The Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band: C or D?

"Lipstickgleam
Hexachloraphene
Cling cling a ring
Clang clang she sang
It's tragic magic
There are no coincidences
But sometimes the pattern is more obvious"

also "eleven moustachioed daughters" has uncredited backing vocals by germaine greer.

2006

Saturday 28th January

Neil Innes and Friends
(The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band Revisited)
FEATURING
Rodney Slater
Roger Ruskin Spear
Legs Larry Smith
Vernon Dudley Bohay Nowell
plus special guests
THE ASTORIA
LONDON
Doors Open 1800hrs

Tickets are still available from

STARGREEN BOX OFFICE
Credit Card Hotline 020 7734 8932
www.Stargreen.com

hooooold me back!

i saw neil innes at the melbourne comedy festival in 2003 - he was every bit as wondrous as i'd hoped. (i was the youngest person there by about 20 years)

anyone fancy coming along?

*checks stargreen*

oh bollocks, it's sold out.

The answer is total classic, of course... (off humming Hunting Tigers...)

My dream is that Mike Oldfield could do "The Intro and the Outro".

Stephen Fry? It could work, as long as he's not visible.

The NATIONAL TOUR is set to roll. 40th Anniversary tour with special guests.

November sees the start. Check out the www.bonzodog.co.uk website.

See you all there.

Reissues out this week! Finally I will be able to get my hands on The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse!

Britain's answer to We're Only In It For The Money featuring Actual Ex-Mother (allegedly) Joel Druckman on bass and "come on everybody clap your hands" etc.

"Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone..."

I love THIS:

I heart "Tubas in the Moonlight"

So do I. I love that song.

RFI: A long time ago a friend lent me a Bonzo Dog Band dubbed cassette, and it had a track on it that used a tape loop - an early sample, really - of pool balls being hit, and also one of a chainsaw. Does anyone know what this is and where it can be found?

Oh yeah, and there was another track that used a man laughing to similar effect.

The laughing one is "Slush", it's on "Let's Make Up and Be Friendly". The other one sounds like it could be one of the between-track bits on "Keynsham".

Two words for you: "Big Shot"

(No, that's not the answer to the RFI)

Hurting, you asked that question on a thread before but I can't find it now for some reason. "Cool Britannia" ends with about 15 seconds of what sounds like pool balls being hit with a woman laughing over the top. "Quiet Talks and Summer Walks" closes with a few seconds blast of dentist's drill. I'd call them sound effects rather than samples though so I'm not sure if those are the ones.

Yeah, I did ask that a while back. My memory is that the track opens with pool balls being hit looped over and over again so that it becomes a rhythm, and then some sort of repeated organ and guitar comes in over it. Then a similar thing is done in the same song with the sound of a chainsaw being ripped. Maybe it's some bonus track from a comp. Maybe it's not even Bonzo Dog Band and it was just tacked onto the tape, but the style is very similar to the laughing track, which is identified above as "Slush". I've been wondering this for years.

Hmmmmmmmm, I don't know what that track is! I wish I did!

"They bite
They scratch
They make an awful fuss
It's no use stroking them and saying "puss puss puss"..."

Oh, you know what?

Thanks to this thread, I just bought all five remastered CDs (plus extras) for £30 off ebay.

"But now, here in Willesden Green, yes, *brrrrr*, it is a bit chilly, but, no matter, because here comes a gentleman, and we're going to talk to him about shirts..."

"Let's Make Up And Be Friendly" - strange album! "Turkeys" sounds like one of the weirder Canterbury bands and "Waiting For The Wardrobe" is a great Roger Ruskin Spear track. Has anyone heard either of his solo albums?

Also, I've been rocking this new comp of songs they covered or were influenced by. It's 75% good, a few absolute crackers and a two or three crappy ones. Worth getting though, especially for the originals of Ali Baba's Camel, Mickey's Son and Daughter and Skirts (aka Shirt).

http://shop.instant-shop.com/magpiedirect/picture?pic=417140810&table=pictures&width=301&height=300

Wow, I must get that!

There's a lot of old songs that they played live or whatever but aren't on the albums, like "Little Sir Echo" (which you can see them doing on Youtube). Some of those ones are really good, especially if you like their first two albums the best.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3647630

splendid!

Okay, I did not know that it actually WAS Eric Clapton on ukelele. Cool but not surprising.

Another song I really like by them is "Straight from My Heart"--can't remember the album it's from (maybe "Let's Make Up..."). I like the chorus sing-a-long and the lazy sax line.

Whispering Jack Smith (who does the original version of "All By Yourself In the Moonlight" on the aforementioned comp) has mad flow.

How does his flow compare to that of Norman "Hurricane" Smith?

Comedy Music is about the only kind I can stand anymore.

Poor you

eeeeh.

the five remastered cds have ARRIVED!

see you monday!

Death Cab For Grouty

Grout Stripped Bare By Bachelors

"I'm Going to Bring a Watermelon to Mark Grout Tonight"

WE ARE NORMAL AND WE WANT OUR FREEDOM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLQ7ds90xDw

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

RFI: A long time ago a friend lent me a Bonzo Dog Band dubbed cassette, and it had a track on it that used a tape loop - an early sample, really - of pool balls being hit, and also one of a chainsaw. Does anyone know what this is and where it can be found?

I'm afraid I'll go to my grave not knowing what this was. It's possible that it wasn't even a BDB song and was just apended to the cassette, I guess, but it was very similar in style to slush in my memory, sort of a slow, 12/8 feel to it.

#OnThisDay 1973: Roger Ruskin Spear, formerly of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, unleashes his “robots” on presenter Joe Melia and the British viewing public.

Straining plastic dolls, baffling games and a Patrick Moore machine are amongst the highlights. pic.twitter.com/ZPM62E3a64

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) April 7, 2024

Roger Ruskin Spear demonstrating some of his creations.

I love stuff like this and Tim Hunkin's Novelty Automaton/Under The Pier Show, Sam Smith - it all seems of a piece. Does anyone else make things like this? Some of Vic Reeves stuff is similar I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeN275kLtaE

this documentary about Sam Smith is great, seems like it might be of interest to fans of the Bonzos

more Roger Ruskin Spear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0l1hXdp5Zk

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

and Bruce Lacey, or course

Wilf Lunn was a mainstay of children’s TV in the 70s, similar absurdist hippy vibe as Ruskin Spear.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/wilf-lunn-protest-bike/zh9y6v4

Worth watching to the end to see his worm catcher.

Wilf Lunn is great, it's funny how there was this moment where you had stuff like Vision On where children's tv and experimental stuff could cross over, like Sylvester McCoy dividing his time between kids tv and the Ken Campbell Roadshow. Various Clive Doig shows as well