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 (145Mb)  Alt Link 1/3/2023