IMAGINATION - BODY TALK

Imagination

Body Talk

A  Drunken Vinyl Production

Let us tell you what’s annoyed us this last week  or so, shall we?

Paul McCartney.

Not Paul himself, to be fair. Why, we love his cheeky, cheerful Liverpudlian persona. We were the ones who slalomed past him on skis and shouted, “Ram is really cool, Paul!” that fateful day on the slopes of Mount Blanc. We thought ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ was an intelligent and thoughtful slab of realpolitik, we really did, with a damn fine tune. Damn fine.

Check out the lyrics, Man:

“Great Britain, you are tremendous, and nobody knows like me.

But really, what are you doing, in the land across the sea?”

And don’t even get us started on the magnificent ‘Rupert the Frog Song’ or whatever the heck it was that mighty fine guy was singing. No, it’s not Paul himself that has feckled our hackles.

What really pissed us off was the fuzz, man; the police. Did they really have to go round to his house, in St John’s Wood, mob handed, to tell him to “turn his stereo down” because he was making too much noise at his wedding reception? What a mean spirited bunch of bastards some people at Westminster Council really are. And who was the neighbour that shopped him? There he was, in his back garden, enjoying a well earned glass of ‘Lambrini’ and chomping on some ‘Sour Cream and Chives Pringles’, most probably strumming the opening chords of ‘Jet’ or ‘Mull of Kintryre’ on his beat up old Rickenbacker, and Mrs Noreen Baggit, 43a Primrose Hill, doesn’t hang around, does she? No, she’s straight on the phone to the police, the minge bag. And what’s worse, the police were round there faster than you could say, “What riots in Bexley Heath, Sarge?” Can you imagine the stampede down at Wood Street Station? “Now I need twelve of you to take the old jam sandwich around to gatecrash the McCartney’s reception. Volunteers?”

Well, we suggest that Sir Paul writes a new song to celebrate this inauspicious and disreputable blot on our society. And we’d be very happy to supply him with the opening lyrics to his new hit single.

“Policemen, you are outstanding, and nobody knows like me.

But really, Mrs Baggit, is a neighbour that is too nosey.

Tell me, how would you like it?

If after you got wed:

Some policeman came round to your house

And said “turn it down and off to bed”.

Come on, Westminster Council; get a sense of perspective for Christ’s sake! After all, you only get married three or four times in your life.

Drunken Vinyls

Welcome to the serious scientific survey that is Drunken Vinyls or DeeVees for short. A place that’s cooler than a slowly melting pyramid of Haagen-Dazs crème brulee ice cream sitting on top of a Fox’s Glacier Mint next to a polar bear. Here we attempt to catalogue all known vinyl records starting at A and ending at Z. Or zee, if you are American. That’s 26 in total for any of you that are numerically challenged; 26 groovy slices of pitch black plastic – better than CDs, better than cassettes and certainly better than your download. And tonight we throw the dice and land firmly on the square marked ‘I’.

Setting Up:

‘I’ is for IMAGINATION

We were more than a little surprised to discover that there is only one pop group in the world who chose the letter ‘I’ to name themselves after. And what a queer and camp old group they turned out to be, pop pickers. We give you: Imagination.

We’ve been working on a joke about being camp for quite some time now to mark the event; a sort of simile stylee, like this:

• “Camper than Larry Grayson shutting the door on John Inman in a television comedy called ‘Shut That Door’.”
• “More camp than a field of tents in a campsite.”
• “As camp as a French coffee substitute called ‘Camp’.”
• “He’s so camp you could stick a pole up him and call him a tent.”
• “Camper than John Inman, finding himself with ‘free’ time in a menswear department, bending over just as Larry Grayson minces through a door, shuts it firmly behind him, blows a knowing kiss to the camera and winks in a television sketch show called ‘I’m Free!’”

As you can see we haven't been entirely successful.

Still our ears ‘pricked up’ and ‘stood to attention’ whilst following the poignant news of the charming adventures of politician and Foreign Secretary Liam Fox and his ‘best friend’ Mr Veritee or Werritee – we couldn’t be bothered to look it up. This is indeed a touching story. A ‘firm’ friendship, so strong, that Labi Siffre could come out of retirement, suck his pencil and compose an ode to it.

It’s so quaint that we believe it, here at DeeVees, we really do. They just bumped into each other 38 times or so, give or take, whilst abroad on business. Just happenstance that they were in the same part of the world, in the same hotel, on the same floor and just the two of them, bless. It warmed our bleak old hackneyed cockles and, further, it is said that in the foyer none other than Chas and Dave were on the old Joanna playing ‘Snooker Loopy Nuts are We’.

In scenes of pure jealousy, unworthy of being British and uncannily reminiscent of the uncouth and loutish gate crashing plod round the McCartney’s, the accusations were flying in a hostile House of Commons. Words like ‘naïve at best’, ‘foolish, ‘security risk’ and ‘must tender resignation’ were thrown around in gay abandon. Tender resignation? There was nothing approaching tenderness today, we can tell you, dear reader. All we observed were the gentle looks of faint reproach from Liam and the outstretched Wenger like arms of crucifixtion as a friendship was put to the sword.

Still, he who lives by the sword…

And talking of living by the  sword, we were left seething and spitting out our Jalapeño Doritos as self styled England hard boy Wayne Rooney needlessly hacked at the heels of some luckless midfielder and got himself red carded and banned whilst playing Montenegro last Friday. Why we nearly got up and turned the television off in disgust! We were, nevertheless, heartened and almost moved to forgive the Roonster here at DeeVee Towers, upon hearing the welcome news that this master of penmanship has taken it upon himself to compose a manly apology to FIFA. And all on his own, too. Well most probably he scribbled a quick note in pencil and coloured it in with Crayola wax crayons. We wonder if he drew footballs for full stops and showed it to his mum first?

No, that wouldn’t have happened because the proud lady would have stuck it to the fridge with a magnet and wrote ‘My Wayne’s first letter’ underneath it.

Imagination: What’s the Story?

Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Have you set up, yet? We have. Well carry on playing with your cables and twiddling your knobs, Future-Kind. Oo-er.

Cultural Primer: ‘Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ is a play by Tom Stoppard in which the two eponymous – see, there you are, that word again - peripheral characters are unaware that they are in a play called Hamlet and that they are not the main characters in the play they don’t know they are not in. Or something a bit like that.

Imagine this if you will. Way back in the distant 1980s, effete, whirling dervish and decadent sexual deviant and possible fruit basket Leee John, a singer, minstrel and the leeead singer of throbbing iffy disco dancing group Imagination, our vinyl tonight, was once cast in Doctor Who, playing a hardened pirate called – Mansell. God knows why. You have to ask yourself who, in their right mind, and with an entire catalogue of British actors and strolling players to chose from, would actually think that this was a good idea? “Bums on seats, laddie, bums on seats.”

Fortunately his inept performance does give an illuminating insight into the baffling phenomenon that was disco dance troupe Imagination. Here, then, is the alternative universe version of ‘Doctor Who: Enlightenment’ staring Leee John playing the main character Leee John from Imagination playing Mansell the Pirate! Hah-harrrrr!

Mansell is Dead

Camp singer and minstrel Leee John, dressed in a fur lined bikini, outrageous codpiece and sheer nylon fishnets is  mincingly singing ‘Body Talk’, ‘Music and Lights’ or ‘Flashback’ on ‘Top of the Pops’, mid 1980s – you decide – and is suddenly whisked away by a time storm to a sailing ship in deep space. A mighty sword appears in his trembling hand.

Mansell: Oh. Flashback! To the days when the nights were long – beep-beep-beep-beep-oh-oh!

Leee John grasps his sword manfully, recklessly stroking the blade in a terribly faux suggestive fashion; he gasps in excitement and drops in a pirouette to the studio floor, jerking his hips about to the imagined squeals of his excited audience.

Mansell: Oh a staggering jewel for my rival – oo-oo. Sequins and pearls and lots of pretty girls. Let me show you all the glamour and the gold.

Now writhing on the floor in mock ecstasy, it’s sick bag time as Leee John reaches his climax, rolls over and provocatively winks at the camera whilst pulling fake fox furs around his quivering shoulders.

Mansell: Resist any further and you will regret it. Searchin' for lust, searchin' for breath, searchin' for the touch of life. Baa dee daa dee baa ree ree daa.

Just before the audience puke, in an act of selfless mercy, Doctor Who (well we think it’s him, we can’t be sure) blasts Leee John into tiny atoms and he becomes a cinder floating in space or Spain (slight in-joke there). Without him, Imagination is indeed – just an illusion. Oh-oh.

Mansell: Oh, I say, I didn’t see that coming. I must have been a goddam peripheral character on a wider canvas I couldn’t fully grasp. Bugger.

The End

THE NOT QUITE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRUNKEN VINYLS

1. Thou shalt play both sides of the record in their entirety
2. Thou shalt drink one can of Fosters or its alcohol equivalent per song
3. Thou shalt record ramblings as they occur to thee for the duration of the running time
4. Thou shalt edit out the swearing the next day
5. Thou shalt not suffer a Blueberry user to live

Titan Three, thou craggy knob, accept this weary penitent! Are we all set up and ready? Okay, Future-kind, sharpen your pencils, play along with us as we say – Hammer Time!

IMAGINATION

BODY TALK

SIDE ONE

Body Talk

It’s a bump and grind beat that gets us going tonight. An electric piano signals the musical simulation of love making. Leee John takes the falsetto and some other camp bloke supplies the baritone in a classic call and response love tryst with echoes of The Marvelettes ‘Please Mr Postman’. It won’t be long, yeah, before Leee John, becomes as one. Still, in all this faux frenzy we have to ask ourselves a pertinent question: why do you always pick the can from the fridge that fell over during the excitement of night manoeuvres and explodes when you open it. The only sound we hear is not ‘Body Talk’ but the unwelcome PSSSSST!! as beer explodes all over our computer. ‘A touching Moment’ - this could be a play upon words signifying an act of wanton lust – something that we heartily disapprove of. Get a room, for Christ’s sake.

This one outstays it’s welcome in a big way. It’s been going on for a good ten minutes now. It feels like a pork sausage at a vegan’s wedding feast.

Jesus – he’s actually inviting us to join him. NO!

So Good So Right

More up-tempo, this one. A pounding metronomic beat with the ubiquitous eighties synthesiser set to piano. Did you own one of those Cassio electric pianos, reader? We did. They were so common that a German group, in a rare moment of irony (well at least we hope it was irony, they were German), had a smash novelty hit based on one of the settings. ‘Da Da Da’.  It went a bit like this:

“What you will and what you won’t, a-ha

What you do and what you don’t, a-ha

What you eat and what you drink, a-ha

What you feel and what you think, a-ha

I’m a beef sausage on a plate, a-ha

Resigned to my non Vegan fate, a- ha

Here comes a Vegan hero now, a-ha

Saving another cow, a-ha

If he had been a bit more prompt, a-ha

I’d still have some legs and four stomachs and a tail and go moo, a-ha

You Vegan waste of space:

DA DA DA”

We think the next verse most probably said, “Knowing me, knowing you, a-ha” but we wouldn’t swear to it.

I think this track is stuck. Nothing’s actually happened for ten minutes now.

Burnin’ Up

It’s difficult to begin to describe where we are now. But we’ll try. What we have is a rhythm on piano, bass and bongos. An ascending chord structure that’s repetitive – it has an effect on your facial muscles; we are gradually pulling our mouths down in a manner that is unbecoming – almost as though you want to expel anything recently eaten in as rapidly as possible. The piano sounds as though it was sampled from Elton John’s Pinball Wizard. God knows what Leee John did with his codpiece and furs to this on stage. Although, horribly, we can almost picture the prancing fool. This is the sort of record that makes you feel nostalgic for Cliff Richard.

SIDE TWO

Tell Me Do You Want My Love

We’re going to need ten Marlboro and a bottle of cooking vodka before tackling this one. Tell me do you want my love? We can think of a couple of apposite replies. The title is unpromising at best. Well, here goes. Play along with us.

What’s next week? J, is it? We begin to cast longing looks towards a happier future.

We have done the state some service. But, no more of that.

Electric piano. A little arch chord here and there. An ‘oo’ from Leee, our camp pilot tonight. He’s seen a flicker of love in our eyes – I doubt it, Leee, it’s most probably the glint of us sharpening our codpiece pruners. He insists, nonetheless that his love, should you chose to feel it, is a sweet sensation. We beg to differ and one of us speaks from experience. A can, a can, our kingdom for a can.

You know what really rankles? We’ll tell you what really rankles: None of these songs have the good grace or fucking courtesy to end quickly.

Flashback

At last – a promising song. A subtle opening – mouth moving back up towards grin setting. The nasty clappy beat is at least delayed for a while and, when it does appear, as surely it will, is almost welcome. The lyrics are inoffensive, no allusions to sexual proclivity with Leee – no this is almost respectable as a dance song and would sit nicely on any Ronco or K Tel offering. Well, there you go. One song. One keeper.

I’ll Always Love You (But Don’t Look Back)

Tell me, why do we own this record? Why did we purchase it in the beginning? It has inspired no flights of fancy, just a grim image of a dance troupe cavorting in furs and codpieces. Our spirits, vaguely raised by the last song, are well and truly dashed upon the rocks as the ubiquitous eighties power ballad rears its unwelcome head; all over production and reverbed vocals wringing every last drop of false emotion out of the lyrics which are about a girl(?) – hang on, let’s reiterate a girl? – saying goodbye to Leee and saying ‘don’t look back’. We didn’t appreciate the ‘homage’ to Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ neither.

In And Out Of Love

We’re back where we started several long months ago, this repeats like a doner kebab after a night out, the opener, note for note, word for word: in and out – of love. Naughty. Really this is a disgraceful rip off. Of their own song! Still I suppose, if we’re being charitable, it does make us remember our youth with fondness, when we were young and wherever we laid our hat, well, that was our home. We remember those times before being married and then not married, running from house to house, like the young guns we were, with gay abandon – always in and out of love. Can’t do that nowadays, you know.

SO – WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT TONIGHT, READER?

As a little lamb is drawn to a dragonfly, in the style of church, or school, or ‘Diff’rent Strokes’, we are drawn to a moralistic conclusion. Before close down: we are the little vicar on television at half past eleven when telly stops. The one that tells you to be a good boy (or girl) and wear a condom. No all night roulette with a scantily clad croupier for us here at DeeVee towers – although that would be nice. We have, instead, strange friendships, raucous receptions, rampant policemen, Mrs Baggitt and an illiterate footballer - all topped off with a wobbling, preening codpiece. Have we learnt anything at all?

You know, we’re struggling. I think we’ll put a record on.

THE HAPPY MONDAYS: PILLS, THRILLS AND BELLYACHES

HAPPY MONDAYS

PILLS THRILLS AND BELLYACHES

In a break from tradition we will, this week, dispense with our usual warm welcome and treat you in a totally rude and vile manner.

Plop-plop, wee-wees and trumps.

That’s what you get and there’s plenty more where that came from if you carry on reading, too. Don’t worry about that! We know that if you showed us your pants there would be poo-stripes.

As you recoil in terror from our knowingly abusive invective, you are, no doubt, in perplexion, asking yourself why. Why? Well reach for your ketamine, kids, because this week we get to H. The only record beginning with H in the world is also the rudest vinyl ever to hop off the press and make a bid for freedom from the plastics factory in Piddler’s Bottom. Yes, that’s right. We’re not talking Keith Harris and Orville here (although sticking your hand up a duck is pretty darn rude), Future-Kind. Our serious scientific survey brings us to the Happy Mondays, fronted by cocky front-mancunian Shaun 'Rudeman' Ryder and his best mate Bez ‘Up Yours’ Berry.

They’re gonna step on you, man, and, hey, hallelujah, they don’t give a loose fit. (shit).

Are YOU rude enough to get into the Happy Mondays? Try our Drunken Vinyls Survey to see!

THE HOW RUDE ARE YOU HAPPY MONDAYS SURVEY

1. You are invited to participate in a ‘How Rude Are You Survey’. You respond by:

A)    Telling the surveyor to piss off by saying ‘Piss Off!’

B)    Indicating you are ‘a little pressed for time’ right now by tapping your watch pointedly.

C)    Nodding, smiling and saying ‘mmmm, how nice!’ whilst getting your Parker pen out.

2. You are at the Conservative Party Conference and irritating politician Theresa May angers you unnecessarily by making a garbled speech about immigrants who own cats. Do you respond by saying:

A)    ‘Show me your pussy, minge bag!’

B)    ‘Sorry, I don’t get on terribly well with cats.’

C)    ‘Here, kitty, kitty; have some free katomeat.’

3. You are in the Post Office on pension day and it’s heaving with speeding shopmobility carts out of control and blocking the aisles. There is gridlock. One cart has already knocked over the neat display of Parcel Force leaflets and a nearby stand of ‘Werther’s Originals’ whilst another is doing a three point turn in the passport photo-me booth which is, even now, beginning to belch smoke and whine in an ominous fashion. As panicking pensioners, parping on electric horns, make a desperate last bid for the exit before the inevitable explosion, one has the temerity to run over your foot. Do you respond by saying:

A)    ‘What the bloody hell is going on here? Are you blind you f***ing old person? I’m going to shove that bloody shopmobility trolley up you f***ing a***. You’re lucky I don’t jump into the wire basket of your bloody dodgem car, ride you round the foyer and rip you off for your f***ing pension!’

B)    ‘Oh I say. Do be careful. Lucky it wasn’t your foot that did that or I would have had a real stamp!’

C)    ‘Never mind. I didn’t like that shoe anyway. Can I give you a helping push?’

4. You are travelling on public transport, perhaps the bus or the tram, minding your own business and taking idle pleasure in the business of the day by flicking through the latest copy of ‘Now’ magazine when suddenly, to your intense displeasure, a yoof in a cheap red hoody, emblazoned with the legend ‘Lifeguard’ and possessing a portable microphone and speaker system, jumps out of his seat, in the deluded belief he is talented and starts ‘entertaining’ you and your fellow passengers by rapping. Badly. Do you:

A)    Walk up to him and smash him repeatedly in the face with ‘Now’ magazine before decapitating him repeatedly with a handy concrete pillar, stick his microphone down his vacuous, vacant and uneducated throat, push his putrid countenance through the bus (or tram) window, vomit loudly into his hood and pull the same over what’s left of his head simultaneously tying up the material with the flex whilst saying ‘Allow me to give you a little contribution you malodorous twat!’

B)    Rustle around in your bag, find some headphones and stare out of the window in studied disinterest.

C)    Clap in delight like Marco off ‘Big Brother’ whilst saying ‘I say, you should go on the ‘X Factor!’

5. You inadvertently switch on ITV’s Daybreak whilst getting dressed for work. Transfixed, holding your pants and hypnotised by the sheer banality of the televisual offerings in the ten minute segment between lengthy commercial breaks for nappies and washing powder, you tolerate the pukefest that is the latest appearance of an ageing Donny Osmond, stare impassively as Keith Chegwin is sent to test a cheap infomercial family holiday break to Skegness courtesy of ‘Pooplop’s Velvet Tissue’, grit your teeth as some halfwit mother dressed in jeggings complains in a high pitched whine that her daughter is getting teased at school for having bulimia, anorexia or both and bite into the toilet seat as bloody Ronan Keating turns up to duet with Donny bloody Osmond. But then, your patience is tested to its very limit when horribly confronted by the sight of weird spiky thatch-head Doctor Hilary Drones presenting a feature on piles ‘or haemorrhoids as we doctors call them’, and you finally and irrevocably snap. Do you:

A)    Scream ‘I’m mad and I’m not going to take it anymore!’ wrench the television from its socket and fling it at a passing shopmobility scooter driven by a headless rapping yoof.

B)    Hire a machine gun, drive to Teddington Lock and open fire screaming ‘Here’s Johnny!’

C)    Get a can of lager from the fridge, smile tolerantly and put a vinyl record on.

Setting Up Time

We’re all set up here of course. The decks are out, the amp is switched on and we’ve unsleeved our vinyl from its sheathe. How rude is that, eh? Unsheathed the sleeve, sounds almost…sexual. So while you prepare to do battle with us, we’ll get a lager out of the fridge, smile tolerantly and cast a look back over our shoulder at another frantic week in Bankrupt Britain. We blame downloads, you know. Well you know we do.

Just think. Consider this. David ‘Looking for the Young Soul Rebels’ Cameron, Theresa ‘Stroke my Pussy’ May, Michael ‘Row your Boat Ashore’ Goves, George ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne’ and the other faceless politicos have just spent a week in Manchester in a swanky hotel. Did they run around the corridors using the TV remote controls as phasers playing ‘Hunt the Klingon’? No. Did they indulge in some fare dodging tram riding fun between St Peter’s Square and Market Street? No. Did the go down the Peveril of the Peak, drink ale and play table football? No. Did they get pissed and try to shag each other? Well probably.

But mainly, mainly, they stood astride a stage, waved their arms manically and made forgettable speeches about immigrant’s cats while the United Kingdom wallows in a quagmire of debt. 

Now imagine if one of the gutless swine had got to their feet and demanded that the entire population of Britain be forced, by law, to buy a record deck and the 26 Holy Vinyls of A to Z thus:

“Stand forth Great Britain! My Lord these great peoples hath my permission to purchase all 26 vinyls known to man! Stand forth, Hip Hop Artist nameth Reveal! My lord this man, hath bewitched my nation’s heart with conceits, trifles, nosegays and cursed downloads. Thou, thou, hip hop artist, thou hast by moonlight at my nation’s windows sung with faining voice, verses of faining rubbish raps of bling and buying crap T shirts from TK Maxx; with cunning hast thou filched my country’s heart and turned us all to stubborn harshness.”

If only one of them had done this, dear reader. 26 vinyls and a deck – why that would cost at least one hundred and two pounds each! Multiply that by 60 million and, well, that’s at least…erm, well… it’s quite a lot of money anyway. That would be coinage enough to plan and build a brand new motorway called the M34 linking all of Great Britain’s slightly less well known urban centres such as Dudley, Mansfield Woodhouse and Oswestry. The second tier of English towns, if you will. The labour involved in simply building this major engineering project would provide jobs for all. A road, quite literally, to prosperity. And when it is built, the Queen herself, alongside Stefan Dennis out of Neighbours, would cut the ribbon and triumphantly open the brand spanking new petrol station and minimart ‘Twatford Gap Services’ with jobs aplenty for nearly all the unshaven unemployed of our great British Kingdom. Then there would be street parties, celebrations and go-go dancers for everybody. Hurrah!

But no. No. Not a bit of it. Let’s all just hunt the pussy, shall we?

THE HAPPY MONDAYS

PILLS, THRILLS AND BELLYACHES

WHAT’S THE STORY?

Oh it’s a terrifying story this week, full of rudeness, sun-shee-ine and slightly more rudeness in the sun-shee-ine. Strap yourselves in, Future-Kind; it’s going to be one hell of a ryde! Ryde. Shaun Ryder Get it? Oh well, please yourselves.

Pills

“Just pop down to Boots to pick up my pills, Mark, will you?” These were the words that Bez’s mum probably said to him, one day, at some point in his life when she possibly needed some pills for a headache or something like that and didn’t really fancy the walk down Deansgate. Mark ‘Bez’ Berry, had just thrown in his sticks after 52 years of drumming and dancing with the Electric Light Orchestra, completely fed up with humming along to happy crappy tunes like ‘Mr Blue Sky’ and ‘Wild West Hero’. The final straw was singing something about ‘Horace Wimp, this is your life!’ and avoiding anybody looking like Eamon Andrews. He knew he had had enough. He was looking for…

Thrills

Before he knew it, he was in the jungle being a celebrity and having to go for a shit on that unpleasant dunny swarming with flies and maggots. Basically a wooden frame atop some straw bales it was not quite the thrills he was looking for or indeed seeking. “This ain’t exactly fighting tigers with flame throwers like they promised in the TV Times,” he complained to fellow jungle internee and crap-mate Anthony Worral Thompson and later, after eating some tasty bush tucker that was basically some worms from the aforementioned dunny, he was suffering from…

Bellyaches

Doubled over with constant stomach pain and now walking along Deansgate, he remembered the pills he had bought for his mother from Boots earlier that day. Inspired, Bez, somewhat shakily, removed the child proof top at precisely the same moment as a particularly vicious stomach cramp hit him. Disaster! The pills flew everywhere and disgorged themselves all over the bustling pavement! Inadvertently, people were stepping on them, tripping over and colliding into lusty, kill crazy pensioners, wild with staring-eyed mad animal panic, who, thus distracted, drove shopmobility trolleys into shop windows in futile attempts to avoid the little white agents from hell itself. Bez jerked spasmodically, trying to avert Armageddon and dived hither and thither gathering the demon seed like some demented member of Pan’s People.

Across the road, a watching Shaun Ryder smiled tellingly and stroked his goatee. He had his man.

THE NOT QUITE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRUNKEN VINYLS

1. Thou shalt play both sides of the record in their entirety
2. Thou shalt drink one can of Fosters or its alcohol equivalent per song
3. Thou shalt record ramblings as they occur to thee for the duration of the running time
4. Thou shalt edit out the swearing the next day
5. Thou shalt not suffer a Blueberry user to live

Are we all set up and ready? Okay, Future-kind, hoist up your skirts and off we go! Play along with us as we do:

HAPPY MONDAYS: PILLS, THRILLS AND BELLYACHES

SIDE ONE

Kinky Afro

OK – the filthiest record known to man starts with some synthesiser and jangly guitar and a fat sixties groove. We remember seeing this on ‘Top of the Pops’ or ‘Power Up’ on Super Channel with Chris Evans. They were all grooving with some awesomely chested sixties go-go chicks and this monkey bloke was prancing around like a Thunderbirds puppet – all beef jerky hands. If you did that in a disco near ours, you’d get shown the door and that’s no lie. Furthermore we like the lyric, “Dad you’re shabby, you groove around just like a baggy.” They don’t write them like that anymore. Kinky Afro sounds a bit dubious like a lad’s mag. Zoe Ball. What’s that all about, eh?

God’s Cop

I bet your fingernails are dirty. Ours are clean, yours need a scrub a dub-dub in the bath with a nail brush. This song clearly references weircopmeister James Anderton and his bid to clean up the filthy streets of Salford – something we heartily approve of. This vinyl is so filthy it’s clogging up the stylus after a mere five minutes. Anyway the music, the music – a sleazy guitar with a pounding dance beat and vocals that are murky in the mix. We approve to an extent but take issue with the satirical subject matter. Our policemen are wonderful. Did you hear about the way they selflessly busted Sir Paul McCartney’s wedding reception in St John’s Wood last week because he had his stereo on too loud? We did. Awesome. We’ll return to that magnanimous gesture next week.

Did you check your fingernails? Bet you did.

Donovan

Bongo drums and a low key funky bass. We love it. The synthesiser is reminiscent of a harmonica playing a blues melody. Ryder’s vocals are mixed towards the back of the room and he’s alluding to ‘Sunshine Superman’ by Donovan for some reason. Oh we see, it’s called Donovan. Outside our window, the sun slowly sets on an unsuspecting England and here, here we dirty ourselves our further and still further – as Macbeth said, “I am so steeped in blood that to return would be as tedious as wading over.”

Grandbag’s Funeral

We used to love ‘Sunshine Superman’ by Donovan, we really did. But then Magners came along and ruined by having a load of chic people, the sort that deserve a really good punch as they toe tap along to the craic – whatever the hell that is -  sipping cider over ice along to it. This one is filthy. He appears to be saying “Let’s see all the family” in a shouty way – we think they might be going on holiday, but can’t be sure.

We once went around regularly saying “Oh good craic, to be sure, to be sure.” Then somebody punched us with a tambourine drum type thing in a crowded bar. It hurt. A lot.

Loose Fit

This one surely needs no introduction from us. It’s very like ‘Fool’s Gold’ by Stone Roses, strangely. Anyway they don’t need no skimmed milk in their wardrobe today or something and it sounds good to them. Sounds good to us, too.  Except – well you’d put skimmed milk in the fridge, wouldn’t you? Could get a little bit noisome left in the wardrobe, you’d think. Still, on the other hand, this being the dirtiest record in the world and all that, I suppose in a strange way, it fits. Fits. Oh yes, very good.

SIDE TWO

Dennis and Lois

For a dirty record, this is very twee. A melodic opening and a reference to Bruce Forsyth, a hero here at DeeVee HQ. Congratulations on the knighthood. Knight to see you, to see you, knight! Sorry scraping bottom of barrel with that one. Still, returning to the music we think this would sit nicely on any episode of ‘Wish You were Here’ the travel show staring our very own Keith Chegwin.

Bobs Yer Uncle

The Mondays have been playing their Sergio Mendes Brazil 66 discs (as YOU should – regularly) when composing this one. We got to say this is the best one yet, although we now confess to being on the seventh gay old can. This piece of vinyl grime genuinely sounds better, the drunker you get. We’re sure we heard this as the soundtrack to some porno flick or other – no, take that back, neither of us have ever seen a porno flick, so that can’t be right. Oh no, the girl is moanin’ away in the background as he takes her from behind. Not our words. Why is she moaning? Probably the ironing, the washing up or he hasn’t paid enough attention to her. That’s our experience, anyhow.

Step On

Now, come on, Future-Kind, you’ve stomped along in a disco to this one, haven’t you? Let’s all ‘twist our melons, man’. One of us admits to working in a huge nightclub in Plymouth on Mayflower Street and being made to dance on a bar in a tuxedo to this one whilst shaking a funky tambourine. Eat your heart out, Bez. Or scoop out your melon at the very least.

Holiday

Famously covered by Madonna in 1984, in fact her first real hit….oh, shit, sorry, now that it’s started we see that it’s a completely different song, starting with a Beatlesesque ‘Back in the USSR’ airplane and some funky singers straight out of ‘The Gap Band’ or ‘Chic’ or ‘Sheila and B Devotion’ – this is so seventies it’s practically oozing sleeze and wearing flares. This, we should point out, is a damn good thing. Mighty fine.

Harmony

Sneaky segue there which we didn’t see coming and it’s into Primal Scream ‘Screamadelica’ country, coming down, presumably in the same way as the jet did in the last song. Shaun wants a beautiful cooking pot in this one – which could be a reference to – drugs. Something we never approve of but strangely in keeping with the tone of this vinyl. We got to say that Side 2 knocks spots off Side 1 again. A bit ‘Blue Mink’ which we can’t reference without being taken to court for racism these days – and then? Silence. Oh - that’s nicked from Abbey Road, isn’t it? I want you. I want you so bad.

We enjoyed that, did you?

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT TONIGHT?

Like school, or church, or – indeed ‘Diff’rent Strokes’, we like to reflect on any life lessons learnt whilst playing our historical vinyl. What did ‘H’ have to say to us this week? Well, for a start, it would be easier to visit Manchester if the frigging Government put their hands in their pockets to invest in the M34 – a motorway that would, we feel, be as apathetic as they are, meandering its way around the by-ways of Britain with no real sense of direction but with excellently sexually suggestive Services. But, on the other hand, all our adult life we’ve had the Happy Mondays telling us to stay loose, smoke pot and groove around like a baggy. You may as well, then, because nothing will change.

Adieu, adieu, adieu - until next time, commit no crime...