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!
Oct 31. Happy Halloween! Here’s our tip: don’t throw away that pumpkin after tonight, just leave it on the front lawn and over a few weeks something magical will happen – it’ll dry out and start to look like Dot Cotton. Proper scary! Now here are the results of last week’s ‘Complete That Infa-Riot Song’ contest. The answer to Each Dawn I… was ‘die’ and not as some people suggested ‘dodge’, ‘skive’, ‘Thai’ or ‘dress up in women’s clothes and hang about down Chatham Docks bothering sailors’. That doesn’t happen every day, obviously. This week’s song is Still Out Of… (send your answer by Friday for a chance of winning a particularly splendid no-prize).
And now for the latest in our occasional series, Ask Gal Anything. Question 1, from ‘Portsmouth Perv’: was Anal Intruder based on something that really happened? GB: Yes, it was, but not involving me.
Q2. From ‘Portsmouth Perv’: which of your flag girls stiffened your pole? GB: all of them.
Q3. From ‘Portsmouth Perv’: who was the Golden Shot? GB: I can’t possibly say, and oi, blog monkeys, do we have any questions that aren’t from Portsmouth Perv?
We do! Q4. From ‘name withheld’: Is there any truth in the blog story about some kind of Gonads comedy spin-off? GB: There’s a large element of truth in that. I’m exploring various ideas. I need to find a pukka pianist, maybe Curry House Lizzy if we can track her down. Fat Col is putting out feelers, so we’ll be bailing him out of nick again soon. It could translate into a live event as early as May next year.
2) From Jel: what’s happening with the big Unity project? GB: That is coming along nicely. I’ve got some good names involved already from both the Ska and street-punk worlds. The earliest the album could possibly be released is Easter 2022. There’s no rush.
3) From Sid Clark of Maidstone: I’ve seen your books on the 1979 Mod Revival and the 79 Ska Revival, but what has happened to the 79 Metal book and will there ever be a 1980 street-punk one? GB: When Britain Rocked, the Metal book, has turned into one of life’s great mysteries like why did the Big Bang happen, what exactly is dark matter and who put the ‘bomp’ in the bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp, who put the ‘ram’ in the rama-lama-ding-dong? I just can’t give you a definitive answer. The book was written more than two years ago. Since then, I’ve been given various ‘definite’ release dates by the publisher – it was ‘definitely’ coming out in April, then July and then October, but there’s still no sign of it. Perhaps it’s been sucked into a black hole. There should be a definitive Oi book one day; I have been approached by a couple of serious publishers and I’d like to do it, but my situation has changed. At the moment I’m working sixty-plus hours a week every week and I just don’t have the spare time I’d need to research it and to do fresh interviews. It’s the same story with my Sounds Of Glory series. I know what volumes three and four will include, I just haven’t got time to write them at the moment.
Random news: our mates The Chisel release their full-length album Retaliation on 26th November (via La Vida Es Un Mus Discos). Here’s a vid of the title track. Lars Frederiksen releases his first solo EP, To Victory on 19th November; the six songs include God & Guns, a cover of Tomorrow’s Girls, and Army Of Zombies about Norwich City (Are you sure? – Ed). The EP will be released by Pirates Press… the great Geoff Palmer’s album Charts & Graphs is well worth a listen; why not start with Many More Drugs? And there’s a song by that name too.
Rock noos: Ozzy and Lemmy, RIP, have been brought to animated life on this new video for Hellraiser.
Old noos: Green Day’s new live album, The BBC Sessions, includes four of their Maida Vale recording sessions for the Beeb – from 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2001. The 16-track collection will be released on 10th December.
Oct 30. Fresh doubts have arisen over our North East shows. Our local agent Shazza, working in tandem with the legendary Decca Wade, had lined up a series of gigs in Jarrow, South Shields, Sunderland and Newcastle for next Easter. But chaos ensued when she announced that while the band were on stage, she intended to STEAL Wattsie’s clothes while she was wearing them, by surreptitiously using a paralyzing drug (Chateau Mensi all-purpose plonk). We were shocked but reluctantly agreed to film the removal of Wattsie’s stage apparel in artistic slow-mo. Shazza said she was forced to fall back on this drastic scheme as she couldn’t find Shona’s outfits in her local H&M, which seems entirely reasonable, but of course Wattsie hit the roof and immediately pulled out of ALL shows north of Whitby Bay. Fat Col’s bid to save the day by volunteering to come along as Wattsie’s wardrobe supervisor and “guardian of her intimate apparel” did nothing to reassure her, and nor did the pleas of the local Aztec community who are fierce Gonads fans (with a deep, abiding hatred of death-cheating Orange Juice tosser Edwyn Collins). As a result, the North East mini-tour is unlikely to happen before Rebellion. On the plus side, Lord Waistrel has appointed Cat “the Chat” Hockers as our new acting manager after a chance meeting with her over a £1000 bottle of Haut-Brion and several carafes of Valpolicella in Hawksmoor, Borough Market, yesterday. Cat has pledged to land us “prestige gigs” everywhere from Tel Aviv to Tokyo. “The years of failure are over,” she declared before slipping slowly under the table saying. “The future is bright; the future is another magnum bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and a gram of the good stuff!” Our sort of bird! Cheers!
PS. Lord Waistrel gave his tacit support to Dishy Rishi’s budget this week by removing all of his remaining taxable assets from the UK. But to placate his dear friend and former Eton fag Stanley Johnson, Waistrel issued a public statement saying that he was willing to pay the band less and reduce our expenses “to drive down inflation”. Told by financial journalists last night that he currently pays the band sod-all and has never agreed an expenses’ claim, his Lordship exclaimed, “Excellent! Top hole! That’s the way to do it.” He then gave himself a six-figure bonus and jetted off to Sandy Lane, Barbados.
Oct 24. Shocking pictures have emerged of the notorious 'Aldgate Riffler'
caught in action on Friday. Our picture shows the offender shamelessly
ransacking a carelessly left Versace handbag, but it only reveals part of
the story. The Riffler is said to be "prolific and relentless" in his
pursuit of women's handbags and is believed to have had a long history of
bag-related crime dating way back to his teenage years when, at parties in
Bromley, he was said to have soiled handbags, pochettes, shoulder bags and
handgrips by ejaculating into them. He would then pin the blame on his
friend Max. Investigating officer DS Stefanie Wales reports "We managed to
trace the owner of the handbag pictured whose name was Lee Wilson. Miss
Wilson told us that he had only left the handbag for one minute while he was
loitering in the gents avoiding buying a round. He was pretty shaken and
told us he felt his private nooks and crannies had been crassly violated.
Luckily, Miss Wilson added that there had been no money in the handbag other
than a handful of groats and several unusable white fivers. We would ask all
handbag owners to exercise caution in these troubled times and not leave
their bits and bobs exposed. The Aldgate Riffler is liable to strike at any
time."
In other news, Gangster Tales has launched on YouTube ...and Crashed Out are releasing new song The Coat on Remembrance Sunday. It's from their forthcoming new album.
Oct 23. The Punk Rock Curry Club returned in force last night with an eighteen strong turn-out including The Business, The Gonads, Lee Wilson, The Chisel, Carrie Griffiths, John King, Cass Pennant, Max Spartan, Barnet Mark, Mandy Crow, Chelsea Dom, street poet Tim “Teething” Wells, Miss Management and more. The brethren gathered in the once-notorious Brown Bear boozer before jogging on to the Halal, East London’s oldest curryhouse. Apologies for absence were received from the Anti-Nowhere League, a poorly Terence Hayes, Jet from Buster Shuffle, Judge Shed, and Wattsie Watts. Random news arising: the “dark” new Last Resort album is just being finished and should be released in December. Barnet’s book about the legendary 12 Bar Club is coming on a treat and will be crowd-funded to publication next year, and there was talk of a new Gonads song, Monster-in-Law, which we cannot currently confirm or comment on. Gal, who organised the do, pulled off a Lee Wilson classic by leaving his wallet “in my other coat”, leading to unprecedented scenes of Lee buying him TWO pints – an outcome so unlikely that we half expected to see a platoon of flying pigs taking off from City Airport as we left the battle-cruiser. Lee for his part broke Max Spartan’s record by eating “at least” 27 popadoms. Videos were shot for the 100 Club show with Gal saying, “Hello, I’m Garry Bushell although you might know me better as Cheryl Baker from Buck’s Fizz. We’re called the Fizz now but we still do all the old classics…” (Cue Paul SkaNad and JC crooning Making Your Mind Up.) There was no discussion of the bitter rift between JK’s PPGB and the anarcho-syndicalist ELF, but sturdy ELF-supporting Indian waiters made their position clear by serving Mr King a child’s portion of what one culinary expert described as “vegan crap” and ignoring his complaints. For his part, Barnet Mark demanded that Gal write “a full autobiography, telling the lot about the early 80”. Stranger things…
Sadly, our sozzled snapper only took these limited shots.
PS. An eyewitness from Sunday’s big comedy club night-out rings to tell us about the moment Wattsie mistook Gal’s hearing aid box for a jewellery box. “Is that an engagement ring?” she gasped, pointing at the black box on their table. “Are you springing a surprise proposal on me?” Gal immediately opened the box to show her what was actually inside, presumably to her immense relief. It was all of course a ridiculous mistake. The engagement ring was in Gal’s coat pocket all along. Just kidding! It was in Fat Col’s coat pocket.
Oct 18. Here is an exclusive shot of Wattsie Watts juggling pint glasses last night at Up The Creek. The speed of her hands defies the camera, as well as the eye. But then Shona is by her own admission a life-long card shark. But why were Wattsie and Gal at the much-loved Greenwich comedy club on a Sunday? Their cover story was a “singers’ night out” but we can reveal that the pair have been secretly offered bookings for their break-away music and comedy double act, which would combine very true stories with base Gonads ditties like Infected, and are looking for a launch venue. “The plan is to test the water in south east London and then move the whole thing into the West End,” says their friend, the dirty grass Fat Col. So, in tabloid terms, that would be: ‘Shono & Hobo Head for Soho with Gonads a Go-Go slow-grow ho-ho low-show, and plenty of mojo, yo-yos & pogos…’ Oh no! Say it ain’t so! Or even so-so.
Oct 15. The great Agnostic Front singer Roger Merit was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Although he is now in full remission, he has another £120,000 worth of medical bills to pay. To chip in, go here. Cheers. He’s one of the best.
Oct 11. STOP PRESS. The ELF (English Liberation Front) today moved swiftly to SQUASH reports that they will form an electoral pact with John King’s People’s Party of Great Britain (PPGB). A sultry but shadowy spokeswoman told us “Although we share some things in common with Mr. King on a cultural level, as anarcho-syndicalists and left libertarians we obviously have no time for the PPGB’s dreary and dated, high-tax, high-spend statist policies – our message is one of freedom and individuality.” She went on, “We favour a canton-style system of devolved democracy with the state stripped back to basics and monopolies outlawed; our hearts may be socialist but our heads are for small traders and free enterprise. Live free, die free! Eat meat, save carrots!” Mr. King was unavailable for comment.
Oct 10. Although this blog is still closed, our spies report a major development happened earlier today when John King’s People’s Party of Great Britain (PPGB) held an informal meeting with the English Liberation Front in south London to discuss a possible electoral alliance. The meeting agreed in principle to contest parliamentary elections on a “working class, punk rock, patriotic socialist platform” in order to “replace the dying Labour Party, guard against further erosion of working-class culture and reject weaselly efforts by weak-minded liberals to rejoin the EU”. Our source reported that the only objections raised were about the “GB” part of the party’s name, as “Northern Ireland was very much in the mix”. While some advocated the alternative name of PPUK, a resurgent Fat Col argued for “PPBI – the people’s party of the British Isles – to bring southern Ireland back into the fold”. If elected the PPGB/UK/BI, under the permanent leadership of King, would appoint a number of regional sheriffs including Terence Hayes (DM) as Sheriff of Essex and Steve Whale as Sheriff of London. Gal would be Deputy Leader, with Judge Shed as Home Secretary, Stinky Turner Minister of Defence, Neville Staple Minister Of Culture, Wattsie Watts as Conspiracy Supremo and Chelsea Dom as environmental/gardening minister. Garry Johnson would be poet laureate. We understand that these decisions will now be ratified by senior PPGB officials later this month. It seems unlikely that the nascent party will be in a position to contest the soon-come Sidcup & Old Bexley by-election, but watch this space.
In a bid to placate a furious Fat Col over our proposed acoustic Music Hall side project, Gal asked him to start organizing his “Big 69” birthday bash for May 2024. Unfortunately, Col appears to have misunderstood the idea behind the knees-up. An ashen-faced Effete El tells us, “Gal obviously meant the ‘69’ to refer to the famous ‘spirit of 1969’, an important year in subcultural history, but Col is telling people that he is inviting Gal’s close friends, family, and ‘women with a particular set of skills’.” What a moron. Still, every cloud…
PLEASE NOTE: The Crunch Q&A session mooted for next Friday has now been postponed until January.
Oct 9. Quick update: we will record our new album Revolution Now next March, along with an entirely separate reggae track for Gal’s visionary Unity Project. During the course of a riotous curry night that finished at 3am this morning, we also decided to record a bootleg album called Lock-In With The Guv’nor. According to one hungover source, this “quality collection of old-school Cockney anthems and Music Hall gems” will be “a continuation of the pub side of our first live bootleg album”. This move has infuriated Fat Col, who condemned it for “abandoning the purity of the pure punk ethic”, and is certain to piss off Captain Oi who hates the historic pub side so much he refused to re-release the popular live album in full. But Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) said: “We don’t believe the so-called Captain owns the rights to that bootleg, let him produce the paperwork that proves it” before adding mysteriously, “Captain my arse, we are the Chief of Staff and we’re watching the Cardinal’s legal challenge with interest”. What can it mean?
In other news, Hell To Pay is back! The rights to the gritty gangster drama have returned to movie-maker Eamonn O’Keefe who is now rushing to try to re-release it next month. As well as featuring Steve Whale, Cass Pennant, Micky Pugh, Chico from Chico Time (!), Francine Lewis and Terry Stone, the David Courtney film also includes our own Gal Gonad in the cast and the Business on the soundtrack...
Lovers’ Rock noos: Carroll Thompson’s Hopelessly In Love album has been remastered and will be re-released on vinyl next Saturday as part of National Album Day 2021.
