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.
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