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.
Aug 30. Those West Coast Gonads USA dates in full: 12th November – Alex’s Bar, Long Beach. 13th – live streaming event, Burbank Studios. 15th – The Viper Room, Sunset Strip, LA. 16th – Til 2 Club, San Diego. 17th – The Dive Bar, Las Vegas, Nevada. Be there or be square, you lucky people.
Gal’s latest Rancid Sounds podcast is available now on spreaker.
Aug 29. We promised a big announcement – what d’ya mean it’s a day late? – and here it is: The Gonads movie is ON! Curry On Up The Gonads will begin filming in November. Which in turn means the Gonads USA will ride again and the West Coast dates are also on! Come back tomorrow for the exciting details!
Aug 28. The Captain Oi label re-launched at the weekend in partnership with Cherry Red records. The Captain will be leaving the business side to Cherry Red while he concentrates on “putting together stacks of new releases”. The salty old guttersnipe is offering 20% off selected CD orders to help the re-launch, including – to our surprise – copies of our own Back & Barking and Schiz-Oi!-phrenia (presumably re-pressings, as both sold out years ago). Gems by everyone from the Rejects, Sparrer and the Upstarts to Rose Tattoo and the UK Subs are also in the offer. Take a look over here.
In more actual news, Brummy streetpunk outfit Rotunda have just released their new album, Rotten To The Core... Oldham Ska-punk trio The Crash Mats will bring out their second album, 69 Peruvian Panpipe Classics on September 15th... the Old Firm Casuals have posted a video for their song ‘Never Say Die’ – the official anthem of the San Jose Earthquakes; it was recorded at the team’s home stadium... Ice T is hosting a special investigation into the unsolved murders of Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. for Fox TV in the States. Who Shot Biggie & Tupac? Is due to air on the 24th September; Fat Col is offering 666-1 on Pat Phelan from Corrie.
Talking of Col, the fat man has angrily denied allegations that he was slung out of Wattsie’s hospital by security men on Saturday. “It never happened, she imagined the whole thing,” he seethes, adding “It must have been the Oxycodone.” Why on earth would the specialist give her Oxycodone for an MRI scan, we ask? Col replies: “He didn’t, I did... oh shit. Don’t print that! Don’t you dare print that!” Oaf. Perhaps Chelsea Dom has been on it too as he has just sent us a picture of what looks like Disneyland theme park animal character claiming that it is “Lee Wilson in disguise to stalk the three American ladies”. Why do you think that’s Lee, we ask? “Look at the suit – no pockets!” says Dom. “So nowhere to put a wallet. It’s perfect.” True. But if Lee wanted to hang out with Dumbo he could’ve stayed home with Colin.
Aug 27. Gal’s latest Rancid Sounds show goes out on Tuesday night at 11pm UK time. The hour-long onslaught, exclusive to 2nd City Radio, includes dazzling new tracks from Rancid, the Len Price 3, United Bottles, The Spitfires, the magnificent GBX, Infa Riot, IntaStella, Cock Sparrer and The Warriors with a sprinkling of classic ditties by The Soul Sisters, the Alaska Cowboys, us, and almost inevitably the immortal Charlie Drake.
Lee Wilson update: Chelsea Dom is now conducting interviews in LA as part of his on-going investigation into the “Creepy Uncle Lee” scandal. “I decided I could lose nothing by taking the soft approach,” he tells us in a three-hour transatlantic collect call. “But if that doesn’t produce the goods —and I don't think it will – nature will take its course and I’ll bust up the furniture.” Get in! The man is like Phil Marlowe on a mission, with IBS. And gout. Expect further news when Dom cracks the case.
OUT now! 1) The latest Vive Le Rock! 2) This Means War’s self-titled vinyl 10incher from Pirates Press! And 3) The new issue of Nepalm Reloaded featuring the Hawkins & Joseph story, Penile Dementia, Big Pretty, Scotland’s top boys (five page feature), John King interview, Weekend Offender, Jah Wobble, Accelerated Freefall, unseen Garry Johnson poems, the Superyob cartoon strip and Lulu’s Aching Groin.
Poor Wattsie Watts had an MRI scan and other tests yesterday but the day did not pass without incident, for as la belle Watts was wheeled to theatre she claims she saw Fat Col being escorted off the premises by two burly security men. Col was “dressed like a hospital porter”, she alleges. Rumour has it the tubby twerp was apprehended in the gynaecology department – a departure at least from his usual haunt, the women’s geriatrics ward. (Wattsie reckons he prefers it there as “their eyesight is going, they’re less fussy than younger birds and they’re easily swayed by Werther’s originals.”)
Aug 26. Could the Gonads return to the USA actually be about to happen? We’re told that rather like Game of Thrones “various pieces of the puzzle are slowing coming together and are heading inexorably towards the grand finale”. A near-hysterical Wattsie predicts it will mean “the end of the Gonads” but as Cheng Yi once said “the Gonads have no beginning and no ending, they simply are”. Expect a big announcement on our Facebook page on Monday...
GBX are in the studio in Guildford next month demoing songs for the band’s debut album. We hear that record companies and publishers at home and abroad have expressed “great interest” in the project which is said by those in the know to represent the direction the Gonads could have taken after Old Boots had we not “turned back to punk”.
In other news, our long mooted Dirty Metal album will definitely be released next year according to sources close to band management. It will, we’re told, be “the point where AC/DC collide with Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts in Dapper Laughs’ back garden”. How quaint.
Aug 25. HUGE book news: Gal has signed up to write We Still Kill The Old Way: Origins – the story of how the Archer gang from the films got started in the swinging sixties. He’ll need to finish the new Harry Tyler novel first of course...
Where is part 3 of the Creepy Uncle Lee saga? Chelsea Dom has gone strangely quiet. We know Lee Wilson won’t have bought him off, but perhaps Dom is being blackmailed into silence. In which case Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) has pledged to “double blackmail” him into spilling the beans. “We know all about the barrel and what happened inside it,” says Sporrell mysteriously. And of course aggressively.
Aug 23. Fears grow for the safety of Fat Col after a man in his 50s was pronounced dead yesterday morning following Flamefest – the alleged “kinky rave fest” in Tunbridge Wells which boasts a “discreet” adult play area staffed by dominatrices and an outdoor dungeon. Col’s friend and confidante, Effete El, begged Wattsie to “phone The Yard” for clarification. “Scrap yard or knackers’ yard?” came her rather callous reply. Official band spokesman Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) issued this statement: “Although friends are concerned, the fact that a woman in her late 40s had also been found alive in the dead man’s tent suggest that the corpse cannot be our Col. If it were a blow-up doll, we’d be worried...”
Fears return to haunt our November mini-tour too after film director Sandie West sent us links to a number of eye-wateringly expensive hotels including the Beverly Wilshire, LA, the Ritz-Carlton at Marina Del Ray, the San Regis in Frisco, and the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Whispers a source: “It’s almost as if she thinks Lord Waistrel is going to pay for the accommodation.” Gulp. Back of the van it is then.
Part 2 of Chelsea Dom’s investigation into the “Creepy Uncle Lee” affair. ‘It seems that after Stonehenge, crafty Lee Wilson took the three American ladies further west towards Bath. I am reliably informed that this was a ruse to tour his favourite dogging spots, culminating in a pilgrimage to the Toghill Picnic Area, the UK’s top dogging site...’ (How do you know? – Dartford Ed). Dom continues: ‘However, we think he got rumbled and the closest he got to getting a ‘right royal dogging’ was a trip to Windsor Castle, to see the Queen’s corgis on the way back to London. Unperturbed, Lee was heard to say that he’d been wearing his best aftershave for the occasion and asked whether the girls would like a sniff on ‘my magic scarf’ (aka that cravat again!). Fortunately our intrepid visitors from across the pond were put off from going anywhere near the manky rag due to the overwhelming whiff of mothballs, with a slight hint of chloroform. Young Donut professed a desire to visit Camden Market the following day, although we don’t know how well Lee’s offer to ‘take her up the Camden Alley’ was received. More to follow…’
Aug 22. We needed to know more about the “Creepy Uncle Lee” mystery so we dispatched our most intrepid investigative reporter, Chelsea Dom to get to the bottom of the sordid story. Here is part one of Dom’s news exclusive: To elaborate further on the story behind the visit of three American ladies (one of whom is a pest-controller), a trip to Stonehenge and Lee Wilson acquiring the ‘Creepy Uncle Lee’ tag, I have unearthed the following disturbing background details… Rumour had it that Lee needed to buy a new cravat as his old one has more holes than Lars Frederiksen’s Watford tuxedo. On attempting to open his wallet, Lee found his fumbling fingers blocked by a major infestation of moths. The mothballs he’d found on one of his antiques forages (Dr Sleazium’s Finest), had proven to be of limited use as the sell-by was March 1888. Unperturbed, the Infa Riot warbler enlisted the help of three visiting American ladies (to protect their anonymity, we shall refer to them only as Donut, Bird & Gold). It transpired that Donut is a pest-controller, although we’re not sure if she’d remembered her pepper spray to ward off Lee’s unwelcome attentions. Donut donned her best Ghostbusters outfit but regardless of the copious energy dispelled from the proton pack the moths did not budge. On the pretext of an historic tour, Lee then lured the three American ladies to Stonehenge... where he was heard to mutter: “I didn’t know it was the druids day off, no sacrifices today then...” Eh? Was Lee hoping that the ritual immolation of one of these no doubt pure unwitting ladies to the pagan gods would rid his wallet of its unwanted guests and finally let him buy that new cravat he craves? Was he trying to scare them into his antique bed? (“You’ll be safe in here, me dears, just hold this mystery wand under the covers and rub it until the magic flows...”) And did he finally, by some miracle, manage to get his wallet to open? At this point all we can say is that on their return to London, Lee was witnessed wandering off up a dark alley cackling to himself manically and singing “You gotta pick a pocket or two, boy”. And was this where the creepiness started to set in? More breathless revelations to follow...
Dom also notes: Lars’ tuxedo has been worn solidly on tour for at least two weeks, so is no doubt getting a bit musty, but rumours that this has inspired him to launch his own fragrance ‘Dances with Skunks’ appear to be wide of the mark. Mercifully.
Aug 21. Big thanks to James Cruttwell of the East End Badoes who will stand in for Clyde Ward on bass when we play the big Punks Against Homelessness gig on 1st October. Clyde unfortunately has had to pull out as he’ll be “TCB in Cyprus” that weekend. And frankly if he wants to do that kind of thing that’s no concern of anyone else’s. He is a consenting adult after all. The gig at the New Cross Inn also features Infa Riot and Noel Martin’s Evil B’stards, Max Splodge, Spizzotronic, The Phobics, Bexatron, Lulu’s Aching Groin and Dennis (Just Dennis) – all for a Lady Godiva! You lucky people!
Speaking of Infa Riot, Lee Wilson asked Gal to play a couple of tracks from their new album on the next Rancid Sounds podcast which he’s due to record tomorrow. Gal asked him to send him the download links. Lee, known and respected throughout the entire Western world for his generosity, sent him the links to BUY the songs on iTunes. We’re not saying Lee’s tight but his neighbour’s kids were eight before they discovered the “money box” under his stairs was actually the electric meter.
Aug 20. We can neither confirm nor deny rumours that the Gonads will support Jethro Tull at their Earl’s Court show next April. Let’s just say that anyone who plays the flute on one leg while wearing a cod-piece is one of us in spirit, and that it wouldn’t be any more surprising than some of the bands the great Sandie West is trying to pair us up with in California. These range from Quiet Riot to Ron Rancid’s Nihilistics via Earl Sweatshirt. No doubt the Flaming Lips will be next on her hit list. Fat Col is said to be advising the determined director in all musical matters, and tells us that he has personally authorised the invitations sent this week to Aimee Allen and Amy Lee to “join the boys on stage as flag girls”. The man is unhinged.
Record noos: Goldfinger’s album The Knife is now available on coloured vinyl from Rise Records... Infa Riot’s impressive new effort Old & Angry is out too. It’s available on vinyl with a deluxe gate-fold sleeve and on CD from Randale Records, although the CD version is not yet on sale in the UK (surely not because with vinyl there’s a better mark-up???)
Aug 18. Dashing film director Sandie West has turned peacemaker, offering to shoot some of Curry On Up The Gonads in London so that English-based band members can grab some of the limelight. A spokesman for Sky News called the offer “a significant olive branch”, but will it be enough to persuade Wattsie to call off her campaign of sabotage and dissent? If so, expect Sandie to be called in by the UN to sort out Russia and the Ukraine.
Aug 17. Corks were popping in Nads HQ last night as Sandie West announced that the Gonads US tour is on!! In an extraordinary about-turn, the East Coast Gonads led by Jay The Tripod have rallied to the cause meaning Gal and Clyde will be joined on the road by at least three New Hampshire heroes. Consequently the Curry On Up The Gonads movie project is now more likely to go ahead than not! Jon Trickey’s The Filth are also locked in as supports for the November shows – just as they were in 1998. Dates are now confirmed for LA, San Diego and Las Vegas with two more to follow. And there’s only one dark cloud on the horizon – the wrath of Wattsie. La belle Miss Watts is still bitterly opposed to the enterprise. Furious about being “snubbed by Sandie”, Wattsie is believed to be working with the Jolly Boys SF to picket the gigs. She also continues to warn that Gal will be targeted by “unscrupulous groupies”. Fat Col’s reasonable suggestion – that she joins the tour as security and sleeps in Gal’s bed as Oi! The Chaperone to keep him safe – has predictably gone down like The Nosher on piece-rate. News update: The Gonads USA, current likelihood rating: 95%. Says Fit Bird: “Only the visa situation need to be clarified, dunnit.”
Aug 15. The fall-out from the imploding US tour continues to rumble on, with Wattsie’s fan club (Fat Col) insisting “There can be no show without Shona!” and hardcore West Coast fans (the Jolly Boys SF) said to be threatening to PICKET our November shows if she is not in the band. Wattsie, who is still fuming, has accused dashing director Sandie West of trying to “tear the Gonads apart” by “playing on Gal’s good nature”. Wattsie has sent us various messages, none of which are printable, and asks (not unreasonably) “how come the real Gonads only get to play charity gigs in sodding London while all the hot transatlantic action goes to others?” Gal’s explanation, that these US gigs are vital for the big Curry On Up The Gonads movie, has fallen on deaf ears. Wattsie has also issued a number of general threats against “plotters, haters and splitters”. But who is “the sausage-fingered Yank” she has vowed revenge on? And talking of hot transatlantic action, is it really the case, as Wattsie claims, that the mini-tour is all a Machiavellian scheme by persons unspecified to get Gal into bed? I mean, why go to all that trouble? A pint of lager and a packet of pork scratchings is all it normally takes... In a further twist, Phil McBadoe is said to be crowd-funding a film of his own about “how the Gonads’ proposed US tour fell apart before it happened”. A black farce, clearly.
More questions arising on the case of “Creepy Uncle Lee Wilson”. Apparently the full story involves a pest controller, Stonehenge and three American women. We put this charge to Lee who texts back “Haha some of it is true...” The mystery deepens. By the way the Infas new album, Drinks On Me, is currently available only on vinyl here. Diana Schuler has the kept all the CDs in the Black Forest where apparently they are selling well...as coasters and clay pigeons.
Aug 13. Why is Lee Wilson now being referred to as “Creepy Uncle Lee” rather than the rather more accurate “That Tight-fisted, Round-Dodging Bastard”? We don’t know, we merely ask the question, but we do know this: in a dramatic snub to Lord Waistrel, the Gonads last night rejected the idea of a ‘Punks For Trump’ US tour out of hand with one element (Wattsie) calling for it to be a ‘Skunks For Sanders’ tour instead. Feelings were pretty heated, says our ashen-faced source, Effete El (the fighting poov). “Wattsie was so worked up about it she would’ve led a protest march on Waistrel’s drum if he hadn’t fucked off to Guam for an apocalypse now party.” So will the November dates actually go ahead? El refused to say but a tight-lipped Fit Bird tells us: “Gal is back, in’e, and e’s working ’and in glove with that Sandie West and our pals on both coasts to make these shows ’appen.” She adds: “I’d say it’s 50/50. There’s a lot of interest, but if they do occur, they ain’t gonna have no political theme whatsoever. They’ll be strictly ’avin’ a laugh.” Thank fuck for that.
Happy bOi!fday to Chelsea Dom, currently in Pat Collier’s studio recording with the Crows. While we’re here, No Trigger have just released brand new four-track 12in single, Adult Braces, on coloured vinyl – described by a passing music expert as “catchier than Captain Hook’s bad hand in a magnetic net”.
Aug 12. The Pranksters have closed ranks about their recent crisis, and we can find no official willing to talk openly about it even to us. However in exchange for ten pints of Stella, our anonymous informer (Fat Col) revealed that the secret brotherhood have suffered a summer schism following the emergence of a fanatical new internal faction inspired by the Boston-based Jocular Fellows and their charismatic leader Alf Mould. The faction, dubbed Mould-Mentum, claimed to have discovered the hither-to lost secrets of the brethren which “negate the physical limitations of man and allow astral projection by way of celestial navigation”. Col claims that Mould’s followers had been spreading like wildfire throughout the organisation, seizing control of a number of lodges. In response, Terence Hayes, PM, is said to have called an emergency crisis meeting of the order’s elders at the Arthurian circle in the inner temple of the brethren’s clandestine, totally private, utterly confidential, completely concealed London base, Excalibur House (two doors down from Dirty Dicks, knock twice and ask for “the Bishop”). To signify the grave nature of the threat, he greeted provincial grand masters wearing the gilded flat cap of Harry Relph – not seen in public since the abdication crisis of 1936. The three-hour mead-fuelled meeting unanimously denounced Mould’s supporters as “heretics” and “Egyptologists” and gave the PM the green light to use the Rod of Correction against them, which he did, once it had been recovered from Antonia’s boudoir by Old Eric, the Keeper of the Plums. Long story short, the Mould-Mentum mob have now been expelled save for a few who agreed to swear their loyalty to the PM over the burnt bullocks of Sir Bedivere. (Not pleasant, apparently; according to Col the charred bulls “chuck up a bit”). A new chapter in Pranksterism is about to begin. To order, brethren. Step off with the left foot.
Aug 10. A dark cloud is hanging over our US tour after Lord Waistrel decreed that the proposed West Coast gigs must be conducted under a Punks For Trump banner. Tour promoter and film director Sandie West condemned Waistrel's intervention as "provocative, ill-considered and self-defeating". However Scrotum, Waistrel's wrinkled retainer, tells us that his Lordship was forced to get involved because "Sandie's gung-ho plans were in danger of tearing the band apart". Sandie first sewed seeds of dissension when her recently released promo film for the proposed November dates deliberately snubbed Wattsie Watts – it's rumoured that she planned to replace her on the dates with US punk vocalist and exotic dancer Sushi Suzie, 22. When Wattsie rightly kicked up a stink, the dashing blonde director suggested that the tour should be "just Gal and the East Coast Gonads line-up" led by Jay The Tripod "to save money", adding or "maybe just Gal and Clyde with ukuleles – proper punk pathetique like the early curry house tour of 1977". Um yes. It was at this point that Waistrel felt compelled to act. His Lordship has said that it is either the full band including Wattsie with proper visas or it is nothing. Our esteemed manager played the Trump card to "test West's mettle" but Scrotum adds that he would "settle on a Pro Libertarian tour theme" if he had confidence in her plans. According to his blabbing butler, Waistrel is also "concerned" that West might not get the band's sophisticated humour. Scrotum tells us: "'Is Lordship feels that the project needs to be hintelligent and thought-provoking and that hit would need the modern equivalent of a Benny Hill or a Talbot Rothwell hat the 'elm, someone with real depth like that Mike Myers or Seth MacFarlane." Quite so. As Gal is still uncontactable we asked Fat Col for his thoughts on the crisis, but all he said was "Mmmm. Sushi." Oaf.
Footnote: Rumours that Waistrel has written a pro-Donald 'big hair rock anthem' which he plans to record with Simon Cowell cannot currently be confirmed. If true it will be his Lordship's first new song since 'Reg & Ron', by Lord Waistrel & The Cosh Boys, in the 1980s.
One a morally skewered celebration of psychopathic thinking... and so's the other one.*SPARE a thought for poor old Wattsie, currently suffering from tinnitus. Although thinking about it, that constant ringing might just be Fat Col phoning up around the clock to tell her about his genital warts. Col has been making himself busy in our absence poking his nose around Nads HQ where in one of the many nooks and crannies he found Gal and Clyde's comprehensive plans for the "huge" Parousia project. Details of the long-planned Oi opera have always been sketchy but the untrustworthy Gannon reveals that the double album is based around the life and death of the FrankenSkin culminating with the second coming in 'Son Of FrankenSkin'. Col tells us: "It's an incredible concept album encompassing punk, hard rock and even death metal. I was scanning the lyrics when Fit Bird found me and chucked me out with a broom up me arse... which was a bonus". Cretin.
*The GBX debut single is out now! In fact it came out a week ago. The single consists of 'Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees' – a brand new arrangement of the paean to original skinhead culture featuring soul legend Angie Brown on backing vocals – backed with a fully electric version of 'Beer Can Boogie' (think Status QuOi!). Both songs are available as downloads via our own Soitainly label.
In other record news, the Ducky Boys's Dark Days album has been re-released on coloured vinyl (State Line), as has Oxymoron's Feed The Breed... Antiseen's new album Obstinate is just out via TKO... The Pinkerton Thugs LP End Of An Era has been re-issued by State Line... The Generators' new single 'Street Justice' is out now on coloured vinyl from Pirates Press... so is the Bum City Saints/Topnovil split single... the Warning Shots' album Tonight is available now on CD, vinyl and download... and finally The Struggle (an Oi super-group involving various North East herberts from Gimp Fist, Crashed Out, Major Accident and Geoffrey Oi!Cott) have released their album Endless on vinyl, a real mix of sounds...
We hear dark rumours of a summer crisis in the Jolly Pranksters, our investigative team are on it. Watch this space!
This blog and the shop page are now closed for a month. NO orders will be honoured until mid-August. Please watch the news page for the confirmed release date of the cracking GBX debut single. In the meantime, our next confirmed gigs are OCTOBER 1st Punks Against Homelessness at the New Cross Inn, South London, and OCTOBER 21st: Polyfest at the Dublin Castle, North London. GBX play Portsmouth on NOVEMBER 25th (details tbc). Have a good summer, chums. Stay free.
