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!
May 31st. As promised, here are more pix from Brixton… including FrankenSkin and his fan, some of the groups who played, Carrie who joined us for Buy Me A Drink You Bastards and UK Sub, Gal and the raucous crowd…
May 30. Brixton was a gas! A great night. Loads of atmosphere and all for a good cause. Here are some pictures. More may follow…
Although yesterday was great for us, it was a wash-out for the Kings Own Defence. A unit of the KOD did indeed turn up in Sidcup late in the afternoon apparently unaware that Gal was in Brixton playing a benefit gig for Refuge. Derby Ken tells us, “About six of the PPGB yoof turned up in the Hoppers looking like the Dad’s Army B-team. They started asking questions about Billy Bunce, so I gave them an address in Ramsgate and they fucked off.” Smart move. Billy actually lives in Harlow, Essex, and has the “full unqualified protection” of the ELF.
May 29. Warning! Two carloads of the King’s Own Defence – a small band of purists within the volatile PPGB Youth wing of the PPGB – are heading to Sidcup in South-East London today with the plan to plot up in two of the three main pubs used by Gal and wait for his arrival. More mature members of the PPGB and BME will enter the area shortly after and link up with the Hopper’s Hut Elite in the third. Their mission? To buy PPGB (ELF wing) stalwart Gal a pint and have him lead them to the address of a man they are referring to as “Bedwetter Bunce”. Two-ton Tony Madras tells us, “Bedwetter Bunce has criticised The Leader’s patriotic and very reasonable request that the next Curry Club involves a decent session ahead of the main event, plus an insistence on spicy curries rather a million stale popadoms and endless bottles of lukewarm, over-priced Cobra lager. King’s Own Defence only want to talk to the early-bedtime fanatic Bunce. And his pals – if he has any. No violence is planned… at this time.”
May 28. Here’s an actual professional review of our 100 Club gig from an actual rock writer from yer actual Record Collector: ‘The Gonads – a fun filled set full of beer-raising and football chant anthems. They even threw in a Christmas ditty to make up for their Covid-postponed gig from December 2021. It was a cracker.’ Cheers!
The full set-list for the 100 Club show: THE COMING. LAGER TOP. JOBS NOT JAILS. LONDON BOYS. SE7 DOLE DAY. ALCONAUT. BUY ME A DRINK YOU BASTARDS. I LOST MY LOVE TO A UK SUB. SKINHEAD GIRL. FEDERALES. BEANO. DANCE, FAT BOY, DANCE. OI MATE. GRANT MITCHELL. PUNK ROCK WILL NEVER DIE. DRINKING SONG. THE GREATEST COCKNEY CHRISTMAS. ENCORE: TUCKER’S RUCKERS.
Remember Grammar Free In The UK – barking mad letters to punk bands with hilarious replies? Well the audiobook version is finally out with a stack of extra content bringing it to 64 bands, and every reply is voiced by the one of the band members involved. All the exchanges are bangers! To get hold of one, visit https://grammarfreeintheuk.bandcamp.com/releases and input ‘gonads’(without quote marks) to get 10% discount. The book includes us, Sparrer, the Cockney Rejects, Max Splodge, The Angelic Upstarts, the Ruts, the UK Subs, Menace, Steve Ignorant, Sham, and many more. Street Sounds calls it “very funny, a must for punks everywhere...”. Louder Than War loved it too, but a “Mr C.G. of Plumstead” posts on the South London Press website: “It is okay as far as it goes but they have made a proper ricket by not including fresh, happening bands such as The Rawhides, Wank Throttle and Donkey Laugh.” A donation will be made to charity from the profits of every sale.
A spokesman for the Carnivore Crusaders last night blasted John King’s ‘midnight curry’ proposal. Newly elected leader, Billy ‘Bacon’ Bunce (Prankster apprentice) said, “It’s a curry club, so grub tops pub – it ain’t rocket science. Besides, it’s all right for the BME, they don’t have to get up for work the next morning. If so-called King wants to eat alfalfa madras and dandelion dhansak through an alcoholic haze in the wee small hours of the morning round the back of the curryhouse bins, let him do it in his own time.” To order, brethren. For beef, beer and liberty!
May 27. We’re at the Queen’s Head, Brixton on Sunday, raising dosh for Refuge – a very good cause indeed. First band are on at 4.30. Get pissed, enjoy!
Gonads news: Gal and Wattsie are back in the studio next month recording a very special stand-alone single with the great Clyde Ward… we are expecting to announce more gigs shortly.
Random news: Kiss say why they’re about to retire in the new issue of Classic Rock… the Cockney Rejects play Bedford Esquires on 25th June… and here’s a new tune from the Interrupters.
Happy birthday Decca Wade – a top man, very funny, and also the original drummer on our own Lager Top
May 26. John King and his so-called Beer Monster Elite are jostling to take control of July’s planned Punk Rock Curry Club gathering. A stern-faced JK tells this blog that “Previous events have started the meal as early as 7.30 or 8pm. This is totally unacceptable. The proper time to book a table for a punk rock curry is around 11.15pm after the pub has shut. For too long the drinking aspect of the club has been downgraded by Gal Gonad who no doubt likes to be home wearing his dressing gown and slippers by 9.30.”
Early plans are in place for the definitive story of Oi, told in the words of those who were actually there. It will take some time to put together but many of the original faces are already on board. It will be worth the wait.
May 25. Our mate Lars Frederiksen is touring the UK from 8th August (Glasgow, St Lukes) to 20th (London, Lafayette), with Newcastle, Notts, Wolves, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Southampton, and Devon’s Escot Park along the way. Plans for the great man to also play the legendary Arkwright’s Bar, Rainham, have yet to be finalised.
Happy birthday to the great Micky Pugh, the last of the legendary Cockney comics.
May 24. Gal and Bev Elliott managed to get themselves banned from the Pistol after-party last night. But revenge was sweet. Some wag put the word out that there was a top secret after-after-party in a Soho members club…leading to a stream of disappointed liggers. The first two episodes of Pistol – the Sex Pistols’ story based on Steve Jones’s account, Lonely Boy – were given a proper West End red carpet screening. You’ll have to wait for Gal’s review. But Bev – aka Soho’s Queen Of Punk – was on fine form insulting posers in the Hampshire Hotel bar and “re-distributing” goodies to the homeless. Gawd bless her.
May 23. Thank you for your many kind words about Saturday’s show. We had an absolute ball. Here are some jolly pictures. Come to the Queen’s Head, Brixton, on Sunday for another session! New songs! More beer! Different bands! And it’s all for charity! Just a Jack’s on the door! Satisfaction guaranteed!
May 22. Big Gonads love to Si Spanner for playing the fearsome FrankenSkin last night. We are still recovering (sobering up – Ed) but sincere thanks for all the positive feedback. John King tells us, “It was the best Gonads gig I’ve ever seen.” And an emotional Effete El agrees claiming the night was “even better than the legendary Lads Of The Village shows in 1977… in my view it’s up there with Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the Stones at the Marquee and James Brown at the Harlem Apollo…” The man was clearly more smashed than Gal was. A concerned Ritchie Rocker contacts us to say, of the fake Wattsie Watts/Rita Webb picture, “I’m in no doubt that Fat Col is the man behind this dreadful piece of hacking. He should be strung up! Even Putin wouldn’t stoop that low! It did get me thinking however. I loved Rita Webb, her performance in the funeral episode of Steptoe is classic. Imagine her as your backing singer along with those other greats Hilda Baker and Irene Handl. Instead of The I-Threes we could have The Oi-Threes.” A very good idea, sir, and one we may very well work on for the future with their living equivalents…
STOP PRESS. We have just intercepted a second hacked picture, this time of Wattsie from last night’s show substituting the innocent Xmas sprinkler she was holding for the sort of thing Spanner sells under the counter in his shops. Mercifully our IT unit (Tony ‘Twist’ O’Lemon) spotted the vile image and removed it seconds after it went online – we’ll post the real one tomorrow. What worries us is that this time the hacker wasn’t in Plumstead but in the United States, very close in fact to the American Gonads HQ. Surely Trotsky and Jay aren’t working for Col now???
May 20. Essex punk band The Kunts release their pleasant Jubilee single, Prince Andrew Is A Sweaty Nonce a week today on their own Radical Rudeness label. You can’t see the video on YouTube because Kunt’s channel was shut down yesterday for the second time – the first time was in 2011 when he released Fucksticks listing various Royal misdemeanours (coinciding with William and Kate’s wedding). The video for Prince Andrew Is A Sweaty Nonce can now be seen on their website www.princeandrew.info. Last night, a furious Fat Col condemned Kunt for “pathetic posturing, playing at rebellion, recycling old ideas and failing to swear in an inventive or amusing manner”. The Rawhides singer added, “the headline-chasing fucktard is as original as a photocopied fiver, as musical as a corporation dust cart and as much use as a semolina dildo. God save the Queen!”
May 19. This is the shocking picture that ‘persons unknown’ tried to send to Randale Records as “Wattsie Watts” earlier today. The crudely amended image – of comedy icon Rita Webb – was intercepted by our tech team (Tony Twist O’Lemon) before it could leave Nads HQ. An ashen-faced Tony tells us, “It was the work of a skilled hacker who is believed to reside in the SE18 area of south London”. This postcode covers Woolwich and, perhaps significantly, Plumstead, but we have no evidence to suggest it is linked to the sulking Fat Col… other than his long history of dirty tricks and double dealing. Tony continues, “At under five feet tall, with a booming voice and dyed hair, she was often cast as a blowsy mother-in-law or Cockney type character… and the same went for Rita Webb, God rest her soul.”
May 18. Big Gonads love to the DM who has successfully undergone a major wossname and should be back on the scene later this summer.
Record news: The Dead Kennedys release a remixed version of Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables on 30th September, with Chris Lord-Alge at the controls. The new version will include an 8-page booklet with rare archival photos and interviews. Jello Biafra is opposed to it.
May 17. Just a reminder that we will be playing our special Christmas set at the postponed Bootboys Xmas Party gig at the 100 Club this coming Saturday. And to make it even more exciting the excellent Le Rox will open the night. They’ll be on stage promptly at 7.15, fifteen minutes after the doors open, so get there early for an extra special sad-bird punk rock treat.
STOP PRESS. Tragic news! Gal is under doctor’s orders NOT to drink at all on Saturday (or any other day), which means that as well as our set including the Greatest Cockney Christmas live for the very first time, it will also be Sir Gonad’s first-ever sober stage performance.
Fit Bird tells us, “It will be tough for him, wunnit, but by standing behind Lee Wilson at all times he can be reasonably sure of never getting near the bar.” A sober Gal though, that seems about as likely as a feminist Fat Col.
May 15. Look at these handsome bastards! Here are Gal, James and Paul at rehearsals in beautiful downtown Erith yesterday (without Phil who has succumbed to a terrifying lurgy known to medical researchers as tumenibanditis). Wattsie was there of course, but the pictures of her mysteriously vanished from her cloud, just as the one we posted on Facebook did. The odious Fat Col was later heard boasting that he had “penetrated her cumulus” and nicked the lot for his pirate Wattsie Watts Only Fans page. The dirty bastard.
May 14. Ooh, some unexpected book news. Jim Iron & John Steel have just published the follow-up to their 2016 Mod pulp fiction best-seller, Glory Boys. Glory Boys II: Days Of Change continues the story of East End Modernist Chris Davis and his sharp-dressed Glory Boy buddies as they are beset by new enemies and aggro from all sides. It’s a fast-moving, well-written, old school youth cult novel with a solid gold ring of authenticity. Buy it here (or on Kindle) if you like.
Book News 2: and the new pulp fiction novella from Tim Wells is due out in early June. The follow-up to Moonstomp, it finds skinhead werewolf Joe back stalking a London cursed with Mod witches. Readers we nearly married one, but that’s another story altogether.
Good news for fans of punk rock, ten pin bowling and Las Vegas – Punk Rock Bowling returns to Sin City next May. PRB have confirmed that festival is back on for 2023. We’d play ourselves… if they chucked in flights, showgirls and a few well-comped suites in the Wynn (although the Mandalay Bay wouldn’t be a deal breaker).
STOP PRESS. Contrary to rumour, we would like to clarify that we are NOT the reason why the Cockney Rejects’ Australian and New Zealand tour has been cancelled and can state categorically that we are definitely not the other band involved. We aren’t looking at going down under until 2024. See their FB page for background.
May 13. Happy birthday to Sir Gal of Gonad, 67 today. Just two more years until the jokes write themselves.
May 12. This is a boom time for band merchandise. There’s the Iron Maiden samurai warrior (£199.95), Metallica’s mini-instrument set (£95.82) and now a quality range of six-inch wall-mounted busts of legends like Angus Young, Bowie, and Lemmy from Out Of Hand Studio (£30 a pop). There is even talk of a Maiden fire pit. Sadly Lord Waistrel is in no mood to invest in Gonads merch, not even a limited edition, diamond-encrusted solid-gold vibrating version of the stage cock with adjustable girth (£999.99). His Lordship this week axed plans to launch NadCoin. Scrotum, Waistrel’s wrinkled retainer, tells us: “The harse is falling out of crypto-currency, so hit’s no go. ’Is Lordship thinks there’s more chance hof making money by betting hon Wattsie Wattsit becoming Mrs Gannon by 2025.” Well, stranger things have happened… we just can’t think of any off-hand.
STOP PRESS. RIP Trevor Stmad, singer with The Black Dahlia Murder. He was 41.
May 11. Word reaches us that Fat Col was so furious about 18 Stone Of Dynamite being dropped from our new album that he threw a full pint over a passing vicar, kicked a cat and didn’t eat a single pork scratching for at least half an hour. This is denied by his closest and only friend, Plumstead barfly Jonno ‘Joycey’ Joyce, who tells us, “Colin is very busy putting the country-punk Rawhides ep together. He already has a UK label and has had ‘significant interest’ from Nashville, so you can understand why he is completely uninterested in the trivial shenanigans of a minor UK gutter-rock band and what he calls ‘that bloody woman’.” Quite.
May 10. There were a few surprise absences at Saturday’s big book launch. Hoxton Tom had a medical emergency, but where were Lee Wilson and John King? Word is Lee swerved the occasion after hearing that other legendary round-dodgers were likely to be present, to wit Spizz and Eddie Piller. Spizz was indeed there, and true to form, his wallet never left his leather strides; but Eddie was far too busy being grumpy elsewhere to make it. In the event, all of them were out-done by Mod author Terry Rawlings! Rawlings approached our insider at the bar, said “I’ll make this a round”, he then ordered a large white wine and brazenly walked away, leaving our shocked source to fork out for it. The Gonads do not endorse round-dodging in any sense, but it was the most masterly display of shameless poncing since the notorious exploits of Paul Devine back in the 1980s. As the word spread, Spizz, accepting he was outclassed, drank up and left heading straight for Nicky Tesco’s wake and several more hours of guaranteed free beer. RIP Nicky.
PS. John King’s absence has been blamed on a political split in the PPGB. Whispers Effete El, “John is very much a unionist and a statist and takes a dim view of Gal’s friendship with revolutionary anarchists of the ELF”. Anarchist poet Tim ‘Teething’ Wells was at the launch, along with Chris Pope from the Chords UK, VLR’s Eugene Butcher, several Mod faces, and the various street celebs pictured on Gal’s own blog.
May 9. What a weekend! On Saturday Mods (and rockers, round-dodgers and Rhoda Dakar), turned out for Gal’s big book launch in Waterloo and yesterday we finished the mix of our brand-new album, Revolution Now! – but not until some extremely tough decisions were made. Exec producer Wattsie Watts took the lead demanding they we AXE ’18 Stone Of Dynamite (Half Inch Fuse)’ from the album in a final and definitive snub to Fat Col who now has no songs on the record whatsoever. Wattsie then cut ‘Can You Take All This?’ for the less convincing argument that “ten tracks make more sense than eleven”. Hmm. Maybe. The CD version is likely to come with bonus tracks but neither of those two songs will be included. Paul SkaNad tells us, “It’s the right decision. Hand on heart Revolution Now! is the best album we have ever made. It’s better even than Back & Barking.” We will announce the release date as soon as we hear from Randale Records. In the meantime, here are some pix of Wattsie working her magic.
In other news, the band wrote a new song yesterday – Wattsie’s These Lips Were Made For Blowing (about her kazoo, of course, your minds!) – which may feature on the next studio album, Onwards To Glory (due 2024). Before that we should get The Gonads Official Bootleg II, which could well include live recordings of unreleased rarities such as Whelks (written in 1976/7), Ruptured Foreskin Blues (2012) and The Great Sidcup Salami Scandal (2013). The Gonads return to the studio next month to record a track for the big Oi/Ska Unity Project.
For pictures from Gal’s book launch, see his blog http://www.garry-bushell.co.uk/ontheblog.htm#. later this week.
May 3. We interrupt our self-imposed blog shut-down to announce the good news that we have finally made contact with Randale Records and everything is now back on track for our blistering new album, Revolution Now. Meanwhile Lord Waistrel has over-turned Gal Gonad’s “half-baked” plan for the band to semi-retire after Rebellion. The compassionate peer apparently told him, “Oiks like you never retire, you just work until you drop for your betters and masters.”
Reminders: it’s Gal’s book launch on Saturday afternoon! We play the 100 Club on 21st May! And we headline a benefit gig for domestic abuse charity Refuge at the Queen’s Head, Brixton on the 29th May playing a different set which will include Hey You, Yeti and Beer Can Boogie.
Here we are rehearsing for the 100 Club gig on Sunday. But where’s Paul SkaNad you ask? Unconfirmed rumours suggest that our drummer might have been left locked up in a cage and stranded semi-naked in a gimp suit while wife-to-be, Mistress Management, was out soaking up the bucolic splendour of Central Croydon.
Gal tries to persuade JC that Gob would sound better with sensitive flamenco guitar licks…
Shrinking violet Phil shuns the limelight.
Wattsie – 95% confident that the ruling class lizard-men can’t get inside her brain through the medium of herbal tea.
JC before revealing the shock news that his near-miss father-in-law was Doctor Who!
New songs arising from the rehearsal session: Doctor Who Is My Father-In-Law aka Who Put The Turd In The Tardis, Bird Drummer, Dublin Calling aka Guinness Shits and Free Paul Ska-Nad (from his bondage cell) – aka Mistress M Please
