Being daft is something the British do very well. And there were few dafter than the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. They were certainly not stupid and, unlike many they inspired, weren’t always just clever for cleverness’ sake.
Their joyous daftness courses through the 17 audio CDs and three DVDs of this exemplary collection. For the superfan, Still Barking is the cherry on the cake – the best audio sources and collection of rarities of the band there will be. Aside from the original albums, there’s BBC sessions, a demo at the Manor and some rough-and-ready live material. For the Bonzo-curious, it’s certainly a splash into the deepest water, but very much worth it.
The “court jesters of the 60s British counterculture” are a group many know, but fewer have properly listened to. History has suggested leader Vivian Stanshall was the comic talent and lieutenant Neil Innes was the musical genius. True, but also blurred – both wrote, and the whole ensemble was a cornucopia of flair. It’s easy to see and hear the roles Rodney Slater, Roger Ruskin Spear, ‘Legs’ Larry Smith, Sam Spoons and Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell play across these discs.
The music? All over the shop. The Beatles may have had 10 different ideas on an album, but it was wholly possible for the Bonzos to have that in just one song. The template for The Rutles is clearly there in Innes’ material (What Do You Do? from Keynsham is the perfect meeting of prog and Fab), and Stanshall’s often laugh-out-loud humour acts as an impeccable bridge between The Goons and Monty Python.
Their influence on The Beatles and Python is well-known, but there are future elements of Hatfield & The North, XTC and The Beta Band
The DVDs are superb. To see the group perform Canyons Of Your Mind on Colour Me Pop is one of the best TV music performances of any pop group, ever. Although the song is a pastiche of rock’n’roll and crooners, like most of their material it is delivered with sincerity and affection.
Innes’ shocking guitar solo with Ruskin Spear laying prone, starstruck at his feet, and Stanshall reappearing with an enormous papier-mâché Dracula head, straddles that line of bewilderment and hilarity that the Bonzos walked so well.
The group’s contemporary influence on The Beatles and then Python is well-known, but there are future elements of Hatfield & The North, XTC and The Beta Band in these dense, chaotic grooves; all groups, like the Bonzos, who did too many things at once and failed to secure stardom.
The US may have had Moondog, but the UK had Bonzo Dog; Captain Beefheart had Zoot Horn Rollo and Winged Eel Fingerling, but Captain Stanshall had Sam Spoons and ‘Legs’ Larry Smith. Get lost in Still Barking, and immerse in the sheer magic, audacity and absurdity of the Bonzos.
Still Barking is on sale now via Madfish.
