ‘Watch Your Back’ with ‘Stay Down’... Santa Cruz’s hardcore punk herberts Drain have brought out their California Cursed album on blue vinyl via Revelation Records... Canadian punks the Flatliners have released a new vinyl 7-inch called Cavalcade Demos featuring raw demos of a couple of belters from their Calvacade album (Fat Wreck Chords).
And in Lit’ry Noos: Photographer Pat Blashill has just published Texas Is The Reason: The Mavericks Of Lone Star Punk, his book about Texan punk from the Pistols 1978 tour on. It features the Huns, Big Boys and the Dicks (although not Max Splodge’s historic “cow-punk” adventure) among many others. The book contains more than 200 black and white photos along with essays by director Richard Linklater (Slacker/School Of Rock), singer David Yow (Scratch Acid/The Jesus Lizard), drummer Teresa Taylor (Butthole Surfers), and local notables Adriane “Ash” Shown and Donna Rich. You can buy it from here.
Book News 2: The latest issue of Nepalm Reloaded (£4.99) is an all-photo special with spectacular unseen shots of the Cockney Rejects (1979 and 80), The Selecter (1980), Janice Gussett (1981), Prole (recording studio, 1984), Tank (1984), The Blood (Marquee, 1985), Lee Wilson not buying a round (Bridgehouse,1980, believed to be the first of a very long series...) and much more. 40 pages. On sale today at The Jolly Pranksters’ grand Easter gathering in That Kent Place.
April 11. A furious Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) last night hit out at the “pygmies” and “petty pipsqueaks” who have pilloried Waistrel over his bold Bush World plans. “This is no two bob pipe dream,” raged Mart, his face as red as Fat Col’s bank account. “His Lordship has forked out an arm and a leg on geeks and nerds who have designed and priced up the project.” According to Sporrell, phase one of Bush World was due to include ferocious sounding theme park rides, all based on Gonads songs. The blueprint included: Franken-Skin’s House of Terror, a Hammer Of Thor extreme rollercoaster, The Attack Of The Zombie Skinheads (a shoot-’em-up challenge), Sandra Bigg Really Big – “the 3D experience”, Anal Intruder (a VR ride incorporating a helter-skelter and immersion tunnel technology), Revenge of the Yeti (a psychological thriller with S&M innovations), and scariest of all Valhallaballoo – a reversing log flume dark ride attraction where park guests would ride in Viking longboats past Nordic gods, Trolls, Valkyries, sirens, elves, dwarves, Lars Frederiksen and Terence Hayes, PM, all brought to life by state-of-the-art animatronics. “It’s bigger than anything anyone in our so-called scene has ever dreamed of, let alone attempted,” Sporrell fumed, adding poetically: “So the naysayers can go fuck themselves. Back Waistrel! Back Bush World! Save the blog!”
In saner news, Rock The Sofa has a NOi!se special today courtesy of our mates at Pirates Press. The Slackers, The Aggrolites, The Drowns and Lenny Lashley have already taken part in the social media fest. And from 8pm UK time this evening, all of NOi!se will be playing songs, answering questions and making at least one special announcement. You can watch it on the band’s Instagram stream. Go to ROCKTHESOFA.COM for more info and to learn how you can find the Antagonizers ATL on On The Nod radio and see Dave from The Slackers performing.
NOOS: Iggy Pop is re-releasing his first two solo albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life. Both of these 1977 classics are re-mastered. The Idiot comes with a bonus disc, Live at The Rainbow Theatre, recorded in London that same year. Lust for Life comes with the TV Eye Live album. Pop will also release a 7xCD box set called The Bowie Years, including both albums and three discs of outtakes, rarities, and live cuts. All of that is out on May 29th via UMe.
April 10. Random non-news: sadly we have decided to abandon plans to record a new studio album in Cyprus this Summer, although we still hope to get our Christmas single released in late October. The big Bushell’s Birthday Bash for Gal’s 65th in May has been postponed until his 66th in May 2021... just one six short, eh mate?
The Cockney Rejects have announced that their only London show will be at the Islington O2 Academy on December 12th... on the same day as our only London show as part of the Bootboys’ Xmas Knees-up at the Tufnell Park Dome with the Resort, Infa-Riot etc. D’oh! Seriously you wait all year for a flippin’ London Oi gig... the Business’s only London show is at the 100 Club a week later.
Colin Gannon tells us that he is only Fat Col to his enemies, adding that his friends call him “Chubby Gannon”. Okay, Fat Col it is then.
There has been a surprisingly fierce backlash against Lord Waistrel’s plans to build a Bush World amusement park in North West Kent. The scheme has been criticised by the Oi Organising Committee who think it is too “Gonads centric”, and by the Jolly Pranksters who claim it is similar to their own previously unmentioned Jolly Jesters project. Even Wattsie Watts has stuck her elegant boot in branding Waistrel’s plan to have a daily flag girl parade through the park as “sexist and old-fashioned”. Conspiracy-mad Wattsie added that his Lordship has “nicked the idea wholesale” from Gal’s Cockneyland dream which he came up with in the 80s. Last night Martin Sporrell (aggressive Gooner) vigorously defended the Bush World vision accusing the detractors as being “all talk, just like John King’s so-called People’s Party of Great Britain”. He added: “If Lord Waistrel has the strength of mind to see Bush World through then we should all support him. He is an action man, what do the Oi Organising Committee even do these days? Who the fuck are they? I suppose they’d make it all about the Rejects so it’d be claret and blue through and through. Bollocks to that. If these jokers want to build a park let them do it, but my money says Waistrel will get there first.”
NOOS: Wendy James calls from isolation in France to tell us that her new solo album Queen High Straight will be released on Mayday... the Manic Street Preachers will play two nights at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena in December – the first night will be free for NHS workers, the second will raise funds for Welsh health charities; tickets for both will be on sale from 7pm tonight... Debbie Harry and Chris Stein’s In Conversation tour has been rescheduled for November.
April 9. This blog has been prorogued, furloughed and kneed in the nuts by events this year, but we felt we should pop back to reveal one of the tragic untold side effects of the Corona crisis. Sadly, the pandemic hysteria has meant the postponement, and possibly cancellation, of one of Lord Waistrel’s wildest and most extraordinary plans.
According to our most trusted source (Fat Col), his Lordship had planned to start work on a 150-acre Gonads-themed amusement park in Kent called BushWorld over the Summer. He had the financial backers in place and a mini-army of building workers lined up for the job. This mind-boggling theme-park was to have been inspired by all things Gonadian. As well as exciting rides, there would have been a replica of the Lads Of The Village pub where we played our first gig and of the tiny council house in Indus Road, Charlton, that is our spiritual home. Waistrel wanted a theatre built for Old Time Music Hall re-enactments, hologram versions of the band playing live, an exhibition of Cockney culture, a nightly parade of flag-girls, a Kinnell Comedy Club, an indoor food court serving pie, mash and stewed eels, bangers & mash, roll-mops, seafood tubs and of course red-hot rubies, the Skankers rude reggae nightclub, an on-site kung fu display team, and a range of exclusive merchandising that was to have included a “Blue Boys” line of ceramic statues of Gal, Judge Dread, Max Miller, Max Romeo, Buster Bloodvessel and so on. According to Col this was “just a small taster” of the whole bold plan, as apparently his Lordship also wanted to include a boxing kangaroo booth, a Wattsie Watts Conspiracies Briefing Room, blue collar poetry recitals, a streetwise casual clothing shop and a Yeti-themed bouncy castle.
Due to the lockdown, we’re told that the money boys have “lost their bottle” and the whole scheme is “on the back burner”. It’s tragic. But on the plus side in splendid isolation, Gal, Clyde and Mark McMighty have written a number of new and original Gonads numbers including Cockney Calypso, You Can’t Say That, Critical Mass and Heavy Metal Heather. When the band will get to record them is anybody’s guess...
One group stubbornly ignoring the government lock-down instruction are the fearless freedom fighters of the Jolly Pranksters whose Great Gathering will take place on private land at That Kent Place over the Easter weekend. Ask your Tyler for details.
