W.O.C.K On Vinyl: Bad News - The Cash-In Compilation (1987, 1993)

Before things get too serious here at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song or album at the end of each month, that could be categorized as being either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.

Spinal Tap were by no means the first spoof band. In the ‘70s, Eric Idle and Neil Innes created The Rutles, a bald-faced spoof of The Beatles that George Harrison himself gleefully got involved in, having always been a fan of the Pythons. But in the ‘80s, the year before Spinal Tap burst onto the scene, the British series The Comic Strip Presents… created a mock band that was taking the piss out of the very same era of ultra-glam, ultra-self important, hair-metal bands that Spinal Tap were poking fun at – Bad News.

The core group, though, were Peter Richardson, Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, the latter three of whom are now perhaps best known from the similarly-anarchic series The Young Ones. Its members are Vim Fuego (aka Alan Metcalfe), vocals and lead guitar (played by Adrian Edmondson); Den Dennis, rhythm guitar (Nigel Planer); Colin Grigson, bass (Rik Mayall); and Spider Webb, drums (Peter Richardson).

Their first appearance was in 1983, in the first series of The Comic Strip Presents... (written by Edmondson, and produced by Michael White/Comic Strip Productions).

The episode, Bad News Tour, took the form of a spoof rockumentary, in which the incompetent band is followed on tour by an almost equally incompetent documentary crew.

Coincidentally, it was in production at the same time as the similar film This Is Spinal Tap, which was released the following year to much greater acclaim.

The band also guested on some TV music shows and released a self-titled album, consisting of thrashy rock songs interspersed with arguments amongst the band. Brian May of Queen produced the album, which included a cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

They also played a tour of universities and polytechnics as well as playing Reading Festival in 1987. They also played a suitably bad set at the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington. This performance was featured in a second Comic Strip film, More Bad News, broadcast in 1988.

A feature of the band's performance that day which did not appear on film was an interesting method of dealing with the audience's (plastic) bottle barrage, which was a traditional and awkward welcome for some bands at the Donington festival in those days. Before the performance proper started, the band spent some time just running around on stage dodging bottles, and Mayall used his guitar as a bat in an attempt to return some. [extract from spirit-of-metal.com]

Album Review
Spinal Tap rip-off or hilarious English parody-of-a-parody? Comedy is so subjective to review -- either you laugh or you don't -- but Bad News provides more belly laughs than Spinal Tap. The essential difference in Bad News' shtick versus their Stateside counterparts is while the latter parodied the excesses of arena-rock stardom by focusing on a band good enough to be welcomed to the machine but stupid enough to be lost in it, Bad News focuses on a band that barely have enough talent to record a song -- and if you've ever spent time in a band in high school or college, the petty bickering and dumb behavior of Bad News rings true. Interspersed between several intentionally terrible (and thankfully short) songs such as "Drink Till I Die" and "Masturbike" are what sound like mainly improvised and edited routines. 

The album holds up over time, with many throwaway jokes revealing themselves only after years of listening. Recommended to fans of 1980s British humor. The CD reissue from Rhino contains the full album, plus tracks from their cassette-only release Bootleg and their Yuletide single "Cashing in on Christmas."  More information about Bad News and their 'rise to fame' can be found at culturedvultures.com

This month's WOCK On Vinyl post features one of my favourite musical spoofs - mainly because I was a big fan of the 'Young Ones' back in the 80's.  While their humour and banter is both Wicked and Clever, their musical covers and tongue in cheek 'Hair-Metal' originals are also strangely entertaining!  Ripped from CD to MP3 (320kps), this compilation features all tracks from their 1987 self-titled LP plus additional tracks from their cassette bootleg and Christmas Single. 

Folks - it doesn't get any Weirder, Crazier and Kornier than this, so prepare yourself for some serious Bad News - you'll never be the same again.

Tracks

01.  Hey Hey Bad News 

02.  Masturbike

03.  Double Entendre   

04.  Drink Til' I Die  

05.  Cashing In On Christmas Dub 

06.  Bad Dreams 

07.  Warriors Of Ghengis Kahn 

08.  A.G.M 

09.  Bohemian Rhapsody (Cover: Queen)

10.  Pretty Woman  (Cover: Roy Orbison)

11.  O Levels 

12.  Life With Brian 

13.  Bad News 

 

Personnel:

Vim Fuego (Adrian Edmondson) Lead Guitar, Vocals

Den Dennis (Nigel Planer) Rhythm Guitar

Colin Grigson (Rik Mayall) Bass Guitar

Spider Webb (Peter Richardson) Drums

Brian May - Additional Guitar on "Bad News", "Pretty Woman", "Drink Till I Die", "Life with Brian", "Cashing In on Christmas"

Bad News Link (138Mb)  New Link 16/01/2025

W.O.C.K On Vinyl - Neil: Hole In My Shoe (1984)

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Before things get too serious here at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song / album at the end of each month, that could be categorized as being either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.
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Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953 in Westminster, London) is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright. Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil Pye in the cult BBC comedy 'The Young Ones'. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray. He is also long time comedy partner with Peter Richardson.

Nigel was one of the four members of the 1980s spoof rock band, Bad News, playing Den Dennis. As Neil from 'The Young Ones', Planer gained a number two hit single in 1984 in the form of "Hole in My Shoe". The song was originally a hit single for Sixties band Traffic, reaching #2 in the UK charts and #22 in the German charts in 1967.Composed by guitarist Dave Mason, the song was disliked by the other three members of the group, who felt that it did not represent the band's musical or lyrical style.

A cover of Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" was a less successful follow up, only reaching #97 in the charts. After that, an album was produced, entitled 'Neil's Heavy Concept Album'. Nigel also took Neil's stage act on the road in that year as Neil in the "Bad Karma in The UK" tour. 

In the sitcom 'The Young Ones', Neil was one of the principal characters portraying a long-suffering hippie, who continually sang a recognisable line from "Hole In My Shoe". He also performed the song as Neil on the BBC show 'Top of the Pops', where he asked Paul Weller to "listen to the lyrics!". The single won "Best Comedy Single" at the 1985 Brit Awards during the days the event was called "The BPI Awards". The press saw the one-off award category as completely invented by the panel just for the single.

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I have chosen to include two versions of this song here, the first is the standard single release (backed by the even weirder track "Hurdy Gurdy Mushroom Man") and a longer version called the  Paranoid Version released as a 12" Single. The longer version contains addition minutes of Neil bantering on in his usual monotonic voice while being backed by orchestral music sounding very similar to that of the Beatle's Sgt Peppers.
As a bonus, I have also included a Flash video of Neil performing his hit song on the ABC's 'Top Of The Pops'.
So this months WOCK on Vinyl post ticks most of the boxes associated with its name: Weird, Crazy and Korny with a little bit of psychedelia thrown in for good measure!
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Track Listing
01 - Hole In My Shoe (Single Version)
02 - Hurdy Gurdy Mushroom Man
03 - Hole In My Shoe (Paranoid Version)
*   Plus Hole In My Shoe (Flash Video - Top Of The Pops)
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Neil's Link (43Mb)

W.O.C.K On Vinyl - Cliff Richard And The Young Ones: Living Doll (1986)

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Before things get too serious at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song at the end of each month, that could be considered to be either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.
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.Firstly, let me state for the record that I was a big fan of The Young Ones during the 80's - perhaps it was their sick sense of humour and complete disregard for social conventions and celebrities that appealed to me (and of course Rick's fascination with Cliff Richard).
The other thing I really enjoyed about 'The Young Ones' series were the bands that made cameo appearances (musical interludes) on their shows. Some bands that immediately come to mind were Motorhead, Elvis Costello and Madness.
The series was based on four mismatched university students who shared a house in North London: Neil, the hippie; Mike, the cool womanizer; Rick, a would-be anarchist studying sociology; and Vyvyan (pronounced Vivian), the punk medical student who was prone to extreme violence. Together with their bastard Russian landlord, the world of these "bachelor boys" was surreal and violent, but ultimately hilarious. Ben Elton was responsible for making this show work and along with Blackadder, The Young Ones was Ben Elton's greatest sitcom work.
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"Living Doll" is a song written by Lionel Bart made popular by Cliff Richard and the Shadows (then still The Drifters) in 1959. It has topped the UK charts twice; in its original version and a new version recorded in 1986 in aid of Comic Relief.
In 1986, 27 years after its first release, The Young Ones approached Richard to record a comic version of "Living Doll" for the Comic Relief charity. Despite the apparent contrast between the anarchic comedians and the clean cut Richard, he agreed and their version again topped the UK singles chart, for three weeks from March 1986. Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin was reunited with Richard on this recording for the first time since 1975.
This No.1 hit single was recorded in support of 'Save The Children Fund' and Oxfam with 80% of funds from the sale of this record going to the Sudan and Ethiopia and 20% to British charities via Charity Projects.
There are many references to Cliff Richard in The Young Ones, precluding their collaboration, including:
- Rick is the devoted Cliff Richard fan who recites poetry centered on his idol
- Rick's fanaticism leads to many jokes about Richard being made during the series
- The name of the show and the opening theme are taken from the Richard song 'The Young Ones'.
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So, this month's WOCK on Vinyl is yet another Crazy, Comical track by who can only be described as the Craziest (Young Ones) and most Charismatic (Cliff) partnership in show business!
Post is a vinyl rip in MP3 format (320kps) with full artwork and label scans.
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Tracks
01 - Cliff Richard And The Young Ones: Living Doll
02 - The Young Ones: All The Little Flowers Are Happy

RIP Rik Mayall  (12/06/2014)
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Young Ones Link (14Mb) New Link 11/01/2023