Stunning news for Bonzo fans: Still Barking, the definitive boxset – a 20-disc compendium that includes remasters of all of the Bonzos’ original albums, rare and unreleased out-takes, BBC sessions, short films, vintage footage, live recordings and films of concerts in Europe and the USA – will finally see light of day on 13th December 2024.
STILL BARKING
The boxset will be accompanied by a coffee table style hardback book featuring a new essay by famed Melody Maker journalist Chris Welch, archive writings, memorabilia, photographs and Andy Neill’s detailed chronology (or, if you prefer, Cornology) of the band. A Special Deluxe edition of the set will also include a shellac 78 rpm record (let’s hope that bit can survive the tender attentions of DHL…), an etched single-sided 7″ single, reproductions of early promotional posters and booklets, plus an exclusive signed print of the boxset artwork by artist Dan Abbott.
Preparations for the launch of the boxset are now well underway. On 14th November, a special screening of The Bonzos’ December 1968 appearance on the BBC2 TV show, Colour Me Pop, and other footage at the BFI Southbank will be followed by a Samira Ahmed-hosted Q&A with the three surviving band members, “Legs” Larry Smith, Roger Ruskin-Spear and Rodney Slater, plus special guests. At The Barrier will be there and we’ll be bringing you news of the event.
We’ve been given the opportunity to have a private chat with each of those real-life Bonzo’s. We’ll be putting our questions to “Legs” Larry Smith and Roger Ruskin-Spear shortly, but first up onto the At The Barrier podium is saxophonist, clarinettist and founding band member, Rodney Slater.
Let’s get this one out of the way first: Did you really have a parrot and did it talk?
Parrots… yes I really did have a Parrot. An Amazon Yellow Front purchased at Harrods as it happened. Alas its eloquence left a lot to be desired and it either emitted bugger all or a muffled “Bugger off “ or squawky “ello” despite the endless patience of those prolifically practiced in profanities to correct this.
You were instrumental in bringing the Bonzos together. Tell us how it all came about.
The band as such would not have existed had not my flat mate, Tom Parkinson of St Martins, met Viv; Uncle Vic as he then was. A a seventeen stone red bearded giant fresh from the Merchant Navy, in the Pillars of Hercules in September 1962, enthusiastically setting out as an art student at Central and looking for somewhere to live.
Tom brought him home for the night and he stayed for three months until we were all evicted. It was the night Rocky Marciano flattened Floyd Patterson in the first round of the World Heavyweight Championship a contest; we stayed up until 3am to listen to it from America. The time was not wasted as we talked Music, surrealism, and played a word game that paired split halves of sayings, names and the like so that they became re-joined to each other randomly and Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band constructed itself.
How did that happen you might ask? Other notable contenders where British Overpants and West Indian Mouse Droppings but Bonzo it was and we invited Viv to join a raucous razz-a-ma-tazz quintet as a singer. Tom and I had just formed the band with Chris Jennings (also from St Martins) and Happy Wally Wilkes and Trevor Brown from the Royal College of Art and it was renamed the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band immediately.
I had charge of the (limited) band fund and was relied on to remind them all to turn up with their instruments and extract them from pubs to rehearsals and eventually gigs. I was lumbered with these duties until we eventually acquired a manager and roadies who could be trusted.
Do you have any recollections of the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival? Legend has it that Jim Capaldi sat in on drums for the first part of the Bonzos’ set because “Legs” Larry was ‘otherwise engaged.’ What really happened?
I recall little of this other than that Larry turned up very late and Jim Capaldi did happily play the drums for most of the set. I generally disliked crowded festivals and preferred a roof over my head and believed instruments should only be taken from their cases after darkness has fallen. This may account for my galloping amnesia.
What are your most vivid memories of working with Viv?
The whole 33 years of my friendship with Viv is really a huge vivid memory. And I will always think of Viv as a friend rather than a colleague. A larger than life complex melange of personalities and perspectives: Oscar Wilde, Hieronymus Bosch , Billy Bunter the hilarious unhinged oratory of Adolf Hitler in German that he could quote from memory but hardly understood a word of. You never knew what was coming next, the razor edged quip the lightning put down. His capacity for carrying liquid cargoes outperformed any ocean going tanker, a legendary Trencherman. When asked following a Brobdingnagian mixed grill if he would like anything to follow he replied “The same again please,“ to an astonished waitress.
Sporadically, a loose shoulder joint often became dislocated with his exaggerated arm gestures during the mimed striptease routine and the real writhing agony drew prolonged applause and laughter from an audience unaware he was being quietly led out the backdoor to A&E. Eventually the joint was successfully pinned but the heavy drinking and increasing dependency on prescription drugs (valium) brought vivid memories of what was to come, a headlong fall down a flight of stairs onto the stage where he performed the set in the horizontal unmistakably completely blotto. The dramatic appearance sporting an obviously self shaven head. An early cry for help? Viv could deliver most stuff straight faced but when he did crack he collapsed into speechless convulsions of laughter. It was a joy to behold and a happy memory.
Picture: David Redfern / Getty Images
In January, 1968, you started your residency on the TV show, Do Not Adjust Your Set.
How did the experience of working with three future Pythons (Jones, Palin and Idle) rub off on the Bonzos’ music?
The Pythons were Oxbridge, the Bonzo’s London Art School. I think they both shared the common ambition of turning the ordinary observed event into one of hilarious absurdity through the perspective of their own experience. Cross fertilisation perhaps; but no great influences.
Neil went on to write scores for their later productions. Eric Idle gave regular Sunday Champagne and Guinness gatherings attended by John Cleese, Graeme Garden, Terry Gilliam, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman and that set. One got very drunk.
Once after rehearsal I rushed from Wembley to Stamford Bridge in a taxi with Eric to watch Chelsea play an important game. After the DNAYS recording there was always a huge Chinese around a revolving table for those wishing to attend with their WAGS.
The Bonzos’ second album, The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse, was a quite radical departure from the jazz/Vaudeville skits of Gorilla. Why did you choose to head in a (can I say ‘avant-garde rock’) direction?
Very simple, our act was being stolen from under our noses after the the successful release of the twenties tinged single Winchester Cathedral. A song recorded for the composer completely by studio musicians under the name of the the New Vaudeville Band. To publicise the song and create a brand for more success an actual New Vaudeville Band was formed that performed live in the Northern Clubs. Some of the recruits were Wannabe Bonzo’s and a trumpeter who had replaced our original man Lenny Williams when ill health had made him unreliable. The result bore remarkable similarities to the Bonzos in appearance and content. Nuff’said. They know who they are.
So we upped several gears, began writing our own material and setting it in the vibes of the contemporary world whilst successfully retaining the original ethos and ambience. Partly a timely kick up the arse and of speeding up a natural evolutionary process of progress survival and development Sadly those who couldn’t make the change had to be let go; a regrettable and stressful process; as they too, were part of the band’s DNA as it was known up to that point.
So we were already writing our own original material on Gorilla and transitioning further on Doughnut from the wacky jazz and Vaudeville. Vaudeville and American word and genre. What we drew on was the tradition rooted in the English Music Hall; the remnants of which was now called Variety and was still just alive and some legendary veterans were still playing the Northern club circuit.
I can’t remember clearly why we reverted to some 78 covers on Tadpoles other than we actually liked them and saw merit in their content and were probably short on material with schedules to meet and stuff to clear up. By the time of Keynsham we had settled into our final line up with a solid bass player, Denis Cowen, and knew where we were heading. I think Keynsham produced the best music we ever played together but alas the cracks were beginning to show. With the 78s we were nearly all seasoned collectors before we met. Some of the songs were in my mother’s collection and I had been enjoying them for years. I don’t quite know what it was, a rejection of the dull, over-formal
austerity post war years that still persisted into the early 60s and a need to revert to less inhibited behaviour as had been the case in the roaring twenties response to the Great War. There was no criteria for choice if you could work out the chords and words and could shout the loudest it usually got done.
How do you think the clubland experience benefitted the band in the long run?
The Northern Clubs were indeed just the showbiz education these undisciplined art school anarchists needed. Our traditional-minded management reasoned and guaranteed a 20% or whatever it was they took. With some trepidation, we took off for Newcastle in a converted LCC Daimler ambulance at Easter 1966 for a weeks trial at The Dolca Vita and Wetherells in Sunderland. Would these Soft Southern Aesthetes survive the scrutiny of the mines and shipyards?
Happily, we need not have worried and Tyne and Weir loved it. We turned pro in July and settled into life in all those towns that had formally just been names on the football results of foggy Saturday evening clustered round the radio. At the renown Talk of the North the legendary owner, manager and dictator Joe Pullen demanded we do a false
tab, puzzled looks around the band. ‘What the fuck’s that?’ He rolled his eyes and decreed we come in on our day off and he would show us how to look as if we had finished on the penultimate number and then come back
and pretend the climax was an encore. We didn’t and were threatened to be “paid off” a phrase we were to become all too familiar with.
In every Manchester club dressing room was a notice: ”Any artiste mentioning football will be paid off immediately.” Such was the passion. Greasbrough Social Club near Rotherham was another infamous venue. It was here that the management discovered the scratch on the piano and £60 was duly deducted from our fee. It was here that at any point during your act another never to be forgotten announcement could be bellowed: “Pies uv’arrived,” followed by a commotion and scrum for the exit. Dress code was indeed inflexible but I never actually heard the words “Sorry Lad but ya can’t cum’inta’club dressed like that,” but can well imagine it.
Another world but unambiguously welcoming and friendly. The words do reflect accurately the mood and experiences of the band at the time of writing The Bride Stripped Bare by Bachelors. Initially the clubs were a week in the same place moving on the traditional Thespians’ Sunday to the next town. By now we were truly Rock one-nighters , we paid our dues. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors was a surrealistic work in glass by Marcel Duchamp. The Bachelors were a mid-sixties vocal trio from Dublin with a string of hits including I Believe, very showbiz and held in similar regard to Val Doonican by the collective Bonzo spirit.
Significance? Well some sort action to liberate the workings of the subconscious to disrupt reality no doubt.
What are your recollections of 2007’s Pour L’Amour des Chiens and that period? Why didn’t the reformed band continue?
I think this has to be understood in the context of the 2006 reunion and shenanigans. Make no mistake it was unbelievable for everyone with the sad exception of Viv to be performing together again at the Astoria and on tour. However, organisation began to drag after that and the dizzy highs were never reached again and old and new tensions crept in to climax at a much delayed return to the Astoria. So that’s why what was achieved at the Monkey Puzzle was never continued.
And so to the Box Set , the entire works – bum notes and all – brought to you at great expense (literally) but we are living through a cost of living crisis. A very fitting climax. I never thought this would happen and am extremely grateful to Snapper Records, the self styled curators and researchers of the Bonzo’s who never knowingly left a turd unturned
for seven years and to Richard Allen. I’m not sure exactly what he did but was always there to smooth the waters as he was in other less joyful occasions for the Bonzo’s. Living proof we did what we did, we were who we were, we did what we could.
Should we view this set as a final, lavish, epitaph for the Bonzos, or is there still life in the old Dog yet?
Is this the Final Episode? Logic would appear to dictate yes. There appears nothing else to construct or discover after this although I have still not heard it – at the time of writing the CD presses I got didn’t work.
Well I never imagined in my wildest dreams any one would try to challenge our right to the copyright of the band name and our intellectual property and I never thought we would be sued for fraud in the High Court for insisting that we were who we were in successfully challenging that.
So in the words of the irrepressible Fats Waller, “One never knows, does One?”
Our thanks go to Rodney Slater for this time in speaking to us. Still Barking will be available via Madfish – you can pre-order now, here.
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