#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.