Wednesday, July 29, 2009

#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.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

#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?

Sunday, July 19, 2009

#34 Jakesperion

Arghhhhh! Bands that name themselves after their lead singer! (or rather lead singers that name their band after them). Arghhhh!

To introduce the precedents... Bob Marley and the Wailers -Ole Bob seemingly didn't have a lot of faith in his bandmate's talents. Van Halen - you aren't a Medieval German Prince - get over it. John Butler Trio - yes, there are three of you - woop-de-fricking-do.

And look Jimi Hendrix Experience. If I wanted to 'experience' Jimi Hendrix I would go to his house and pay him to dress up as a chinchilla and dance about singing Lionel Ritchie's 'Hello'. That's how I would experience him. And what happens if I want to 'experience the other members of the band? - I don't even know their names! Oh it makes me mad!

Jakesperion, as you may have guessed are also named after their lead singer, one Mr Jake Sperion. And well, I'll be jiggered - despite their terrible moniker they aren't half bad. In fact I need to clear my throat, as I wish so proclaim - "People of Bridport. Fine people of Bridport. Prepare to be adequately rocked!". (People of nearby Symondsbury may have to wait a few months for these guys to make it down the B3126 to see you. But be ready....be very ready).

In fact I feel I may have cheated you a little in claiming to have just introduced you to Jakesperion. You may well have heard them on the latest advert for eggs. (Not even Jack's Johnson managed to get onto an egg advert). You know the ads I mean - the ones which suggest that eggs are great for you and to eat them or yourconflakes or such like. A full 23.45 seconds of Jakesperion's tune "Full English" appears, as the young star of the ad tucks into the forth egg of his five-a-day quota. (Apparently eating five of something in a day provides significant health benefits. But beware....any more or less than five and you are 0.34% more likely to develop post-natal acne).

I digress.

On the back of their televisual success they were the featured band of the week on MySpace for four weeks in a row. There are also at least two Facebook groups in their honour (see here, and here). Bands who find fame through ads are almost always forgotten in an instant. They may even sell a few thousand albums off the back until people quickly realise that that was the only good song you will ever hear from that artist.Jakesperion may well be different. 'Full English' was a tasty indie dancefloor filler with a twist of satire so witty that it is soon to appear as the Anti-Nazi League rallies. #Don't shave your head, it only encourages them. Don't buy an armband, unless you are in mourning# as the songs bombastic opening encourages.

So who are Jakesperion? Well, Jake is the cheeky lead singer who commands the stage and wage. At the tender age of seventeen he formed a band at Bridport Technical College just to get him through his NVQ in Music Technology in applied Automotive Engineering. The other three band members were handpicked by Jake according to a complex looks:talent ratio calculation. The result isundoubtedly THE most talented band in Dorset. By happy (but unsurprising) coincidence they are also THE sexiest in Dorset. It seems pointless to even mention the other band members. We know you'll just forget them. In fact we know you don't even want us to tell you. Such is the problem with an enigmatic frontman whose band is named after him. The other members wanted to call the band 'The Brian Simon Project'. No one is quite sure (including the band themselves) if any of the group are in fact called Brian or Simon or what their project was, but it sounded good. Jake pointed out that he was the sexiest, talentiest one, so the band should take his name. As there was already a band called 'The Jake Sperion Project' they settled on 'Jakesperion'.

The similarity between the band's name and the word pertaining to the Elizabethan bard is not lost on Jake. The band's debut EP "Jakesperion Tragedies" includes such tracks as 'As You Liked It', 'King Leer', 'Much Ado About Ian'. On first listen it's more of the same anthemic indie disco ditties. Look deeper and you begin to soak up the social dilemmas and stories of gritty real life in Bridport. If you want to know what happens on Bridport Millennium Green every Friday night this disc is a must-listen.

There must be a down side I hear you cry? Well, yes. Jake has developed an annoying habit in interviews of using numbers that just don't exist. Whilst appearing live on Good Morning Bridport he stated that the group would soon play their twenteenth gig, that he hopes to one day be a bermillionnaire and that his age was seventoon and one. He is still young however and has a lot to learn about interview technique. Hopefully the good PR people at 'I'm Not Listening Records' will beat it out of him. Either that or the other zeight band members will.

So, what for the future? The band continue to gig two or three times a night in Bridport and are soon set to play their fiftieth gig at the Red Lion (the pub next to where the old Lidl used to be). Look out for them at the Bridport Fossil Hunters Festival on August 9. You Have Not Heard predicts it will be their last gig before they hit the big time - on 12 August they are due to play Ottery St Mary New Music Festival, just outside Exeter.

These guys are going places - down the A35 to Ottery. Next stop Poole!

Newsflash- Children's Safety Song Announced

Here at YHNH we are very concerned about the safety of our children. I say "our" children but by that I mean the children of society. We don't really know where children come from, but we hear it is icky and involves travelling to York, Norwich or Lincoln, none of which we particularly want to do.

As people who are deeply interested in the wellbeing of children we are glad to know that a new safety song is winging it's way to all PSE, PSHCE, and sports science co-coordinators at every primary school in the country. Permission has finally been granted by the author to distribute the song and the band created to record it (cunningly named Buffalo Mozzarella) managed to knock it out between Cash in the Attic and Doctors.

In order to improve child safety, we feel it necessary to repeat the words to the song on the site:
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a sign over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sign?
Everybody look what's going down

There's double lines being drawn
Looking right for every look to left
Young people crossing their roads
Getting so much help, from the crossing guard

I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sign?
Everybody look what's going down

What a sports-day for the heat
A thousand kids in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our feet

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sign?
Everybody look (twice at) what's going down

Motorcycles strikes deep
Into your chest cavity it will creep
It starts when you're never afraid
You step off the side, the men come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sign?
Everybody look (twice) what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sign?
Everybody look (twice) what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sign?
Everybody look (three times if necessary) what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sign?
Everybody look (look, then look again) what's going down"

Children will then be given a choice of colouring in a picture of
Albert Camus or writing a short biography of Linda Lovelace,
covering her life's work and eventual demise in 200 words and
up to one picture.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

#33 The House of Cards

...and that is why I don't like arctic roll. Unlike our next band that You Have Not Heard. They love it.

It's 1985 and Ian Michaelson has it all. Model wife. Big House. Fast car.

It's 1996. Ian Michaelson has nothing. No house. Big, fast wife. Model car. His life had come tumbling down like, well, like a tonne of fat-wife-sized dominoes.

What happened in the eleven year intervening period? How did one man go from riches to rags from beef to mutton and from After Eight Mint to just plain Ferrero Rocher? The answer to this and various other mind shatteringly complex questions, lead us to The House of Cards.

Ian Michaelson loved his cards and was a proud member of the Magic Circle (membership number 6384). Michaelson was also a gambler. Not like the amiable gambler in the hit song of the same name by Kenny Rogers. Oh no. Michaelson had no idea when to hold them, let alone when to fold them.

Michaelson was a serious gambler. No nudie decks for him. In fact, he had a ten year stretch of good luck that saw him win big money and celebrity Vegas friends such as NASCAR driver Butch Butchelson, six Tom Jones-alikes and Siegfried, but not Roy (Roy thought he was a bit of a "kuchen-schnitzel"). Everything was going his way until one fateful night in 1995.

The venue - Scarborough Bingodrome ("For all your gamble-tainment needs. We practically roulette you win! There's Casi-No way you can lose, even if your Craps!"). The game was Pontoon or 'Twenty-One'. And you see, for most people the clue to success in this game is in the title - "Twenty-One". Michaelson did not see this and let his vice take over. On the fifth hand of the fifth game Michaelson had a jack and a nine - nineteen for all intents and purpose was a fabulous hand that was certain to beat the paltry hand of the house. He had everything riding on that one hand. His car, his house, the money for his wife's monthly gastric bypass procedure.

Alas, he twisted when he should've stuck. "Hit me!" he declared smugly. The crowd gasped. Four of spades - bust! But he just couldn't take that he had lost. Kenny Rogers was frowning at him whilst simultaneously turning in his grave. "Hit me" Michaelson cried for the tenth time, before being ejected with a score of eighty-six. In the history of mistakes this was something a bit special. It's certainly up there with the time that Napoleon decided to have a swim straight after eating his lunch. In fact this was possibly a worse mistake than when Nick Griffin was invited to appear on hit BBC genealogical TV show 'Who Do You Think You Are?'. It turns out he was wrong all along.

At this, the absolute nadir of his career, Michaelson decided that there was only one sensible course of action - he formed a band with two down-on-their-luck gambling buddies. Michaelson sung and played guitar whilst Ian "Snake Eyes" Jeffers tackled percussion and Babyface Bob the bass. They played comfortable middle-of-the-road country, comfortably and on one or two occasions in the middle of a country road. Imagine The Eagles crossed with Crosby, Stills and Nash and Boston. On acid. Yeah so all those bands just sound like The Eagles but just imagine it - that's what The House of Cards sounded like that is.

It was Michaelson's fine finger-picking style that was the envy of, well, the other band members. Seeing as Babyface only used his thumb to play bass and Snake Eyes could only play the drums, they were both pretty much in awe of his talents. The group lasted only one gig with of more than six people. Their last took place at the Lytham St Annes Hippodome (or 'Dome of Hippos' - the children's funworld, just off the M55). A rather over enthusiastic father had booked them to play at his daughter's sixth birthday partythinking they were a trio of clown-magicians. Despite the mix-up they set-up in the ball pond and played a set so alienatingly mind-blowing that three kids went on to form Razorlight, two ran out screaming 'stranger danger, stranger danger' and one burped up a jammie dodger in Snake Eyes' hair after singing the whole of Hotel California in Cantonese. Before their final number Michaelson bet the audience all their instruments that he could beat Hippodome mascot Hippo-po-Thomas in three rounds of no rules, bare-knuckle fighting. Michaelson was obviously not aware that the hippo is actually more fricking dangerous than you would think. He was floored with one punch and there, on the floor of a children's play centre and "Kingdom of Fun", ended his musical career.

So, what of The House of Cards today? Michaelson is now working on a gambling awareness cartoon called 'PokerMon'. It aims to introduce children to the highs and lows of gambling but takes a cautious and responsible approach. Yes gambling is fine, but doing it once also makes you want to do it lots. It educates kids, advising them what to do with their chips when they're winning with it's snappy catchphrase - 'Gotta Cash em all'. With the recent advances and reduced cost of laser surgery Snake Eyes has finally had the operation he always desired. Now he just gets called Ian. Babyface (now 63) still has the youthful glow of a man a sixtieth his age. Scientists are interested in carrying out "certain medical procedures" on him to ascertain whether he really holds the secret to eternal youth or whether he has just been taking tips from Andie McDowell. No recordings remain of The House of Cards but it's thought that Snake Eyes' Mum may have one or two cassettes knocking about in the loft.

Interestingly, in 2004 the band appeared as an (incorrect) answer to a question on series two, episode five of hit BBC tv show QI. The question was 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor?'.