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.