Who are these masked men? That was the question many people were asking when a video popped up on their timeline four years ago featuring band called Orkestra Obsolete covering New Order’s “Blue Monday.” Who indeed?

Little was revealed about this talented bunch of musos other than they were performing “Blue Monday” to illustrate what a classic synth song would sound like without synthesizers. The man behind this classic piece of promo is the immensely talented Scottish musician Angus McIntyre, who is better known as a highly successful TV producer and director.

McIntyre recently uploaded the original uncolorized version of the Orkestra track to his YouTube page where he explained something of the film’s background:

A few years ago I was asked by a BBC producer to make a short three minute film about the synthesiser, and then I thought it might be interesting to do a “what if there were no synthesisers?” scenario. Or something. I roped in my pals Graeme Miller - a skilled theremin and musical saw-ist, and Sven Werner - an amazing artist who has a fantastic studio space. Sound artist and film-maker Nicola Reade and myself worked together on the overall style and approach, and I arranged and directed it using a few tricks I’d learned making Gugug videos.

Gugug videos? More on that later.

For the recording of the Orkestra’s version of “Blue Monday,” McIntyre played drums, ukulele-banjo, tongue drum, piano strings, effects, lap steel, harmonium, clavioline, and sang vocals. He’s a talented little fucker. And an all-round good guy. Also, playing/involved but uncredited on the original were Michael Pappas (camera) and Richard Anderson (double bass).
 

 
More from Angus McIntyre and Gugug, after the jump….
 

 
George Harrison’s 1976 hit “Crackerbox Palace,” the second single from his Thirty Three & 1/3 album, is one of those vaguely worded songs (Sample lyric: “Sometimes are good . . . sometimes are bad. That’s all a part of life”) that could be just about anything. It’s a happy little tune that you could project just about any happy thoughts onto while you hum along.

In actual fact, the song was written about his visit to the Los Angeles home of the great Beatnik comic, Lord Buckley, after a chance meeting with Buckley’s former manager George Grief in France. Harrison was a big admirer of Buckley (as was Frank Zappa) and thought the name of his house would make a great song title. The song includes references to both George Greif (“I met a Mr. Greif”) and to his Lordship (“know that the Lord is well and inside of you”).
 

 
Monty Python member Eric Idle directed a promo film for “Crackerbox Palace” that was shown on SNL (along with another for “This Song”) that featured Neil Innes (in drag and in other weird costumes). Harrison appeared—as himself and as “Pirate Bob” his sea-shanty singing alter ego—on Idle and Innes’ BBC Rutland Weekend Television, on the show’s Christmas special.
 

A compilation of Harrison’s bits on the ‘Rutland Weekend Television’ Christmas special
 
Continues after the jump…

 
I think it was Liza Minnelli’s bright-eyed character Eliza in Albert Finney’s film Charlie Bubbles who noted that all the pleasure in life when collected together would probably only fill a thimble when compared to all the dull, beige and unhappy moments that weigh-in by the bucketload. Strangely, perhaps, I’ve always found this a reassuring thought as it makes life an adventure to be won. It’s always gladdening, therefore, to find one of those precious little delectations that put a skip in the day. Such a delight, well for me at least and hopefully for you too, is the Bonzo Dog Band’s short film The Adventures of the Son of Exploding Sausage from 1969 or thereabouts. This little vintage piece of Bonzology turns up now and again like some long lost friend, but usually disappears with the speed of a unauthorized clip of Prince getting his groove on.

I have loved the Bonzos since being smitten by their presence on Python-forerunner series Do Not Adjust Your Set when a very young thing, and was genuinely more disappointed by the news of their disbandment than by the break-up of The Beatles, or the retirement of Ziggy Stardust or the demise of The Young Ones after only two series. Why this should be has everything to do with the sheer pleasure to be found in their music—their love of novelty tunes, their ability to pastiche pop and an unruly genius for original and unforgettable songs. It is as if The Goons, Monty Python and The Beatles had formed a band.
 

 
The Adventures of the Son of Exploding Sausage is like the Holy Grail of Bonzo clips. It’s their take or version or whatever you want to call it of the Fab Four’s Magical Mystery Tour (which, of course, the Bonzos are in themselves, singing “Death Cab for Cutie” in the strip club scene), where similarly not very much happens, other than a trip out to the country, a visit to a farm, a meeting with some children, a game of football and a performance of the songs—“Rockaliser Baby,” “We are Normal” and “Quiet Walks and Summer Talks.” It’s a bit like the 1960s as a film—indulgent, fun, bubbly and rather messy.

This won’t be to everybody’s taste, but then again, why should it be? If you know it, you’ll enjoy it. If you don’t, why not give it a try?
 

 
Bonzos bonus clip at the Plumpton Jazz & Blues Festival, 1969, after the jump…

 
“Saddlebags, saddlebags,” was an utterance that could be heard around my local school yard during the mid-1970s. We used it to signify someone talking absolute bollocks or, as an extended form of et cetera, et cetera whilst channeling your best Yul Brynner. More importantly, it was the demarcation line between those who grew-up with the Norwegian Blue of Monty Python and those who fell under the influence of Rutland Weekend Television from whence the term “saddlebags” came. Of course, part of the reason for this generational shift was age and viewing access—Python had kicked-off on very, very late night TV in 1960s, while Rutland Weekend bounced into my life at the sensible and dare I say, neatly turned-out time of nine o’clock in the evening.

Rutland Weekend Television was a spin-off from Python, the brainchild, creation and vehicle for the multi-talented Eric Idle. The Pythons have often (rightly) described themselves as being like The Beatles of comedy. There’s John Cleese and Graham Chapman as the sarcastic and ambitious John Lennon; Michael Palin and Terry Jones as the nice but bossy Paul McCartney; Terry Gilliam as a kind of hybrid Ringo Starr (with a possible hint of Keith Moon); and Eric Idle who is the George Harrison of the band—which probably explains why Harrison and Idle were such good friends. (Harrison made a guest appearance on the RWT Christmas special as a pirate.)
 

 
After the final TV series of Monty Python in 1974, each member had gone off to make their own solo “album.” Cleese had left just before the fourth series, which certainly imbalanced the show’s dynamic, to make Fawlty Towers. While Jones and Palin devised the delightful Ripping Yarns; Gilliam moved into movie-making with Jabberwocky; and Idle published his brilliant and often pant-wettingly hilarious novel Hello Sailor (apparently first written in 1970) and the series that certainly opened my eyes to the potential of television comedy and the genius of Eric Idle, Rutland Weekend Television.
 

 
Idle’s concept for Rutland Weekend Television was brilliant but simple: a TV broadcast station in Rutland (a tiny—but real—landlocked English county in East Midlands) from where a continuity presenter introduces a series of films, musical numbers, documentaries, light entertainment and chat shows. The format gave creator and writer Idle to show-off his incredibly inventive magpie-like talents with which he lampooned every kind of TV and film genre—and many of his ideas would later be reused by other (lesser) talents.

From its opening credits and introduction from mine host, a cloying, simpering, insincere idiot as you can imagine, I was hooked. This was comedy gold that tapped into a generation who had been weaned on TV and understood the inventive and playful way in which Idle spoofed the format and language of television. In the opening episode, the sketch that confirmed (for me) this was definitely classic and important TV featured Eric Idle and Henry Woolf speaking nothing but gibberish:

Eric Idle: Ham sandwich, bucket and water plastic Duralex rubber McFisheries underwear. Plugged rabbit emulsion, zinc custard without sustenance in Kipling-duff geriatric scenery, maximises press insulating government grunting sapphire-clubs incidentally.

(It’s the “incidentally” at the end that makes this quote seem all too plausible, especially in a decade where language was being mutated by Marxist sociologists into into utterable, alienating, dystopian bilge, incidentally.)

This was literate intelligent comedy that destroyed the whole artifice of television interviewing and its use of intonation to express thoughts and emotions in one fell swoop. This was also the sketch where “saddlebags, saddlebags” came from, as you can imagine. It was like watching a great scene by Harold Pinter or Samuel Beckett. Indeed, Henry Woolf who was one of RWT‘s regular cast members was the very man who had original produced and directed Pinter’s first play and was friends with the playwright from his early years.
 

 
Not only was there Idle and Woolf but the genius of Neil Innes from the Bonzo Dog Band (who had previously worked with Idle, Jones and Palin on the legendary children’s series Do Not Adjust Your Set), David Battley and Gwen Taylor. The series was made on a miniscule budget (knowing the BBC probably a bus pass, a table and chairs and some paint), but the lack of funds hardly stifled Idle’s startling invention. If ever there was a man deserving to be called the heir to Spike Milligan then it is certainly Mr. Idle—though this two bit typist believes Eric is greater than Spike for a variety of reasons. Of course, the most famous spin-off from RWT was The Rutles—Idle’s mockumentary All You Need Is Cash—which grew a life of its own with Neil Innes’ brilliant songs.

Alas, RWT only lasted two series and a spin-off book and album (which I still proudly own), and has (to the best of my knowledge) never been repeated by those anonymous controllers at the BBC. Worse no DVD has ever been issued, which has nothing to do with Mr. Idle (I have personally been assured) but all to do with the Beeb. Thankfully, some absolutely delicious bastard has uploaded the whole series onto YouTube, so you can now see what you’ve been missing, as you can imagine.
 
More from Rutland Weekend Television, after the jump…

Neil Innes as “Ron Nasty,” right. There will be a partial Rutles reunion later this month in the UK.

Because this interview already runs quite long, I don’t want to burden the text with much of a preamble. I think my feelings about the music of the great Neil Innes are pretty clear from the opening question (and if you want to know how I really feel...), but if they aren’t I’ll point you in the direction of an earlier Dangerous Minds post that I wrote about him that has lots of video clips.

The following, wide-ranging interview was conducted via email back and forth primarily while Neil and his wife Yvonne were visiting some of her relatives in Norway. As anyone who has gotten an email from me since 2009 knows, I have a quote from an Innes-penned Bonzo Dog Band song as my sigfile [“There are no coincidences, but sometimes the pattern is more obvious.”] so we used the secret word “Groucho” in the subject line so a search through my Gmail didn’t bring up 60,000 results.

As there is a newly released “Le Duck’s Box Set” of Neil’s three CD Recollections anthology, which includes a bonus DVD of sixteen videos from his Innes Book of Records TV series of the late 1970s and early 80s, that’s more or less where we started:

Richard Metzger: As a big fan of your music since I was very young, I will unashamedly state that I think you’re one of the greatest songwriters that Britain has ever produced. As a fan, I also find it frustrating that your work doesn’t really get the attention it deserves, but it must come down to the fact that you’ve effortlessly mastered so many musical genres that you just can’t be pigeonholed. “Le Duck’s Box,” the new retrospective of your Collections collections available from your website roams all over the place stylistically—an Elton John pastiche, country and western, dub reggae, punk, “New Wave,” Eurovision cliches, Stevie Wonder—and it’s absolutely pitch perfect every time. You’re not a parodist like Weird Al, but neither are you a “wry” songwriter in the mold of Ray Davies, either—compare your idea of “Shangri la” to his—or Loudon Wainwright III.

Your music is as beautiful as it is funny, but it’s an art form that stands apart. Where do you see yourself fitting in or are you perhaps more properly viewed as a genre consisting only of yourself—as many, myself included, would argue?

Neil Innes: Wow! What a question! Is there a short answer? No.

Yes I am different. I don’t try to “fit in.” The Music Business is well known for it’s systematic cultivation and exploitation of sentimentality for financial gain. We all know that. I am an observer. I am more like a painter than a songwriter, more of an artist than a salesman. I am an idiot.

My work gets all the attention it needs. Those who come across it seem to understand it – and even enjoy it – it is successful in its own small, one to one way. True - it is not easy to “pigeonhole” or describe - but I like that.

Why? Because I believe History has proved that Naming and Measuring does not necessarily mean understanding. Aristotle wrote 3 books on Physics – then a 4th - all about what could NOT be named and measured. He called it “Metaphysics.” I’ll settle for being “a far cry from anything you can put your finger on.”

It’s the same with “genres.” Whether it’s a likeness or a shared feeling, Art can only parody Nature because Parody is the nature of Art. Art is a make-believe game that runs through the centuries, from cavemen to CEOs. Never quite the real thing or the whole story because the whole story is forever beyond human experience.

We are once upon a time things. As sociable creatures we strongly feel the need to follow rules of conformity and the desire to accumulate wealth and be admired by others would appear to be top of the list. But I would argue that we all too easily forget that each one of us consists of as many cells as there are stars in the Milky Way. And that’s just one galaxy. Hollywood? Fame? Don’t make me laugh! Oh all right – go on then… once upon a time there were two Irishmen – now look how many there are! Thank you Abbott and Costello… wait a moment - there IS a short answer - “Absolutely!”

Richard Metzger: Maybe you’re the last vaudevillian?

Neil Innes: Maybe I am. Glad I wasn’t the first Vaudevillian - it must have been terrifying!
 

 
Richard Metzger: The box set is from the era of your Innes Book of Records TV series and there’s a DVD of several clips from that. Until YouTube and bit torrenting came around, that material went largely unseen for decades, even by your biggest fans. I feel like IBOR is really your magnum opus—you’re carrying the whole thing creatively, musically and you’re in practically every shot as a performer— in a sense, IBOR is kind of like your take on Vaudeville, isn’t it?

Neil Innes: Well, if by Vaudeville you mean “Variety” – then yes – I’m guilty as charged. When Ian Keill, (the producer of Rutland Weekend Television), expressed a desire to make a kind of Rutland Weekend Songbook, we naturally followed in the best BBC tradition and had lunch.

Over soup we heartily agreed that putting pictures to music is a lot of fun, allowing, even demanding, a more abstract approach to entertainment than mainstream television. Over Mains, with a good wine, we discussed how Television has always sadly lacked the basic confidence that viewers are indeed sentient individuals with some kind of emotional equilibrium and that this is why it is constantly “in your face.” Dessert brought the euphoria of a title: “The Innes Book of Records.”

And so it was decided. We would make “Songs and Pictures about People and Things.” But we also agreed that if anyone began to wonder what on earth it was all about – then we would have failed. I suppose there is a lot of “me” on screen but the truth is we didn’t have that big a budget. Michael Palin was a guest and only got the minimum Actors Union rate! IBOR depended on variety, surprise and the unexpected. It was a little “in your face” – but in a laid back way. It was only television after all…

Richard Metzger: I noticed that you’ve got a petition to get the BBC to rerun IBOR on your website. They should! I’ve only seen it myself in recent years and it’s still totally fresh. Surprisingly so—a parody of punk rock from 1979 effortlessly achieves greater authenticity in 2013! (Lucky for you, the same can be said of virtually every genre that you’ve dabbled in.) IBOR would go over great with a generation raised on things like The Mighty Boosh.

Neil Innes: I suppose we were blazing a trail back then – the Music Business was just about to discover “videos” – but I have always loved all kinds of music. As a child I used to conduct the radio with a ruler – and a bare bottom - just before my bedtime diaper. And as “Bonzos,” we reveled in every kind of music. “Pop” music is totally about all kinds of music – much of it very silly! You can’t let all that silliness go prancing by without a little hoot or a catcall!

Yes – I’ve put up a petition – because people are forever asking me if the BBC is going to show it all again – or put it out on DVD. But the number of signees is not all that encouraging, considering we had a peak of 7.5 million viewers in the second series. By the third series, the BBC did me the honour of treating me like Monty Python – changing broadcast times and even cancelling because of snooker. Maybe THEY don’t like it – too weird? It could be that the petition is in the wrong place – my IBOR website is the poor cousin to neilinnes.org – 15 years old this month! Thank you Bonnie Rose and Laurie Stevens! Anyway, what will be will be – there’s an idea for a song – I’m with Duke Ellington when he said: “There are two kinds of music – good and bad.”
 

“How Sweet to Be an Idiot” Sound like something else you’ve heard before, perhaps?
 
Richard Metzger: That makes for a very easy segue to the next question: “So what was it like to collaborate with Oasis?” I found it delightfully ironic that the world’s most flagrant Beatles… well, wannabes, got sued for ripping off the world’s finest forger of Lennon and McCartney!

Neil Innes: Ah! First of all let me say that Oasis were perfect gentlemen and no one actually got sued! Yes, they had to part with money but that was all sorted out by EMI Music Publishers Ltd. “Their people” were hung out of the window by “my people.” I got “whatever” scraps they threw me! (Ha!)

It was the same with The Rutles. The Music Business is like a school where Big Boys come and take your candy away. No other business in the world gets away with Stealing like the Music Business – apart from Banking.

Yes – on second thoughts – Banking AND the Music Business are the only enterprises in the World that are actually based on Stealing. There ought to be a law against taking stuff that does not belong to you. It should be written in stone.

What gets me is the Denial! Did you know there are 14 songs hidden away in the vaults of International Copyright that are credited to “Innes, Lennon and McCartney”? It’s all there – in black and white! However - under no circumstances am I to be credited for writing any “part” of these compositions. What’s more, I am forbidden to tell anyone this! Yes! It’s all there – in the so-called Settlement Agreement. So – if anyone wants to cover one of the first Rutle songs – like Galaxy 500 did with “Cheese and Onions” – remember - it has to be just “Lennon/McCartney” on the cover or the label.

Now, working with THOSE guys was a blast! I’ll never forget it…
 

 
Richard Metzger: Whoa, wait a minute, back up, there… What exactly happened?

Neil Innes: You mean with Lennon and McCartney? Nothing happened! That’s my point. But according to the legal eagles of the music industry I must have collaborated with them in order to write those first 14 Rutle songs. That’s the real irony – people have been copying the Beatles ever since they became the most acclaimed haircuts in the world. No other beat group has influenced popular music more than the Fab Four.

They were famous for being “inventive” – playing with all kinds of genres – and “experimental” - keeping their “creativity” alive and fresh by openly celebrating a vast variety of musical influences. You could argue that not one Beatles song is like another – certainly not in the later years.

But when you imitate them deliberately – whether for comic effect or to simply demonstrate how much you admire their craftsmanship – the music industry throws the book at you. Yet I had no “Criminal Intent” – I should have been allowed to walk free – just like those Banking Fraudsters of 2008. Bradley Manning’s Defense Team take note! “NO CRIMINAL INTENT”!

What actually happened was, when ATV Music [then owners of Northern Songs] threatened my publishers with legal action, my “people” were advised that they would certainly win but it was unlikely they would be awarded “Costs.”  ATV Music had a “slush fund” of a million dollars to file lawsuits against Beatles copyright “infringements.” It’s always about the money. I really wanted it to go to court - so my publishers opted for a “Settlement Agreement.”

Two years later, after my deal with them was over, my publishers demanded an extra album from me because they claimed I had delivered an album of non-original material! The nerve! I told them to “fuck off”… and they did.

Richard Metzger: That’s astonishing. What a shitty act of corporate intimidation. I presume this means a Rutles musical on Broadway would be unlikely? I’ve read that Paul McCartney was “chilly” to All You Need Is Cash at the time. I wonder if he gets the joke by now?

Neil Innes: I don’t think Paul has any issues with me, or Ricky or John. We pretty much just did the music. I think a bit of teasing is OK if you do it in a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink,” way – but Eric did make quite a few cheap shots in the movie – maybe that’s why Paul was a bit chilly and didn’t see the funny side of it. 

The Rutles on Broadway is about as likely as a new musical based on old Monty Python sketches called “Hello Polly”!

Richard Metzger: So the odds are better than I’d have thought… fifty/fifty?

Neil Innes: Actually, it’s not a bad idea – there have been worse!
 

 
Richard Metzger: You’re writing from Norway, what are you getting up to there?

Neil Innes: Visiting some cousins-in-law, Yvonne’s relatives. This place is another planet. Huge mountains, some above the tree line. Still plenty of snow on the tops, dribbling into long thin waterfalls… No sign of a Norwegian Blue, so stop that now!

We have a small cabin by the side of a lake-sized fjord that leads into a bigger fjord that stretches all the way to the North Sea and then to the Atlantic and the rest of the World and the surrounding Universe. We have a small boat that takes 15 minutes to get to the shop. It’s a great place to write.

Richard Metzger: Sounds lovely!

Neil Innes: It is.

Richard Metzger:  What sort of material does such an idyllic location inspire?

Neil Innes:  Wool. Thick wool.
 

 
Richard Metzger: What are you writing about?

Neil Innes:  I thought you’d never ask! ME! The full working title is: “How Sweet To Be An Idiot – An Exploration of Human Consciousness – featuring the Life and Times of Neil Innes – Ego Warrior, Style Guru and Fantasist.”

Richard Metzger:  Will there be at least a partial reunion of The Rutles at the Edinburgh festival in August?

Neil Innes:  Yes – and no. The Edinburgh Festival ends the day before we play – and yes, Barry Wom will be there and he’s quite partial as far as reunions go. He was a noisy part of the original Rutles on Rutland Weekend Television. He invited me to gig with his band called Fatso and we went out as Neil Innes and Fatso. Then they became the RWT “house band” - known as “The Alberto Vasectomy Five” until the BBC objected – then they were called “The Alberto Rewrite Five”.

But going back to the “Le Duck’s” Box Set for a moment, there is a FREE DVD with 16 top quality clips from Innes Book of Records and if you care to visit the website, you can click on “free dvd” and check out whether or not “Elvis and the Disagreeable Backing Singers” is on there – if not it’s definitely on YouTube – John Halsey [Barry Wom] is wearing a blonde wig.

And talking of Elvis, a friend of mine who is researching a book just told me Elvis was a huge Monty Python fan and adored Holy Grail. Apparently he knew every word and could do all the voices. Now, since I played the “Obnoxious Minstrel” that makes me one of a very select few to have been impersonated by “The King.” I am very happy to be inducted into that Hall of Fame.

This is my jam: “Angelina” by Neil Innes & The World. Download an mp3 file here

Richard Metzger: What are you currently listening to or what are your DIDs?

Neil Innes:  I’m not sure what you mean by “DIDs” – Dissociative Identity Disorders? But then you would have asked; “Who are your DIDs?”…

Anyway, I’m not sure “Dissociative Identity” is a Disorder. According to Wikipedia: “No systematic, empirically-supported definition of “dissociation” exists.” And you can’t get round it by calling it “Multiple Personality Disorder either. Multiple Personalities make up the entire Human Race – “The Apes Who Play With Fire” - and inside each and every one of us is a Baby, a Toddler, a Schoolchild, a Teenager, a Binge Whatever, a Wannabee – we are all like Russian Dolls. These people never go away – even when you ask them to - where can they go?

I suppose what I’m saying is I find it really difficult to answer simple questions like “What are you listening to?”

Music most listened to lately: Django Reinhardt - vintage recordings from the 30’s (Jazz that Hitler tried to stop) and Ry Cooder’s “Mambo Sinuendo” – brilliant “Easy-Listening” virtuosi stuff that Hitler would also have stopped - if he could… What else? A French compilation CD of music chosen by Woody Allen for his movies – “de Manhattan a Midnight in Paris” – from Duke Ellington to Josephine Baker with a little Enrico Caruso in between…

But what has pushed all my buttons in the last week or two is a “Comedy Drama” TV series called Breaking Bad. For a start, I’m SO pleased that “Comedy Drama” has become a genre at last! This program elevates television to where it should be – exploring morals and human values around the Social Media campfire. I love the elegant writing, invisible acting, editing, directing, inspired Music, the EVERYTHING! Fabulous anti-characters flailing about in coincidental flux – talk about the “Empathy Strikes Back”! Is this the new Folk Art?

Is this what Woody Guthrie would have been doing today? I truly hope so…

Thanks to the miracle of Apple TV and Netflix – Yvonne and I are working our way through Season 2 – and Season 3 is about to begin…

Does this answer what my “DIDs” are?

Richard Metzger: I think so!
 

 
Purchase the 3 CD, 1 DVD “Le Duck’s Box Set” at Neil Innes.org. Click here for information of the upcoming Rutles tragical history tour.
 

 
On Friday, Eric Idle posted a photo on Twitter of what he thinks is “possibly from a very obscure ITV one off show c 1965 featuring some of the Footlights” singing a pre-Rutles Beatles parody, “I Want To Hold Your Handel.”

Music arranger John Cameron, who later worked with Donovan and producer Mickie Most at RAK Records, started out at Cambridge University with Idle. During Idle’s time as president of the Cambridge Footlights Revue, Cameron was vice president and musical director.

Cameron described “I Want To Hold Your Handel” in the liner notes to the reissue of Donovan’s Sunshine Superman:

“[Eric Idle] and I wrote a lot of pastiches of Beatles tunes… we actually wrote a thing called ‘I Want to Hold Your Handel,’ which was the Hallelujah Chorus for The Beatles. Unfortunately Messrs. Lennon and McCartney weren’t very happy about their songs being pastiched in this way and wouldn’t allow us to do it on English territory, which was a drag, but it did go on to Broadway. Eric and I used to receive royalty cheques at the Footlights in our third year at university, which put us in a rather different spending league to anybody else!”

Idle’s penchant for affectionately spoofing the Beatles developed into The Rutles on his post-Python series Rutland Weekend Television with Neil Innes, Ricky Fataar, John Halsey, Ollie Halsall, and David Battley.

The Birth of ‘The Rutles’ on Rutland Weekend Television, below:
 

 
For fans of The Bonzo Dog Band, it doesn’t get much better than this outlandish performance shot live at the Jazz Bilzen festival in Belgium on August 22, 1969.

Well, actually had the cameras been pointed at the right place at the right times… Eventually, though, the cameramen do figure it out.

It starts off with an extended interview with Neil Innes.

Set list:

Big Shot
You Done My Brain In
Hello Mabel
I’m The Urban Spaceman
Quiet Talks and Summer Walks
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles
In The Canyons of Your Mind
Trouser Press

I’ve been conducting an interview over email with Neil Innes about his recently released Le Duck’s Box Set collecting his Innes Book of Records-era output that will be published on Dangerous Minds soon.

In the meantime, enjoy this wild video of the Bonzos in all their glory. Imagine someone doing something like this onstage today.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Neil Innes, the ‘Seventh Pytohon’: How Sweet to Be an Idiot

 
For fans of Neil Innes, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and the ‘80s British TV show The Young Ones, The Idiot Bastard Band is a wonderful mingling of these loves. The glory that is the Idiot Bastard Band currently consists of:  Ade Edmondson (“Vivian” from The Young Ones, among other roles elsewhere), Neil Innes (Bonzo, Rutle and “seventh Python”), Phil Jupitus (improv comedian who is a panel member on the BBC’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks), and Rowland Rivron (drummer, member of Raw Sex, and comedian).  Nigel Planer (“Neil The Hippy” from The Young Ones) has also been an occasional Bastard, (Sadly member Simon Brint (other half of Raw Sex and a composer) committed suicide in 2011.)

The Bastards are above all a comedic act but in the longstanding vaudeville or small town pub-closing time drunken singalong variety.  Their songs include the wartime oldie “Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Hitler?” the standard “Big Rock Candy Mountain,”  “I Was Supporting Madness,” “Flop-Eared Mule”, The Bonzos’ “I’m the Urban Spaceman,” “How She Never Had An Orgasm” and “Isobel Makes Love Upon National Monuments.” 

Ade Edmondson is already a member of the highly entertaining Bad Shepherds, who play folk versions of punk and New Wave songs with traditional acoustic instruments.
 

 

 
Above, “Eddie Don’t Like Furniture”

 
Roger McGough reads “Blazing Fruit or The Poet as Entertainer,” and talks to critic Michael Billington about his approach to writing poetry.

McGough came to fame in the 1960s, along with Brian Patten and the late Adrian Henri, as part of the Liverpool Poets. Their seminal volume of collected poems The Mersey Sound, brought poetry out of the academies and into the coffee-houses, bars, and working men’s clubs of swinging England.  As McGough said at the time:

The kids didn’t see this poetry with a capital p, they understood it as modern entertainment, as part of the pop-movement.

Associated with The Beatles, as part of the “Liverpool Explosion,” McGough went onto form the popular music, comedy and poetry group The Scaffold, with comic John Gorman, and Paul McCartney’s brother, Mike McGear, which famously led to a number 1 hit “Lily the Pink” in 1968. McGough later teamed-up with Neil Innes for GRIMMS, and since the mid-1970s has been one of Britain’s best known and best loved poets.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

GRIMMS: The most incredible 70s Supergroup, you’ve probably never heard of…

 
With thanks to NellyM
 

 
Across the world tonight, millions of people are tuning-in to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. There will be the usual twinkly, pant-suited, satin-draped performers, with an excess of dry ice, singing about love, broken hearts, world peace and the weather.

While I like the idea of Eurovision, I doubt I’ll be watching, as I’ve always thought this fun competition tends to overlook better songs by greater artists, who know how to write an unforgettable tune.

The first that comes instantly to mind is “Mr Eurovision” by that great musical genius, Neil Innes.

Is there any other tune that gives the best of what Europe has to offer (in assorted cliches) with such a ludicrously catchy tune?  I am still flummoxed as to explain how the UK never took up this work of unparalleled brilliance. 

“Mr. Eurovision” originally appeared on The Innes Book of Records, which was one of the great high points in TV history, and now deserves to be repeated.

Indeed, there’s a petition to Get ‘Innes Book of Records’ back on TV!, which you can sign here.
 

 
More catchy Euro numbers, after the jump…
 

 
I’ve been listening to the music of Neil Innes a lot this week as I’ve been writing and as always, enjoying his work immensely. It’s a feast. Truly he is one of the best pop songwriters we have, a chameleon of musical styles from the earliest stages of his career. Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville, psychedelic rock, Beatles pastiches, even reggae, there’s nothing he can’t do. As Innes gets older, his genre hopping songwriting gets even better, something that can’t be said of all—or even many—of his Sixties contemporaries. Sadly, although he is undeniably a musician’s musician, Innes will probably never be recognized as such. Why? Because he’s funny, too.
 

 
Since I was a wee lad I’ve been been a fanatical fan of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, the wonderfully zany group of Dada art school rejects featuring Innes and “ginger geezer” front man Vivian Stanshall. I discovered them listening to the Dr. Demento radio show when he played their cover of “Hunting Tigers Out in ‘Indiah’” (I heard Noel Coward and The Mothers of Invention for the first time during that same show, three life-long obsessions launched that fateful evening). I ran right out and spent my birthday money on The History of the Bonzos, a two LP set with a glossy booklet filled with insane photographs and a history of the group. I loved every single song on it. Still do.
 

 
The Bonzos were much beloved of all the really heavy rock groups of the Sixties and they opened for The Who, Led Zeppelin and The Kinks. Eric Clapton was a huge fan. Paul McCartney produced their only hit, “I’m The Urban Spaceman” (under the name “Apollo C. Vermouth”) and they made a guest appearance in the Beatles’ TV special Magical Mystery Tour as the band in the strip joint playing “Death Cab for Cutie” (and yes, this is where the band got their name). If you’ve never heard their seminal albums Gorilla, The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse, Tadpoles or Keynsham (my favorite) you really don’t know as much about Sixties music as you think you do, it’s just that simple.

It’s like never hearing Captain Beefheart or The Velvet Underground and thinking you’re all clever, a glaring and unforgivable cultural blind spot, sez me.

I’ve gone out of my way for three decades now hunting down Bonzo Dog Band related bootlegs, especially video. There wasn’t a lot of it about until a few years ago when the DVD of Do Not Adjust Your Set was released. DNAYS was a hip Sixties tea-time kids show, beloved of children and parents (think Pee-wee’s Playhouse from an earlier era). It starred pre-Python Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin (Terry Gilliam did animations for the show). The Bonzos were the primarly musical performers and members of the group appeared as extras in the comedy sketches. DNAYS was thought lost for many years when the ones that were released on DVD were re-discovered. Now there is a terrific amount of “new” Bonzo material for fans like me to feast on much that has been uploaded to YouTube.
 

 
After the breakup of the Bonzos, Neil Innes continued his association with his former DNAYS co-stars by appearing and writing material for the final 1974 series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the series after John Cleese left (only Innes and Douglas Adams were ever given writing credits outside of the six Pythons during the show’s history). Innes appears in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the annoying minstrel and singing his memorable Dylan parody, “Protest Song” (“I’ve suffered for my music and now it’s your turn…”) in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Post-Python, Innes and Eric Idle created the wonderful Rutland Weekend Television series (think Brit version of SCTV) and Innes went on—solo, I think he and Idle had a falling out—to The Innes Book of Records, a musically-oriented comedy series., quite ahead of its time.
 

 
And of course there were The Rutles in All You Need is Cash, Idle and Innes’ adroit parody of the Beatles. Innes went on to a number of children’s shows in the 1980s and 90s such as Puddle Lane. He tours solo and with others and has reformed The Bonzo Dog Band for a reunion concert (with luminaries like Britwits Stephen Fry and Paul Merton filling in for the late Vivian Stanshall). A film was made about Innes’ life and career (and featuring many of his famous friends) in 2008 called The Seventh Python, which has never been released on DVD.

Neil Innes Official Website. Follow Neil Innes on Twitter
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
The Bonzo Dog Band: Rare and Complete version of ‘The Adventures of the Son of Exploding Sausage’

GRIMMS: The most incredible 70’s Supergroup, you’ve probably never heard of

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band: Debut appearance on classic kid’s show ‘Blue Peter’ in 1966

‘High School Hermit’: Another Delightful Moment in TV History from The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Bonus Clip: George Harrison performing “The Pirate Song” on Rutland Weekend Television in 1975.

 
A delightful moment in TV history as The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band perform “High School Hermit” (aka “Metaphorically Speaking”) on Do Not Adjust Your Set, circa 1967.

This excellent little classic was left-off their debut album Gorilla, which was a shame as it contains everything that made the Bonzos so utterly lovable.
 

 
Bonus: The Bonzos perform ‘Noises For The Leg’ take 2 from TV 1969, after the jump…
 

 
The perfectly formed Neil Innes performs a medley of 3 songs on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977. Introduced by a tongue-tied “Whispering” Bob Harris, the always delightful, Neil launches into:

01. “Testing”
02. “Catchphrase”
03. “Randy Raquel”

Tracks taken from Neil’s album Taking Off. And note the late Ollie Halsall on guitar, who was one of The Rutles.

If, like me, you want the BBC to release on DVD and rebroadcast the whole of Neil’s excellent series The Innes Book of Records, then you can sign this handy little petition. I thank you.
 

 
Bonus track: Neil performs ‘Catchphrase’ on ‘The Innes Book of Records’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Nellym
 

 
And believe it or not that solo was played on spoons - just like these ones, Blue Peter presenter Christopher Trace tells his audience, at the end of this wonderful, little clip of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band performing “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey?” on the show in February 1966.
 

 
With thanks to Vivian

 
GRIMMS was a like a collision between a busload of musicians, a van full of comics and a mobile library. As Supergroups go, GRIMMS was certainly the most original, literary and possibly hirsute, with their mix of poetry, music, comedy and theater.

Assembled from the movable parts of the Bonzo Dog Band (Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall), The Scaffold (John Gorman, Mike McGear, Roger McGough) and Liverpool Scene (Roger McGough, Andy Roberts). GRIMMS was an acronym of the surnames of the original line-up Gorman (whose idea it had been), Roberts, Innes, McGough, McGear, and Stanshall.

Neil Innes later said of the band’s formation:

“I don’t know what attracted the Scaffold to the Bonzos; we were incredibly anarchic, which was probably something shared by the Scaffold as well. Hence Grimms, this leap in the dark.”

We all know about the genius of The Bonzos, so let’s jump to The Scaffold, that strange hybrid pop band made up from John Gorman (who would go onto star in the children’s show Tiswas, and its adult counterpart OTT with Chris Tarrant and Alexei Sayle in the 1980s), Mike McGear (Paul McCartney’s brother), and poet Roger McGough, who had been one of the 3 Mersey Poets, and was a member of The Liverpool Scene. The Scaffold had chart success with their novelty records “Thank U Very Much”, “Lily the PInk” and “Liverpool Lou”, the last recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings

Liverpool Scene was the Liverpool Poets: McGough (works include Summer With Monika, After The Merrymaking), Brian Patten (works include Little Johnny’s Confession and Notes to the Hurrying Man) and Adrian Henri (The Mersey Sound), and musician Andy Roberts.

GRIMMS changed shape over the years as band members left, moved on or lost hair. These were quickly replaced by hats, wigs and some very special talents, including Keith Moon (The Who), Jon Hiseman (Colosseum), Michael Giles (King Crimson), John Megginson,  Gerry Conway, David Richards, Zoot Money, and future Rutles John Halsey and Peter “Ollie” Halsall.

Their first album Grimms was a lucky bag of comedy, poetry and music released in 1973, which included Innes’ songs “Humanoid Boogie”, “Short Blues” and “Twyfords Vitromant”, which was followed later the same year with Rockin’ Duck and in 1975 their final album the 5 star Sleepers.

Unlike most list documentaries today (which miss out on such diamonds as GRIMMS), the seventies was an incredible time of experimentation and risk-taking. In 1975, around the release of Sleepers, the BBC (gawd bless her and all who fail in her) produced a strange series called The Camera and The Song. It was like a collection of early pop promos, with a film-maker interpreting songs by different artists - some good, some bloody awful. Into this mix came GRIMMS, and here are 2 clips from the show (opening titles and songs) featuring the genius talents of Neil Innes and co. Lovely!
 

 
More from GRIMMS plus bonus track ‘Backbreaker’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Robert Dayton