I've no idea how and why Viv hooked up with the band Kilgaron and recorded these cuts for EMI's Harvest Records imprint in 1976, but bless 'em both for doing it. Cliff Richard and the Shadows recorded "The Young Ones" in 1962 and gawdalmighty it's a bucket of effluent, and Viv's drunken delivery gives it exactly what it deserves (when Rik Mayall was helping create a show about four youthful post-punk oiks sharing a flat in 1982, his character's obsession with Cliff naturally led to them naming the show after the song). "Are You Havin' Any Fun?" is a foxtrot from Jack Yellen and Sammy Fain's 1939 musical George White's Scandals, and Viv's cover is very much in the wheelhouse of the Bonzo-ic tendency to recusitate pre-war dance tunes. And "The Question", which has never been reissued on CD, is a return to Viv's penchant for doing oddball vox-pop interviews with confused civilians on the street as he once did in the classic "Shirt". (For higher-quality versions of the first two cuts, please be sure to pick up EMI's fine 2007 remaster of The Bonzo Dog Band's Keynsham.)
The Young Ones
Are You Havin' Any Fun?
The Question
Record audio & artwork
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Buckets of effluent? From the music industry??
ReplyDeleteYou must be mistaken, sir.
Buckets of effluent? From the music industry??
ReplyDeleteYou must be mistaken, sir.
One of his very finest and funniest. Surely worth more than a single shot? But as Viv insists, "I never said that!"
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