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.
July 31. As you know it all starts tomorrow – the big event thousands having been waiting months for. For many it’s the greatest adventure of the year, full of brilliant challenging acts, incredible camaraderie, nostalgia and wildly excessive drinking. Yes, Lammas is one of the best attended weekends in the whole Jolly Pranksters’ calendar. It takes place in That Sussex Place, and as usual there will be bands, comedians, sporting challenges, eating contests, scooter display teams and DJs plus the unusual Lammas tradition in which one couple agree to partake in a trial marriage for the duration of the festival to see if they are really suited for a lifetime of commitment. We understand that prospective groom Colin Gannon is already there, fully showered and almost sober. No word yet on Wattsie Watts. Trust us when we say we are sending a full team of bloggers to cover the four days of laughter and excitement. We hope to report back by Tuesday. PS. Good luck to the PM who leads his Badoes on stage at some obscure backwater fest in Blackpool tomorrow night.
*STOP PRESS. Our contacts in Fleet Street tell us that a disreputable conman is trying to sell the red-tops the shock story: “Benny Hill tribute act Fred-Scuttled me when I didn’t buy my round, admits ageing punk front man”. It’s obviously a wretched lie and we will use all our influence to try and keep this foul slur out of the Sunday gutter rags. Although it must be said Lee, a few apple cores slipped our way would certainly help keep us focused. Know what I mean?
July 30. Okay people, you want real news and we’ve got it by the bucket-load! We have committed to recording two new singles this year – one a pure-punk old school Gonads 45, the other a split single with brilliant LA Ska band Matamoska. Meanwhile two tracks from our brand new Dirty Metal Gonads album will be given away free with the next issue of Fireworks magazine... We’ve also just confirmed a major UK event for next June – details to follow just as soon as the contracts are signed. Remember we play Suburbs in Guildford on Friday the 28th September. This is our ONLY UK gig this year... (unless Nads Fest happens... )
July 29. Starring in Gatwick Gangsters (“the worst film ever made” – Surrey Mirror) was not enough for Wattsie Watts who tells us she also appears in new movie Welcome To Essex. Wattsie plays a rather stylish zombie in the schlock gore-fest and keeps her shades on even after she’s been killed because, she says “I didn’t want to be seen dead in it”. A beautiful woman, on her back and lifeless... it reminds us of Col’s bride Jeanette on their wedding night. Except for the beautiful bit.
In other wedding news: congratulations to our old mate Mick Geggus who marries girlfriend Erin later today.
But what, you ask, of Gal’s late night TV pilot? It’s still due to be filmed in Las Vegas next month under the auspices of dictatorial director Sandie West, but may already be experiencing “transatlantic communication problems”. Fit-Bird whispers “I ain’t sposed to say nothin’ to youse, but Gal ’as bin pulling what’s left of ’is barnet out. ’E wants it to be all punk an’ proper Ska an’ the last I ’eard she was trying to book an effin’ lounge music band.” Gal’s new personal manager Backstreet Billy is not helping. The ducking and diving “publisher” apparently advises pulling the show entirely so that Gal can sell books from his barrow in Camden market instead. “It’s all going Pete Tong,” says Fit-Bird, in a quaint throwback to her 90s heyday.
The new album from the exciting Dakka Skanks, the Road To Brighton Pier, is released on 7th Sept via Subcults Records. Dakka Skanks will launch the album when they open for the immortal Neville Staple that day at Concorde 2, Brighton.
Our mate Matt Worley is writing a new book on punk and Oi fanzines and wants anyone with old issues from back in the day to get in touch with him via this blog. The time-span is 1976 – 1987, and he’s interested in all punk and Oi related zines. Matt also wants to put people in touch with archives so that their collections don’t get lost.
July 28. Lord Waistrel listened “with an open mind” to the complaints of Red Wanda and her co-workers (yesterday’s blog), then “after due consideration, in a gesture of goodwill” he sacked the lot of them, replacing ’em with a team of semi-trained macaque monkeys. Shocking, yes, but it means this blog will return to its normal nonsense... just as soon as we’ve cleaned the ape shite off of our keyboards.
P.S. Happy birthday Leah McCaffrey! The new country sensation and Gonads studio singer launched her debut East End Girl ep last month at a storytelling and folklore shindig in County Kerry. Fat Col, who roadied for her, tells us that Leah performed a mini-set and went down a storm. But that wasn’t the only news. The next night the chaps were at a pub party in Sneem where in the middle of songs by the Stones, Dexys and Van Morrison, the DJ suddenly played our own ‘It’s A Yeti’. When told Gal was in the bar, the excitable DJ nearly spilt his Guinness. He then expressed the opinion that the Gonads were “brilliant” adding “with songs like that you should be millionaires”. No wonder Waistrel never shows us the accounts.
July 27. Why is this blog not back and fully operational? That’s the question on the lips of 17,573 of our avid readers from Tijuana to Jaywick Sands (the other 97,000 couldn’t give a toss). The surprising answer, sadly, is that the small team who compile and post it are staging a work-to-rule in protest at what they call the “low-rent gossip and substandard tittle-tattle” they are normally obliged to churn out on an almost daily minimum wage basis. When pushed for further clarification their ringleader Red Wanda tells us: “We are sick and tired of typing up far-fetched stories about that chauvinist pig Fat Col and his one-sided fixation with Comrade Wattsie Watts, the thoughts and misadventures of the so-called PM, the dubious activities of Jolly Pranksters and the reactionary drivel that comes out of Waistrel’s over-fed gob. We want proper news about punk rock, 2-Tone and Oi Oi herberts the world over. Vive le revolution!” Blimey.
July 23. Wotcha cocks! We’re almost back! In the meantime, here’s some record news to get us started. Firstly and most importantly our DIRTY METAL GONADS album is out now on download. You can get it from these capitalist bastards:
Our occasional backing singer, new country sensation Leah McCaffrey has finally released her three-track East End Girl debut EP too: iTunes - Amazon - Spotify
And our mates Jeniera & The Blades have rushed out their nifty Spirit Of England e.p. about ten years after they recorded it. You can find it here: iTunes - Amazon - Spotify
In other hot record noos: The Interrupters’ inspirational Fight The Good Fight LP is out now from Hellcat, keeping the 2-Tone dream alive and then some... Social Distortion’s Live At The Roxy double album has been reissued 20 years after its original release by The Bicycle Music Company... Randale Records have released the Lower Class Brats comp Primary Reinforcement containing their first 6 singles from 1995-99... the first-ever Cro-Mags demos are out on Harley Flanagan’s The Original Cro-Mags Demos, all recorded in 1982 and finished in 83 (Music Video Distributors)... Crim’s new seven-incher ‘Sense Excuses’ is out on colour vinyl from Pirates Press... The Mad Caddies have released their Punk Rocksteady LP on vinyl, 12 classic punk numbers reggaed up (Fat Wreck Chords)... The Adicts’ LP Twenty Seven is now available for the first time on vinyl from Spain’s Daily Records Vintage Series who have also re-issued The Business’s Saturdays Heroes LP... Finally there’s a nifty new single out from Re-Volts – ‘Wages’ b/w ‘The Earth Trembles’ (Pirates Press)...
John King has penned an article on Artists for Brexit who offer, he says, “a platform and a rallying point... A bland, conformist mainstream needs to be shaken up. Leaving the EU is a radical move that has exposed our controllers. It is time to burst some bubbles. Brexit can be a revolution – bold, brave, honestly open-minded and liberal. It represents the people’s vote... ” Read the great man’s vision here.
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