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 31. Last night’s big Punk Brexit debate was a huge success, even if the discussion was more about Brexit than punk – understandable in the circumstances. The venue was packed, and the crowd included the likes of Manic Esso, Jane Robins (who co-wrote People Like Us with Julie Burchill), John King (of course!), Martin Knight of London Books, Tottenham Sean and Eddie Dempsey the pro-Brexit trade union activist from South East London who has just been No Platformed by middle class ‘Leftists’ for his views on the issue. These great defenders of democracy are all for free speech... as long as you agree with them... The only surprise of the night was the non-arrival of Terence Hayes, PM who was “definitely coming”. Similar events will follow.
On the subject of middle class hypocrisy, the Menstrual Cramps have condemned bands for selling albums via Amazon. Surely not the same Menstrual Cramps whose album Free Bleedin’ is currently available from, um, Amazon?
Message to Robert in Hamburg: are you okay mate? Please get in touch.
Aug 30. Record Noos: Cock Sparrer’s Forever LP is available again as a vinyl picture disc from Pirates Press; the LP includes a 12 track digital download... the Subhumans and the Restarts have released a split single on Pirates Press too, possibly called 99%... Doc Hammer’s new single Borrowed Time is out now – they’re a San Diego punk band with Motorhead and AC/DC influences as the punk metal crossover continues apace. Modesty forbids us from mentioning who was at the forefront.
Book noos: the new Madness book Before We Was We is published on the 10th of October...Gal’s next book Hell Bent is published in October, along with new 40th anniversary editions of his books on 2-Tone and New Mod – Dance Craze and Time For Action. Will there be a 40th anniversary Oi book next year? Fit Bird refuses to say.
Don’t forget Gal will be grilling Brian Denny tonight at the big Punk Brexit debate at the Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia...
Aug 28. Fit Bird confirms that Gal was present at a Jolly Pranksters gathering yesterday but informs us that it was at a bikers’ clubhouse outside of Hastings and organised by the East Sussex branch. She states: “Gal was asked to do a book reading, weren’t ’e? Not that it’s none of your bleedin’ business. He’ll do them anywhere. The slag!”
Aug 27. A picture has been sent to us anonymously which purports to be a shot of “senior Pranksters” at the Brotherhood’s Bank Holiday event outside Whitstable. But as one of them appears to be Gal, our informants must surely be confused...
We hear that the makers of Peaky Blinders will be taking legal action to prevent people producing Peaky Blinders inspired produce. So if you want to get hold of a nifty Hawkins & Joseph Garrison inspired Ts and hoodies you’d better move fast...
Apology. Sadly Rihanna’s lawyers have stopped us from publishing any pictures of her with the PM “before news of their single release is official”.
Aug 25. Lord Waistrel flew in to London yesterday to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – rumoured by the gutter press to be his Lordship’s love child. Before entering Number 10 through the uncomfortably tight VIP back passage, Waistrel issued a public statement announcing that the next Gonads album was “ready to be recorded” and would consist of the following songs: Federales, Shona & The Alien, Harry On The Boat, The Great Sidcup Salami Scandal, Fat Man Ska, Promised Land, Rod of Correction, None Of That Here, Maradona, Looking For Dick, Bloody Nuisances, (The Quest for) The Golden Goblets and Let’s Bomb Brussels. This news has not gone down well with the actual Gonads. An anonymous spokeswoman known only as Wattsie Watts tells us: “Waistrel has made this announcement without consulting with us in order to generate some headlines and distract the world from his reactionary views. There is no substance to this whatsoever. There is no recording studio time booked, three of these tracks are GBX songs, one is a DMG song, one is a Prole song and none of us have even heard a demo of Let’s Bomb Brussels which sounds really stupid, is clearly inflammatory and was apparently written by Waistrel himself” (his first song since Reg & Ron – Educated Ed). Opportunist Fat Col tells us “due to the controversial nature of this proposed album, it would clearly make far more sense to record and release my own 18 Stone Of Dynamite project which is more in keeping with the spirit of 1977 Gonadery...” (continued Hopper’s Hut, indefinitely).
Aug 24. See we weren’t kidding about Gal and Belinda... On Monday: Terence Hayes, PM, and RiRi!!
Aug 23. Could the big pro-Brexit rock rally come about this year after all? People close to the Brexit Creatives group are believed to be approaching “big names” for the event apparently planned for October. They wouldn’t get much bigger than Roger Daltrey, Rick Wakeman or Morrissey. But which punk bands would open for them? If we told you, we’d have to kill you...
Record Noos: Black Flag’s angriest ever LP Damaged has just been re-issued on vinyl by SST... Midnight Tattoo have released their debut album Trouble Bound on Contra... Face to Face’s Live In A Dive album comes out in October.
Aug 22. Nads HQ in beautiful downtown Seasalter was picketed today by a mystery woman who daubed obscene messages on our front door with what she claimed was her own menstrual blood. Lovely. In a related story, a sniggering Fat Col yesterday delivered a CD of selected Gonads songs to Minjitali Eeta. The songs are believed to have included British Steel, Yeti, The Growler, Getting Pissed, England’s Glory and Hitler Was A Homo. Thanks a lot pal. The O2 and Wembley Arena will probably ban us now...
Minj was on Radio 4 this morning advocating her dream of a safe space Rebellion 2020, devoid of men, “oppressive guitars” and people with ‘unacceptable’ views. The event will be “much cheaper to stage” she says, “as we won’t need to hire the whole of the Winter Gardens, just the Derham Lounge”.
Aug 21. Stinky Turner is involved in some project with Jenny Woo. We hate to rain on Jeff’s parade, but wait till you hear Gal’s top secret recording session with Belinda Carlisle and the PM’s duet with Rihanna!
Aug 20. The middle class hippy militants of The Menstrual Cramps have stepped up their war on punk by condemning the Macc Lads as “homophobic, racist and sexist” and calling for them to banned from playing O2 Academies etc. Lewisham-based pansexual activist Minjitali Eeta supports them, telling this blog that the battle against “punk rock’s reactionary tendencies” has begun in earnest. When we asked who was in the firing line, Minj proceeded to read out a list of bands including the Stranglers, the Damned, the Sex Pistols, the Clash and Peter & The Test Tube Babies. Why the Clash, we ask aghast? “They were environmental criminals,” Minj Eeta furiously replies. “Look at London’s Burning! Joe Strummer sings ‘I’m up and down the Westway, in and out the lights/What a great traffic system, it’s so bright/I can’t think of a better way to spend the night/Than speeding around underneath the yellow lights... ’ Strummer openly boasts about driving aimlessly at high speeds emitting harmful tailpipe pollutants for hours and hours. What an anti-social nightmare! Then he went to America, Satan’s own country, bought a yellow taxi and drove from New York to LA! His carbon footprint must have been enormous!” The bastard! The Stranglers get it for the “sexism and sexual aggression” of Peaches, the Test Tube Babies for “the naked homophobia of Transvestite” and the Subs for “the depraved” Stranglehold “a paedophile anthem, the girl is thirteen for god’s sake and Harper is 107. It’s revolting. He shouldn’t be on stage, he should be in prison.” The Sex Pistols are singled out for Bodies which “attacks Pauline from Birmingham for having an abortion, calling her ‘insane’ thereby imposing the patriarchy’s stale pale views on wimmin’s right to choose... ” Okay, we say. But the Damned what did they do? “They are one of the worst,” fumes Minj. “I got a new rose, I got it good’... this is a male-centric rant from a heteronormative standpoint that assumes the woman is an ‘it’ for the man to ‘get’. And Stretcher Case calls a woman a whore! Close them down! And don’t get me started on Jimmy ‘Poor Cow’ Pursey and the Anti-Nowhere League. The days of heterosexual men in punk are coming to an end. We want a women only Rebellion! The future will be written in beautiful menstrual blood.” That’s nice. Thank god the Gonads are 100per cent PC.
*The next big Prankster event happens at a farm outside Whitstable next weekend and for the first time ever none of our spies will be there. For pity’s sake let us back in, chaps, you know you’d be nothing without this sodding blog. PS. We’re not responsible for what Fat Col said to the cook, or did to her mum.
Aug 19. Here are some pictures from Gal’s book launch for All Or Nothing yesterday. More may follow. A jolly time was had by all!! Garry says “Huge thanks to everyone who came along, especially those who bought books, and to Tony Twist O’Lemon for doing the sound, Becca for the use of her boozer, Darren for the book display and to master of disaster Paul ‘15minutes away’ Hallam. Cheers all!”
Aug 18. It’s Gal’s book launch this afternoon, including a reading and a Q&A steered by Paul Hallam (the Stalin of Style) followed by the obligatory ruby murray...
Aug 17. Record Noos: Cock Sparrer’s Forever album is now available as a picture disc for the first time from Pirates Press... Booze & Glory’s fifth album Hurricane will be released via their own Scarlet Teddy label on October 18th... King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard have released a first person shooter video game to coincide with their brand new album Infest The Rats’ Nest...
We’ve been contacted by a geezer claiming to represent a new movement called LIBROI which apparently is short for “Library Oi” and calls upon the next generation to embrace the forgotten working class tradition of collective self-education. Their leading band, also called LibrOi, are said to be re-recording new versions of old Oi classics including ‘Knowledge Belongs To Me’, ‘What Have We Got? Great Books!’, ‘What’s It Like To Be Thick?’, ‘If The Kids Knew More Science’, ‘I’m Not A Fool (I Got A Night School PhD)’, and (inevitably) ‘I Lost My Love To An Oxford Prof’. Hmm.
Aug 16. Mod DJ Paul ‘Stalin’ Hallam, who will be compère at Sunday’s intimate launch party for Gal’s new novel All Or Nothing, tells us he will have “big book news” to announce at the event himself. He also reveals that there will be two boxes available, a question box and a confession box (which we suspect Fat Col could fill on his own)... in an unexpected twist, Lord Waistrel tells us he will be laying on free wine on arrival, a shrewd move as 90per cent of the audience will be beer drinkers.
Aug 15. We were gutted to hear that Animal from the Anti Nowhere League was recently glassed in the head – but mercifully the big lug isn’t seriously hurt. A lucky escape. The lads posted a Facebook statement last night pulling out of a festival in Spain this weekend: ‘It is with a heavy heart we announce we will be unable to perform at this weekend’s BCN Beach Beer Chaos event. The reason for this is also another hit of awful news: a couple of weeks ago Animal was attacked whilst out, he was glassed in the side of the head. He was rushed to hospital and following the assault, and following two surgeries had all the glass removed from his face and neck. One large piece (4cm) missed his main artery by millimetres, he was told he is very lucky to be alive. He is expected to make a full recovery, but due to the injuries, surgeries, investigations, and recovery, he and his voice aren’t strong enough to perform as yet. We apologies to all our fans attending the event, we’re absolutely gutted we can’t be there. Get well soon big man.’ We contacted Nick who shrugged it off as “just another day in the office… I live to be stabbed another day!”. Top man.
Wind-up merchant Fat Col has told the American Gonads that to be taken seriously they have to “do what we do” and down yards of ale between songs to entertain and appease our Beer Monster audiences. The Yank blokes visibly blanched at the prospect, but not Dori Cameron who explained simply “You just gotta relax your throat. Don’t forget to cup the ball too... and go to your happy place.” We’re liking this woman more and more.
At last we’ve remembered to run the final results of the Top Ten Gonads albums recently compiled by a panel of music experts. The Top 3 are: 1) Live & Loud – The Official Bootleg (Red Robin Records, 1984). A near-unanimous decision. This vinyl double LP packed in 34 tracks ranging from punk to pub piano sing-a-longs via crowd chants and deranged excursions. Veteran professor Nadia Aéroglisseur BA (Hons) Music writes: ‘This extraordinary work ranges from raw and brutal rock to the surreal whine of Stop That Drumming which Copland would have approved of. It indicates that this band are artists who accept no boundaries.’ Yes indeed!
2) Back & Barking (Captain Oi, 1999). Arguably the strongest studio album to date. This marked a return to form for the newly reformed Gonads. It was largely punk, with the odd Ska injection, and Garry Johnson co-penned the Blair-baiting Nemesis. Stand-out tracks: Alconaut, (What’s The Story?) England’s Glory, Yeti and Oi Nutter. There isn’t a weak song here.
3) Greater Hits Volume One: Plums (Randale, 2011). All of the classics re-recorded. As hard as Rocky Balboa. No prisoners taken. No mercy (or fucks) given. Were the experts wrong? Give us your views and we’ll publish them. Probably.
Aug 14. Here is intrepid PNX News reporter Astrid Von Hinten in south east London on Sunday in search of exclusives, moments after enjoying a high quality curry. Astrid, known as “The Exterminator” in LA street gang circles, tracked down Oi guru Steve Whale, Oi godfather Gal Gonad, Crows leg-end Mandy Crow and a third man who we can only refer to as “Smushy Bum” to help her with her many questions and inquiries. Some of these included: WHO has been texting German girls with dire political warnings? WHEN will the Gonads play the USA again? WHEN is the next Birdy Hip Hop class and HOW can we keep Jay the Tripod out of it? WHY was Lee Wilson late on stage at Rebellion when he should have been performing guest vocals at the Business event? HOW and WHY did Stalin made Sandie West weep? WHEN will the Jolly Pranksters return to this blog? And WHO put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? These mysteries are NOT to be confused with Wattsie’s Complete Compendium of Conspiracies which we may return to another day. We do know all the answers of course, but prefer to reveal them privately to trusted sources in circumstances where the draconian laws of slander do not apply.
Fat Col is pitching a new murder drama starring the Golden Shot to the BBC. It’s called Silent Wetness. He’s not sorry for that joke, but he should be...
Record Noos: The Reckless Upstarts from Ontario, Canada have released their newest EP, Glory, a co-production between Contra and Insurgence Records. Our old mate Ecke tells us they play “a mix of honest, working-class street punk and anti-fascist Oi!” Their lyrics deal with the daily struggle of the working class, criticize austerity capitalism (hear ‘Dying For A Living Wage’) and hold high the original ideals of S.H.A.R.P. Yet even so, what odds there will still be a handful of hysterical spoilt brat ‘radicals’ queuing up to tar them.
Aug 13. Blinding news on the Prole front! Randale Records have snapped up the much-loved 80s band and will release their first ever album next year. Word is the lads now have ELEVEN songs ready to record including brilliant unheard numbers such as Sawdust Caesars, Welcome To The Underclass, Rosa and Let Us Rise. The album will be recorded later this year and live dates are likely to follow.
Happy birthday Chelsea Dom!
Aug 12. Thought for the day: Bands with unremarkable opinions are being labelled “extreme” by various demented dimwits who want them banned from punk festivals. Most of these screeching nuisances are middle class brats from the wilder shores of Looby-Loo politics – extreme feminists, apocalyptic climate warriors, cud-chewing hippies and the like – which begs the question why the flying fuck does anyone take them seriously? Going round calling working class male bands “fascist” because they’re not on-message about whatever fashionable nonsense holds sway in the campus canteen this week devalues the term and fosters an atmosphere of intolerance to debate. The Gonads are a free speech band, Voltaire all the way. People have the right to think differently FFS!!!
Aug 11. Here’s a shot of Martin, our head of security, on stage with us when we played Rebellion in 2015 (thanks Emma!). We could tell you about his background but then we’d have to kill you...
Gal’s book launch for his crime novel All Or Nothing is a week today so if you want in, get in touch quickly. Places are as limited as Joey Essex’s IQ. In the meantime, here’s a link to the big punk Brexit debate on August 30th with Gal and trade unionist Brian Denny in conversation. Please note it’s taking place in Fitzrovia and not Belgravia as previously reported on Fleet Scribbler’s watch.
Aug 10. Here’s a cracking Karina Rockelli shot of Steve Whale in action during the Business event at Rebellion in memory of Micky Fitz, R.I.P., last weekend.
The Oi bands were “outstanding”, according to Effete El. “The Cockney Rejects, the Business, Cock Sparrer, Argy, RUST, Lion’s Law, Evil Conduct, the Badoes, Infas, Gimp Fist and many more... and the thousands who came to see them were not disappointed.” Here, here.
“The Rebellion organisers, Sid and Doris Corbyn, must realise that without Oi their whole event would collapse like a ruptured soufflé,” El adds poetically. In the background, Fat Col hollers: “It’s about time these snowflakes had the Gonads back. Fuck Jello Biafra.” Um, thanks mate, but no thanks.
Aug 9. Book Noos! Gal’s DANCE CRAZE and TIME FOR ACTION books on 2-Tone and the 1979 Mod Revival respectively will be re-published as special 40th anniversary editions in a month or two, but publisher Paul “Stalin” Hallam will ignore calls for the Judge Dread chapter to be cut from Dance Craze. Rude girl Sandra Ace-Face tells us: “Any po-faced prude who takes issue with the works of Judge Dread and Ted Lemon must be ignorant of the rich history of Jamaica rude reggae from the Soul Sisters to Max Romeo.”
Record Noos: Out now, the debut single from UXB, ‘Phoenix’ b/w ‘Night Marchers’. Former U.S. Bombs Kerry, Wade and Chip join Aggrolites singer Jesse in this new punk combo. Limited 7inch edition of 500 copies from Bomb City Rockers... Killing Joke release Malicious Damage – Live At The Astoria 12.10.03. on 6thth September, through Killing Joke Records/Cadiz Music. The 2003 concert will be “beautifully presented as a strictly limited edition DVD/vinyl and unlimited double CD”, it says here. Sadly this was one of the last recorded concerts to feature bass player Paul Raven before his untimely death in 2007... Blitz’s Second Empire Justice LP has been re-released on vinyl by the imaginatively titled Puke N Vomit Records. It’s the one where they ditched street punk and turned into Oi Division, inspiring the line “then Blitz went psychedelic” in our own Punk Rock Will Never Die.
Aug 7. Undercover Festival is moving back to Woking next month. The two-day fest will take place at The Fiery Bird on 13th & 14th September. The full line-up is Friday: Spear of Destiny , 1919, The Satellites, The Blue Carpet Band, R.E.D (Religion Equals Decay), Dom’s IBS. Saturday: Towers Of London, Menace Punk, WONK UNIT, Rubella Ballet, Zounds, Actifed, Scandal, The Fanzines, The Wipes. Tickets: Fri, £20 in advance. Sat, £25 in advance. Both days, £40 in advance. A passing Fat Col comments succinctly: “Towers Of London? A shower of cunts.” What a loss he is to the diplomatic corps.
Aug 5. Embarrassed temporary blog editor Fleet Scribbler last night blamed “Kremlin gremlins” for a shocking error. Yesterday’s blog referred to the old Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke, London, SE3, as the place “when Frankie Flame used to live”. An ashen-faced Scribbler tells us: “That should have been ‘where’ he used to live, there is no suggestion that Frankie has died and yet somehow continues to walk the earth in zombie form... as far as we know.” He was immediately marched to Blackpool seafront and flogged (sadly not by Dori Cameron) before being removed from office. Fascinating Fact: the Ferrier, a concrete jungle council estate now demolished and turned into posh flats, was where Gal also lived in the late 70s/early 80s. The first two Gonads eps were composed in his Ebdon Way maisonette. The photo of his kids on the front of Son Of Oi was also taken there too. Their babysitters included Garry Johnson and Colin Blood aka Cardinal Jesushate. It’s a wonder they turned out normal now we think about it.
Aug 4th. What’s Fat Col up to? is the question on no one’s lips. Yet sadly the world must be informed. Fed up with being snubbed and insulted by Wattsie, Gannon has switched his allegiance from us to the East End Badoes who he proclaims to be “the only true Oi band in Britain apart from B Squadron”. Naturally this comes with a catch. It seems Col has been busy giving out leaflets at Rebellion offering “private half hour life coaching sessions” with Terence Hayes, PM for a mere bulls-eye (£50) a time. (The small print suggests this boils down to Colin taking you to the Hoppers Hut and allowing you to buy him and Tel drinks and pork scratchings until you run out of time or money). Other exclusive offers include the “Frankie Flame heritage tour”, taking in the Goose & Firkin in Borough, the Fox & Firkin in Lewisham, and the Frog & Firkin in Hammersmith as well as the remains of the historic Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke when Frank used to live and selected pubs in Blackheath and Greenwich (a snip at a ton a time), with an exclusive Frankie Flame Bad News Psychic reading available for a further 60 notes, Then there is Col’s reproduction of an “authentic Golden Shot wet room”, where you can “splash out” on his ex-wife Jeanette for £100. There are two locations available. One in Pea Street, Little Hampton, the other in the Piddle Valley. Bring your own galoshes.
Aug 2. The East End Badoes absolutely stormed Rebellion last night, says our man in the mosh pit Effete El. And not just because the Pranksters were out in force to support the resurgent PM either…the formerly Poplar-based band are emerging as major players on the revived global Oi scene. So it can’t be long before Tel fucks it up again…
Fascinating fact: the Business character Harry May was based on a real-life south east London villain who played a part in their early career, but that wasn't his real name. The actual Harry May, whose name Fatty Lol borrowed, was actually our Gal's Dad's maternal great-grandfather and hailed from just outside Whitstable in Kent.
In today’s US news, the American Gonads tell us that they intend to re-record She Can’t Whip Me as their debut single. Jay the Tripod says that the vintage song is the perfect vehicle for the band’s lively new lead vocalist Dori Cameron (AKA “Floggin’ Dori”). A worried Fat Col calls to say that Wattsie Watts “needs to raise her game”, borrow Miss Management’s whip and come on stage as “Whacko Wattsie” to compete with Dori. It’d be a brave man who suggested that to Shona’s face so it’s no surprise that Colin is currently 270 miles away in Blackpool…
In other news Mick Rossi says he is “deeply disappointed and saddened” by Wayne Barrett’s Slaughter & The Dogs statement. Mick says “I have no wish to get involved in any public slanging match via social media but after several stunts pulled over the past twelve months or so – i.e. Wayne trademarked the band name for himself without me knowing and then threatened promoters with ill-informed and frankly laughable legal actions should I try to use the name of the band that I have been in since its inception, it’s been very hurtful to say the least.” Mick wishes Wayne good luck and tells friends to stay tuned for updates on his next projects…
Tune back tomorrow for exciting new Gonads offers. Or maybe the day after. We’re not that fussed.
STOP PRESS. Wattsie Watts has been assaulted by a rabid dog. We’re not making this up! The menacing pouch attacked her outside her home and bit her hand. The Westie in question belonged to “a man with a Russian accent” and was allegedly called Sandy. Coincidence? We can’t be sure. But we do know that Kremlin gremlins briefly changed Dori Cameron’s surname to Campbell on the blog earlier this week and that the mystery of why US Gonads entries were uploaded in LA and not on the East Coast has yet to be explained…
Aug 1st. Heads up on two non-musical events this month. The 18th August sees the book launch for Gal's latest crime novel All Or Nothing. And on 30th August he will take part in a public debate in Belgravia on punk and Brexit with the RMT's Brian Denny. As well as being a journalist and musician, socialist Brian is also a member of Trades Unionists Against The EU. They will discuss the true nature of the European Union and the failure of punk bands and protest singers to challenge establishment propaganda. The current climate of conformity, censorship and bullying via social media will also be considered. For details of either event email waistrel@the-gonads.co.uk #livefreediefree
