My favourite would be 'Hunting Tigers Out In INDIAH' especially the banter in the middle of the song. 'Shaking all over you silly goose I'm dancing the Watusi.' Mojo in their 'Gonzo Issue' printed an interview with Viv Stanshall. He comes across as a unique individual. A man full of so much creativity that he needs an army to detonate him before he explodes. I'd love to hear his radio series with Kenny Everett, 'If It's Wednesday Then It Must Be Time For Jolly At Tea'. I wonder what he discussed with Captain Beefheart?
As I'm obsessed with alcoholics (and Hunter S Thompson stuff) at the moment, I would be very interested in this. Who else was in it? And who was on the cover- I'd like to order one :) Thanks
If I recall (well I cannot be bothered to run up to my bedroom and look for the thing) it had an interview (transcribed from the radio) with Vivian Stanshall, an article on The Grateful Dead, an interview with Arthur Lee in prison, an article on the five cd box set of Captain Beefheart by Jon Savage and quotes from his ex-musicians and an article on Pavement. The cover was an orange and blue kind of psychedelic affair with Captain Beefheart's floating head in the centre and the Grateful Dead's floating at the bottom. I will admit to wincing when I saw the latest issue with it's Top 100 Drug Songs. Why can't Uncut do a big article on The Mothers of Invention....Grrrrrrr.
"Venus In Furs is a list of sadomasochistic cliches that everyone knows while Penguin In Bondage is something Strange."- Ben Watson 1993
'Hunting Tigers Out In Indiah' is one of my very favourite Bonzos numbers, although I do wonder just how 'un-PC' those "dear dear oh dear dear oh me no" backing vocals might be considered in polite society nowadays. Incidentally, that's Roger Ruskin Spear who Stanshall's conversing with on the spoken section - responsible for a lot of the spoken parts on the Bonzos records. Incidentally, do you like 'Tubas In The Moonlight' from the same album? When I very first heard it, I used to think it was a bit boring, but now I think it's a fantastic piece of music - sumptuous and extremely evocative.
There are at least a couple of editions of "If It's Wednesday, It Must Be..." in existence, and there are a couple of clips from them on the "Kenny At The Beeb" double cassette. There's a fantastic jingle on there with Everett singing about Stanshall performing a 'spiffing wheeze'. Wish they'd give the full shows some sort of a release, though.
Radio Flashes was broadcast on Radio 1 in 1971, in the slot normally occupied by John Peel (who was on 'a well deserved alcoholiday' at the time). The shows were essentially quite similar to Kenny Everett's, in that they interspersed music (mainly funky prog rock and rock and roll revival stuff) with comic sketches and whimsical links. There was a running gag about sprays designed to repel unlikely animals, a mad American DJ character, and loads of messing around with form and structure including Stanshall arguing with the echo on his voice, and stopping and starting the intro to 'Penny Lane' about sixteen times before immediately playing something else. There was a running serial, 'Breath From The Pit', in which Stanshall and Keith Moon played a pair of dashing Boys Own-style heroes armed with a pair of magic trousers, and producer John Walters played their dastardly caddish adversary. Roger Ruskin Spear also played live on the show one week. As far as I know only the pre-recorded inserts survive as master recordings, although off-airs of all the shows do exist.