half man half biscuit: classic or dud

and songs like 4 skinny indie kids and Evil Gazebo are so spot on in their obsevations on indie music.

HMHB are gigging too, in fact they're in London tonight, for some reason I'm not going. and they only play down here once a year, when it doesn't clash with Tranmere games, contrary gits.

Today I am dodging men in ill-advised summer shorts, so it's:

"Opinionated weather forecasters telling me it's going to be a miserable day. Miserable to who? I quite like a bit of drizzle, so stick to the facts."

eg.
Tour Jacket With Detachable Sleeves
Styx Gig (Seen By Mates Coming Out Of)
Sponsering the Moshpit
Song For Europe
Split Single With Happy Lounge Labelmates
Secret Gig
Children of Apocalyptic Techstep
Four Skinny Indie Kids
Joy Division Oven Gloves
Eno Collaboration
Bad Review
Used To Be In Evil Gazebo
Deep House Victims Minibus Appeal
With Goth On Our Side
On Finding The Studio Banjo (title only)

plus others.

am absolutely bingeing on these guys at the moment. it is such wonderful music, especially when you've just been rogered at football. just listening to album after album is a joy. "It's Clichéd To Be Cynical At Christmas" actually gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. one of the very, very finest christmas songs, surely.

new album, CSI: Ambleside, drops April 28

They've done a couple of songs live which will presumably be on CSI: Ambleside - I'll try to get these on my Half Man half Biscuit lyrics site as soon as I can decipher them.

Oh d'uh - I meant my My Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics site - apologies for my idiocy.

The Cornbury Festival this year features, on one day, on one stage, HMHB, Nick Lowe, and Toots and the Maytals. That's some impressive work.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_UDIt01-jiOk/R_pqvucV33I/AAAAAAAAAAU/P-dwlSnloo4/s1600/CSI%2BCover.bmp

So fucking stoked.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BMb9GuIDL._SS500_.jpg

http://cobweb.businesscollaborator.com/hmhb/images/sleeves/Ambleside_inside2.jpg

This has made my fucking night.

Are they CAMRA men on t' cover

TS: HMHB's 'Blue Badge Abuser' vs Goldie Lookin Chain's 'Bad Boy Limp'

Straight up though this is pretty great so far

Anybody have any thoughts on the new album? I'm still waiting to get it.

My DiS review goes up tomorrow I think, I approve of it.

Better than Achtung Bono. Took problem chimp to Ideal Home Show is just plain weird - I'm trying to think what it reminds me of sounds-wise and I can't figure it out.

This is what I had to say: http://www.drownedinsound.com/release/view/13300

Pam Ayres - 'orses = lol

looking forward to hearing the new one- achtung bono was pretty good.

I liked 'Achtung Bono' better, but it's just after the first listening. 'National Shite Day' is a classic though.

RFI: micro-item in this week's NME about David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson watching HMHB perform at the Cornbury Festival, whatever that is

Cornbury festival: ultimate Range Rover and picnic hamper festival, held in a country estate near the village where I grew up. God only knows what HMHB were doing playing there.

new material for "Paintball's Coming Home (Take Three)"

I've never heard of this band. I also thought I was in ILE and went, "oOH GOD NO WHO IS THIS POOR POOR MAN-BISCUIT", expecting to click and see another "tree man".

Whew. And now I get to check out a band I've never heard.

They're really good too!

Cornbury festival: ultimate Range Rover and picnic hamper festival, held in a country estate near the village where I grew up. God only knows what HMHB were doing playing there.

-- Neil S, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 17:07 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc16/Pee75/Image1.jpg

Yeah, that.

these AMG clips are pretty pleasing and "Used To Be In Evil Gazebo" is a pretty funny song title (providing that Evil Gazebo is another band I haven't heard of, otherwise I don't get it).

I've always wondered about this band. I always link them to Steel Pole Bath Tub and Terminal Cheesecake in terms of wacky band names.

National Shite Day = new favourite song

Complete and utter classic. Barely a day goes by when I don't inwardly chuckle at some HMHB lyric or other which has randomly popped into my head.

National Shite Day is clearly the best song on this album. I wouldn't mind if it had been twice as long as now.

"Petty Sessions" is my fave.

Evening of Swing, Took Problem Chimp to the Ideal Home Show and Lord Hereford's Knob all leading the way home for me.

is it just me or have the last 2 HMHB albums been a bit of disappointment? "CSI Ambleside" was great

yeah they've lost much of the magic. they're trying fewer risks and all the songs really do sound the same now, a kind of hard-rock whinge predominating

thought urge a bit disappointing but 90 bisodol is front to back their best

I didn't think Urge To Offal was that good either. 90 Bisodol was OK, CSI: Ambleside a classic of our times.

90 Bisodol is great, Urge was where they fell off. CSI obviously amazing

bono > csi > 90 bisodol is maybe the greatest three album run

Inspirational album title though. Too many hubs in my life

Every album from maybe Godcore, certainly Voyage -> Bisodol is an unparalleled run tbh

I cant remember any songs from Bisodol except for "Tommy Walsh's Eco house" and "Excavating Rita"

"Trouble Over Bridgewater" and "Cammell Laird Social Club" were career highpoints imo

Trouble Over Bridgwater is the high mark among high marks imo

You'll get nothing like The Ballad Of Climie Fisher or Gubba Look-a-Likes on the new album, is all I'll say

Maybe this is a concept album about becoming a crotchety old git?

an anti-cocaine song strikes me as a little gauche by their standards

no legit lols yet

some of the songs on the first half sound like fairly standard chuggy early 90s Amerindie

I'll prob grow to like it

it has grown on me slightly - certainly better than Offal

it IS a concept album about becoming a crotchety old git - but I think deliberately

i couldn't get with Offal at all, but although this is pretty underwhelming compared to the album you've all been entirely correctly listing here, i've been enjoying it. moderately. the chugging is hard to avoid. Harsh Times in Umberstone Covert is a favourite i think. quite touching.

Geraldine [continuing a good line in touching HMHB women's names)

...don't be so self-conscious.
what became of the carefree you?
the one that would whistle to
throbbing gristle through
harsh times in Umberstone covert,
scoffing at the notion of a shoulder to cry on,
the very thought of a rock to rely on.
astonishing therefore to look at you now,
bitter with the gall,
reaching for the mainland (?).
i will mend you,
and i will tend to you,
take it as read,
with a needle and thread,
when you are falling apart at the seams,
i will make at that stitch in time."

and i must admit dad laughs at

[i]sour-faced, she picked up the gherkins,
saw christ in Dorothy Perkins,
oh geraldine we were so laissez-faire,
every other day was a non-sequitur:
hadron collider,
who's there?
knock knock.

the initial riff for every time a bell rings is v attractive as well, and again, though it doesn't quite hit the mark - i mean stuff like 'artisan gossip' brings its own embarrassment (the gaucheness DJ Mencap was talking about) - it's hard to argue with 'get your hedge cut, get your fucking hedge cut, stop meeting friends and cut your hedge'.

i mean in these pied times, i'll take what i'm given. almost wondering about going back to Offal, so to speak.

lol i was reading Barthes while listening to this on the tube, and felt this was very Nigel Blackwell:

but, underneath this discourse whose argument and whose approach I just presented, it seems to me that today i hear, in fleeting moments, another music.

have come around to the first 10 tracks of this album tbh - it's less funny or varied than previous albums but it has an elegiac heft

should end with 'every time a bell rings' though - the last three tracks are entirely superfluous, rising to irritating

a better HMHB song than anything theyve released in the last few years imo (ok it doesnt sound like them really but the lyrics express a similar suburban disdain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_tGKd3egWI

That is closer to The Pre-New's vibe tbh - you must hear their two albums if you haven't

ooh featuring ex-members of Earl Brutus

The Pre New is good. I never saw Earl Brutus but did catch the Pre New at a festival about 8 years ago

Just discovered 'National Shite Day', truly a work whose time has come.

//////////////shawty got poll poll poll poll poll poll poll (part I: 2008 TRAX)\\\\\\\

this actually happened :)

back when it was 25 points for a #1, etc etc

anyway, pour one out for Stringy Bob

Great stuff, probably only time HMHB has featured on an ILM poll. If Coldwar Steve isn't a fan I'd be amazed.

The Doors/Floyd advert is icing on the cake for me.

the Stringy Bob verse is probably my pick for best verse of lyrics since the turn of the millennium tbh, it is literature

embrace the margin

Btw I'm from the US but I lived in Liverpool for 7 years -- some of it good, some of it bad, but it was probably worth it to be able to understand HMHB lyrics about northwest UK television broadcasting.

Good interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-em8_hueZI

Kinda weird to turn on Sky News the other morning and hear Sky's business presenter, Ian King, bantering away with Kay Burley about his favourite band, Half Man Half Biscuit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIl_NDp-U0M

new album 'the voltarol years' feb 18th

Was recently thinking they're due

on a fairly drunk listen this seems like the best for a while.

omg it's out!!!!

me Tarzan, you June

okay this hasn't been prime material, but In A Suffolk Ditch is righting that

a CARDIACS SHOUTOUT wtf :D

“cowslips and celandine” is lovely

second half of this album has been absolutely top-tier, weirdly a very backloaded record imo

the last two tracks are amazing

nigel leaning hard into the 'lovely' at times here, extremely elegiac and beautiful yes

On second thoughts, this really is all prime stuff. He's getting so good at character studies

What's an 'onion batch'?

a type of bread

As seen on Taskmaster

https://i.imgur.com/vkCo9bG.jpeg