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.
Jan 31. Roy ‘Mr Symarip’ Ellis and his Moonstompers recapture the Spirit of 69 at the 100 Club on 6th July, courtesy those rogues at Human Punk. Ticket link here.
These are the questions Chelsea Dom will ask himself at the big Berlin punk book bash: Did Lee Wilson really once buy you a drink and have you any evidence? Are you real or a figment of the blog’s over-active imagination? Who is to blame for your unfortunate rift with *** *******? Dom is terrified that she will call him rude words again. How many times did you review Cock Sparrer in the 18 published issues of Street Sounds, was it a) 18 b) 36 or c) 97?
On Monday a finished version of Schubert’s unfinished symphony will be played in Belgravia with the finish provided by artificial intelligence. Unknown to the gutter press, Lord Waistrel approached the company behind this coup, Huawei, and asked if their computers could also finish our own uncompleted Search for the Golden Goblets. Their A.I. came back with these titles: What If I Just Slipped The Tip In, You Go On Top (I’m Knackered), and Doctor Dick At Your Cervix... begging the question: Fat Col – Man or Machine? (There have been exciting or, perhaps more accurately, disturbing developments in Gannon’s case – full report to follow in the next few days... )
Due to popular demand, work has begun on a second collection of Gonads lyrics. More news when we have it.
Jan 30. So here it is: the great Punk & Disorderly Literary Stage promo ad, featuring Gal, John King and A.N. Other, who will all be grilled in Berlin by the grand inquisitor of Stamford Bridge, Chelsea Dom. But who is the mystery third guest? Luckily for us we don’t have to guess as Effete El has opened a book with betting odds available for these potential heroes: 1) Garry Johnson 2) Cass Pennant 3) Mark Perry 4) Paul Hallam 5) Colin Gannon (Unlikely as he’s been moved to Belmarsh – Ed) or 6) the 2/1-on wild card – Dom interviewing himself.
Jan 29. Things are looking pretty bad for our dear chum Fat Col. It seems that on top of aggravated sexual harassment, the blubbery buffoon is now facing a shed-load of other charges relating to his barrow in Woolwich market, London SE18. Col is accusing of defrauding his customers with ‘special offers’ that included “two for the price of three” deals on bootleg Gonads t-shirts and a surreal “buy one, get an imaginary one free” offer on an unauthorised curry dish called Ghandi’s Revenge which he had the cheek to label ‘Gonads-strength Phal’. Colin will also be charged with selling an unauthorised “Beki Bondage blow-up doll” (made in Taiwan, looked nothing like her and burst after five minutes – disappointed blog researcher) and a “blow-up Jihadi bride” imported from Syria which contained 6lbs of Semtex for “a proper good bang”. The Beast tells us “Off the record, Col is looking at a ten stretch”. The arresting officer adds “On the record, Colin Gannon is so dense we believe that light and time bend around him”. A broken-hearted Wattsie was heard to say: “Ten years? Make it life! Break out the bubbly! Hanging’s too good for him”.
A good rehearsal last night in the most expensive studio Paul SkaNad could find this side of Circle House in Miami. The lads were “shit hot and cooking” (a technical term) and James Crutwell from the East End Badoes added some tasty bass to the mix. (Just to confuse Clyde, who was unavoidably detained in the knocking shops of Guatemala, they also rehearsed ‘Beer Can Boogie’.) In an unexpected twist, Gal failed to storm out, Phil “Five Bands” Badoes failed to moan about changes to the set-list and Wattsie Watts surprised us all by saying she “imagined” that Fat Col has got “big, fuzzy, dangly balls”. We don’t know if this is true or not, but the thought than la belle Wattsie is even thinking of his genitalia is probably enough to give Col succour in the hard months to come.
Rumours and whispers: we hear that Gal and Clyde are planning to get “studio-handed” sometime in the next two months to put the finishing touches to the Federales single “and maybe something more”...two brand new Garry Bushell novels are expected to be published this year... there is still no due date for either Get Your Gonads USA or Gal’s Late Late Late Show pilot, but according to sources close to Sandie West (Hollywood’s Best) both are expected to be completed “shortly after Brexit”, so 2029 then...
Jan 28. A hugely eventful day. First three leading members of Club 77 were arrested for publishing details of a legal case that was sub judice (About this blog and ON this blog – shocked Ed). Next, even more disturbingly, Fat Col (aka “the accused”) was charged with the aggravated sexual harassment of ravishing Wattsie Watts largely because of the distasteful lyrics of his puerile Ode To Wattsie ditty. Wattsie also asked for 997 other incidents to be taken into consideration, including Valentine’s Day messages, obscene texts, midnight phone calls and persistent stalking; bail was refused and Gannon is currently on remand in the Scrubs.
Then something really remarkable happened. Thanks largely to the personal intervention of the PM (who was carried into the Royal Courts of Justice on a gilded stretcher by Prankster paramedics), and partly because Trump “folded like a pack of cards” last week, Lord Waistrel has reluctantly agreed to “partially re-open” this blog. Which means we can expect to see updates here on at least a weekly basis for the near future while the judges ponder our long-term status. Tearful blog fans Sid and Doris Puke described the day’s events as “a right result” (Doris), and “justice at last” (Sid) with the added comment of “Who fuckin’ wants it, you khunnttss?” (Doris).
We are therefore pleased to publish the confirmed Gonads set-list for Friday’s Hastings mega-gig: 1) Lager Top 2) Oi Mate 3) Grant Mitchell 4) I Lost My Love (To A UK Sub) 5) Buy Me A Drink, You Bastards 6) Beano 7) It’s A Yeti 8) Dance, Fat Boy Dance 9) Hastings Boys 10) SE7 Dole Day 11) Jobs Not Jails 12) Alconaut 13) Hey You 14) Punk Rock Will Never Die (1982 version) 15) Tucker's Rucker’s Ain’t No Suckers. (Wot? No Beer Can Boogie? – Ed)
And while we’re here, Francis Rossi’s new autobiography I Talk Too Much, co-written by Mick Wall, is out on 15th March... the grand inquisitor Chelsea Dom will chat to Gal in April on stage at a venue soon to be confirmed... and we hear that firm-handed d/Deaf activists in SoCal are planning to picket “any Infa Riot shows that take place in California” in protest at what they call “Lee Wilson’s long history of deafist remarks and discrimination”. Action Against Tightwads may also mobilise. We can only hope the local branch of the Larry Grayson fan club are on hand to defend the round-dodging, girlfriend-swerving, deaf-bashing, tour-stealing cheapskate.
Jan 27. BLOG HACK # 2. This blog has become the subject of a “fierce and intense” secret court battle, we can reveal. It seems that “a top solicitor” (The Beast) acting on behalf of Organisation X (the Noble Brotherhood of the Jolly Pranksters) is contesting Lord Waistrel’s rights to close us down indefinitely. The Pranksters’ QC, Judge Shed, has already appeared at two closed sessions in front of five High Court Judges to argue that the ban is “an offence against natural justice”. He claimed that the enforced blog silence is having “a debilitating effect on the health and welfare of English Pranksterism”, and by implication “affiliated brethren in Scotland, Ireland and Wales”, and that its “draconian nature exposes Lord Waistrel’s moral bankruptcy”. He went on to state that the blog’s worldwide readership is being “deprived of vital information about Terence Hayes, PM” who is said to be “suffering in silence, alone and unheeded, somewhere in the godforsaken misty lowlands of Essex, like King Alfred in the Somerset marshes, hiding from the rampaging Danes, waiting for his moment.” (At which point an eaves-dropping Fat Col shouted something about his desire to be ravished by rampaging Dane Trine Michelsen thereby blowing his cover. He was charged with contempt and led away to the cells where he remains... which is about the only good thing to come out of a situation said by experts to be “a bigger mess than Brexit”.) All we know for sure is that life without the blog is duller than watching Notts County away. Unfortunately Waistrel’s own barrister Sir Percival Snooper made the point that Friday’s rogue blog post is “a very good reason to maintain the ban until judicial ajudication is reached”. Unfortunately this went down well with the judges who refused to grant a temporary ban lift. Fit Bird says we “shouldn’t say no more cos the ’ole fing is sub Judy C” but we don’t know who the fuck Judy C is, or why it’s all beneath her, and besides we’ve already pressed the upload button.
Jan 25. BLOG HACK #1. This is a hack on behalf of Club 77: We Gonads fans DEMAND the IMMEDIATE RESTORATION of the blog. We call on his most gracious Lord Waistrel to RECONSIDER and RESCIND his cruel and heartless ban. We are suffering from a severe lack of NEWS, GOSSIP and NADS ADS. For example on the news front we have heard that the MAGNIFICENT GONADS will play BERLIN in April and if this is true we urgently need INFO. As for the gossip, we have heard shocking rumours that Gal STORMED OUT of a band rehearsal on Monday, and was last seen “looking dazed and confused” (So condition normal – Ed) in the Holloway Road but we do not know WHY. We have heard disturbing RUMOURS that Fat COL is using Gal’s absence to try and get the band to record his own dumb and degrading song lyrics including ‘Ode To Wattsie’ (a gross and infantile number which starts with the opening line ‘What if I just slip the tip in’ and then gets worse), ‘Doctor Dick (At Your Cervix)’, ‘Spank Me Sarah’ and ‘You Go On Top, I’m Knackered’. We BEG his Lordship to give us back our blog. Oh and sack Col. Club 77. News At Ten, London.
CLUB 77 approved noos: The Gonads’ Californian buddies Doug & The Slugz have released a 7inch picture disc of Just Another Battle b/w Power In Numbers. Doug Kane and the boys formed in SoCal back in 1983 and recorded this single at Southwest Sound Studios produced by Devin Thomas back then. The original masters were lost or destroyed, so the band went back to Southwest Sound Studios and had Devin Thomas record them again last July. The single includes digital download and is hand-numbered out of 250 copies. Imported from LSM Vinyl, Canada... also new from LSM, Concrete Elite’s 12” ep The Survival which packs in seven new songs and a guest appearance from Carl Templar.
Jan 22. We are sorry to say that we are still closed. Please note our next show is on February 1st at the Carlisle in Hastings.
Jan 18. STOP PRESS: These (below) are the gigs we SHOULD be playing in May but now aren’t. Last night Lord Waistrel dramatically pulled the plugs on our long-awaited return to the USA, scrapping the entire mini-tour. But why? The air between Charlton, Silvertown and Beverly Hills is thick with conspiracy theories, and some may even be true. According to Fit Bird, Waistrel wanted the band to play a Punks For Trump rally in Dallas, Texas, and when Corbynista Wattsie Watts refused “’e flipped his syrup, didn’ ’e?” But Fat Col claims the gigs were pulled because fat cat capitalist Lee Wilson made such unacceptable demands on the promoter Doug Kane that Doug “planned to have the Gonads sleeping four to a motel bedroom an’ Wattsie weren’t having none of that”. He adds: “There would have been nowhere for the Golden Shot to lay out his waterproof sheets. And also, thanks to Wilson’s unreasonable conditions we would have had to hitchhike back from Vegas to LAX and survive the desert heat by sucking the liquid out of cacti and our groupies’ gussets.” Another insider who wishes to remain anonymous (but is in fact Jay the Tripod) tells us that astrophysicists have found that it would have been scientifically impossible for Wattsie and Shiragirl to co-exist in the same reality. “They’re like matter and anti-matter,” he says, grim-faced. “If they came into contact everything in our world would be blown to smithereens”. Blimey. The upshot is we ain’t going to Nevada or California any time soon. And Jay has no-one to cock-block. Come back Sandie West, all is forgiven. Oh wait, hang on, maybe not...
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