Tales From The Bottom Of The Glass (1)

This is the first in an occasional series of cynical blasts and bile-filled spleen-venting from Roger McNasty, our man at the bar, located somewhere in the back of beyond of the cerebal cortex of Astounded By Sound!

McNasty, a man with the whiff of stale alcohol and with the lived-in look of a soon to be demolished tower block sits at the bar of the muso's pub of choice "The Taming Of The Crew" nursing a two-thirds empty bottle of JD while observing muso life walk in and out of his severely disturbed psyche.

Well, there I was sat on my usual bar stool...well, truth be known, I was stuck to it, but that's another story; when who should amble up to the bar but Chris Gentlemass, the nine-foot bass player with Yes copyists Suncottage Jelly Mallet, nine times winners of CRPP's Fragile At The Edge award. "'Ow do Chris?" sez moi "How's tricks in the world of slavish mimicry?" Then he regales me with this sordid tale:

Apparently their singer, one Jon "Akkers" Stanley has been poached by their raison d'être to replace Benny Davids as the latter had the temerity to sneeze on the tour bus and so was booted off with absolutely no ceremony at all. This leaves our heroes with the dilemma of finding a new high-pitched warbler, and let's face it, elfin-voiced blokes are a bit thin on the ground these days. Of course, Jon was delighted to be joining Yeah!, and so, arming himself with ten years' supply of anti-flu jabs disappeared over the horizon of sanity, never to be heard of again.

Anyway, Chris tells me he was wiling away a dystopian nightmare at the karaoke evening down his local sink estate watering hole The Lardarse And Feckwit when through a brandy induced fug he heard the note perfect rendition of I Know What I Like In Tha' (it was a Northern pub) Wardrobe. Forgetting that his band of musical pirates filched the Yes band and not the Genesis band, Chris stumbles over to said tonsil-wobbler and asks if he would care to join his group. The lad, whose barely feasible name was Steve Kafziel, was so good, sez Chris, that he was willing to overlook the fact that the new front man was so fat he could barely move and that he had a severe body odour problem.

Upon turning up at the band's rehearsal rooms; actually the shed on Chris's dad's allotment...it was a tad cramped, the drumkit was on the cabbage patch outside; the rest of the band were horrified, especially guitarist Dave Who who had a such a bad reaction to the acrid smell of Steve's nasal hair shredding scent he had go outside and throw up all over Gentlemass Snr's rhubarb. Added to that was the hilarious sight of Steve getting stuck in the doorway, trapping the other band members inside. The fire brigade were called and the shed had to be taken down. The firemen wore gas masks as protection against Steve's increasing pong, now causing the runner beans to visibly wilt.

Retiring to the pub, minus Steve, who was taken away for a shower, drummer Alan Black (stepson of Jet) pointed out that a singer who sounded like Peter Gabriel might not work...but how about changing tack and becoming a Genesis copy? Great idea thought the rest of the band but we'll have to change our name...how about Watch The Massive Charabanc?

Laugh? Well, I snickered a bit, laughter doesn't come easy to a cynical bastard like me. I then fell off my stool, leaving the seat of my pants stuck there...so I was later told, I can't actually remember.

Until next time, yours witheringly, Roger McNasty.