#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.