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. We’re shutting down for a week as Gal enters “intense negotiations” with Lord Waistrel about the future of the band. An intrepid reporter in a crumpled suit (Fleet Scribbler) says, “For the Gonads, this is an existential crisis. They may have cried wolf before, this time though, the end could genuinely be nigh. The only hope is that some sort of effective compromise can be worked out. The clock is ticking… but is it a time-bomb?”
More updates before we go: Randale Records are refusing to respond to emails, sparking rumours that the German label might be experiencing an existential crisis of its own. Whatever the outcome, the Gonads pledge that their “unbreakable” new album Revolution Now will be released “with or without them”. A spokesman for Lord Waistrel said “We will give Diana Schuler until mid-May to respond, and if by then we believe that Randale intend to welch on the deal, his Lordship’s response, quoting the famous Low cartoon, will simply be, “Very well… alone.”
In other news, there has been no headway in the Musk blog take-over bid, but we understand that even a 99/1 royalty split in his favour wasn’t enough to tempt him into managing the Rawhides.
April 29. Gal’s delayed launch party for his 2019 books on the glory days of New Mod and 2-Tone will take place a week tomorrow on Saturday 7th May near Waterloo. Get in touch for details.
Fit Bird’s shocking leak has thrown the band, Club 77 and blog readers into disarray, but the decision to call off all Gonads dates for 2023 has been welcomed by the Rawhides. A spokesman, claiming he definitely wasn’t Fat Col, said “All good things must come to an end and it’s time for fresh blood like the Rawhides to step up and reboot the scene”. Calling reverse charges from a phone box in Plumstead, the spokesman added that the Rawhides “would never play Rebellion”, calling it “a PC luvvie fest full of c***s like Billy fucking Bragg”. Please note: the views of the Rawhides and those of the Gonads are too far apart to co-exist on a Venn diagram.
April 28. Following an explosive briefing from Fit Bird, we can reveal that the Gonads will be cancelling all 2023 shows and officially winding down after August this year “whether Waistrel wants us to or not”. The exclusive news – given to this blog “off the record and not for publication” by Gal’s PA outside Boyle’s Irish bar at 11.15pm last night – included the shock revelation that the petulant singer has decided the Gonads will stop playing ALL gigs after Rebellion. Delivering her top-secret news to a small crowd of outdoor nicotine enthusiasts, Fit Bird added (her words here are translated into English) that he has had enough of playing bars and pubs, and wants to concentrate his very limited spare time on his books and “other performance opportunities”. She refused to say what they might be. But she did slur, “Don’t try and change his mind cos he’s as stubborn as a mule, inne? – and don’t print nothing on your bleedin’ blog neither.”
April 27. Here is the poster for Decca Wade’s benefit gig for mental health charity MIND. If you’re in or near Bexhill rather than the 100 Club on 21st May please support Decca’s event if you can.
We understand that Waistrel’s negotiations with Elon Musk about the tech-billionaire’s proposed purchase of this blog have hit a stumbling block – apparently Musk is offering Twitter shares and bitcoin but his Lordship is holding out for “good old-fashioned cash, off the books as normal”. Meanwhile, in a worrying twist, Gal’s PA Fit Bird tells us the singer is “very open, in’e?” to the prospect of ending all Gonads tours and live shows after Rebellion this year. She tells us, “E finks the band ’as run its course, dunne? If it was up to ’im he’d pull the plugs after the 100 Club if not sooner.” Strewth.
In other news, we are sorry to hear that Cynthia Albritton, aka Cynthia Plaster Caster, has died. Chicago-born Cynthia found fame making plaster casts of the aroused appendages of rock gods including Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Kramer and Jello Biafra. Rumours that she made one of Fat Col’s cock and used it as a thimble cannot be confirmed or denied.
STOP PRESS. Get well, Fluff. We’re all rooting for you mate.
April 26. Breaking news: Musk buys Twitter, could the Gonads blog follow? Waistrel is keeping quiet on that issue, but he is expected to reach a decision on the Gonads touring future “in the next few days”.
April 25. We wake up to the unexpected news that Elon Musk is bidding to buy this blog to maintain its integrity as “a citadel of free speech”. Gulp. Will Waistrel sell?
Meanwhile, Gal and Lord Waistrel are said to be in talks about following the Cockney Rejects lead and calling an end to all future tours – only the plan is to “beat the Rejects to it” and pull the plugs permanently on ALL live shows after Rebellion. It is believed that Gal backs the scheme but Waistrel has doubts. Club 77 and all members of the Gonads past and present have condemned the move without reservation, with some suggesting the band should simply ignore them and carry on regardless with another singer. Effete El isn’t sure. “There is no Gonads without Gal,” he tells us. “To carry on without him would be a travesty.”
April 24. As the curtain opened on this weekend’s Jolly Prankster St George’s Day event in Cheshire yesterday, dark clouds of suspicion rose over the reliability of our mole. It has been alleged by a high-ranking Prankster insider that the mole’s Easter festival report – which ran on this blog – was ‘inaccurate’ and probably ‘deliberately misleading’. The more senior and more trusted brother tells us that our mole exaggerated the size of the festival crowd and the scale and nature of the entertainment. “Events like sick Yeti ‘bronco bucking’ did not and would not happen,” he said. “The claim was a deliberate attempt either to smear our organisation or to make us look bigger and more threatening in order to try and get us proscribed. Your spy is almost certainly an MI5 double agent.” Blimey. Consequently, our mole’s report on this weekend’s proceedings will not be published until it is fully fact-checked – a very unusual departure for his blog indeed.
STOP PRESS. The Cockney Rejects have just announced that they will retire next year. Here is their statement in full: After much thought and consideration dear pals, we have decided that 2023 will be our last year as a touring band. Don't worry though, for the next 20 months we will be giving it everything at venues all across the U.K and the world, culminating in a special event in London in Dec 2023. We will still be around on the festival circuit, but as of the end of next year our touring days are over. Hoping that you can all come out to support us in the next 20 months, you have all made the last 43 years the best days of our lives. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
April 23. Happy St George’s Day! Have a good’un!
April 22. Breaking bad news. We understand that our German label has not yet paid the studio costs for Revolution Now, Consequently a furious Pat Collier is threatening to confiscate the masters. An ashen-faced Beast tells us, “This is a very serious set-back. The Gonads have just made their most powerful and meaningful album in five decades of glorious failure and yet for some reason the label won’t pay up. We are trying to contact them directly but we suspect that this is the result of a Fat Col stealth operation. Incidentally, why am I quoted in your blog reports? If I am your legal adviser or part of the management team where is my contract, and more importantly some readies?” Sadly, the phone goes dead. More news when we have it.
April 21. The Beast has acted quickly to stamp out requests by certain band members to add “unacceptable instrumentation” to several tracks on Revolution Now, including penny whistles, banjos, violins, a wobbleboard and an Emerson Moog synthesizer. “This is serious streetpunk album,” he storms. “Save such fripperies for the Orgasm Guerillas.” So mote it be.
April 19. Here are pictures from the “clapping and BVs” segment of Saturday’s final recording session for our meaty new album Revolution Now. For clap-catching and BJs see the Yeti.
“This is a microphone, you sing here.”
“Clapping, it’s all about timing.”
Bored, Wattsie wonders when she can whip out her kazoo.
April 18. The Jolly Pranksters’ annual ‘Eostre’ Festival was, as we reported last week, their biggest ever gathering as the secret brotherhood grows and prospers under the radar of the authorities and the gutter press. Our spy Brother X (real name redacted) infiltrated the event, which was held in East Sussex over Easter weekend, for two whole days before beating a discreet retreat to preserve his identity from suspicious Church Of Oi security bods. Bro X confirms that brethren came in record-breaking numbers to attend the chaotic three-dayer held on private farmland “one league” (three miles – Ed) from Burwash Weald. He adds, ‘The Saturday night entertainment was once again supplied by the Blackpool-based Variety lodge and consisted of patter comics, illusionists, show-girls, folk singers, mentalists, extreme jugglers, and the like. The bill also included the absurdist gyrations of Cabaret Dali and self-styled country-punks the Rawhides who were allowed to play only on the strict condition that they didn’t bring Fat Col.
‘Saturday evening ended with an X-rated performance from the legendary Peaches Magoo whose intricate work with an improbably large black pudding left her sweating like a dray horse with pneumonia. Her eye-watering insertions even had the Nosher gasping in sisterly admiration – and she’s seen more helmets than General Patton.
‘Master of ceremonies was the brotherhood’s much-loved Secret Master (the SM) who is so well-known in the outside world that even to hint at his identity would result in diabolical ritual death (starting with the slitting of the throat and “the tongue being torn out by the roots”). There was a wealth of impromptu side-stalls including coconut shies, darts, archery, plate-smashing, welly-throwing, arm-wrestling, and the return of Septic Peg, the notoriously inaccurate fortune teller who famously told Boris Johnson “Covid? Schmovid! Go to as many parties as you like, nobody will give a fuck”.’
Our spy’s detailed notes suggest that the festival itinerary mirrored previous Prankster events, but with slightly more dwarf-throwing. X writes: ‘People had been camping since Thursday evening, but the event began officially at 1pm on Friday, with a formal ceremonial drill performed by the Norwegian Blue Scooter Club riding in close order formation and displaying their beautiful plumage. Then came an afternoon of bizarre physical challenges including tug-o’-war teams, jousting, archery, boxing (amateur), pickpockets (pro), a display of synchronised in-door smoking, no-seat-belt banger racing (only one fatality) and an adult version of a bucking bronco where drunken brethren tried to stay on top of a well-greased and surprisingly mature Yeti. (It was free to enter, as was the Yeti, but she tipped you if you were any good).
‘The real highlight of Friday afternoon, however, was the surprise appearance of Terence Hayes (Divine Master), who was wheeled on to the main stage in a wheelbarrow by three of his many daughters. From a seated position with his left leg held aloft, the DM gave a speech in what I can only think was advanced Prankster code. He spoke movingly of ‘wossname’, and ‘yer-no thingy-majig’ and the assembled crowd cheered him to the rafters. He was then lifted from the chair by big Del The Butcher and carried aloft on the shoulders of the throng.’
‘They were a friendly crowd, consisting largely of rude girls, blue girls, suedeheads, skinheads, scooter boys, oi-polois, punks, drunks, ex-lags, old nags, herberts, converts, market porters and their daughters, publicans, hooligans, fairground barkers, Mods in parkas, retired blaggers, professional slaggers, hustlers, rustlers, tattooists, cartoonists, Tantric sexperts, oi-oi experts and the hooliganologist Cass Pennant.’
Food he reports was ‘rather basic fare, stewed eels, jellied eels, pie, mash and liquor, or a Toby-style carvery’. We know that Friday has a Ska and Trojan reggae disco and adult comedy and Saturday had extreme variety. But Brother X left before he could witness the Sunday evening entertainment and the closing ceremony. He says, ‘I had to shoot so I don’t know whether or not Lord Waistrel and the Cosh Boys performed but as I was leaving I think I saw his friend Lord Elpus wheeling a £2million, 120,000watt Andrea Pivetta opera amp from the back of a Roller with blacked-out windows.’ (Sounds like the Rubbles – Ed).
What about flag-burning we ask? Prankster three-dayers traditionally ended with the ceremonial burning of the EU flag, surely now redundant. X replies, “Again I left too early, but I did spot a Russian flag being soaked in petrol by Mad Mickey Wharton and René Artois de Besancenot, leader of the French Prankster affiliates, Les Espiègles Gais. There were also cut-outs of famous people also destined for public burning, including Putin, Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Macron and perhaps surprisingly Paul ‘Stalin’ Hallam, the illiterate publisher, who is reported to have crossed the SM one too many times.’
Brother X adds that the many lodges in attendance included ‘Herbert’, ‘Variety’, ‘St George’, ‘2-Tone’, ‘The Ageless Chaps’, ‘Chelsea’, ‘King’, ‘Worley’, ‘Elf’, ‘Dub’, ‘Reform’ and ‘Romany’. The next Jolly Pranksters meet is on St George’s Day (at that Cheshire place), and he promised ‘I will try my best to get the inside gen.’
April 17. We’ve done it! Revolution Now is all finished bar the mixing and mastering. With twelve tough tracks, the album is without doubt the strongest we have ever made. “Hand on heart, it’s our finest hour,” Wattsie tells us demurely. “There isn’t a duff track on it”. We have been told not to leak too much info about the record, or about yesterday’s intense and occasionally fraught recording session, but we can say that the album celebrates an era “when the working class had power”. Fit Bird is uncharacteristically tight-lipped, saying only that “we think it’s the dog’s bollocks, don’t we?”, and adding cryptically, “wait till you hear about manana”. If all goes to plan, Revolution Now will be released in August by Randale Records.
Here is one proper exclusive from the day, though. Our next release, possibly as soon as Christmas, will be an expanded live album “in the spirit of the first Live & Loud Official Bootleg” with an entire live set, including a pub side, and two unreleased bonus tracks Ruptured Foreskin Blues and Water Bomber (Of Old Berlin), both written ten years ago and inspired as ever by very true stories.
April 16. Security has been tightened around Perryvale Studios today as we return to finish off our new album, still obstinately called Revolution Now. Fat Col watchers believe it is unlikely that he will try and ruin the day, however. His only friend, Effete El, tells us that Col is pushing ahead with the Rawhides’ debut EP of “country punk redneck drinking songs” called Bars, Beers, Bourbons & Blondes. El tells us, “Aware of his own limitations, Colin is just looking for a lead singer to make the project really work – he believes the best revenge on Wattsie Watts will be to out-sell the Gonads.” Gulp. “Not a big ask,” snipes The Bitch.
April 15. The biggest-ever Jolly Prankster weekender kicks off today. Rumours of a significant reunion are circulating, possibly involving Arthur & The Afters from Oi Oi That’s Yer Lot, Barney & The Rubbles, or even, gulp, Lord Waistrel & The Cosh Boys. We have installed a mole among the brethren and will report back in details…as long as they don’t get rumbled.
We’re sending big Gonads love to Clyde Ward who needs reconstructive surgery on his right knee. Meanwhile, the DM is still awaiting robotic surgery on his left femur. Both of these gems among men will be out of action for many months. Phil “Twelve-Bands” McBadoe tells us that Tel is resisting calls to perform in a wheelchair, which means the East End Badoes are unlikely to play this side of November. Says The Bitch, “It’s a huge blow to their fans, Sid and Doris Poplar, and a fucking great relief for music lovers.” Harsh, but fair.
April 11. Hallelujah! We have a verdict! Lord Waistrel’s grand inquiry was held at his Old Bexley manor retreat Alma House yesterday and after a gruelling six hours of interviews, deliberations and quaffing quarts of champagne top, his most gracious Lordship has found in favour of the Gonads! There was one early set-back when The Beast, representing the band, argued that Fat Col was a dangerous old-fashioned buffoon who “wanted to turn the Gonads into a reactionary force” – an idea that Waistrel warmed to. But the tide turned against Col when in quick succession 1) the CCTV footage from the Hoppers’ Hut was found to have FAILED at the crucial moment the “double dodging” incident was alleged to have happened 2) Derby Ken WITHDREW his eye-witness testimony (claiming it had been beaten out of him by a “mature blonde CID detective with lesbian tendencies called Big Tess”) 3) Clyde Ward DENIED that he was ever involved in Col’s Rawhides take-over plan 4) Waistrel was FORCED to listen to Gannon’s “diabolical” demo tapes and 5) Wattsie testified in a skin-tight black leather cat-suit. At the death, Col was ordered to DROP the name “Gonad-Gannon” and STEER CLEAR of the recording studio next weekend; he was also BANNED from this blog indefinitely (again). The only set-back for the band is that the Good Lord ruled we must change the album’s name. “Revolution Now cannot be tolerated,” quoth he, from the judicial hammock, adding “unless it is appropriately qualified.” So mote it be.
Fat Col took the decision badly, furiously blaming the verdict on the “turn-coat” DM and his “Jolly Prankster connections”. His close friend, Millwall Kev tells us, “Colin believes that only the Pranksters would have had the clout to have the CCTV footage wiped or to send Big Tess in to neuter Derby Ken. He thinks the Gonads have made “a terrible ricket” in not sacking the ‘disruptive’ Wattsie, but Col is big enough and ugly enough to concede defeat. He intends to work with Clyde and Big Tess on the Rawhides country-punk album and blow you lot out of the water through the power of music alone.”
PS. Bizarrely, Wattsie's testimony consisted largely of looney-tune conspiracy theories, including the antiquated and unfounded belief that the Moon Landings had been “faked”. Says our insider, “It was absurd old cobblers but it didn’t seem to matter, Waistrel had sunk two gallons of Moet top by then and seemed transfixed by her every utterance, no matter how ludicrous. She could have said the world was flat and he’d have nodded along.” (You mean it ain’t? – Piers Corbyn).
April 8. Gal has been summoned to testify in front of Lord Waistrel’s Grand Inquiry on Sunday to defend the integrity of the new album from the sustained attacks of Colin Gannon and his belligerent backers. He will state that the new album’s schizophrenic nature reflects his own political journey and has “significant truths to tell”. He will argue that although musically muscular – the album embraces street rock as well as punk rock – it is also “classic Gonads” with songs like Hoppers’ Hut, Teeth Aht and Ragman’s Trumpet being “as good as anything we’ve ever done, if not better”. The album is, he will say, “a natural progression” while also being “the hardest-hitting set of bangers we have ever recorded”. Gal has made it clear that he will defend Ms Wattsie – nicknamed “The Incredible Sulk” by Gannon – to the hilt, saying “If she doesn’t want to do the song, that’s fine, we have others; it’s no big deal if it doesn’t make the cut this time, it will be resurrected for the next single.” He slammed so-called Gannon-Gonad (aka Fat Col) for his “disrespectful remarks and treacherous behaviour”. His Lordship is expected to rule on the record, the controversial round-dodging charges and Wattsie’s alleged campaign of sabotage ahead of the final recording date later this month. Insiders believe the sage guidance of the DM will play a large part in the outcome.
April 7. A resurgent Fat Col – given free rein by Waistrel while the inquiry continues – tells us that he is considering adding more songs about round-dodgers to “his” new album. In an exclusive briefing Col, who now calls himself Gannon-Gonad, said that “Buy Me A Drink You Bastards is okay as far as it goes, but we need to target the unacceptable new trend of ‘double-dodging’ where dodgers work in pairs at closing time as well, and cast our net wider with songs about other pub nuisances.” When we ask for examples, he says “The public bar miser is a constant irritation. Ken Barlow on Coronation Street is a prime example. When he buys himself a drink in the Rovers, he usually orders half a bitter, but when someone else is in the chair he’ll always ask for a pint. There was also a famous singer on the original Oi scene who would always ask for lager if someone else was buying, but would buy himself bitter because it was thruppence cheaper.” We are duly shocked. Col goes on “At the other end of the scale is the saloon bar Greedy Guts. Woe betide the poor beer drinker who gets in a round with him because while you’re on pints, Greedy Guts will always demand a large Scotch, sometimes a treble.” (He then goes on to ‘out’ a famous radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist as a Greedy Guts but our lawyers have asked us not to mention N*ck F*rr*r* by name as the charge is based on unproven anecdotal evidence from the 1980s. Woops!)
April 6. Fat Col has seized on rumours that Wattsie is refusing to rehearse her lines for Can You Take All This? to ferment more unrest behind the scenes. He tells us, “I don’t like to say ‘I told you so’, but I bloody well did. This woman has been a disruptive element ever since she joined the Gonads with her high-and-mighty attitude, her hatred of the stage cock, and her refusal to do the Oi Mate dance or even sing Infected.” Col adds that “for a small fee” he is willing “to rescue the situation” by bringing amateur Cockney actress and professional escort Mitzi Richmond to record vocals for the track next week. “I will save the situation,” he says solemnly, adding “We will even include Mitzi’s version on the album once me and Clyde take over on Liberation Day.” (As previously reported, the rebels plan to re-record large swathes of the new album with Col’s backing band, The Rawhides). He tells us, “We will liberate the Gonads from both political correctness and the malign influence of Wattsie Watts, who is from the wrong side of London anyway, and this Rosa tart.”
April 5. Acting on Fat Col’s tip-off, investigators from the Church of Oi today seized CCTV footage from Friday’s curry night session in the Hoppers’ Hut to try and establish whether or not the shocking new round-dodging allegations are true. The claims are believed to have originated from eye-witness Derby Ken who told the South London Press that he witnessed Gal buy the first round but “when the guv’nor rang last orders at the ludicrously early time of 10.20pm, nobody moved an inch; Gal’s pint of Paulaner was drained but nobody thought to honour the debt. Like the song says, at 10.30pm his glass was standing empty and those bastards had left town”.
RIP Pamela ‘Jordan’ Rooke, who had died aged 66. Her family say the punk icon “died peacefully a stone’s throw away from the sea in her home town of Seaford, East Sussex in the company of her loving family at 9pm… after a short period of illness, she succumbed to a relatively rare form of cancer known as cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer).” Pamela passed away on Sunday. She was a lovely woman who stayed true to herself.
April 4. Concerned by the lyrics and themes of the new album, Fat Col has shared more worries with Lord Waistrel. Gannon believes that Gal may have been “compromised” by a radical brunette known as Rosa (believed to be the subject of a new, unrecorded Prole song), who is said to wear black stockings and a red beret. “It’s like something out of The Ipcress File,” he added. Blimey.
Meanwhile we’re hearing rumours that Wattsie Watts can’t spare five minutes “at any point” in the next twelve days to do a rehearsal or even a telephone read-through of Can We Take All This? She is also refusing to respond to messages on the subject. Experienced Wattsie watchers whisper, “What this means is she doesn’t want to do the song. Perhaps she thinks it’s beneath her. She’s hoping that the band will be forced to abandon this classic slice of Gonads-style filth on the last studio day. There’s talk of Waistrel getting involved, but that’s pointless as she can wrap him round her little finger.”
April 3. Fat Col has jumped on unconfirmed reports of round-dodging on curry nights to cause absolute havoc behind the scenes. In the last 24hours, Gannon has petitioned Lord Waistrel calling for an official inquiry into the controversy and suggesting that Church Of Oi investigators impound CCTV footage from the Hoppers’ Hut and SACK any proven dodger. And that’s not all unfortunately. Col is also demanding that work stops on the new album immediately as “a dark cloud of suspicion hangs over certain reprobates”. He even denounced the album title Revolution Now as “dodgy and deranged”. One of Col’s close associates, Donkey Dom, reports that Col has opened a direct channel to Waistrel via his Lordship’s advisor, Terence Hayes, DM. They whisper “The plan is to get Waistrel on side long enough for Col and Clyde Ward to take over the studio for the final day, delete anything remotely PC and record what they are calling ‘a proper fucking Gonads album’, including all of the revolting rejected Fat Col songs like Chatham Docks, Small Faeces, Pitta Bread, Tippy Jay The Tripod, Richie Is A Rocker and The Bulldog Breed.” They pause and whisper, “They also plan to record sexist filth and change the album title; oh, and to sack Wattsie Watts for what they call ‘numerous misdemeanors’. This is real, this is serious. For the Gonads it’s an existential crisis.” Not ’alf.
April 2. It sounded like an April Fool's joke, but no. Gal called on a band curry last night and made everybody turn up sober. In a shocking swing towards professionalism, he even started the meeting on time, with The Beast warning that the two band members who arrived late would be "yellow-carded with red cards rising". The reason for this unreasonable seriousness was Sir Gonad's conviction, explained by Fit Bird, that "the band are at a crossroads ain't they?" (Presumably with Miss M as Meg Richardson). Many big decisions were taken, largely to do with the new album Revolution Now. With just three new songs yet to record - Teeth Aht, Joe Hill and 18Stone of Dynamite - we are reasonably expecting to wrap by the middle of this month. "Gal thinks it's our best album yet, dun 'e?" she whispered, "even better than Back & Barkin'." Blimey.
In other news the London Brawling 2 sessions have been put back, along with the new reggae track we are working on for the unity album; the social club gig has been rejected, Miss Management was advised to wear her high heel DMs "on every conceivable occasion" and in a genuinely controversial move the band agreed to play entirely different sets at next month's 100 Club and Brixton gigs. Brixton will see the return of Hey You, Beer Can Boogie, and Fat Cat Splat, among others, while the 100 Club set will feature the first ever public performance of The Greatest Cockney Christmas. On hearing the news, Club 77 called for Gob and Valhallaballoo to also feature in the Brixton set. But Fat Col condemned the sober meeting, and the dropping of Beano, Yeti and Oi Mate for Brixton, as "a blatant sell-out", "an unacceptable dilution of Gonadism" and "a surrender to the forces of political correctness", adding "You are on a slippery slope with no sign of a hand-brake".
A bigger controversy loomed however. As the band retired to the Hoppers' Hut for a post-ruby livener, one member (who for anonymity we will only refer to by his initials, JC) refused to come ludicrously citing "work tomorrow" as an acceptable excuse. More horrors followed. One ashen-faced observer reports that Gal bought the first round and when last orders rang, nobody else got them in. "They didn't move a muscle, they just sat there looking shifty," says our informer. The landlord was so shocked he has telegrammed Lord Waistrel demanding that the offending dodgers "be named, shamed and preferably horse-whipped". So mote it be.
Rumours and queries. If JC had left before the pub, asks a passing logician, could the alleged dodgers be Paul and, gulp, Phil? Is it really possible that the Gonads and the American Gonads will join forces for one two-drums, three-guitar, two-bass, three-singer mega-gig in Las Vegas next year? Was the post-meeting proposal that the vocals for Can You Take All This? be rehearsed and recorded in bed "for atmosphere and authenticity" entirely serious? And is it remotely possible that there will be two, possibly three Gonads weddings next year, all overseen by a fat Elvis? Keep reading the blog for the shocking truth to emerge. Or not...
