NEWSFLASH! Folking Facists?

OUTRAGE TONIGHT AS 'CHUDKINS TELLS BBC TO 'GO FOLK ITSELF'

You may remember that we featured a group by the name of Patch Chudkins as our second-ever band You Have Not Heard? Well, it seems that fears that our little trio were a little on the wrong side of right have proved probably founded, maybe.

Following growing discontent amongst Stephen Fry that the band were in fact a musical front for the English KKK - BBC's Watchdog program launched an undercover expose on the the two surviving members of the band - Guthrie and Ruth Archibold. In an unparalleled act of cunning Watchdog stalwart Matt Allwright dressed up as a tree and surprised the pair at a National Front meeting in June. The group claim that Allwright was sent as a BBC lynch mob to bring the pair's career to an end over comments on camera regarding unsaid, unfounded and unproven truths (that were unprovenly unfounded and true). It has to be said that Allwright did not help the situation by appearing with a noose hanging from one of his branches. However, the expose brought an end to any likely comeback for the pair and came mere weeks after Guthrie's release from prison on licence. The band were due to release their next album in 2010 (working title - "Heading Through the GriffinDoor").

Late last night and apparently in protest of Allwright's handiwork, the pair stormed into television centre demanding air time. One of the Dimbleby brothers, we cannot be sure which one at this stage, with the help of Jeremy Paxo, took them on in a two versus two, melee, tag team, cage fight showdown. We believe the Paxo-Dimbleby combo dispatched of both Archibold's, ending with a piledriver that caused Weather presenter Daniel Corbett to wet himself live on News24.

The pair are currently being questioned by Police but are expected to make an official complaint against the BBC. The basis of the complaint is thought to centre around things they said that were true but have since become untrue, unsaid and slightly more acceptable in the public eye.

The trial continues.

#41- Nightwear

Some people would regard this as a footnote, but we're interested in different stories to most people. In his otherwise forgettable book "The Outer Rim of Bohemia" Joe Grayshot described one night at the edge-of-the-city-centre apartment complex he lived at:

"I was fumbling about on the settee, trying to move the remains of my speedball to flick the channel over. I didn't want to go all John Belushi but my head was fried and I needed to get away from Newsnight Review. Movement was not on the agenda. Bonnie Greer was shouting some spat about mother nature being a hobo in the Garden of Eden, I was trying to respond but she wasn't listening. The TV was -I had to remind myself- a one way device. A method for putting ideas in your head. A platform. I eventually made it to bed.

"There was to be no rock'n'roll in my room that night. Fisticuffs were off the agenda and I wouldn't try to sneak them in under AOB. But upstairs the Silentnight due, Senor Hippo and Ms Bird were going at it hell for imperial leather. They certainly weren't coming up clean."

Well, that kind of nonsensical Gonzo approach to writing certainly had it's fans at one point. Mainly people who thought writing involved vomiting on the nearest page and physically attacking anyone who dares to criticise them. But our concern is that Grayshot had inadvertently spoken about our next band, the next band you have not heard of: Nightwear.

It has to be admitted at this point that Bill MacGregor was not a thin man, nor was his then girlfriend overly large in any direction. Grayshot's snide remark was accurate, if hyperbolic. MacGregor was not one to take offence, especially as he has fashioned a whole career on sleepytime music.

As Nightwear, MacGregor detuned his otherwise well-tuned guitar and strummed gently to himself. The studio made him produce his own records as the engineers kept falling asleep. Perched on the edge of a rocking chair, guitar in one hand and mixing desk in the other, fat squelching out of all remaining crevices on the seat, MacGregor produced the kind of music whales would produce if they knew their "song" sent you to sleep. He had no time for reverse reverb or any tremelo nonsense. No. He favoured open chords on a an acoustic, with whispered lyrics about drinking Horlicks neatly fit into the background. Some say that MacGregor was capable of hypnosis; something he states is not only untrue, but offensive to real hypnotists who not only send people to sleep but also get them to pretend to be cats, think they are themselves aged 8 and stop smoking.

After two albums and a guest appearance on In The Night Garden, MacGregor was approached by a the makers of a branded promethazine. Testing on his music had suggested to them that it released a weak dopamine antagonist into the system, thus causing a lack of awakedness. His music was running them out of business. They told him they would either pay him to develop his music under laboratory conditions or would kill him. Sensing that Big-Pharma could probably get away with murder he decided to take the lab job.

A lab job is not as sexy as it sounds. We'd all like to work in a hair-dryer factory so when asked about the job we could say "Well, it's a blow job." Or indeed work in a household waste sorting site so we could say "It's a rubbish job!". Or indeed be an intern for Sandra Day O'Connor so we could say "It's a day job!". But "it's a lab job!" only works if you also breed large dogs and MacGregor lived in an inner rim apartment where dogs were banned, along with cats, rats, bats and smoking. It never stopped Grayshotbut that's because he's just the type of person who feels that rules don't apply to them. MacGregor, on the other hand, determinedly and studiously tried to experiment with his music and sleep patterns, discovering amongst other things that tube amps are a decent way of producing sleepytime happiness for all around. He also discovered that Barry White is not the thing to think about if you want to go straight to sleep. Conference followed conference and MacGregor had less time for his real passion of recording music that sent people to dreamyland. Eventually the company cracked his magic and he was released to make music once more.

Set free from his pharmaceutical captivity, MacGregor decided that Nightwear should enter an "insomniac phase". MacGregor and his supporters tried to stay up for a whole week in order to get really very tired. This allows them hallucinogenic experiences and also allowed fo rthem to experience the world as someone so permanently close to sleep. The resulting album "Why the heck did I do this to mysef" went straight to number 1 in the "Music for people with problems" chart, pushing OCD favourite Bo Anders Persson to number 2 for the first time in quite some time.

Confident in his legacy, both chemical and muscial, MacGregor now sleeps quitely at home with his short, thin, yellow wife. Joe Grayshot plans to punch different celebrities at book signings until they all give up and go home.

#40 The Great Grandfathers of Invention

We all remember the moment, July 7 2007, 19.42pm. The world watched the ad break of Coronation Street.

A smartly dressed but somewhat dishevelled looking Michael Barrymore came into view. He looked as if to speak, but he stopped himself, descending back into his own thoughts. Rousing his character he turned to the camera and began:

"Viewers, compatriots, [painful sigh] friends. I feel that I have a huge apology to make. I have shamed myself and am only now coming to the realisation for for years I have laboured under a very fundamental mistake. A known mistake. Something I should have admitted to earlier. I am truly sorry.

"For it appears that a hot spot is indeed a good spot. A hot spot can make your life a little bit better. So when you're in town next, do a search, find a hot spot and check the news, send some e-mails, watch Man to Man with Dean Learner. A hot spot is a good spot. A hot spot is. A. Good. Spot. I'm only sorry to have misled my people for so long."

Cut to black and, whilst audible sighs and sobs can still be heard in the background, the logo of TB Open Zone appears.

When the rioting ended and calm returned, many people realised how much modern society had descended into a pure stream of advertisements. Some took to consumerism, but Matthew Willows took to the past. Previously a member of the Velvet Trenchcoat Mafia, Willows decided to leave the world of 2 for 1 subculture and adopt a healthy 3 for 1 subculture instead.

The idea was steamprog. Previous media had made the steampunk sub-subgenre partially encompassing. The steampunk pioneers were interesting in making the mid to late Victorian period alive with the wonders of technology not as boring drawings and schematics but living, revolutionary concepts and machines that belched thick fog, made nasty noises and frequently blew apart. Often these machines and concepts had little grounding in fact or reality. Willows had no time for that.

Willows's aims was to create a band that was interested in boring drawings and schematics. He was interested in the way things worked and how that affected our everyday lives. He was a weird guy. The first songs he wrote focused on the way a cone lock nut is shaped after being tapped to create a helpful torque which is required to keep an engine together under high heat. In three songs he explained the engineering relationship from the point of view of the nut itself, the grease covered engine driver suffering under the pain of exposure to heat and haemorrhoids and the drivers mother, unable to claim assistance under The Poor Law Amendment Act, frittering away her lazy afternoons watching smoke trails on the horizon. The first song started with a small crack in the nut ("I think I'm cracking up, I think I'm going to spin out of control"), the last song ended with the engineer noticing and removing the nut ("ashes to ashes, carbon steel alloy to carbon steel alloy.") . The liner notes make clear that the nut now resides in the National Railway Museum in York, alongside a Beeching-era closure poster and a hip flash with GWR etched into it.

Willows himself compared the three song cycle to the realistic literature experiments of Emile Zola. Being dead, Zola could not comment but his family threatened to sue the pants off anyone caught comparing themselves favourably to their great granddad. Besides, the relatives said, nobody ended up dying in a painful and harrowing way, so it could not be anything like the work of the master himself.

Releasing the three songs as an self-issued EP, Willows had played all the instruments, done all of his own accounting and even acted as a groupie on more than occasion. When the requests for gigs started coming in, Willows decided to pull a band together. Eschewing the tradition of getting band members who can play instruments, Willows decided instead to hire people who looked the part and tried to teach them rudimentary instrumental skills in the weeks leading up the first gigs. To find a bunch of bearded train enthusiasts was not exactly the hard part. An ad in one of their journals of repute was enough to have two hundred fame-hungry, pie hungry, mutton chopped wannabe train drivers banging down Willow's door. The selection process was gruelling. Each contestant had to answer questions from one of the hardest tests known to man. At the end of the heat stages Willows asked the remaining steamers to compete in an eliminator challenge. John Fashanu was taken away for the important hosting duties on Deal or No Deal Nigeria to present and the whole thing was shown on Puff, the new UKTV network for men aged 45-90.

Eventually the band were chosen and Willows had to teach them some instruments. The washboard was easy and Cecil Parkin took to it nice and easy. Jack Skinner was given the harder task of playing Willows's cheap knockoff of Yuri Landman's Moodswinger. Let's just say he hit the instrument on occasion and no-one complained. Harry Lambert, the 'looker' of the group was given the ceremonial role of 'contributing to overall musical direction.' He also promised to cut himself on stage if anyone asked whether he was serious about his art. Nobody did. Whilst on stage he strummed a guitar that was not plugged into an amp and until the fifth gig was still had its cellophane pick guard protector on. Mr Orkindale rounded the line-up by trying to hit some drums. Denied drumsticks by Willows following a painful accident in practise, Orkindale took to slapping the drums and producing snare sounds by gently tapping the skin and side of the drum.

An early Willows-free performance on Later with Jools Holland did nothing to limit their reputation as acolytes and when a washed-up Willows finally decided to leave the band (following Lambert's serial womanising hitting the front of the Daily Record ("Fishwives! lock up your mothers!")) the band decided to carry on without the only person who could, you know, play music. Unsurprisingly, the music they produced was out of tune, out of key, in no particular time signature and the lyrics make increasingly less sense. They are currently supporting Sonic Youth.

Michael Barrymore is currently managing the internet advertising strategy for Mishka.

#39- Silver Showers

Fame! You don't get to live forever, you don't get to learn how to fly. Of all the famous people who have ever tried to fly, only Robert Fripp has managed to do it with any degree of regularity. Some say he's actually a parrot, some say that he's a jackdaw, yet more say he's got a rocket tied to his back. It's actually a combination of all three.

But Fame, for all the broken promises about lighter than air travel, is also a harsh mistress. A mistress who wants you to leave your wife for them, a mistress who purposely leaves lipstick marks on your shirt, a mistress who turns up expecting Christmas dinner with your in-laws. And when Fame finally gets tired of waiting for you to bump off the missus, she leaves town and forces you to try and cobble together a life without her.

Fame played her part in the story we are about to tell, for Ken Mills had his run around the block with the dark force of celebrity. He played bass guitar in the critically and commercially successful band Citizen and Mrs Smith. You don't need us to tell you that Citizen and Mrs Smith made 17 prized albums of low-rate indie pap, or that they sold out so many stadiums they eventually decided to build their own, or that they fell out with each other about who should have the last sherbet dib dab, with charges for affray considered and then dropped.

But Ken Mills was not the brains of the operation, was not the public frontman, was not nothing of any note. What should he do? He had just enough money from the performing rights to disappear into the hills whilst working on a new album, but what should that album be about?

Since he was a child Ken had two all consuming interests: travelling and excessive cleanliness. Whilst touring with Citizen and Mrs Smith Ken kept a detailed diary of every hotel shower he used. He regularly commented on a shower's flow, force, temperature control, speed for water arrive, cleanliness of the head (of the shower), cleanliness of the head (of the show user after exiting the shower), ability to contain water without it going on other bathroom items, ease of use of the controls and overall experience. From this he normally calculated a qualitative outcome ranging from "Chemical Shower" -a disappointing experience with no redeeming features- to "Silver Shower" -the best of all worlds and possibly some good shampoo thrown into the bargain. Between these extremes were Copper Shower, Bronze Shower, Iron Shower, Platinum Shower and Crest Shower.

Retreating to the hills, Mills filled and killed his time trying to work on a new album by typing up his shower ratings. Eventually either a stroke of genius, a stroke of madness or a plain old fashioned ischemic stroke made Mills realise that he could combine his bass based song writing with his reviews of the world's showers. Mills set to work setting music to his words and trying to wrangle the whole thing into the album which eventually became called "April Showers Bring May Flowers". Of course you have not heard of it, that's why we're putting it on this site. Mills took to using the nom de plume Silver Showers to make sure his work is not overcast by his history and previous band.

There are two standout tracks on the album, the first being "Bad Times at the Blackpool Arms" which details one of Mill's first experiences on tour:

"Perhaps I told you wrong,
I said I wanted to stay in Blackpool,
Not stand in a pooling pool of Black,
Black as your heart, you dirty old bat,
I rate you Copper Shower!"

The second standout track and a crowd pleaser at Mills's gigs is the heart (and skin) warming "Holy Royd Hotel, Edinburgh". Mills is often found clambering on his speaker stack to sing the rousing final verse of the song:

"If I could rate you golden, I'm pretty sure I would,
But that's just sick and wrong so you're a
Silver Shower and should,
go down in human history, as the best of the best of the best,
and best of all, in the freebies bag, you even give me a vest."

For this reason almost all of Silver Showers' gigs happen in Edinburgh.

Perhaps you're thinking "why doesn't Mills drench his audience with water at the end of the gig, in some sort of literal interpretation of his muse?" Mills has considered this but decided that if he did throw water on people he couldn't guarantee the quality of the experience night after night.

"I don't want to become everything I've railed against" he told melody maker. Amen to that, clean brother.

#38 The Famous Minnows

Who ate all the pies? Who ate, who ate, who ate, who ate, who ate all the pies? A question I often ponder when going to the fridge to discover my last Balti Chicken and Onion has gone. But what has that got to do with bands you have never heard of? And who's this handsome fellow on the right there? Is he single?

Well, being on the cusp of the new football season has gotten us all a little dewy eyed over those classic football songs you always used to hear. We're not just talking about the ones on the terraces - 'You're going home in a Chelsea Ambulance' and the like. But also the perennial, biannual and deciduous outings that remind us just what it means to be a football fan. Even if you are not a fan, these songs really do transend the beautiful game. So many lie forgotten in the vaults and record collections of devoted fans up and down the country. You will, however, be pleased to know that we have had a whip round in the office (half of us can no longer afford to got to the the Christmas meal). That's right, we bought the rights to all of them and plan on unleashing them on the unsuspecting public (that's you. Although I suppose you may have an inkling what we have planned, seeing as I just told you).

Such classics we now own include:

Up the Millwall (The Bashing 'Em on the Noggin Song)
Morcambe, We Saw, We Conquered
You Only Win When You're Scoring
We're Fat and We Know, You Know We Are
Wiggy Wiggy Wiggy Wiggy Wigan
My Favourite Meat is Tottenham

Did you know, it's not just New Order keeping the 'World in Motion' when it comes to bands recording foorball ditties, oh no. Can you believe it - there are bands that make a living out of this stuff. That brings us neatly to our next band that You Have Not Heard...

Does anyone remember what happened to those two lads off the 'Accrington Stanley - Who are they? Milk advert'? Of course yes you do probably not. Let me fill you in. Accrington Stanley made a triumphant return to proper football in 1995. Before that they spent twenty years trying to sell their own brand of the game with three goals and multiball release everytime someone called Trevor, Michael or Beverly took a corner. In their first season back in the league they were unable to fulfill the full quota of games for a season (on account of an incident involving an errant llama and club mascot Fraser the Eagle in the final game of the season). Interestingly, they did win best dressed at the football league awards. In the same year the two lads from the ad, now 21, unleashed their musical talents on the world. By an unfortuante turn of events the ten years supply of milk that they had be given as payment for the ad made them as rotund as a swedish meatball, and possibly twice as wide. Despite Ian Rush's saged advice in the advert, this was not enough to even secure them a place on the bench at Accrington. Even the llama could have managed that.

Randall Tamworth III and Jimmy Spillikins named their band after Accrington Stanley's nickname - The Famous Minnows. Believe it or not only one of the pair was actually from Liverpool. The other was a RSC trained child actor. It is on record that he didn't so much see as lowering himself to do the part, but saw it as a valuable character study - another box to tick on his CV (Hamlet- yes, Iago - yes, Scouse child fond of milk - yes). Yet another string to his bow! So fine were his talents that, to this day, no one knows which of the two was the real scouser.

Off the back of the success of the advert the pair released a remix version, which included an Ian Rush rap. You've seen John Barnes rap, you've even seen Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd (RIP) rap. Rush, however, is something special - "I'm Rushy, quite pushy but I'm nice, I'll giggle if you say titmice'. The video is an abolute classic and featured Bruce Grobbelaar on drums.

The lads acted as freelance football songwriters in the nineties, penning songs for everyone from Arbroath to Motherwell to Inverness Calywotsit Thistlers. Their tunes quickly became crowd favourites, and their biggest hit is still sung to this day at grounds around the county. They turned 'He's Got the Whole World In His Hands' by God into an anti-United rant for Manchester City fans. 'He's Got Steve Bruce In His Pants' shot in at 19 in the charts back in 1997. "His got Alex Ferguson doing his dishes, he's got Peter Schmeichel feeding his fishes, He's got Cantona behind the bar, He's got Steve Bruce in his pants". Truely. Social history in action there.

To this day Ian Rush finds himself beaten to within an inch of his moustache by understandably irate Stanley fans. Meanwhile, the rest of us keep on downing the milk in the vain hope that we won't be forced to don the Accrington kit and play a half or two. I swear there are 90 year old grannies who live in fear that one day they will get that call from Fraser the Eagle asking them to play. It's some sort of sick national service. Anyhoo, the band have promised they will only pen another song when Accrignton win the cup. Until then they will remain in obscurity, a fading memory of a nation which forgets them and their contribution to football...

You know, my mum used to say that when I grow up I might be good enough to play in The Famous Minnows.

The Famous Minnows? I used to quip. Who are they?

Exactly.

Newsflash! Love Music, Love the NHS

Here at YHNH, we hate our health system being besmirched by the "progressive right" from the former colonies. In the old days, we'd be able to settle this sedition using painfully high taxes, low representation and -if needs be- a spoon-based approach to heart surgery that other empires would consider ill judged.

But no more. Now those upstart Yankee Doodles can make all manner of nonsense up about our healthcare. Recent claims include:

• Doctors operate an "opt-out" system for punching unconscious patients when they enter wards,
• Older people are often left overnight on the A361 near Rose Ash to save space for bureaucrat's empty cardboard boxes,
  
• The giblets that come in Christmas turkeys are from left over cadavers from the Royal Isle of Wight NHS Trust,
  
• Simon Cowell trained as a death panel bureaucrat before giving that up to be on TV,
• Hamsters are frequently left to complete difficult procedures on patients as all the real doctors are happy-slapping frontbench cabinet ministers,
• People called Neil are seen before people called Simon,
• The Ear, Nose and Throat Department have a very clear policy on what they stick up your ear, nose and throat, and it isn't a small camera,
  
• Clement Atlee preferred an insurance based approach to healthcare, but was shouted down by "invested interests" such as poor people and lepers.

We are not going to stand for this filth anymore. Join us at Rhyl this Saturday to protest at gross inaccuracies in the current American reporting of the NHS; we will be protesting by cranking up some amps and dancing like vibrating blueberries. Bands signed up to play include Bypassing Wind, Honey Munster, Hullaballoon, and Frank Bottlebin. Frank may or may not bring his legendary "inflatable pet spider diagram" Alan the Spider.

Be there and be proud of the NHS! Stand up for your right to be treated free at the point of consumption! Don't smoke too close to Alan, he pops really easily!

#37 Daniel's B! A! N! D!

Here at You Have not Heard, we love a good sing song, especially when we get to sing about "sausages and jazz". Sometimes we even watch Songs of Praise, confident in the knowledge that there will be no devotional call to cause embarrassment, confusion or accidental conversion. Our next musical excursion takes us deep into the world of "popular" Christian music. There is no moral, we just like making stuff up.

There's absolutely no way Tamworth should be in Staffordshire. Staffordshire is to the North and West of Birmingham but it is definitely, definitely not to the East. But there we go, apparently it is in Staffordshire and there's nothing a pointless blog writer like me can do anything about it. Anyway, the Comberford Baptist Church had a problem. Too many young people were not going to Church but still writing "Christian" on their census forms. We find that all good Christian stories start with a census. The head office in London wanted to know why Comberford did not have it's requisite parishioners in the all-important 18-34 age bracket. They were dangerously close to missing target BVPI 2287: "10% of all self-defining Christians worshipping at the local Baptist Church." Failure to meet that could easily lead to a shortfall in funding or a pull-no-punches letter from the relevant minister. The Church needed bums on cushions on pews.

Their first solution was a Christian Puppet show. That failed. Then they went for Christian Mime Artists. That failed. Big time. Then they thought, screw it, we'll just have a worship band.

The Church approached the one person they thought they could trust with a worship band, Daniel Danielson. Daniel was a Icelandic national and a postgraduate student in music technology at the University of Sutton Coldfield. He could tell the difference between Jars of Clay and Smalltown Poets. Honestly. Not even Dan Haseltine gets it right most of the time. On appointing, anointing and anodizing him, the Church felt secure that he would boost membership by at least 300%. Not in their wildest dreams could they understand what happened next.

Danielson started by forming his band from anybody nearby who could play an instrument and was happy going to Church with slightly messed up, gelled hair. Tobias Tobin came onboard as rhythm drummer, Kurt Knut (real name Curtis Dairyland) played lead drums and Honey Vienetta joined Danielson in playing guitar and singing close harmony. Danielson took all the high notes because he thought Titus 2:5 gave him that power.

Their catchy, drum heavy version of hymnal classics certainly got the local youth going. Before long, the band was managing to pull in the entire East Midlands under 25s to the Church. You heard me right, East Midlands, because East Midlanders know that Tamworth is with them, and not the "strangers to the North". It was such a success that The Pope considered turning up. This idea was only quashed when it was realised that Baptists and The Roman Catholic Church have not exactly seen eye to eye for many years. With success and fame on so many levels and at one such time, where should the band go next?

The band went to the seaside, which considering Tamworth is roughly the most landlocked place in England was certainly a leftfield position. Hiring the whole of Pontins, Pakefield and scheduling coaches from Tamworth, Leicester, Loughborough, Nuneaton and Upper Bruntingthorpe the band took their fans away for a weekend billed as "devotional retreat and challenge." Did they fulfill this? Did they heck. The weekend was a full on music festival where Daniel and his band had "curated" the other bands playing. The list included such "Christian rock luminaries" as Shellac, Los Campesinos, Battles and Alan Vega. Daniel's B! A! N! D! played their headline set each individually wearing a t-shirt that had either "B!", "A!", "N!" or "D!" on it and rocked out using their eponymous song to a devastating noise rock conclusion. Purists and the delegation from Comberford questioned whether Daniel was really celebrating the Old Testament servant and prophet Daniel. They thought it was much more likely that Daniel was celebrating himself and the "purpose true" was really just his fame and his fortune.

At the end of the weekend, the band stated that they will be moving on from the West Midlands in order to "capture the hearts" of the rest of central England. After successful forays into Herefordshire and Gloucestershire (including a mega-weekend at Barry Island), the band tried to crack the difficult nut that was Worcestershire. After partial success in St Johns, and the ensuing encampment overnight preparing to cross the Severn and take Worcester, this campaign ended abruptly when a reconnaissance mission consisting of Danileson and Knut were run over by Michael Malone just outside of the West Midlands Safari Park. In Malone's defence, he stated that he "really did love that car." Anyway, without any legs or a lead drummer Danielson felt he couldn't continue. We find that all good Christian stories end with a death.

Without Danielson the band folded and the youth fell away fom the Churches, lured out by Steve Albini's frenzied attempts to appear at every seaside festival ever, including those in the past and T4 on the Beach.

#36 Queen

We come across alot of things in the process of writing this compendium, this encyclopedic virtual tome, which we don't very much like. Bands with more than five words in their name, bands that don't cite S-Club Juniors amongst their influences, bands with more than one llama on percussion. Indeed, we may come across as quite angry individuals at times. Individuals who may not really like any music but the sound of their own voices set to a little bit of Chopin. It's not true, but my vocal timbre really does lend itself to the odd minuet. We may get a little wound up at times, but this band really takes the biscuit.

Let me unleash a few of our gripes. They name their albums after their own name, one of them has a perm, one of them is dead, they claim to be related to the royals. Yes, that's right they called themselves Queen. As if that wasn't enough the lead singer has the same surname as a Roman God. I mean, just who did they think they were?

Despite a career that spanned two decades it is only until recently that this previously unknown foursome have come to our attention. We felt it was our job here at You Have Not Heard to warn you, nay, order you not to lend your ears to such atrocities.

Big hair, tight trousers, and a love of astronomy. No, not Patrick Moore, but Queen guitarist Brian 'family-friendly-hair-rocker' May. He built his own guitar at the age of 16 and still uses it to this day. The wood was sourced from the Mary Rose, the frets from Winston Churchill's tooth enamel and the strings woven from the hairs on his very own head. He uses coins instead of plectrums just 'cos he likes the way it feels. Flash git. As if that wasn't enough in 2002 the self-titled guitar virtuoso broke into Buckingham Palace and had the cheek to whip his guitar out once he got to the roof. All this during the Queen's jubilee celebrations! Needless to say Her Majesty was less than impressed and May got what he wanted. Her Majesty's pleasure - three years in Wormwood Scrubs.

The supposedly enigmatic one of the bunch, one Frederick Mercury was also the lead singer, as is so often and disappointingly the case. Originally Fredros Merkeros he was born for the stage. His parents often told him that one day he would have fame, fortune and a moustache. Well, one out of the three wasn't bad - and he finally declared his facial hair masterwork complete on his seventeenth birthday. Fredros, or Freddie to his friends, was incredibly shy and would only play gigs if he was promised three Farley's rusks and the latest copy of Beano (but not Dandy, oh no! Cow Pies?! a little far fetched, he felt). Once he was actually on stage he was a different man. He would generally prance up and down topless, wearing tight shorts and clutching a tiny microphone stand. He spent his whole career trying to save up for the rest of that stand. He never did save enough and died tragically without a microphone stand deserving of both his follically endowed upper lip and the recognition a select few claim he deserved. Upon his death three people grew moustaches in tribute. One, who thought he was a real Queen fan but only started liking them near the end when it look like they might make it, grew a handlebar moustache. Such a faux pas cost him his Queen fan club membership (membership number four). He is now a multi-millionaire future's market investor, but still rues the day his moustache started growing south and reached his chin.

The other two band members are lost in the mists of time but are thought to be John 'the Baptist' Pope and Roy Rogers (later of the cowboy fame). Not even Queenies (Queen fans) can remember their exact names and the pair are never named in the record sleeves (despite May's hair getting two mentions and Mercury's pet chiuaua three).

The band's music can best be described as witty throw-away, take it or leave it rock. Think Whitesnake trying to be funny. Think Europe but slightly less funny. Queen try to work witticisms into their songs on a disturbingly regular basis. They wrote one song about really loving riding your bicycle, one about girls with big bottoms and one about those pictures that look like a pattern until you cross your eyes and then it's a unicorn ('It's a Kind of Magic' - 1986). You don't see THE Queen coming out with comic stuff like that. That's why she has Prince Philip.

I mean, this isn't fricking play school fellas - come play with the big boys! Ever heard of a little band called Monkey David and the Gravy Trainers? They did this kind of thing in the sixties and they made a success of it. All Queen have is obese women's rears. Monkey David used their music and comedic references to expose pressing social problems - in 1965 they exposed the increasing problem of immigration from Hatfield Peveril, Essex into London. In 1968 it was how we were going to deal with the influence of The Beatles on 'young minds' (the answer they proposed was to go back to 1928 and kill Hitler). They answered the questions we were all asking. Queen on the other hand decided to sing about a waking up in a world where, to our horror, every time we tuned into a radio all we would hear is a baby's inane chatter (Radio Gaga 1975). Horrifying, yes. Groundbreaking, probably. A good tune, of course not.

Luckily, no one has heard from Queen since the 'tragic' death of Mercury. Rumours that Ben Elton is actually writing a musical about their life are just too funny to consider.

#35- The Socratic Rhythm Method

Is Tom Daley Daley Thompson’s son? I fail to see the impotence.

In a world where being related to someone –anyone- is of such importance? Apparently so.

What band are we going to talk about this week? The same band we talk about every week.

The Socratic Rhythm Method? None other.

Why? Why not?

Why not? Why?

Wherefore art thou? Beneath your blummin’ feet.

So what was his method? It started by beating two eggs.

I think you’re playing me? No. He beat boxed two eggs in two rounds.

He was into beat box? You heard me right.

And the eggs didn’t mind? They were glad to be part of the magic.

Whose magic? His. Malone Diaz.

Malone Diaz? None other.

None? Perhaps one.

One? I have it on good authority.

On? On the authority of I who is called I-scream.

Nevertheless, tell us about this Diaz? The man you call Diaz started cooking.

Then what happened? He broke some eggs, spilt some milk, shook up a structure or two.

He didn’t mind slitting a few throats? But he got it.

And what did he do with it? He was going to weigh some flour.

On some scales? Yes, on some oldie-timey counterweight scales.

Did he weigh the flour? He tried to set aside the weights he didn’t need.

But where? Well, he couldn’t find anywhere else.

Where? He had no other choice.

Where, wally? Look, the ends justify the mesnes.

Where? On his Yamaha PSR-185.

On the keys? On the keys and it was on.

The must have sounded bad? Actually, it sounded ok.

What did he do? He started tinkering.

What happened to the cake? It started bakering.

Did he like the sound? Not at first, but he started adding drum patterns.

Drum patterns? Yes, the PSR-185 puts the full power of a backing band behind you with the 100 rhythms and accompaniment styles.

Did he get anywhere? Not until he also added effects and hooked in some midi filters.

So this isn’t just one note for hours and hours? Far from it, he used the keyboard like an audible LFO.

Big deal, didn’t Keith Emerson use a knife to hammer down keys? Doesn’t Greg Lake look wrong in a blue pastel suit?

Ok. Whatever point we have has been proved. What did Diaz do with his record? He hung it out to dry.

Literally or metaphorically? You’ll have to ask him that.

What did he call the record? “The Weight of The Scales of Justice in The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles.”

Catchy come home? All the way to the piggy bank of Scotland.

Did it win him many followers? Not many, but enough to move from a bedsit.

Where is he now? Studio apartment. Open plan.

City Centre? HMO.

Why did she get involved? Everybody wants their piece of the pie.

Have you got to feed the monkey? It makes it more supine when spanking comes along.

Did he follow it up? You know what, the next year he left his keyboard upside down and went on holiday.

His neighbours? They sold tickets as a voyage of discovery.

Was there a discovery? Yes, that he paid his electricity by coin meter.

We’re all slaves to our condition? No. That those old 5 pence pieces were really, really big.

We’re all slaves to our condition? You’re a slave to your inhibited questions.

Would I be less inhibited if I’d imbibed more palliatives? Probably.

Have you been to see the seaside? I don’t through fear of cerapods.

Not cephalopods? No. They’re easy to beat. Up and left all the way.

Where are we? I think we’re in Basingstoke.

Where is this going? Diaz was going everywhere fast.

Why was that? The electricity company appreciated his and his neighbour’s contribution to their funds.

Whatever did they do? They let him play a gig at their HQ.

Did he sell out? That depends on what you mean.

What do I mean? He set his keyboard up, placed his weights down and went to the pub.

Did they appreciate it? They gave him positive feedback (A+++++++++++++ excellent all the way)

That must be good? It was followed by a retrospective at The Baltic.

The respected centre for contemporary art? Well, kind of.

Kind of? It was in that building.

In Gateshead? Indeed. Whilst it was still a flour mill.

Was there any milling around? What do you think?

I ask the questions here?