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.
Feb 26. We were stunned to learn today that a group of Dartford residents want to ban our 'Dogging In Dartford' single. As Fat Col said "From where? It's not as if Radio One is ever going to play it!" Wattsie reckons Crayford residents are equally pissed off because they didn't get a mention.
Feb 25. Lana Del Rey is using magic against Donald Trump. The singer asked her Twitter followers to take part in an occult ritual aimed at the President last night. Some witches were involved but Fat Col reckons it was mostly warlocks.
Random news: Harley Flanagan's new band Hard-Core have released 'Friends Like You' from their forthcoming e.p. All proceeds will go to Dr. Know of the Bad Brains… the Harrington Saints' full-length singles comp Bettin' On A Longshot has been re-issued on vinyl by Pirates Press… Fall Silent's 'Cart Return' 7inch e.p. is out now on black/red marble or gold coloured vinyl from Revelation Records.
Feb 22. Today's random noos: Pathetique torch-bearers Monkish support Ed Tudor at London's 100 Club on 29th March. Tickets are a Commodore up front or £17.50 on the door... Busy bolshy beauty Louise Distras plays eight dates across the UK in April... David Bowie fans are crowd-funding an Aladdin Sane-style lightning bolt statue to be erected in Brixton a few streets from his Stansfield Road birthplace. The three-story monument will cost just under £1million and will be just shy of thirty yards high. You can donate here.
Feb 21. We're all chuffed with the American Oi site's glowing review of All The Loonstompers.
All of us except for Fat Col of course, who is furious that the reviewer also slips in a sly dig at our previous release the unplugged but fully drugged acoustic classic London Bawling. "That septic geezer wants doing," fumes Col in his usual pleasant and laidback manner. He adds: "Bawling is worth buying for 'The Drinking Song' alone. In fact buy two copies coz you'll wear out the first one singing along."
RANDOM noos: our mate, boss skinhead King Hammond plays Maidstone on Friday... Blondie play the Roundhouse on May 3rd... .
Feb 20. Random news: the East End Badoes go into the studios shortly to record a brand new album. Just don't ask Tel how many of the lyrics he's finished writing... Buster Shuffle release their fourth album this August via Burning Heart... brand new old-style hard rock magazine Rock Candy launches next month, it's the brain child of former Kerrang writers Howard Johnson and Derek Oliver... and Garry Johnson's new novel Serial Killer is out now, telling how an angry blonde takes deadly revenge on the teenage boys who abused her. Women getting their own back on males who ruined their lives? Even though he is neither a teenager nor a boy, Fat Col has gone into hiding...
Feb 19. Speculation is rife that Friday's top secret Oi get together near
Tower Hill might have been more than just a chance for our four heroes to
chew the fat about old times, drink their weight in pints and demolish
enough beef to give John King a seizure. Some say that Gal, Mick, Tom and
Tel were discussing forming a new street-punk super-group, others that they
were secretly planning a brand new Oi album.
But could the truth be even
scarier? According to one well-placed source, we could actually be talking
Oibba The Reunion... but only if the money money money is right.
Tracks to include: Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Pint After Midnight), I Have A Dram, Take A Chance On Oi, Waterlewd, ChiqqinTikka, Voulez Brew, Thank You For The Mucus (For Gobbing It To Me), FernandOi!... (continued Red Lion).
STOP PRESS. It seems not all of the revellers got back under their own steam after Friday's Tower Hill booze up. Tel's wife Jackie has posted on Facebook: 'Comes to something when your husband has to be taken home by the police because he is asleep standing up on a station platform after falling asleep on the last train... Not even his own home...our daughter Liberty had the pleasure of being woken by blue flashing lights... Did sort of wonder where Terry had got to...' A sheepish PM blames Hoxton Tom for taking him on for more beer.
Feb 18. Here's Oi – the reunion! Gal, Mick Geggus, Hoxton Tom and Terence Hayes, PM, out on the tiles near Tower Hill last night for an evening of beer, burnt ends, ribs and reminiscing (easier for some than others). A good night all round, we're told, except for the barman in the Liberty Bounds who thought he recognised Gal as "James Whale off the telly". Oh the indignity! Thank god he didn't mention his Moby Dick.
Record noos: out next month, the new Old Firm Casuals single 'Wartime Rock-N-Roll'... and the new Booze & Glory album Chapter IV (via Burning Hart)... out now for the first time on vinyl is Even Worse's We Suck! The Lost 1982 Album, described as "the best-kept secrets of the early, pre-NYHC scene" (courtesy Italy's Radiation Re-Issues).
STOP PRESS. R.I.P. Clyde Stubblefield, James Brown's drummer, who has died of kidney failure aged 73. Clyde played on such classic tracks as 'Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine' and 'Funky Drummer'.
Feb 15. Fat Col's daring attempt to parasail naked to Welling yesterday in order to "woo" Wattsie did not end well. Col's Valentine Day stunt started with what is being described ominously as "a hot wax accident... ". Our informant goes on: "Once his blisters and wheals had been treated, Colin took to the air only to be blown completely off course". Col crash-landed ironically enough in Cumming Street, N1, where he was nicked by the Old Bill and "violently restrained". The great man was last seen "strapped to a hospital trolley, pumped full of meds and being wheeled to the psychiatric unit". We are assured however that Col's "contribution to Gonads' management will not be affected in any way by his incarceration".
Random News: Neville Staple releases his new album The Return of Judge Roughneck any minute now... The Truth, Chords UK, Fay Hallam (no relation to Stalin) and the Lambrettas are among the bands playing the 100 Club's Mod Mayday Weekender (May 5th – 7th).
Feb 14. Controversy dogs the Dropkick Murphys. The usual suspects are kicking off because two of the band did a meet and greet for St Pauli, and then gave their opinion about the refugee crisis in Greece, calling for more to be admitted into the EU. To those complaining, we say grow the fuck up. People have different views. That's their right. It doesn't mean they're going to "infect" others. Denis Norden was a revolutionary anarchist but to the best of our knowledge no-one was ever radicalised by watching It'll Be Alright On The Night on ITV. Similarly you're unlikely to catch anti-Semitism from reading The Cantos or listening to Der Ring des Nibelungen. Trump-trashing has become the new Fatcher-bashing. It's already tedious and it won't make a jot of difference, but let them get on with it. Those who believe musicians are a force for revolutionary change seem to have forgotten that Red Wedge was an electoral disaster and Lennon's Sometime In New York City double album was his worst-ever work (especially Yoko's tracks... ). Fat Col could release his song Get The Fuck On With Brexit tomorrow and it'd play well up the Red Lion but it seems unlikely that Whitehall mandarins would listen. The Gonads for our part believe in free speech absolutely but have no wish to tell people how to think. If we did we'd hang up our guitars and be out on the doorsteps calling for the immediate expulsion of Roland Duchatelet from British football. (We'll draw a discreet veil over Wattsie's support for Corbyn at this point).
Feb 13. Gal posted a statement on Facebook yesterday confirming that there will be no new Nads releases this year. Even the live album has been put back until 2018. Earlier today a furious Fat Col condemned the decision as "sickening". Col was particularly vexed because his pet, but hitherto secret, project – the Boomerang e.p., featuring the Gonads versus Joe Pasquale – has now been put on hold indefinitely. He called it "a bad day for popular music, a calamity for comedy and a tragedy for the re-emerging pathetique punk scene".
SHOCK #2: an unspecified Gonads line-up will be "special guests" at the Jolly Pranksters' St George's Day weekender. The band will play under the banner: 'Love England, hate isms'.
IN a further shock development Dom's IBS have broken up. Half of the combo are believed to be teaming up with former members of Donkey Laugh to form the brand new band Donkey Dom, described by music experts as being "at the cutting of strynch rock".
GIG noos: John Holt's legendary 1973 album, 1,000 Volts Of Holt will be recreated live on stage by Brinsley Forde of Aswad, Carroll Thompson, Christopher Ellis & more at Camden's Jazz Café on Easter Sunday (16th April) as part of the London International Ska Festival... Green Day have added an extra gig to their UK tour – they'll play Sheffield Arena on 3rd July, two days after their mega Hyde Park concert with Rancid and a host of others... and tickets for Madness's House of Common gig in August are on sale here.
FAT Col tells us he is planning a "spectacular" Valentine's Day stunt tomorrow, involving "nude parasailing, three partially used condoms and a rubber chicken". Brace yourself Shona!
Feb 12. Groovy times alert! DJ Dr Robert has rustled up a smorgasbord of psychedelic excitement to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first Pink Floyd album, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Interstellar Overdrive "and special guests" will perform the whole LP live with Eye Candy visuals at Dingwalls in Camden this Easter. Corduroy, Lovely Eggs, New Candys, Novella, Los Retrovisores, The Arrogants, Dom's IBS, Stags & Eliphant make up the bill for Le Beat Bespoke's 2017 weekender (April 13 – 17). Dr Robert also promises GoGo girls and a "dynamic International DJ line-up playing 100% vintage vinyl in three different rooms of clubbing from dusk till dawn". And as well as all that there'll be a record fair, a market and an Easter Egg hunt. The 7th volume of Le Beat Bespoke's compilation albums will be released on Vinyl and CD. Far out, man.
In other news, the Angry Agenda's ten track debut album Here Comes Trouble is out via Randale... Direct Hit's first full-length offering Domesplitter is being re-released by Fat Wreck Chords in April... Geneva's Capital Youth have posted a video for their song 'Where Are You' from their debut EP, Lemonade, just out on their own Roosevelt Records label... and classic HC album, New York Hardcore: Where The Wild Things Are has been re-issued on coloured vinyl by Noiseville Records. It features 80s leg-ends Gorilla Biscuits, Sheer Terror, Life's Blood, Breakdown, Outburst, Raw Deal, Maximum Penalty, N.B.S.H. and Uppercut.
THINGS Angry Agenda are angry about: 1. Breadline Britain 2. Hard Times 3. The scarifying prospect of World War III 4. Limited leg-room at the Royal Opera House. 5) Not knowing how to pronounce quinoa. 6) Watford Jon coming from Luton 7) Starbucks running out of pumpkin spice latte. 8) Like when you plug your phone into the charger all night but forget to switch it on... (continued Speakers' Corner).
Feb 10. If you're in the Smoke for the St George's Day weekend, then this is happening... Tickets £15 in advance from here.
NB: For the JP St Geo weekender, brethren should see their Tyler.
JOHN King, author and leader of the Beer Monster Elite, is tickled pink by the revelation in Gal's autobiography Bushell On The Rampage that his maternal grandfather's real surname was Bearcock. It was changed to Barker by deed poll. Brother King offers his own genealogical research into the name's proud origins: 'Bearcock: possibly deprived from Beer Cock. Origin: Middle German from a Saxon stronghold in the Charlton valley. Man who drinks large quantities of beer and doesn't stray far in case of variable licensing laws. Alternative meaning: Late-1800s, East London. Slang used by prostitutes working in Whitechapel and near the Bridgehouse public house. Bearded man whose member tastes of Best Bitter.' He goes on: 'Bear Cock is more frightening. Origin: Old German. Bushy Bearded Man With Enormous Bear-Like Gonads.'
Good luck to our mate Richie Rocker as he sets out on tour with Slaughter & The Dogs today. We hope he can clear up the damaging rumours that Mike Rossi has updated some of the band's best-known lyrics, such as 'Where have all the boot-boys gone? Pipes and slippers everyone', and 'Cranked up really high, cos The Chase is on at 5... '
FEB 7. Big news all right! The legend that is Clyde Ward is rejoining the Gonads! Clyde, co-writer of Nads classics like 'Oi Mate' and 'It's A Yeti', will play bass in Montpellier next month.
And last night's rehearsal showed it was like he'd never been away, as the great man added some neat dub reggae touches to 'Dance Fat Boy Dance'.
Clyde replaces Gentleman John who has left the band under a cloud. When asked why, an ashen-faced Fat Col said only that John had "transgressed the unwritten law". We'll leave it at that, chums.
Feb 6. Here is the full set-list for Sabbath's blinding last-ever gig in Birmingham on Saturday: 'Black Sabbath', 'Fairies Wear Boots',
'Under the Sun'/'Every Day Comes & Goes', 'After Forever', 'Into the Void', 'Snowblind', 'War Pigs', 'Behind the Wall of Sleep', 'N.I.B.', 'Hand of Doom', riff medley: 'Supernaut'/'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'/'Megalomania', 'Rat Salad', 'Iron Man', 'Dirty Women', 'Children Of The Grave'. Encore: 'Paranoid'. Nearly two hours of head-banging glory.
STOP PRESS. Big Gonads love to Chas Hodges who has been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus. Let's hope they've caught it in time.
Feb 5. Tune back in the week for some rather startling developments. In the meantime... Cock Sparrer are playing two California dates in April (Berkeley on the 21st and Santa Cruz on the 22nd). Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 9am Yank West Coast time (5pm our time) from here.
You thought we were joking about Terence Hayes, PM, backstage at ITV's The Voice? Well here's a screen grab that proves it...
In other news the Rejects play Tel Aviv on 28th March (Oi-Oi Vey!)... and we are "69% on target" to confirm gigs in Mumbai and Delhi this October, according to Fat Col who is never wrong until he opens his gob. Chandigar is "proving a little tougher" and Col calls on "local fans to put a word in". Over to you Sid and Doris Malhotra.
