Getting involved with Mick's recently released work reminded me of The Camodes' early effort "Wot U Lookin' At?" from seven years ago which was also a concept album. That thing was dodgier than an entire jammy dodger biscuit factory. The songs came first followed by the concept, which was a half-arsed attempt at stringing a few songs together into some kind of coherent tale. The narrative went something like this:"...I remember him as a very curious fellow. His name was Jack Raffles and he was born in Wiltshire in the early seventies. Sometime during his teenage years, the whole family moved to the east end of London - not that he had any choice in the matter - his parents were getting more concerned that the local yokels of the village were starting to have a bad influence on a young and impressionable Jack. A clean break from those weird inbred antics was what they all needed.
As soon as Jack was old enough to leave school empty handed of any qualifications, he promptly enlisted into the army. That was the first of many mistakes that he would come to make in his adult life. He became a Gulf War veteran and contracted the syndrome that plagued some of the squaddies who had come back alive from Operation Desert Storm. But on his return Jack was still being bullied by his superior, a large meat-headed shit known to his privates as Corporal Bastard. The usual idiotic shenanigans of heads held down the toilet and flushed were de rigueur and it went on because the officers still turned a blind eye to that sort of entertainment.
Jack hatched a plan to escape. Had he lost his senses? After all, he could've waited for a medical discharge. But his suffering had brought on an urgent impatience which meant he was soon AWOL and on the run. Jack decided to seek refuge with an old forces' sweetheart, a comely middle-aged woman the lads knew as "Welcoming Wendy" who was no stranger to the barracks. However, Wendy had found herself another regular 'passenger' in the shape of Corporal Bastard. On discovering this abysmal news, Jack's temper erupted like an uncontrollable Vesuvius (he had actually caught the two of them in the act, you know...cavorting with each other!) and bursting at the seams with rage he killed them. In addition to this carnage, Jack accidentally murdered Wendy's mother who had only popped by to pick up the laundry. Great. On the run again, that's what falling head over heels in love does to you. Silly bugger. This time it was more difficult to remain invisible. Army, police and journalists were on his tail.
A chance meeting with Georgie, an illiterate scaffolder, seemed promising. One day, whilst working on the roof of the local Freemason's lodge, Georgie had ear-wigged in on a conversation involving a plan for a gold bullion heist. Having had previous experience of arson and on remembering the blabbermouths' illegal scheme, Georgie proceeded to set fire to the building with the would-be masonic robbers trapped inside. Surely this would be a win-win situation? Georgie, who was a few grapes short of a decent Beaujolais, had a general, carefree attitude but 'carefree' can go hand-in-hand with 'stupidity'. "Bollocks" he thought. Why sacrifice the rest of your life as someone else's donkey? Take a chance and do something worthwhile with it. Georgie thought he had a sure fire winner on his hands. "Get in there, my son".
It was now down to Jack, Georgie and a ragtag bunch of associates to swipe the gold that was en route by train to the smelting plant. The dream was to launder the booty into Spanish timeshare villas where they would retire comfortably in the arid and anonymous scrub land of the Andalusian mountains, though not too far from the coast.
And do you know what? To this day I've never found out whether they made it."
As you can see, the ending has been left open and it will soon be time to write the follow up. What do you think should happen to the characters (the ones that are alive)? Anything can happen, in fact, the more bizarre the storyline is, the better. But this time the story will be worked on fully before the music gets shat out. I did have an idea about a John Motson type character who time travelled back and forth in a banana shaped space ship to interact with the characters but I think that's already been done...
You can download the album free of charge below. God help you.
A horrendously organised European tour by the second guitarist's fiancee (Anvil would go on to play at their wedding reception) sees the metal outsiders perform to audiences of thousands, diminishing to hundreds and eventually to no more than five people at one particular venue. It's at this point that you stop laughing at the band and you start sympathising with them and at what is a highly demoralising exercise in entertainment. How despairing it must feel to have a manager as useless as Ian Faith when your audience becomes "more selective".
So, to last night in south London. Was it the same without 
This competition is being held by none other than the old fogeys' favourite hairy-arsed music magazine 
4.30am
