The Red-Nose Burglars are (L to R):
Tim Beaton, Dympna LeRasle, Peter 'The Pervert' Milest, Ivor, Laurie Bamford
and Roy
(missing: Jilly-B and Samantha Sanns).
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Meanwhile, work continues on the next album, entitled "Handling Swollen Goods". Ivor, the cantankerous, miserable, difficult bastard that he is, has decided to re-do two of the songs at the eleventh hour. His original version of the duet with the late, great Judge Dread is, declares Ivor, "in need of a f@#*ing tidy-up" to be worthy of his illustrious collaborator. The original recording is in a very strange format, 16 track dolby on 1" tape. Somehow the old member manipulator has to find a cheap studio than can cope with it. "That's easier said than done", says Ivor "as opposed to cunnilingus, which is the other way around". (Those who have ever tried cunnilingus the other way around will probably be baffled by that remark).
The finished version of the troublesome "Premature Ejaculation Waltz" (see previous items on this site for the never ending saga) has now been rejected by the ancient trouser-disturber, because "it still doesn't sound filthy enough". A new bass-line and a new sound-mix has resulted in a backing-track Ivor seems happy with. The disgusting premature ejaculation sound effect has been pronounced "insufficiently life-like" by Ivor and he has produced a new one (don't ask how!). This will be overdubbed onto the new backing-track, together with a new vocal, recorded at Bigguntone Studios in the near future. Producer Jilly B and Ivor will produce the final mix there too. Lucky bastards who have the pre-release tape copy of "The Premature Ejaculation Waltz" in its earlier version now have a Biggun rarity on their hands.
This next album will be put out by Steve Webbon as STIFF WEAPON's second release, if the "Fruity Bits" makes a profit. Otherwise the blistered-palmed serenader will have to release it on his own. So, you see, THE MATTER IS IN YOUR HANDS! (no change there, then). If you would like to hasten or lubricate the progress of Ivor's oeuvre, then all the more reason to log a hit onto the www.amazon.co.uk site!
The Red-Nose Burglars are (L to R):
Tim Beaton, Dympna LeRasle, Peter 'The Pervert' Milest, Ivor, Laurie Bamford
and Roy
(missing: Jilly-B and Samantha Sanns).
Well, things have hit a bit of a slow-down at the moment. Right in the middle of a complicated and hectic schedule of writing, recording and re-mixing, Ivor has decided to UPGRADE his famous antique recording studio. He has installed an old FOSTEX 8-track reel-to-reel recorder, thereby bringing the studio kicking and screaming out of the early 4-track seventies into the late eighties! It's a bit like casting off flared jeans and donning legwarmers.
Unfortunately, this means a period of re-building and re-wiring, and a longish period of brain re-adjustment for Ivor, as he comes to...er..grips with the 'new' technology. "Anything more complicated than a wheelbarrow, and I'm completely stuffed" confides the uni-dextrous genital manipulator.
The good news is that the extra track capability will allow Ivor to er...handle more complicated arrangements, notably on the 'Premature Ejaculation Waltz'. (UPDATE This song is now-rewritten, twice as filthy as before and part-recorded. It will be finished as soon as Ivor can get his leaden fingers around a particularly bastardacious lead guitar part.)
More good news is that the 'LIVE AT THE GUN' section of the album (Ivor and the Vulgar Band 'live' at the Gun Tavern, Croydon, Surrey) is now COMPLETELY MIXED in its final version, and an off-line edit has been produced. The section is approx 24 minutes long, and the final list of tracks is as follows:
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The song about the caveman who invented masturbation (well somebody must
have done!) still lacks a title, but has been COMPLETED and MIXED. As we
mentioned in our last up-date, Ivor had discovered a 16-track analogue
studio in nearby Chiswick, West London, run by a character called Wiggy.
Wiggy has a web site called
Produced by Wiggy 
A fine guitarist and keyboard player, Wiggy is also a member of Billy Bragg's band, and has produced a lot of the Barking Balladeer's recordings. Jilly B produced Ivor, and also laid down some sax riffs at Wiggy's, while Biggun supplied Vocals, a chorus of w*nkers, and a startling harmonica overdub. Whaddya mean, you didn't know that Ivor played the harmonica? Well, neither did Ivor, but having paid nearly twenty quid for a gob-iron, he thought he might as well do his best, and by a sheer fluke he "nailed the sucker" at the first take. Wiggy's mix, on basic analogue gear, has turned out even better than Ivor and Jilly B expected. Unfortunately they can't do a PLUGOLA for the studio, although they DO recommend that you check out Wiggy as a great sound-engineer. The studio was taken apart (fumigated?) and moved to Wiggy's new house the day after Ivor's visit. The saga of the w*nking Neanderthal was the last item to be recorded in the original LEYLINE STUDIO. Keep an eye on the music press for the new premises, Ivor and Jilly B can recommend Wiggy. |
Speaking of studios, a new book, the On The Road Guide to British Rock and Roll presents a county-by-county view of famous pop music sites (Penny Lane, Glastonbury, Eddie Cochran's car crash etc). Illustrated therein is PATHWAY studio, in the shadow of Holloway women's prison in North London. Here Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello and Kirsty McColl cut some prime stuff on analogue 8-track. Also, an unknown combo called Dire Straits made the ORIGINAL version of "Sultans of Swing" in this small, sweaty hole. What the article doesn't mention is that Ivor Biggun, Amelia Blowhard, and pianist Robin Langridge recorded "The Winker's Album" at Pathway in late 1978. They cut twelve tracks in six days, and Ivor remembers the final session very well.
He was finishing off the last bit of the very last track, and the people booked for the next session turned up. Ivor's session was overunning by about an hour, so the new lot started banging on the studio door. Ivor went to have a word, "I opened the door," he says "and there was a bloke with a bone through his nose, and a girl with blue hair looking at me as though I was a badger turd. I asked them what the name of the band was, and they said "We're the Unwanted!", and at that particular moment they certainly were!". Careful listeners may just spot some of their doorbanging. It is very quiet and smothered in echo on the final track of "The Winker's Album".
OK folks, by the time of our next UPDATE, things should be er...firming up with regard to the CD running order, and the final versions of "The Yodelling W*nker", "Dorothy Please Trim Your Minge", "Ukelele Lady", "Down By The Riverside" and "The Premature Ejaculation Waltz".
We should also have details of Ivor's session with the all-Ireland champion tenor banjo player.
Stay tuned!
The two tracks featuring the MYSTERY VETERAN CLARINET PLAYER (who has played in proper BBC-type-Latin-American-orchestras-of-which-you-have-actually-heard) are complete and sound superb despite having been recorded on antique reel-to-reel steam four-track in Bigguntone, Ivor’s own studio.
Roy and Peter with their ears on
'Dorothy Please Trim Your Minge', a languid 50’s style calypso, features the veteran in a four-piece woodwind section (baritone-sax, clarinet and two tenor-saxes) and a very infectious tune (don’t worry, an antibiotic cream should get rid of it). All that remains to be done to this track is a vocal overdub, and some harmony vocals. Ivor will be doing this at a proper grown-up studio (one with carpets and things), because his neighbours would be revolted if they heard him singing the words through the wall.
'Down by the Riverside' (the other toon featuring the aged reed-master) has metamorphosed from a hot-gospel song into a sort of Antipodean stomp, with horrible seaside organ, Dixieland clarinet, and ukelele obbligato. It also features Ivor 'playing' the Wobble-Board, like that used by Rolf Harris in 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport'. "It’s a bastard to keep in tempo" confided Mr Biggun, who has all the rhythmic sense of a waltzing ninety-nine-legged centipede. After about seven attempts, and a lot of editing, he finally 'nailed the sucker', but ended up with BLISTERED PALMS (true!) ...not for the first time... but never before from a musical exploit! Ivor has actually met Rolf, who signed his 45 of 'Tie Me Kangaroo'.
'The Son of the Man with the Biggest Plonker in the World' is the latest song to be completely finished and mixed ready for release. Audiences often make requests at Ivor’s concerts ("Why don’t you sod off and die" being one of the more anatomically feasible). People have also asked for a part two of 'John Thomas Allcock' the ..er..erm.. long..extended ..er..erm.. reggae work-out, and this is it. The song originally appeared as a Blondie style handbag disco toon on Ivor’s 2nd Album, 'More Filth Dirt Cheap', featuring a very young drummer Richard Stevens, who has since worked with Boy George (f’rinstance on 'Everything I Own') and George Clinton! It then transmogrified into a skanky Prince Buster style thigh-wobbler and appeared in that form ‘live’ on the 3rd Album 'Partners in Grime' as a bonus track on CD and Cassette only.
Now, a proper musician and producer who has worked on club and dance singles in Britain (and Sweden! Gosh!) has shape-shifted it into this third and final incarnation. It is Ivor’s first-ever foray into the world of computerised recording, and was programmed by 'Ivan Yujedic' (we can’t tell you his real name) then recorded by R.P Jenkins entirely on computer hard disk at Lumiere Studios, and mastered direct to DAT. This should be state of the art sound, but Ivor has managed to drag it back a decade or so, and bunged in a couple of references to 'Pop Musik' by "M", including a North-of-Wolverhampton version of the "New York, London, Paris, Munich" chant. The NEW lyric documents the young Ivor’s meeting with 'T.M.W.T.B.P.I.T.W.' in a gentlemen’s urinal, and manages to rhyme "five foot seven incher" with "Dobermann Pinscher".
'The Yodelling W*nker' now exists in the form of a complete stereo backing track, sequenced by Ivor himself on his new cheesy Casio organ. The man in the shop said he’d sound like Vangelis or Rick Wakeman. He actually sounds like John Shuttleworth on a bad night in Grimsby. "My main problem with the Casio", says Ivor, "is to stop the damn thing breaking into pre-programmed performances of 'The More I see You' and 'Isn’t She Lovely'. Getting it to perform an alpine waltz about a masturbating goat-herd took bucket-loads of ingenuity and two sets of batteries". The track now awaits the final addition of a fiddle solo (performed by the bloke who played on the "Hot Chocolate" records) as well as a lead vocal and a chorus of in-bred shepherds. We’ll let you know how that session proceeds.
'Ukelele Lady' now exists in the form of a complete stereo backing solo and soprano sax overdub. The version Ivor finally settled on (he has a whole bunch of 78’s of this 20’s Hawaiian tune) is an amalgamation of Frank Crumit’s (on HMV B 2115) and a banjo solo version by Harry Reser (on COLUMBIA 3797). Ivor still doesn’t know what that difficult chord in the intro is called, but he’d played a strange multi-pronged four-finger special which seems to work. Ivor also plays the Hawaiian Guitar (extraordinarily badly) and adds a twiddley bit on a strange Bolivian ten-stringed mandolin-thingy he bought at a boot sale last week. Jilly B will be providing the soprano sax tootle, and the uke will be played by John Penny of Bradford Abbas, Dorset. John appears on stage as 'Sid Pigsh*t' doing George Formby numbers, revolting poems, some of Ivor’s monologue, and a Dorset Rap. He’s a fine ukelele basher, with a right hand action that George Michael would be proud of. Ivor is actually taking the whole Bigguntone studio rig down to Bradford Abbas to record the lad. "It’s rather a long way", says Ivor, "but John’s wife can’t half cook!". Owners of Ivor’s 3rd album ("Partners In Grime") can hear John Penny embarrassing a Radio D.J with Biggun-related back-chat between tracks.
'The W*nking Caveman' (a working title for a throbbing George-Thorogood-meets-Billy-Cotton-Band-Show type number) is still on an old 16 track analogue tape, and Ivor has discovered a sound engineer called Wiggy round the corner in Chiswick who operates a studio that can still actually run this format (a bit like finding a live pterodactyl in your garden). Ivor and Jilly B have their first session at his studio in a few days time.
'The Premature Ejaculation Waltz' is a bit of a stop-start affair at the moment. Although Ivor performed it ‘live’ (in NICAM STEREO for Gawd’s sake) on James Whale’s late night T.V. show a while back, the bespectacled palm-pummeler has decided it needs a radical re-write. "It’s not nearly filthy enough at the moment", he moans. "Also, I discovered that the tune I wrote was a bit similar to an old Engleburp Humpingdick song. I’m keeping most of it, including the startlingly frank chorus, and changing the starts of each verse ...that’s where the Engleberty bits are.
After 'The Caveman' and 'Premature Ejaculation', work begins on a couple of Irish ceili band numbers, one about a man with an elk-skin condom, and another about a onanistic mathematician. A National Irish Champion tenor banjo player is booked to appear on these efforts. Also upcoming (if you’ll excuse the expression) is the last mixing session for the "Live at the Gun, Croydon" material, and a visit to a PROPER STUDIO in Chipping Norton to record a filthy song about a roly poly pudding (featuring at least one member of a notorious 1970’s punk group ..details next time) and a short monologue about knob-crazed sailors. Quite a full calendar, I’m sure you’ll agree.
These are 'The Snowman Song', a rollicking Phil Spector and/or Wizzard take-off, featuring the Vulgar Band and a couple of extra bods, recorded in several real recording studios (the type that cost money). The song deals with the disastrous consequences of having a donger made of snow, and was begun YONKS ago on analogue 16-track tape, in Glasstrap Studios, Southall, Middx. An overdub version (featuring a proper guitarist, Elan Polushko and a few more embellishments), took place in Cricklewood, and another overdub version and final mix-down (all digital this time) put the tin hat on it in St Mary's Studio, Perivale, Middx in April 98. Ivor and producer/saxophonist Jilly B describe themselves as 'very pleased' with the finished item. So chuffed were they, that they also recorded a version with a clean lyric, suitable for air-play of the off-chance that any radio station might want to interview the notorious member-manipulator on-air.
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The second fully-finished track is another Christmas song, 'All I Want
For Christmas is a Great Big Dong'.
This began life as a basic drum-program and bass-sequencer foundation at
(Ivor's drummer) Nigel Appleton's home studio. Andy Hyam, the
Vulgar Band's regular bass player added a live base line on top (a
dum-biddy-dum-biddy-dum rhythm like 'Champion the Wonder Horse').
Pete the Professor and Jilly B added keyboards, accordian and
a huge Sax section.
This was all done at Glasstrap Studios, Southall, Middx. Vocals and mix-down
were completed on digital 16-track at St Mary's Studio, Perivale in April 98.
Mercifully, Ivor's guitar playing was kept to a minimum, consisting mainly
of a couple of Pete Townshend-style thrashes and one particular jazzy chord
that he doesn't actually know the name of.
Jilly B appears vocally as a breathy femme-fatale and you'll be
pleased to hear that there is no clean version of this song.
Working from Bigguntone Studios, West London, Ivor himself turned out a
backing track for a dreadful filth-fest called 'Mabel'. This was
originally called 'The Arse'ole Song', but Ivor decided to change it because: |
The track (done on 4-track Tascam reel-to-reel) is recorded non-Dolby, fully analogue, and hisses and rumbles like a python with irritable bowel syndrome. Ivor, through the wonders of overdubbing, plays with himself throughout the recording, eight times. No change there, then. Jilly B added two saxophone parts, which almost manage to obscure Ivor's 'Chas and Dave' piano stylings, but which unfortunately don't quite succeed. In April 98, the basic track was hauled into St Mary's Studio, Perivale, copied onto Digital multi-track, and overdubbed with vocals, choruses and revolting sound effects. Mike Groth, the recording engineer, managed to clean up the sound magnificently, but has left the lyrics in the same disgusting state as when they left Ivor's fertile brain ('fertile' as in 'compost', 'manure', etc). The song, a music-hall style rugby-song what Ivor writ, thunders along with the fevered energy of a dysentery patient trying to pick the lock of a lavatory door with a piece of wet string. The finished item is, without doubt, the filthiest tune on the album so far. Everyone is completely disgusted with it. Quite a success, really.
The ‘live’ version of ‘Dr Clap’, (a cautionary tale in a ragamuffin rub-a-dub style) is now all mixed and finished too. The version we’re using was recorded ‘live’ in front of a small but noisy, blind drunk audience in a boozer in Southall, Middx. Ivor dun the recording himself, on portable gear, and despite the fact that you can’t hear his guitar (or maybe because of it) it has captured the atmosphere very well. You can almost smell the St. Bruno and the big white mothballs in the gent’s urinals. The song appeared originally in a very ropey studio version on the "W*nker’s Rock’n’Roll" E.P, and this vastly superior attempt is to be released 'due to popular demand'. In fact, it’ll be part of TWO live sections on the album. This one, plus a version of 'Bonking' (a short but revolting chant that Ivor uses to start most of his gigs) and some other bits and pieces will make up an 'Ivor On Tour' section. The gigs recorded were at Southall, Blackpool and probably somewhere else, but the label has fallen off the tape box.
The other ‘live’ section will be four (or maybe five) songs recorded by freelance sound engineer/producer Tim Beaton at the Gun Tavern in Croydon, Surrey. This section, 'Ivor at the Gun' will consist of a selection from 'Cats On The Rooftops', 'The W*nker’s Song' (done extra fast), 'I’m Looking Over My Dead Dog Rover', 'I Have A Dog His Name Is Rover', 'The W*nker’s Rock’n’Roll' and the notorious 'Limerick Mambo'. We were in the studio doing a bit of titting about with the tapes (some editing, adding a chorus, and trying to get Ivor’s guitar to sound as if it was in tune and playing more-or-less the right song) on 22nd May 1998, and details of that session will be posted on this site a.s.a.p.
Also completed is a further overdub session, adding woodwind to a couple of Bigguntone Studio backing-tracks. The tenor saxes, clarinet and baritone sax were played by the lovely Jilly B and a mystery veteran, who is a real working proper musician who used to play with Edmundo Ros and His Orchestra. This is handy, because one of the songs (written with the mystery man in mind) is a spirited Samba/calypso called "Dorothy, Please Trim Your Minge."
The other toon done that day (24th May 1998) is a foul, disgusting, loathsome, gross, noisome, offensive, putrid, repellent version of an old hot-gospel favourite. It’s all about what happens when a filthy vagrant decides to take a dump 'Down by The Riverside' (with 'hilarious consequences', as they say in the Radio Times). These will be mixed and tarted-up, ready to have the vocals put on them in a proper studio shortly after.
'The Yodelling W*nker' has reached the demo stage, and should be finished within the fortnight. The song currently on tape on the machine in Ivor’s home studio is 'Ukelele Lady' which is a clean song (sorry, fans!) made popular in the 20’s by Frank Crumit and other ukelele bashers. Ivor picked up yet another version of this song on a 78 r.p.m. disc a couple of days ago, and still hasn’t solved the enigma of the particular chord in the intro (what Americans call "the verse"). It is something like a D ninth, but exists on his multi-track at the moment as three other chords that are the wrong ones, all played together at the same time.
Ivor has also tracked down a surprisingly cheap studio in Chiswick, where he hopes to finish his singularly abominable peon of praise to the cave-man who invented w*nking. This hymn to the helmet is another full-studio version featuring the Vulgar Band, which was begun donkey’s years ago in the Glasstrap Studio.
Already recorded for the FIFTH album are 'live' versions of:-
The two Christmas songs, both big-budget studio recordings, feature the Vulgar Band and a couple of extra bods (one of whom plays guitar properly, thereby relieving Ivor of a terrible responsibility). The titles are 'All I want for Christmas is a Great Big Dong' and 'The Snowman'.
The notorious 'W*nking Caveman' song has been given the big budget studio treatment too. It now features a large sax section and a feeble attempt at a French accent.
'Dorothy Please Trim Your Minge' is a stirring Calypso, written earlier this year, and waiting to get the studio work-out. Also in production is an Irish Waltz of astonishing vulgarity. A champion Irish tenor banjo player has been booked to appear on this, as well as the bloke who played fiddle on the Hot Chocolate records!
Another number in 3/4 time, 'The Premature Ejaculation Waltz' is written, and in the pipeline, having already been aired in a 'live' version on the late night James Whale TV show.
Ivor is co-operating with a House-Dance-Trance-Ragga-Jungle-type person, and has cooked up a follow-up to 'The Man With The Biggest Plonker In The World', being the continuing story of John Thomas Allcock.
The clean song, by the way, is a 'twenties crooning tune called "Ukelele Lady", sung originally by Frank Crumit, the man who recorded the song "No Matter How Young A Prune May Be It's Always Full Of Wrinkles". Ivor has several old 78 rpm records of this Hawaiian-style song - on one of them the crooner sings "on the beaches, everybody winky wanky woo..." which really puts it right up Mr Biggun's street!
Ivor, Jilly B (producer/saxophonist) and 'live' recording engineer/producer Tim Beaton were in the studio on Wed 15th April 1998 working on the "Gun Tavern" tapes. This is Ivor's first foray into the world of DIGITAL multi-track, and it don't 'arf sound good!
In May, two more sessions are booked, including the recording debut of notorious mustachio'd "Gun" regular Peter The Pervert, and "Gun" gig organizer Laurie Bamford in vocal contributions.
More information will follow, folks........about the New Hi-NRG version of "Hide the Sossidge" as well as "All Of These Things Are Soul" and "Down By The Riverside" (recorded on Sunday 20th April 1998) and many other toons.
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