Dudley Music and Dance Festival 2009 line-up announced!!

This year's Dudley Music and Dance Festival 2009 is set to be the biggest ever and features a veritable plethora of bands that you have not heard. As well as old favourites such as The Sock Puppets and Lady Gravy, and unlike previous years, there will be a wealth of side attractions including a man with a wind up music box and monkey on a lead, fire-eaters and public conveniences.

The festival, which takes place on the weekend of 29 and 30 August 2009, is traditionally held on the last weekend of August, and this year is no exception. Dudley's own Pilkington Class will be headlining the Saturday night followed by Pious Goliath on the Sunday. Both will be gracing the Black Country Living Museum main stage, scene of last year's 'Sheepgate' scandal.

This year the festival goes international with some surprising late additions to the line-up. They may only have a combined age of 16 but boy can they dance; Bhangra Babies will be appearing on Saturday afternoon. A hard act to follow you might think, but if one band can do it it's Austrian pop favourites Housewerk, appearing on the Trevor and Anne Drinkwater Stage.

The festival has been known for its ability to attract the unlikeliest of celebrity guests to open the proceedings. Previous conscripts have included Dale Winton, Lassie and the Milky Bar Kid. 2009's celebrity is being kept very much under wraps, but if you were to say Margaret Mountford from hit TV show The Apprentice you wouldn't be far wrong.

With a 6 yard hog roast and gallons of real ale on tap even the most tone deaf, sandal and sock wearing, imperial loving members of the population will be content. So, if this blog has given you a taste for new music and bands that just shouldn't exist come along to Dudley Music and Dance Festival 2009*. Tickets on sale soon.

*Dudley Music and Dance Festival 2009 is not affiliated with the town of Dudley, music, dance or the year 2009

#18 The Gentle Welephants

'Never play with naked flames - when your house burns down it's you they'll blame'. We all remember the little moral ditties that spouted from the trunk of the living legend and mascot of fires brigades up and down the country - Welephant. Since 1985 the anthropomorphic pachyderm has spread tales of mirth and fiery Armageddon that would leave children afraid to cook, and some so mentally scarred they would never again change a lightbulb. This tends to explain why, over twenty years later, large swathes of the population spend each and every night in darkened rooms eating Pot Noodle. Despite Welephant being the single cause of Britain's 'obesity problem' the love for this most rubicund of mastodons is well publicised. Two young lads from inner-city Salford took their love one step further by naming their band after him.

The year was 1987 and Billy Jenkins and Tugger Harris were in year 4 at St Theophilius of Bulgaria Comprehensive School. Wagon Wheels were as big as your head, you could buy Monster Munch by the pint and Grange Hill was still yet to become the poor descheveled uncle of Byker Grove. Whilst most kids were watching endless re-runs of Dungeons and Dragons and a mutant orange Geordie with a sore throat on You and Me, Jenkins and Harris were busying themselves with their passion for tracksuits and music.

Being only nine, living in Salford and harbouring an interested in hip hop all have their disadvantages. So it was that the majority of the boy's friends were listening to mournful guitar-based tat of The Smiths. Whilst their mates were fawning over the elitist melancholy of the band, Jenkins and Harris took an immediate dislike to every thing they stood for. In protest the pair sent hate mail to Morrissey written on meat-based products. It is not known whether the hapless superstar ever received the edible vituperation, but what we do know is the campaign was sustained for a number of months and culminated in a pork postcard.

Neither of the lads had touched an instrument before but Morrissey's incessant whining and flower swinging drove them on to make music. Due to their total lack of musical ability Jenkins and Harris began by taping the chart hits of the day from PopPix Radio on a Sunday night (just before jammie-time, beans on toast dinner and Antiques Roadshow). Using a complex mixing process, which mainly involved scissors, copious amounts of sticky tape and Tugger's pet hamster Trevor, they sampled and remixed the hits all with the aid of a Spectrum ZX. The results were frankly underwhelming. Despite this, T-Dog and Billy Braggs, as they became known, were an overnight success in the playground. The next morning they sold at least six tapes to their friends (although most went to Gary Brinkley in year 6 who used them to tie up the year twos. Also, for 'sold' read 'swapped for two packets of Space Raiders and a conker that looked like Terry Rowntree's Mum').

The next Monday they felt they had to top the previous week's effort. However, it was the duo's decision to remix the entire back-catalogue of Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers that was just that one step too far for their classmates. As with all schoolyard crazes like yo-yos, hammocks and wellington boots in the shape of kittens, the duo were dropped as quickly as they were discovered. Ironically, and in a cruel twist of fate, the tapes were confiscated by Mrs Davies, who re-recorded over them with the educational radio programme 'Fire. Natures Conflagrant Killer'. If only, instead of thinking Jive Bunny was 'quite rad', T-Dog and Braggs had remembered those fateful words of Mr Welephant himself: 'If you play with flame and fire, a criminal record you'll acquire'. A criminal record it certainly was.

Of course, we all know the rest of the story - Welephant was sold to an ivory dealer by the Fire Brigade to cover losses on their latest sexy calendar and the boys disappeared into obscurity. T-Dog received good grades on his o-levels, his nana was very pleased, and he now works as a chartered accountant. Despite almost losing his life in a nasty British Bulldog incident in 1989, Braggs is now a Management Consultant but says he is happy.

#17 Mega Pea Sea

Imagine two good things; things that can be accessed from the same magical box. Imagine just how good that would be. As long as you didn't mind paying more than you would for the two things individually, it was a great way to have stuff together in one box.

I am of course talking about the mighty Mega Pea Sea, the first band to give you a choice of whether you wanted soulful swing or electrobeat stylings, all for just £24 an album. Started as the brainchild of William F Stewart -a Glasgow busker with a penchant for the absurd and overpriced- the band started as a child does: with a brain that goes into the child to become the brainchild of the brain and the child, with the brain using the child as a child and the child using the brain as a brain. Gathering his friends together for a unforgettable night of open mic music and poetry, Stewart explained that he would mix hitherto unmixed things not to create a new or imaginative musical source, but to give people the choice about what they wanted to listen to. The ensembled musicians quickly realised the sense in the nonsense: with a choice of musical styles to listen to, they could attract more people to buy the music.

Even though the Nobel Prize for Economics is not even a Nobel prize at all, were the selection committee less blinkered in their thinking there could be no doubt that Stewart would win every year. The first album's title, Slide the Slider, was both a fabulous encapsulation of the music that could be found within, but was also a handy guide for how to listen to both sets of music on the album. Further tightening his grip on the suffering fans, along with the album, they also had to purchase a new CD player (RRP £495) with a sliding front. The CD set came as a pair and one CD had to be placed into each of the twin drives on the front. When played you would be able to listen to one of the CDs but also change the CD immediately by "Sliding the Slider."

In the hands of a more interesting and interested band, the music would match up, or somehow relate to one another, making Sliding the Slider a groundbreaking and wonderful thing to do. As it was, the band just chose to compose music that would seem fit in a garage forecourt or mall elevator. For both sides. The only redeeming quality was that the swing side featured out of work child prodigy Gimnel Mastadon on trumpet and trombone (simultaneously). Given two hours of studio time and a list of notes that were not to be used (to prevent any possible costly copyright infringements) Mastadon felt he had to perform microtonal, contrapunctual music on his two instruments at the same time, whilst keeping with the general ethos of swing music. The resulting sound has been noted by noted music historians as sounding like "a ménage à trois in a menagerie."

In the hands of a less greedy band, the CD players would have lasted more than one play without succumbing to heating issues. Alternatively, fans stated it would have been nicer to be able to play the CDs individually on a normal CD player even if this did mean not being able to switch between them. Stewart claimed artistic differences with his fans and kept taking their money for a new CD player every time they wanted to listen to the music.

The second album, Slides and Swings and Roundabouts, featured a new CD player with a sliding front, a jog wheel and a large, carefully balanced switch. Although very few people were fooled by these cosmetic inclusions (the switch was the on/ off button and the jog wheel didn't do anything at all), they were still forced to spend £788 a time on listening the album as it also worked only on this player. Fans moaned and groaned but they still couldn't push the heat out of the system and the player almost always broke before Mastadon's soaring second half solo, using lilting swing riffs and mixing them with heavily theoretical phrasing. It was a magnificent edifice, available only to those with enough money and liquid nitrogen to keep the overpriced player going.

Eventually Mastadon got tired of Stewart's money grabbing, especially when Stewart signed a deal with Woolworths, giving them sole selling of the player for the next item in their "Big Book." "It's just a rip-off of Argos," Mastadon is reported as saying, before leaving in a huff.

Without their main draw, Mega Pea Sea never could regain the interest of the very high price purchasing public. Their sales floundered and then dropped. Bobby Fischer refused to be used as a ringer for Mastadon and the band decided to go their separate ways. Stewart is now a regular caller to Talk Radio, drunkenly stating that he is the only one who can tell good swing from bad swing and that "Celtic have got no chance of winning on Saturday." Mastadon now prefers not talking about this period and is happier giving relatively accurate valuations of treasured family possessions with almost interesting stories on Antiques Roadshow.

#16 Wallarula Death Squad

"Where the bloody hell are you?" exclaims the latest expletive-ridden advert attempting to entice us to the land of barbeques and the world's most famous natives. Where? Well to be exact, the wilds of the Australian outback somewhere between Katunganuga and Tijikala in the desert just off Highway 4. The town of Wallarula, population 23.

So it is that we dip into the southern hemisphere for our next band that You Have Not Heard - and I know that you have not heard of Wallarula Death Squad. I am certain. I would go so far as to say that you also haven't heard of front-man Jib Spinnaker whose solo career before joining WDS was a minor success in the Northern Territory and periphery. Yet he never really gained commercial success despite his songs appearing on adverts for many meat-based products.

So, as if conducting some sort of weird scientific experiment we ask 'what type of band forms under such conditions - where the nearest toilet is six days walk and where you have to wring out passing koalas just to get clean water?' The answer, surprisingly, is a traditional four piece indie pop-rock band. No, they haven't re-recorded Waltzing Matilda in comedy or electro-pop fashion. No, they have never dueted with Rolf Harris or Dame Edna Everage (although they did once appear as extras on 'Home and Away' but that's as far as it goes). What they have done is produce some of the finest 3 minute breezy indie pop tunes ever heard this side of Rulatunga. Not bad for a band who are only one EP old.

Wallarula Death Squad are quickly making their name on the Oz-rock scene. Playing the first five years together as 'Son of Chaucer' then 'Herculian Botham' the four-piece have a work hard /play middle of the road indie pop-moderately hard ethic that is incredibly endearing. Spinnaker performs alongside local musicians Lchalan Langridge (drums), Molly Allen (bass) and Jackson B Rockafella (lead guitar). By nature their songs are entrenched in Australian lore and culture. Songs such as 'Lord of the Rings - not in my backyard' and 'Fair Dinkum Freddie' evoke visions of strange bird mammal hybrids, Flying Doctors and that episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air where Carlton beats Geoffrey the butler over the head with a Vegemite sandwich (he knows that Carlton only eats it with the crusts cut off). It didn't all start smoothly though...

Currently based in local Lake Amaroo, the band's name came about when Spinnaker found himself in trouble with loan sharks back in Wallarula: 'I was really in some deep dodo with these guys from the suburbs', he explains. 'I mean, I owed these cats some real money. They sent this bloke out after me with a table knife - they call him the Wallarula Death Squad. Strewth, I saw where this was going, and before we got into the old 'that's not a knife' malarkey I shot him in the face hole'. With the debt repaid, change and receipt in hand, Spinnaker was free to continue with his musical exploits and quickly formed Wallarula Death Squad, naming it so to remind himself never to borrow as much as ten dollars ever again.

WDS's first single is currently number 26 in the Australian music charts, with high hopes that it will reach the top twenty by September '09. It faces stiff competition from fellow antipodeans Air Supply with 'All Out of Love' which holds every spot in the Australian top twenty and has done since its release back in 1980. The track, which appears on their EP 'Death to Wallarula Death Squad', is a moving yet summery and upbeat tale of a boy and his deceased pet toucan on which Jib laments: 'There are no synonyms for death, but there are plenty of antonyms...'. The EP was released in November '08 to critical acclaim. Their album 'The Ballad of Terry Cola' is due to be released in August '09 under Control Alt Deloitte Records, Australia's third biggest aboriginal record label. The album will be produced by US music industry stalwart Vic Biro, famed for his work with both Tepid Lettuce and Monkey Jeff and the PoCo Cops.

Talk of Biro's involvement has had an amazing effect on hyping-up the release of the album. At the time of writing early reviews of their debut album appear promising;

'(The Ballad of Terry Cola)...could make Wallarula Death Squad as big as Men at Work' gushed MTVOz.

'Like drinking six cans of four x and then smashing yourself over the head with a wallaby's uncle' say Australian NME.

High praise indeed. The group have a long way to go before they emulate the likes of Jet and Savage Garden but one thing is certain, and that is Aussie rules!*

Footnote
(*For reference no one is really certain what Aussie Rules is, so that's a poor analogy. But meh, you get the picture).

#15 - The Purloin Cloth

Many bands have tried to invent themselves as characters and draw a fanbase from a twenty-something form of dress-up. No band relished and descended into this world as thoroughly and as stupidly as The Purloin Cloth. Donning the ruffs of Elizabethan ruffians, these nogoodnicks would rather get into a fight with an inkeeper's mistress than watch back to back episodes of CSI: Prestwich on a 42" plasma screen.

Formed following the demise of Toga-wearing Time Bandits fans Two Speed, Robert "Og" Carrot and Jasper "Wally" Powell took their bass and drums and sat by the river, hoping inspiration would waft by. After a little while they noticed a bizarre man hunting around along the riverside, acting in all honesty as if he was a mudlarker. The rhythm section quickly took to talk to this new chap and he explained it all started when he was all for his GCSE history project on the World's Worst Jobs. Oh, how he sighed, if only somebody could do a Sunday evening programme on the World's Worst Job, mildly entertaining and informative, then he could just use that as research. As it was, he had to ferret around in silt and worse mess looking for some coins. After a while, though, he came to enjoy the life of a mudlark, particularly the larking part as well as -on occasion- the mud part.

Robert and Jasper realised that they could use this kind of nonsense for their act, if maybe only they selected another period in history which didn't require being covered in excrement. Sure enough, they found in the British Library a selection of Elizabethan dramas so exciting and naughty that they could barely contain themselves. They were going to become cant speaking, penny nicking, barfight instigating Elizabethan thieves.

Finding a guitarist ready to step into a ready-made band was not a particularly hard job. Frank "Sewell" Cottam was lazy and suggestible even for a guitarist. He had once been convinced by local children to sit in a bath filled with red noses for two hours in the hope of meeting Hale and Pace. This was obviously a prank and Cottam only got to meet Cannon and Ball, who the children had managed to book by offering their manager the taxi fare home. Cottam was drafted in and made to wear the tightest knee-length socks money could buy.

The Purloin's first album, "Groatsworth of Wit" followed the life and death of author Robert Greene (1558-1592), especially in comparison to the (in their eyes) hopelessly inferior life of Robert Greene (b. 1959), the author of books, including planned work with 50 Cent. A normal song would start with some era-accurate keyboard playing (described by at least one critic as being "strongly virginal") followed by a cacophony of clanking guitars, bass and most of the time some drums. The band aesthetics really came into the fold and Powell would often be found looking at himself in the mirror instead of keeping beat. Eschewing the Internet in favour of individually inked pamphlets, the group became a hit in parts of London where that kind of thing is accepted as somehow legitimate.

Their live and on-record personas started to take flight and they were barely seen out of costume. Were it not for the pettiness of their misdemeanors (and the saving grace of inflation and decimalisation) the band may have found themselves in prison long before the second album came out; they would often pickpocket locals and steal one or two pence, declaring it a "Kings Ransom", before running off to the alehouse to ask what they would get for it. When they were informed, in slightly more colourful language, that they could not receive much for twopence, they often muttered some nonsense about price increasing due to the King of Spain's massing Flotilla, doffed their filthy cap at any ladies present and left the building.

The second album, "Hautboy" pushes the boundaries of what a group of people in their mid twenties can achieve by acting like prats. They hired the whole Early Music Ensemble from The University of Cheam to play clapping games. This was supposedly to highlight Elizabethan rhythmic devices. Whilst the Ensemble were eating their lunch the band ran off with the more expensive instruments. They hid in a skip and were collected by some fellow rotters who assisted them in spiriting the instruments away for the Greater London area. Having a full set of Elizabethan instruments made Hautboy much more musically gratifying, even if the band were not experts at playing them. It also allowed them to use the line on their press kit that no instrument on the album had been designed after 1592. The press love that kind of crap and the album went straight in at number 3. Cheam never did get their instruments back, a botched recovery mission lead to the deaths of 3 paratroopers and a slightly bent crumhorn. Eventually it was decided to call in the insurers, who instigated a cover-up.

Sadly, Cottam was stabbed through the eye in what was at the time reported to be an assassination attempt connected to his international espionage. Recent research has suggested that this was more likely a bar fight over who was to pay the tab. The band never recovered and have not written a note together since. Although Cottam survived, his near-death experience pushed him towards greater independence and self-control, making the centre of the group fall apart around him.

Carrot and Powell are engaged in talks with 50 cent in order to publish a book about comparative life on the streets in the 1580s and present.

Newsflash! Chick in a Basket to split, maybe.

News is approaching YHNH Towers of the end of one of history's greatest Polka-Funk-Fusion bands. Chick in a Basket's 2nd seat drummer Chick "Chris" Trick has leaked (off the record and on lobby rules, of course) that the band has oboe'd it's last waltz to the old timers at the stop-n-strut off highway 7723. Rumours have abounded that the band was to split since Chick "Chas" Truck pulled out of their nightly gig with what the group referred to as a classic case of Athelete's Stirrup.

Nobody has been fooled and the photos on the internet of him ingesting live freshwater shark have now re-surfaced. At least one major gossip column has stated that he has returned to his habit of eating freshwater versions of what are normally saltwater animals. At the height of his addiciton he was quoted as saying "I just don't like those little fish that are too good for saltwater. If they can make taffy out of it, you should darned well live in it."

The rest of the group are yet to comment, but we feel it is not too early to publish purient and unsubstantiated rumours.

#14 The Llandudno Border Colliers

If it's Border Collies in the general Llandudno area you are looking for, see this site. For brash, haughty brass stylings read on...

Rarely has so much been owed by so many to so few. Never more so was that so irrelevant than when considering The Llandudno Border Colliers.

Like most colliery bands the group were an unassuming 30 strong troupe of young local men. Unlike most colliery bands not one member of the group had ever experienced the harsh, relentless reality of chipping away at a coal seam - underground or open cast. The ever controversial Border Colliers were formed in 1913 by the local government as a recreational activity for the workers in the local coal mines. Looking back now it seems surprising that the Council were so slow to realise that the mining community was not well established in Llandudno. This was of course mainly due to the complete absence of coal within a 50 mile radius. Instead, and as a hastily conceived back up plan, the majority of the group were drawn from the employ of the local artificial ski slope - believe it or not the largest in the County Borough of Conwy. Skiing was the lifeblood of the Llandudno economy in the first decade of the 20th century. Indeed it was not only Llandudnites who were drawn to the ski centre, PM David Lloyd George himself was known to be quite a fan of the slippery slope.

With the idea for the group in place the Mayor of Llandudno designed a competition comprising three tests by which a conductor could be selected. The affair started out as simple test of who could hold a baton, who had seen a brass instrument before and who best fitted the suit they had had made. The competition was fierce, one thing led to another and things quickly descended into chaos. Two of the competitors challenged the rest of the group to a race to Paris by the means of motor carriage alone. The three that took up the challenge, who remain nameless in the annals of history, never returned. Six months later, of the original four, local busybody and general gadabout Stanley B Uppington was the only competitor still presumed alive. As if being more alive the then other competitors wasn't enough Uppington had to rely on his immediate family history to win him the coveted role. Uncle Jerry collected tickets on the buses and great-grandfather Gareth worked in the local electrical components factory manufacturing conductors. Uppington was taken on as a ringer at the ski slope and was immediately put in charge of goggles.

The 30 strong group were hand-picked by Uppington himself. Notable amongst his choices was E-flat Tuba which went to five year old shoe shine boy Owen Rhys-Owen and Flugelhorn which was placed in the young, inexperienced hands of one Cefin Van Aled, later of Welsh pirate rockers Peg Leg Ned. The first few years saw the group consolidated as they began to cover the popular songs of the day, including 'My Lass has a Lazy Eye for You', and their highly successful own magnum opus 'It's a Long Way to Llandudno Artificial Ski Incline and Entertainment Rotunda'.

As the First World War approached the members of the band were, one by one, called into service. The Llandudno Council publicly played down the impending conflict claiming it 'just a bit of a to-do' which would 'quickly blow over'. Instead, they acted in the way only they knew how - by continuing to service the ski-based needs of the North Walesian peoples. Of course, history came to prove the Llandudno council correct and within a matter of years all was forgotten. It wasn't long, however, before the group's existence came under threat yet again.

In 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The Colliers knew exactly how to deal with this sort of thing and it wasn't long before the 'Ski for Victory' campaign was launched. The Border Collier's songs became rallying calls for the lads over seas. The most popular was the catchily titled 'Ni shall baffio 'u i mewn 'r bantiau ag 'n brassy chwytha chyrn'. Which, for the non-Welsh speakers amongst you loosely translates as 'We Shall Fight them in the Valleys with our Brassy Blow Horns'. For those who do speak this, the most finest of ancient languages, we apologise. Whether brave conscientious objectors or cowardly brass bunglers is a matter of conjecture to this day. What is of course known is the success in helping to bring a quick end to the conflict through their 'Instruments for Skis' programme. Within months of the outbreak of the war over 56,000 instruments were melted down to make 10,000 pairs of skis. The skis were sent over to the 'brave lads' in France and as far afield as Belgium. You can just picture the scene as yet another pair of skis arrives at the trenches - enough to bring a tear to the most seasoned of battle hardened eyes.

The group continued with the original line up all the way through until 1972 when Stanley B Uppington died, aged 102. The band vowed to continue the work of the previous 60 years despite their increasing frailties and the loss of their mentor and inspiration.

In 1991 the Colliers became one of the many groups banned on the BBC Gulf War black list. They joined such misunderstood luminaries as Lulu ('Boom Bang a Bang' - banned 1991) and The Facist Badgers ('Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Them All' - banned 1992 to present). The group had recently bagged the top spot in the UK easy listening, adult mainstream and contemporary music charts with a collaboration with Welsh music messiah Tom Jones. The song, a rough cut of Tom's later hit 'Sex Bomb', was banned due to its blatant and explicit references to both sex and bombs and possibly also sex with bombs. Weekly light entertainment music magazine show Top of the Pops refused to play the 'hate filled three minute militaria orgy' and filed for an all out BBC ban.

It wasn't until 2001 that the group returned to our screens, as the BBC ban was temporarily lifted. The group were offered their chance for absolution and redemption, as should always be the case one would like to think (unless of course you are talking about Ron Atkinson). The occasion was 'An Evening With New Order' with Jools Holland hosting, as part of his hit tv show 'Later With Jools Holland'. The diminutive, fawning and all out 'boogie-woogie-ing' host, almost soiled his undergarments as the the group marched on, stage right, playing back-up for 'World in Motion'. And yes, as you might have expected, the John Barnes rap was replaced with a zesty Euphonium solo. Public confidence was restored in the group, the song went straight in at number one and once again the band were doing their bit for brass and country.

As with most bands of their ilk the Border Colliers made their name through recreating the popular hits of the day to varying degrees of success. This continued right up until the late 1990s. Ever the innovators they came up with a brassy, instrumental re-working of Primal Scream's 'Swastika Eyes' (performed at the Proms in 1998 no less) and a cheeky re-working of Bob Marley's 'Llandudno Woman, No Cry'. More recently the group set out to undertake a complete brass reworking of the Beastie Boys back catalogue.

None of the group have been seen in public since their heroic 1998 Proms performance. Some say the relentless hounding of the paparazzi had finally taken its toll, others that they are simply so old that people just can't see them any more. One would hope that they will return someday. Maybe next time the country is in apparent danger, like an imminent England exit from a World Cup, or perhaps just when another comedy dictator wants to rule the world. Either way you can bet your brass that The Llandudno Border Colliers will there blowing their hearts out and skiing for victory once again.

#13- The Lentil Weddings

Some weddings have a DJ playing Frank Sinatra hits on repeat. Some have an ipod belting out alternative indie classix from the 80s and 90s. Catering "Ruth" Crupton and Phirrus "Pip" Gobensmock were not "some" couple.

Their one-time unrecorded gig lives on through the people who attended; mostly confused relatives and serving staff. One particularly cool bus boy spread the word that it was the best thing he heard that day and he'd been at an all-day festival all morning but had to leave to go to work. Soon promoters tried to get the couple to reform, but their approaches were met by silence and confusion from the newlyweds.

Legend has it that the couple spent a long time looking for the type of party band who could switch between appeasing the in-laws by crooning Brat Pack-era Riviera pleasers and slap-bass heavy indie cheese. There were no bands operating in West Yorkshire who came close. With weeks to go and only a limited number of musical instruments, the pair decided to take the job on themselves.

Crupton developed her xylophone skills, incorporating microphone-manipulation, microtonal theory and controllable feedback loops. Gobensmock looked on and fiddled with his guitar.

On the day of the wedding, the rumours say, the couple were married in a big cathedral by a priest and went on to their reception location for sound-check and new world wines. When the engineer had finished his vegetarian cheese souffle they took to the front of the venue and got going. With the resulting chaos caused by a illegitimately sourced flashbang the husband and wife grabbed their instruments and drifted into a cover of Don't You (Forget About Me), crunching through it at a rate of knots only previously achieved by tape manipulation and involuntary electrocution. They sojourned -through a series of clusters Crupton had devised as little as 6 minutes before- into I Remember a Time When Once You Used to Love Me. This eventually fell into an extended noise section whilst Gobensmock asked the toastmaster to fetch him a brandy and cola and a pint of Old Hebbler's Stoic ale. Returning to proceedings the conjugally aligned pair rushed into the only minutemen song they could possibly remember: Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs. Fearing the audience were about to turn on them, the group then rescued their efforts by playing a xylophone-heavy cover Jermaine Jackson's Words into Action. The Brat Pack loving relatives were impressed enough to stop throwing bottles at their niece and new-nephew in law and order was returned when the couple left to get themselves cleared up.

Perhaps this really happened. Or perhaps a server was bored and annoyed at his mum for making him work when he had an all-day festival planned. Either way, the couple will now not accept calls and will not perform publicly together. Is this a lesson in humility or an over-egged dream, a la the 1986 film Wisdom? We will never know.