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!
Feb 27. Attempts by the West Resistance Movement (WRM) to forge links with the PPGB have fallen through. Our nameless insider whispers: “The leader, John King, has nixed the proposed alliance, sparking fears that he might have already been wooed by the feared film-maker and ball-breaker (Sandie) with wild promises that she will turn his Slaughterhouse Prayer novel into a cult movie to be shown on the college circuit.” The Gonads maintain our rock-hard support for the WRM, although Waistrel-watchers think his Lordship will “fold quicker than a skint poker player” if he’s offered a plum exec producer job on Gonads-inspired Hollywood horror epics such as Attack Of The Zombie Skinheads, The Curse of Franken-Skin or Shona & The Alien. Our insider mole (Effete El) adds: “His Lordship has a secret buxom blonde wife-let in West Hollywood and can’t wait to get back out to her under the banner of ‘legitimate business’.” Blimey.
Feb 25. In a shock move, Gauda have been axed as Cream Of The Crop headliners and replaced by Italian Glam rockers Giuda. An ashen-faced spokesman told the blog: “One of the organisers is a fervent vegan and he hit the ruddy roof when he discovered that the cheese-inspired Dutch band had been booked due to a misprint.” Our anonymous insider (Effete El) adds: “These guys are hardcore vegans, there was no way they’d allow pro-cheese propagandists on the bill.” He adds, “This is bad news for Fat Col and former Donkey Dom idol Chelsea Dom who were planning on launching their new R & Brie duo Cheddar & Gorge at the event with the FrankenSkin replaced by Gorganzilla.” Hard cheese indeed.
A furious Chelsea Dom is now organising a rival “cheese tolerant” event hosted by actress Jane Fondue and featuring Gauda, south Wales punks The Parmesans, Edam & The Ants and the Cockney Brie-jects. He tells us, “We have had a lot of interest and there’s stil-tons more.” (That’s enough cheese jokes – Ed)
Feb 24. We are pleased to announce that we are joining this year’s Cream Of The Crop line-up. Confirmed acts are Gauda, Infa Riot, the Hot Knives, The Gonads, The Samples, Tear Up, The Angry Agenda, Rise Up and LOAD, with more TBA. The all-action all-dayer at London’s 229 Club will also have a market area featuring Jo Barnett's Skinhead Girl clothing, John King's Football Fiction, Andy Chesham's Boot-boy Records Shack and, subject to negotiations, Fat Col’s fabled market stall. There will be DJs spinning punk, ska, Oi and glam, and a food and chill out area. (Blimey, in our day the food and chill-out area was the chip shop next door). You can get tickets from here.
Feb 23. Our pals Carrie & The Coaxers release their debut ep Floods Of Tears today. Hear the lead track here.
Whispers and rumours: Gal has started work on a new pure-punk Gonads album with the working title, ANARCHY NOW – A Beginner’s Guide To Practical Anarchism; word is it won’t be recorded until next year... Fat Col tells us his Rawhides album will be called She Was Only A Pilot’s Daughter (but she kept her cockpit clean)... a sighting of original Pink Tent svengali Mark G with Gal in “The Office” on Sunday has stoked rumours that Mark might be involved in the GB Experience whose debut album is due out in the Summer of 2025; no further info is available... and we hear unconfirmed reports that Wattsie Watts has set up West-Watch; a team of early-warning volunteer watchmen who will take it in turns to monitor arrivals at Heathrow and Gatwick airports next month, waiting for the fateful day a flight from LA spews Hollywood hurricane Sandie West onto the tarmac, galvanising the West Resistance Movement into action...
Feb 21. RIP Jamie O’Keefe, of former Mod band the Glory Boys, who died yesterday. New Breed Books boss Jamie, a one-time Bridgehouse regular, was a self-defence expert and all-round good egg...
RIP too Wayne Kramer, lead guitarist with pioneering Detroit garage band the MC5, who passed earlier this month. Their 1969 single Kick Out The Jams is one of the finest examples of proto-punk.
Feb 17. A furious Fat Col was freed from Belmarsh last night after his lawyer (the Beast) successfully argued that he had been “set up” over his Valentine’s Day arrest in Welling. The Beast convinced “the garden” (garden gate = magistrate) that Gannon had been hired as a “singing blob-o-gram” and that he had “arrived by Uber to a given postcode in the dark” and so hadn’t realised he was performing outside of Wattsie’s bijou apartment in breach of his restraining order. Speaking after his release, Col blamed “a malicious practical joker” for the “gross indignity”, adding “possibly Wattsie herself who I have long suspected wanted to see me shirtless... ” A clip of Col’s performance has been removed from TikTok but we understand he wants to get hold of it to post on Facebook to “excite chubby-chasers everywhere”. He told the blog that his striptease was “artistic, erotic and quite beautiful”, adding “I can give any woman a whole lotta love... and a whole lotta blubber”. His passing ex, Jeanette, sniffs, “but not a whole lotta cock”. How unnecessary.
*In more serious news, Miss Management has taken over Gal’s stand-up career. Expect word-of-mouth gigs this summer... Dirty Metal Gonads 2 will be recorded in late April/early May... Gal and Clyde are working on The Big 69, described as “the definitive merger of Gonads humour with Ska, funk, soul and swing”...
*Good news: Nick Welsh aka King Hammond appeared on Gal’s latest Bushell On The Box show yesterday discussing everything from Judge Dread to Arfur Daley. The late Fatty Lol gets a nice mention. It will stream next Friday.
Bad news: Gal is still turning down “ropey” gig offers. Fit Bird tells us, “’E only wants to do decent or interesting shows, dun’e? Besides, ’e’s very busy with Project Dali, in’e?” What’s that, we ask, but the phone goes as dead as an old man’s old chap. How dead, you ask? As dead as the Tories’ chance of re-election... as dead as Ken Dodd’s corpse... as dead as Fat Col’s love-life... as dead as (That’s enough death – Ed).
STOP PRESS. The Gonads to perform live on TV in April... Odds shorten on Vegas for our farewell show in 2025... And Paulaner’s back at “The Office”.
Feb 16. Following an official protest from the PPGB, security for the great John King/Gal Gonad conference will now be handled by Lord Waistrel’s own personal protection squad, The Gentlemen Pensioners (aka His Lordship’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms). A spokesman for the PPGB told the blog, “It is a most generous gesture from Lord Waistrel, and an honour for them both.” To order, brethren! Forward to yesterday!
Feb 15. A Plumstead man was arrested yesterday morning outside an address in Welling. The man, who cannot be named, was described as being “ginger-haired, naked from the waist up and significantly over-weight”. He had been observed “murdering” Save Your Love by Renee and Renalto at 7.30am. Two police officers restrained him and charged him with disturbing the peace. After making further enquiries, he was also charged with breaking a restraining order. Our eye-witness who has asked to be unnamed tells us: “Yeah, he was making a right nuisance of himself. He just hung his Rawhides t-shirt on a rose bush, carved ‘FC’ on the stump of a tree, and started bellowing out some shit old song.” The anonymous witness (The Nosher) added, “When the filth showed up a lot of us stood around chanting ‘Taser! Taser!’ but sadly they ignored us. A shame. He was bang to rights. Showing a Derby like that in public ought to be a hanging offence and all. Fat git. ’Anging’s too good for ’im.”
Feb 14. The Orgasm Guerrillas have announced the track-list for their long-awaited debut album. The songs are: Awaken. Beltane. Pottersville. Wolfsbane. Bad Pharma. Forward To Yesterday. Stanisland (Me Burn). City Of Bones. Half Past Three & Ninepence. Serenity Now. Cheerio. No release date has been given.
Feb 13. We are pleased to announce the imminent arrival of new horror film – KING COL. Yes, Colin Gannon is King Col, a 90-foot 30-ton monster from the deep end of Plumstead. Directed by Sandie West. Coming soon (unlike Col).
Feb 12. Whispers and rumours: we hear that the pre-election meeting between John King (PPGB) and Gal (ELF) will take place in Central London in a secure location (pub) sometime in early March. At Lord Waistrel’s insistence, security will be laid on by the Gonads under the command of our own directing staff – Big Mart and a gentleman from Indus Road known only as Iron Fist. An anonymous insider tells us “Waistrel feels that the Kingy Youth are too unreliable because of their all-day drinking. Instead, the team will be selected from leading members of the hard and sharp Charlton Loyal.” The unnamed insider (Effete El) adds that Terence Hayes, PM, would have been invited too “but he’s still busy organising the 2021 Old Pals Xmas Reunion”. Blimey.
Feb 11. A serious warning to the Jolly Pranksters! Brethren, you have been infiltrated! We know this because a gutter hack has just tried to sell us a detailed report on your internal workings. We have declined, for now, but have the evidence in our possession. Restore our access to your weekenders by Friday and we will make sure the report is incinerated...
Feb 9. Breaking news: Gal and Wattsie to re-shoot their risqué ventriloquism act, duo say it will appear on the new Gonads YouTube channel if blocked by Ustreme... The new Chisel album, What a Fucking Nightmare, is out today... Shaun Mcclure interviews Manic Esso here.
STOP PRESS. RIP Martin Dean, former freelance photographer who worked for Sounds and others. Martin, 85, was a smart, friendly man. Many of his skinhead shots became iconic.
Feb 8. We have launched a new official Gonads YouTube channel, see the video for Re-Infected here.
A resurgent Fat Col continues to cause trouble asking “How is the Wattsie dummy ‘lifelike’ if its gob is shut?”
In other news the expected arrival in the UK of Sandie West next month is causing internal band tension, with Wattsie calling for an all-out strike to persuade Gal and Clyde “not to be conned back into filming with the Venice Beach temptress”. Meanwhile Clyde has officially joined the Dirty Metal Gonads...
The PPGB have objected to the “Stalin-like censorship” of one of their members on this rejuvenated blog. In the interests of free speech and electoral unity we reprint his full quote – previously redacted by Wattsie – here: “The Gonads blog is essential when it comes to impressing the ladies. I flash my phone and once they have read the latest it is a matter of minutes before their panties are in my pocket. And I don’t mean that in a sexist way as I love women.” It is unclear whether the damsels in question removed their undergarments because they fancied him or because they have pissing themselves laughing at the blog, or at his sophisticated seduction techniques...
Feb 7. Relations between Fat Col and the Gonads hit a new low last night as he threatened to take legal action against Wattsie for outing him as her stalker and a shameless up-skirter on the latest edition of Bushell On The Box. If that wasn’t bad enough, Col also convinced Ustreme to DROP Gal and Shona’s long-awaited ventriloquism act by claiming that Gal had “used his position in the band to coerce the naïve Ms Wattsie into this appalling act and onto his unappealing lap”. He branded the sketch “lewd and tasteless”. Ashen-faced Ustreme producer Victoria Nash told the blog: “We suspect the accusations are groundless, but we are forced to investigate them. The ventriloquism is on hold until further notice.” Blimey.
Feb 6. We interrupt for two announcements: Wattsie Watts’s Bushell On The Box appearance will go live on Ustreme later today. La belle Wattsie uses the streaming channel to expose her stalker Fat Col for “years of pestering, inappropriate comments, up-skirting, and tear-stained begging letters”. A source close to Wattsie tells us, “Revenge is a dish best served piping hot to a 200,000 strong audience.”
BREAKING NEWS: Here is an important statement from the People’s Party of Great Britain: ‘The Blog’s return has led to several days of celebration within both the BME (Beer Monster Elite) and the PPGB, along with the news that the Leader of these groups is due to become a Gonad. Two-Ton Tony Madras (from West Drayton) says: “Life is very dull without the Blog’s mixture of social commentary, wisdom and humour, and the Blog coming back has spread joy through the rank and file. On Friday night, 200 of us gathered to toast Gal and went a little over the top. To be honest, a few of the boys went fucking mental. I am talking about the new, younger crew who have teamed up with the Kingy Youth. Proper nut-nuts.” One new recruit to the street-fighting wing of the PPGB – who preferred not to give his name and clearly wanted to avoid talk of ultraviolence – commented: “The Gonads Blog is essential when it comes to impressing the ladies... ” (the rest of his quotes have been redacted by a passing Wattsie).
Note: an early, pre-election summit between Gal and JK is being planned as we speak.
Feb 5. STOP PRESS. We’re back, briefly, with three bursts of shock news. Shock 1: Sandie West, Hollywood’s Best, is flying into the UK this Spring to “save the film, save the blog and save the band”! Gulp! Shock 2: the Dirty Metal Gonads are coming back! Ker-fuckin’-blam! And Shock 3 – and most shocking of all: Gal and Wattsie have filmed their legendary lewd ventriloquism act for his Bushell On The Box Ustreme show! That’s right, it’s Wattsie On The Box from 7th February. You’d better believe it, baby! More news on all of this when we return with the official monthly blog bulletin on 27th Feb...
