“The Voltarol Years”
Released 25 February 2022
This is the page for general chat about the album.
There’s an index page for the individual song lyrics here.
Paddy Shennan’s epic article on the album can be found here.
Order now at:
- Action Records, Preston
- Banquet Records, Kingston
- Keymail Records
- Norman Records
- Piccadilly Records, Manchester
- Probe Plus
- Proper Music
- Relevant Records, Cambridge
- Resident Music, Brighton
- Rough Trade
- Skeleton Records, Birkenhead
- Truck Store, Oxford
Legal digital downloads:
CD and vinyl versions are out now. The band have said that unlike previous releases, this time there aren’t any ‘direct’ sales from the record company – please order the album through your local store, preferably an independent one like any of those above; let us know about any more we should add. For anyone outside the UK, I’d contact Proper Music, who are the main distributors, and ask who’s getting stock in their country.
Chris The Siteowner
Track Listing:
I’m Getting Buried In The Morning
Rogation Sunday’s Here Again!
Awkward Sean
Tess Of The Dormobiles
Grafting Haddock In The George
Big Man Up Front
When I Look At My Baby
Beneath This Broken Headstone
In A Suffolk Ditch
Persian Rug Sale At The URC
Midnight Mass Murder
Token Covid Song
Slipping The Escort
Oblong Of Dreams
6 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
As well as Norman Records, who got the news online first, the album is also available at Proper Music (thanks for the first glimpse of the track listing). Further retailers will have been added to the list above by the time you read this. Please order from independent stores!
6 January 2022
Third rate les
Woo hoo! There’s something a bit magic about seeing the track list before hearing the tracks, and this one made me smile, dream and wonder as much as any.
As an extremely lapsed Catholic, must admit I had to look up both URC and Rogation Sunday. Good to see Thomas Hardy still being given a nod.
6 January 2022
warden Hodges
Tremendous start to new year! I’d assume whilst not ‘a Probe band’ anymore, there’d still be a few on the shelf on 18th Feb then a celebratory pint at the Post Office pub!
Great news!
6 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Via the excellent @NigeTassell on Twitter:
“The first of theirs not on (now dormant) Probe Plus, so support the new label R M Qualtrough. And if you don’t know who/what R M Qualtrough is/was…“
6 January 2022
CARRIE ANNE
A happy new year indeed!
Whilst they may no longer be a Probe Plus band, the name of the new label is to die for! Thanks NB10.
6 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Note the record label name was predicted by Paddy Shennan last July.
6 January 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
Great News! And as always the track names are making me smile.
I’m trying to work out where the cover photo was taken, it looks like the back of either Princes Road in Toxteth (qv) or Faulkner Square (in what estate agents and the city council like to refer to as Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter).
Also loving the reference to Liverpool’s famous unsolved Wallace murder in their new record label name (this wiki page will explain who RM Qualtrough was…or wasn’t)
6 January 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
@CtSO I think that’s what’s called a ‘cross post’ 🙂
6 January 2022
warden Hodges
Slipping The Escort – something away fans did in the 1980s. Stoke City. 1985. A fair walk to the train station too.
6 January 2022
warden Hodges
Had an idea it would be something to do with 19th Century murders in the North West or as close as damn it.
Sure there’s been a case study on this on BBC2/BBC4 once.
All in all, great stuff and to announce at Epiphany too.
6 January 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
Yes, there was a BBC film about the murder case, from 1990, and like many things these days, here it is on YouTube.
6 January 2022
transit full of keith
YES! A beacon of hope in these dark times indeed.
6 January 2022
third rate les
“I’m Getting Buried In The Morning”: picking up on the chirpy morbidity of the last album, as well as a laugh-out-loud cultural reference (as an side, once went to see My Fair Lady in German at the Vienna Volksoper, with Jeff Dreadnought, where Higgins was trying to get Eliza to speak high German. Pricelessly funny).
“Rogation Sunday’s Here Again!” Getting excited about something kind of unexciting – reminded me straight away of Joy in Leeuwarden
“Awkward Sean”. This made me wince – I know two awkward Seans. Nice bit of assonance and meter in just two words.
“Tess Of The Dormobiles”. Another laugh-out-loud one which instantly reminded me of “where be my camper van”.
“Grafting Haddock In The George”. I meet my awkward mate Sean in The George quite a bit, so that’s what sprang to mind here, as well as the nice Estonian chap who comes to sell us expensive fishcakes on a regular basis.
“Big Man Up Front”. The football song, and a title which brought to mind too many big strikers to mention (in my case Jimmy Quinn was the first one).
“When I Look At My Baby”. One that gives me a nagging feeling I’m missing a reference; Jeff D can no doubt fill in that one.
“Beneath This Broken Headstone”. The stench of death lingers…
“In A Suffolk Ditch”. Suffolk? Ditch? What’s happened?
“Persian Rug Sale At The URC”. Reminded me of Iguana Andy,
“Midnight Mass Murder”. Ah – word association football! Reminded me straight away of RSVP.
“Token Covid Song”. In three small words, sums up the weariness of the entire world.
“Slipping The Escort”. Does that mean sliding, or slipping the clutch, or is the escort of the human kind rather than a car? Intrigued.
“Oblong Of Dreams”. What sports are played on an oblong? And what is it about the word “oblong” that’s so strangely ugly? I quite like referring to Lloyd Park, Croydon as “the bog of dreams” as it’s my favourite cross-country course, and I assume it’s something along those lines.
6 January 2022
Yeltzdoc
Perfect present for epiphany.
Any thoughts on the best place to buy it to ensure that the maximum % goes to the band?
– I’m sure any indie or small chain record store is good. Just avoid certain well-known online multinational retailers. – CtSO
6 January 2022
Coops
@THIRD RATE LES
Slipping The Escort could be another football reference, we often “slipped the escort” when escaping from the police who tried to march us from the station to the ground back in the day so we could sample the local ale.
6 January 2022
Sloppy
Third Rate Les – Wirral is also known as the Oblong of Dreams
6 January 2022
Paul b
As ever, the track listing promotes as much discussion (well, almost !!) as the lyrics themselves. Great news
6 January 2022
Dave N Barbara
I live in Spain, where Santa doesn’t bring your presents on Xmas day. Oh no. The Three Kings bring your presents on 6 January. How true, how true.
Now I just have to ask my local independent record store if they can order it for me…
6 January 2022
Sean Macreavy
Oh God. That’s winter 2022 sorted out. Thank you Chris, and Nigel and the boys!
6 January 2022
Iguana andy
Fantastic news – feels like it’s been a doubly long wait this time.
6 January 2022
Crown Green Bowler age 29 3/4
Always a special day when you hear the news of a news HMHB album… although now have to wait over a month. Even better was pre-t’internet when you just ‘discovered’ a new one in the record shop. It was like taking a new child home.
Hoping there’s some rubbishing of Peloton People in there.
Can’t wait!
6 January 2022
Mike D
Praise the Lord! My prayers have been answered.
6 January 2022
MAthematically_Safe
IGUANA ANDY – you can’t do indie rock in doubly
6 January 2022
Dr desperate
Tremendous news!
For anyone who hasn’t yet heard the songs listed at 1 and 7, early versions of them are still available on the ‘Andy Kershaw Plays Some Bloody Great Records’ podcast No 5.
https://andykershaw.co.uk/podcast-5-3rd-august-2021/
(IGBITM describes the impending fate of a convicted serial killer; WILAMB is the tale of a probably-cuckolded parent.)
6 January 2022
Guest informant
I have a Simon Drew mug with a drawing of a dog sat outside a camper van with the the title Tess of the Dormobiles.
6 January 2022
ALICE van der meer
I’m going to put my marker down on “In a Suffolk Ditch” being a “Chinese Rocks” reference.
6 January 2022
third rate les
Thanks to Coops, Sloppy and indeed Warden Hodges for clarifying those.
It’s odd to forget escort-slipping, especially as something I used to do regularly. Getting old…
6 January 2022
Idris the chiseller
HMHB and David Bowie have been consistently jostling for first place on my podium since 2014, so early January has been pretty raw for me these last few years. This news goes some way to restoring the balance-though the staggered release dates mean I’m going to have to become one of those people who buy records in multiple formats.
6 January 2022
Simon Riley
Been applying Voltarol to the wife’s back for some time – at last, an album about me.
6 January 2022
Dr desperate
I recall a BBC TV series in the mid-80s called ‘Hold The Back Page’ (not the Sky one) with David Warner as a sports reporter who gets thrown out by his wife, so takes a lucrative job at a down-market tabloid in order to “keep the wolf from the Dormobile”.
While we’re on the subject, what sort of car did Pavarotti drive?
A Nissan Dormobile.
6 January 2022
Bad loser
Not much gets me giddy with excitement these days: partly an age thing and also the state of the world these last 2 years, but a new album from the lads certainly does it.
Whilst the CD covers are always the very opposite of pretentious, I don’t always fancy having them on a t-shirt. This one I’ll definitely have. Both the album title and the song titles give great optimism that the great heights of No-one Cares …. can be maintained. The opener is a classic.
6 January 2022
Mike Desert
Best news ever! Hope it’s on vinyl too, though last time I had an lp shipped to the states the shipping cost more than the record!
6 January 2022
Patrick Clement james Sullivan
You biscuit people speak a different language to everyone else. Fan comments are as fascinating as the lyrics. How did I get on this mailing list?
(You made a comment a while back – CtSO)
6 January 2022
24 Hour Garage person
Yes!! Thank Dog!!
6 January 2022
GeordiePaul
Voltarol?
Rogation?
Dormobiles? and
URC?
6 January 2022
Bananayogi
Brilliant. Ordered – it’s going to seem a long wait until the 18th Feb though…
6 January 2022
Christie Malry
This makes me unfeasibly excited. My day job is as minister of a United Reformed Church, in the Wirral, which regularly regularly rents a room to a chap who sells Persian rugs. Surely Nigel has either been to visit, or at least seen the copious signs put up around the place!
6 January 2022
Edward mcrae
My Birkenhead based pals reckon the photo is taken in Slatey Road in Birkenhead…
6 January 2022
Nagasaki ShinPads
Well that’s about perfect timing in these dark days of testing negative but staying positive
6 January 2022
Arthur Askeys Legs
Fabulous news.
So happy I made it through the night and woke up again this morning
6 January 2022
Sean Curran
Awkward Sean…..sounds familiar. Have you been speaking to me missus?
6 January 2022
Intheshadowoflilly
The R.M. Qualtrough label makes this all the more perfect. It’s just the sort of thing Nigel would slip into lyrics too.
As I posted on FB on both groups, the Liverpool Echo story is fascinating and delightfully macabre.
Just a shame that the vinyl is held up due to Adele’s divorce album using all the pressing capacity.
6 January 2022
Dave Kidd
Does anyone know if there is any chance of Achtung Bono, CSI: Ambleside, Cammell Laird Social Club and Trouble Over Bridgwater ever being released on vinyl? There would surely be a decent market for them.
6 January 2022
transit full of keith
Christie Malry: if I recall the BS Johnson novel correctly, that’s a gloriously inappropriate pseudonym for a clergyman.
6 January 2022
warden Hodges
‘Teenage Honved’ on Radio 6 now. what a day!!
6 January 2022
Irish Niall
This is all great news. I’m glad I’m not the only one with a tube of voltarol in the fridge where once stood tubes of cider.
I’ve never come across the R.M. Qualtrough case before and am now off to do further reading on the matter as such cases are fascinating. I went from youthfully spending the only two chords I could play busking The Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti for a world indifferent to the injustice (well …O’Connell St., Limerick specifically -they were still indifferent mind) to becoming the only man on the left-wing convinced they bloody-well did it by my 30’s.
As to the tunes -a couple were indeed featured on Kershaw a while back and no one needs me pointing out they are quality. I do feel a need to place on record though that The Hitchers used use a couple of lines of She’s Getting Buried In The Morning in the intro to She Broke My Heart So I Ate Her Liver -a song that mercifully doesn’t get aired often enough to get cancelled.
I’m getting the CD. Only place I get to listen to music these days is in the old Focus.
6 January 2022
Matt Lee
Ordered my copy to the US with Norman Records. Hopefully a February release and not July like their order email says.
6 January 2022
EDWARD mcrae
I’d like to think ‘awkward Sean’ refers to the worst player ever to play for Liverpool fc/ Sean Dundee
6 January 2022
Kendo Nagasaki 2
HMHB have saved 2022. Biscuit-loving sons and I feeling very happy this evening. CD ordered from Rough Trade and only 6 weeks to wait, give or take. 14 songs and such wonderful titles.
Found your site recently and have enjoyed the past lyric detective work almost as much as the lyrics themselves.
6 January 2022
Counterblast to Agnosticism
Well that news has cheered me from the pit of despair which is early January.
6 January 2022
Schoon
Hallelujah!
I am ignorant of many things – eg I had never heard of voltarol – so can someone enlighten me on what the title is a play on please?
6 January 2022
Beltane beard
Brilliant news and as soon as I saw the new label name, I was nodding in admiration, being a true crime buff and having read about the Wallace case in great depth over the years.
6 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Wow. The website has been buzzing. At 8.30pm it’s already by far the most visited it’s ever been in a single day. I’ll update the figures in the morning. Bodes well for big pre-orders for the album, I hope.
6 January 2022
Matt Lee
I made a stub for the new album on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voltarol_Years
People should add things to keep it updated
6 January 2022
POP-TART MARK
@Beltane B
It may please you also to know that NB has been known to sign emails as RM Qualtrough, Stutty Northam and various similar.
6 January 2022
BelTane beard
@Pop-Tart Mark
Excellent stuff. Have to admit that the case of Stutty Northam isn’t one I knew about, so something to look into there, thanks!
6 January 2022
Parsfan
Fantoosh! I wasn’t expecting that quite this early. Great news.
At the risk of spoiling all the positive vibes, I miss the old days of hearing there’s a new album on the way, phoning Geoff to ask how much he wants, sending a cheque and getting the album in the post a few weeks early.
Are we doing the place name thing again?
6 January 2022
Restless Legless
Preorder incoming, maybe this year WILL be better!
6 January 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
Well, that’s made an otherwise miserable January day considerably better. A little in the way of sunshine to help us get through the post-christmas skintness…
6 January 2022
Arthur ASKEYS LEGS
Absolutely should Parsfan
6 January 2022
EXXO
@ Schoon. i don’t think the parody in this title is that specific.
‘The XXXX years’ is a common trope, with various compilations like ‘[name of artist]: the [name of label] years.’ … which itself is a variation of just ‘[name of artist]: the [adjective like ‘early’ or ‘golden’ or ‘lost’] years’ … then there are a few ‘[name of artist]: the [name of what was abused] years.’ See also ‘Adrian Mole: the cappuccino years.’ But [name of artist]: the [placename] years’ may have come first.
6 January 2022
I, problem chimp
Fantastic news! I had my ‘Best of Biscuits’ compilation on in the car the other day and the kids were going on about when I’d take them to their first gig again – still too young I fear but a new album will please them no end… Looking forward to the deciphering the lyrics posts almost as much as the songs themselves…
6 January 2022
Borough surveyor
It looks like the band are not only illegally parked, but have assumed that the narrow path belongs to them. How about I just walk in the road? You stay as you are, and I’ll just walk in the road.
6 January 2022
Chris Heskey
Well after an utterly dreadful couple of weeks, since the Shrewsbury gig…….
Some news to keep me going.
My local independent is Hey Judes, in Newport Shropshire.
I’ll be supporting that shop & ordering both formats.
6 January 2022
Richie stevens
@Schoon
Elvis: The Vegas Years?
https://nevadamagazine.com/issue/february-1995/6994/
6 January 2022
Philip Gilliam
We were at a wedding reception recently over the water, Hulme Hall. I know The Beatles played there but have Nigel and the band also played there before ? Fascinated
6 January 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
You’re all wrong about “Slipping the Escort”, it’s the long-awaited sequel to Ian Dury’s “Razzle in my Pocket”.
6 January 2022
Dick Quax Running Shoes
Bisodol. Voltarol. Odds on a future Tramadol album to complete the trilogy?
6 January 2022
TAYLO
NB57 once entered my works Fantasy Football League under the nom de plume of R M Qualtrough.
Persian Rugs surely a rhyming slang ?
6 January 2022
DT71
Think it would be fitting for the band to play Motorhead’s (We Are) The Road Crew as an encore on the live dates, to tie in with the album cover.
7 January 2022
Rickenbarking Mad
I only discovered HMHB just after the release of NCAYCHSGYFHC, so I’ve had about 3 years to fully devour and digest the entire catalogue, this is the first chance I’ve ever had to get excited about a new release before it’s available and join in the speculation. I’m predicting I’ll learn a lot about the English countryside (I live in New Zealand).
7 January 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
Yippee…..
7 January 2022
Gagarin
There doesn’t appear to be a song about me. Perhaps I get a historic third mention / reference.
7 January 2022
Floreat ultonia
Great news. Bring it on!
7 January 2022
Cream cheese and chives
Moved house just prior to Covid and sold/gave away all cds and vinyl and means of playing them. Will be spending a lot of time in the car when this arrives.
7 January 2022
Dr desperate
Since you ask, @Parsfan:
“While we’re waiting, anybody care for another bracing round of Placename Bingo?
1. Choose a placename (that of a town or city) at random and post it here (now closed).
2. Buy the album. Listen to it.
3. Anybody whose chosen placename is mentioned in a song wins.
4. In the event of nobody winning outright, the placename closest (on Google Maps) to one mentioned wins.”
Entries for West Berlin and Garstang will not be accepted. My own choice, as ever, is Walsall.
CurrentFinal entries can be seen here7 January 2022
ALICE van der meer
I dooon’t believe it! The very first entry in placename bingo and CtSO has taken the one I thought of, what are the odds on that?
As an East Anglian, I just wanted to hear how Nigel enunciated it (local pronunciation Hayv’r’l – much like Chaa’rus, you’d never guess from the spelling)
7 January 2022
Ste
Which George is it a reference to? George and Dragon in Birkenhead?
7 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
I don’t want to bang on about (boring) website traffic figures, but yesterday’s really is worth highlighting. Over the last five years, we’ve typically received about 500 visits a day from about 300–400 people. The record in the 14 years we’ve been going is 2,400 visits in a day, from 1,971 people.
Yesterday we had 6,868 visits from 6,097 people.
This band might be on to something.
7 January 2022
I’m The Talentless Nigel
Beyond giddy! I may be alone in thinking that Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut was the best HMHB album of the lot (and before the critics pile in, I do own them all) so I sincerely hope this one can come close to it or better!
7 January 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
Quick question (because I haven’t got time to rewatch the TV programme I linked to above) – is it “Qualtroff” or “Qualtroh”? Wouldn’t want to be laughed at in the record shop if they need to order it and ask what label it is on…
7 January 2022
paul f
I’ve just tried Dr D’s link to the Placename Bingo and my work firewall has blocked me. Did somebody guess Scunthorpe?
7 January 2022
Rob
Loving this chat but how do I sign up to mailing list? On my phone now prevaricating before work so will look at website on me big telly.
7 January 2022
Dr desperate
Thanks, @CtSO, for setting up that PnB spreadsheet, and for wrangling 6000+ visits a day.
(Nobody’s yet made that suggestion, @Paul F, though I should have done, as we’re only 8 miles from Scunny).
7 January 2022
schoon
@exxo @Richie thanks! I always fear I am missing something, not being from the North and not being a fan of the Fall/Joy Division/Bob Dylan/The Blues.
7 January 2022
mister tubbs
@ Borough Surveyor – Maybe that photo was taken by a passing traffic warden?
7 January 2022
warden Hodges
Multiple entries? What’s going on here?
I could chuck in ‘Charlie’s new neighbours down Ilchester Road way’ but I won’t.
Stick to my village in North East Wales.
7 January 2022
Dick Quax Running Shoes
@Gok Wan Acolyte
QUAL-troh. There’s a Canadian MP with that surname, and she says it that way, too.
7 January 2022
Dr desperate
I suspect Paul F’s mention of my vicinity was a reference to the Scunthorpe Problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
7 January 2022
Ramones T Shirt Brand
Well that gives me a couple months to learn all the songs prior to the Gig in Durham in April.
7 January 2022
Sloppy (aka Sue W)
Warden Hodges, is that cheating? Oops
7 January 2022
AardVARK Never
Also available from Resident:
https://www.resident-music.com/productdetails&path=14827&product_id=86440
7 January 2022
Ron plasma
I always got my HMHB stuff from Probe and got Geoff to sign it. (He always obliged). How do I do that now?
(Sadly, that’s not happening any more… – CtSO)
7 January 2022
Dr desperate
Exxo is quite correct in his exxegesis on the “The XXXX Years” trope. The first example I can recall is the 1981 TV miniseries “Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years”, which Sue Townsend parodied in “Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years”, the predecessor to “The Cappuccino Years”.
Stevie Nicks (q v) describes the period 1975 – 86 as “the cocaine years”, a phrase often appplied to the lives of other cokeheads cokeheads cokeheads, and which I suspect is Nigel’s main target here. He’s occasionally mentioned going out to score Solpadeine (“Plus, not Max: I’ve got it under control”), a gateway drug for the Voltarol fiend.
Voltarol is a proprietary name for the anti-inflammatory diclofenac, and is available over the counter in the UK only in skin preparations. (The tablets were made prescription-only in 2015, irking the gout sufferers.)
7 January 2022
warden Hodges
OK Sue, got a feeling it could be a Birkonian landmark or somewhere within a 50 mile radius but…all will be revealed in just 6 weeks!
Had FET trains made the album, we’d have our answer now.
7 January 2022
mate of the bloke
TRANSIT FULL OF KEITH: Something I did in my younger days, from the shelves of WH Smiths
Having listened to the live session on the Andy Kershaw podcast (link upthread), I’ve got “I’m Getting Buried In The Morning” going round in my head already. Top stuff. Can’t wait for the full album.
7 January 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
@RonPlasma My last two albums were biked around from Geoff’s (since I only live about 5 away, with a tailwind) though as I was out on both occasions I can’t say whether he did personally. I don’t know whether the new label will offer this service, although they may restrict it to those with CH41-43 postcodes 🙂
7 January 2022
warden Hodges
Think I’ve only pre-ordered one and that would be ‘Achtung Bono’. Busy at work, couldn’t skive off etc.
Amazingly and also to my shame now. Our Price had CLSC in back in 2002 so purchased. Every other, Button St/Rainford Gardens/School Lane.
7 January 2022
Lux inferior
@Alice: As someone who spent the first 30 years of their existence residing in Haverhill, I’d take polite issue with you regarding the local pronunciation. As a town with a population made up predominately of London overspill and their offspring, the opening ‘H’ is almost always dropped – by far the most common pronunciation is ‘ay-vrill’ (far more ‘London’, far less ‘Fenland drawl’).
Damn, someone’s already nicked Newton Flotman. What were the chances?!
7 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
I’m fascinated by Haverhill – I hope it’s mentioned so we can give it an A to Z page. It’s a town which literally falls into two counties, but has become a dormitory town for a city and business parks in a third county. Must be unique, although not as bizarre in its county boundary arrangements as Newmarket, which can only really be reached from any direction by going through a different county.
7 January 2022
Lux inferior
All that matters to us old Haverhillians is the 1978/79 Eastern Counties League title, clinched, as chance would have it, with a 4-0 drubbing of Chatteris Town.
The travelling army of Chatteris supporters certainly suggested that the weavers’ cottages in the town were devoid of tenants that particular day.
7 January 2022
ALICE van der meer
@Lux Inferior – that may have been because we went there to shop (if you lived where I grew up, it was the big city!) rather than lived in it, so our pronunciation would have been “outside local” rather than “inside local”.
Also the home of “stinky corner” – an eye-wateringly acrid whiff at the Bumpstead road end of town that the sewage works always got the blame for but, having smelt it myself in labs, I reckon it’s an industrial amine from one of the factories.
I think its also the largest place in Britain not served by a railway (thank you, Dr Beeching). It’s currently proud possessor of a spectacularly died-on-it’s-arse High Street. Oh, and the Tower Captain (head bellringer) at the church is about my fourth cousin. Could have knocked me down with a feather when I found that out.
7 January 2022
EXXO
@ Ron
I’ve only ever bought CDs from Geoff or the merch stall so I guess now it’s just the merch stall*, and that will be the only way, for now, to ensure that the band get the maximum proportion of the dosh (assuming that RM Qualtrough records can’t be arsed/don’t want that image for their band to actually set up an online shop).
Assuming that Manchester happens and that CDs will be available, I would hope that a fair few people on here who want to get the maximum dosh to the band will be asking other people going to the gig to get them off the stall for them.
*Actually as my order of ‘Hedge’ never actually arrived, and I never had the heart to mither Geoff/Miles about it, I think from now on it would have been the stall for me anyway.
7 January 2022
Tristan da Cunha
Well, this is good news but I shall miss writing out a cheque and posting it off to Geoff.
7 January 2022
Lilac h quinn
Can’t believe the boys are going to cure everyone’s covid depression this easily
7 January 2022
David M
Best New Year news! – Is the long delay on the vinyl due to bland songstress Adele causing a worldwide vinyl shortage? Any chance of an Irish date, it’s only a ferry ride away.
7 January 2022
John Anderson
My first thought on hearing the album title was that it could be a play on The Monsanto Years by Neil Young.
7 January 2022
Lord leominster
I hope there’s at least one proper angry song in there. If so, I can’t see it being Persian Rug Sale at the URC. In a Suffolk Ditch, possibly. Could be a reference to our PM’s stated desire to die in a ditch.
7 January 2022
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
Can anyone give any advice to a foreigner about which is the best store to order the album from, among the six outlets listed at the top? Mostly interested in their reliability in shipping abroad, of course, but also general reputation for promptness, efficiency, etc. Anyone have a favourite? Or do I just close my eyes and point?
7 January 2022
Cornish Biscuit
With the unprecedented amount of visits to this site on the release of a new record, could this be the album that breaks America for them?
7 January 2022
Problem Chimp
@Dr Desperate
Oops! I just submitted a place name bingo entry using someone else’s name. Hadn’t realised it was already taken.
@Featureless TV Producer Steve, sorry about that!
8 January 2022
Intheshadowoflilly
@cornish biscuit, I guess it depends on how you define ‘break’.
Without any promotion stateside nor indeed, I suspect, official distribution, probably not.
8 January 2022
Problem chimp
PS As I’d disrupted proceedings, I then chose a more appropriate name
8 January 2022
Stuart
I hope their illegally parked van doesn’t have a blue badge in the front window!
The joys of Brexit mean those of us in the EU may have to pay a pound or two more to various governments for the album than we would have paid pre-2021, but nobody said life was going to be fair.
8 January 2022
GORDON BURNS
Seriously torn…
Do I pre-order from my local independent music shop in Brighton (they’ve already emailed me to suggest I should)? Or do I wait until after the (fingers still crossed) Manchester gig, to which I’ll be getting early with my money ready?
8 January 2022
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
@Problem Chimp, no worries! Welcome aboard.
8 January 2022
The Almost illegal elton welsby
This is the best news that could come out. There’s bound to be lots of lockdown references and topical sources of mirth.
Just ordered from Proper Music and can’t wait.
@Yeltzdoc….. I’m just up the road from you, I’m guessing.
8 January 2022
warden Hodges
It doesn’t state Probe will be stocking the latest album but come on, it’s got to really. Be mighty upset if I don’t have TVY CD (love abs.) after visiting the shop.
8 January 2022
I, Problem CHimp
@Problem Chimp [Post 112]
I couldn’t access the spreadsheet so asked CtSO to add my entry, so I think he must have missed the ‘I,’ off my name! Apologies for appearing to pilfer your moniker! Maybe if either of us hit the jackpot with our entries, we can both claim the glory…
8 January 2022
Ghost of kirkus
Delighted to see another New Zealand resident on here – welcome, Rickenbarking Mad.
There’s effectively a single national radio station in NZ called, appropriately enough, Radio NZ National. It’s possibly best described as a mash up of BBC Radio 4 and 6 Music – mostly spoken word/factual but with some really good music shows, especially on Saturday afternoons and public holidays. On the latter two geriatric rockers, Phil O’Brien and Simon Morris, have a show called Matinee Idle where they play a lot of unusual music and chat briefly between the tracks about some sort of theme for that day’s show. They also do a longer run over the Christmas/New Year period (midsummer in NZ, and everyone who can goes off to camp by a river somewhere for a few weeks). They have fairly eclectic tastes, although they do play far too much Burton Cummings, redeeming themselves entirely by their love of HMHB – they have played three songs in the last week alone.
A quick google of their website shows since they first discovered them a few years ago, they have played A Country Practice, Ecclesiastical Perks, She’s in Broadstairs, All I want for Christmas is a Dual Prague Away Kit, Bladderwrack Allowance, Moody Chops, Christian Rock Concert, National Shite Day, Ordinary to Enschede, Dickie Davies Eyes, Lark Descending, Tending the Wrong Grave for 23 Years, Secret Gigi Composer, Venus in Flares, Eno collaboration, 24 Hour Garage People, With Goth on Our Side, Light at the End of The Tunnel, Mr Cave’s a Window Cleaner Now, The Ballad of Climie Fisher, JDOG, Tour Jacket with Detachable Sleeves, Look Dad No Tunes, Mate of the Bloke, New York Skiffle, and finally Styx Gig (Seen By Mates Coming Out Of). Which is not bad exposure for the national broadcaster and quite literally music to the ears of the ex-pat HMHB follower.
Anyway, enough of that. I can’t edit the spreadsheet for placename bingo, but while I wait for the weigh in at Newton Abbot will put my long shot Ruyton-XI-Towns, please.
8 January 2022
SpringyTurf
I have ordered from Normans and hope like Geoff usually did that Norman will send out the CD early. Just in case it doesn’t arrive on release day will I be able to listen on Spotify at 1 minute past midnight?
8 January 2022
Dr desperate
As I understand it, you can enter your choice for Placename Bingo by clicking on the link in post 77 on this thread. Or this link, which is the same.
52 entries received so far.
8 January 2022
A Factory completist
@ I, Problem Chimp
The fault is all mine, as I inadvertently chose a name that was almost the same. I’ve checked with CtSO that this one hasn’t been taken. If my PC place name bingo pick wins, happy to share the glory and the admiration of the masses
9 January 2022
Ghost of kirkus
Thanks for that – submitted.
9 January 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
In the unlikely event of my entry making a tie-break, “The Brecks” refers to the heathland area straddling the Suffolk / Norfolk border which is not named in Google Maps (not the district in Rotherham, which is). As you were.
9 January 2022
EXXO
Area? Hmm. Someone could presumably go for a whole county or a peninsula then? Talking of which, Sue W has gone for some very specific Wirral spots there (was she the mysterious figure seen introducing the band to the mayor during the frolics in Frome?)
9 January 2022
Dr desperate
I think you’ll find that I specified the name of a town or city, on the assumption that ‘Oblong of Dreams’ will refer to Wirral.
See also “Space” (yes, I’m looking at you, @Gagarin).
9 January 2022
SLoppy
Ha Exxo, you found me out! 🙂
Nope not me, however, with a title like “Oblong of Dreams” there’s bound to be lots of Wirraly types places mentioned
9 January 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
Fair enough – scrub out my Brecks entry and I’ll have another think. It was getting a bit crowded in Suffolk anyway.
9 January 2022
THE BASTARD IN THE HAT
@Exxo, comment 127:
I think it should be acceptable to propose areas, counties, peninsulas and indeed whole countries and beyond — but a namecheck mentions the named entity, not something inside it. I submit for your attention: Cuba, Dumfries and Galloway, the valley of the Rhone, the Backs and indeed the universe.
On the flipside, it’s possible that London and Keswick are still available, even though London Planetarium and the Keswick area have been mentioned.
9 January 2022
transit full of keith
That sounds right – any place can win if mentioned directly, but a tie-break can only be decided by a place being near – but not contained inside – a place guessed (Removing the chance of playing the odds by guessing the Metropolitan Country of Merseyside, Snowdonia, etc).
10 January 2022
EXXO
Well yes, it’s the high probability that the contest will be settles on nearest-the-bull, as it was last time, that I’m on about. I’m not the rule-setter or referee on this one, but the trouble with that is say you chose the Wirral – the oblong peninsula rather than the council area – many places on Merseyside, in Cheshire and N. Wales would be just a few miles outside the whole perimeter, along a 50-mile line, making it unfair on those who chose a village. A village has about 78 square miles within a 5-mile radius. An area 20 miles x 10 has about 350 square miles within 5 miles of its borders. Plus there are areas – like The Brecks – where you would have to specify a precise border.
10 January 2022
EXXO
Anyway FWIW I reckon the probability that the Suffolk song will not contain one or more MR James references is low.
10 January 2022
transit full of keith
OK so I’ve withdrawn my go at The Brecks (it’s still on the spreadsheet though, as I can’t edit it) and gone for Port Sunlight.
10 January 2022
EXXO
An admirable stroke. It takes a bold man to reduce his nearest-the-bull radius by 50% by choosing a port like that. See also Neston or Burton mere (RSPB). I was thinking of going for one of the corners of the Oblong – Morrisons in West Kirby or New Brighton is bound to get a mention sooner or later – but that reduces the radius by 75%. I have become a dithering old man with an impoverished sense of daring-do.
10 January 2022
EXXO
By the way pedants everywhere I am fully aware of derring-do but I don’t like it.
10 January 2022
PETER MCORNITOLOGIST
I am a dithering old man who would like to thank so many on this site. I had long forgotten The Brecks but one of the highlights of my bird watching delight occurred there. The spotting of a stone curlew and its magnificent yellow eyes.
10 January 2022
EXXO
But @ the same pedants. Do feel free to point out that it’s the arc, the circumference and most importantly the area which is reduced by choosing a point on the coast or a corner coastal town, and that the radius is just about the only thing that isn’t.
10 January 2022
Dr desperate
“♫Those who try to tangle with my derring-do
Wind up at the angle that herring do.
They hang their heads like very dead
Herring do.”
Danny Kaye, ‘The Court Jester’.
(I thought there was a good reason why the rubric specified “town or city”.)
10 January 2022
transit full of keith
Presumably you’re not disqualifying villages though?
(And I think Port Sunlight is tactically sound, for at least five reasons I won’t go into here).
10 January 2022
EXXO
@Peter – sounds like a beautiful moment. My turn to be grateful, as Dr. D has reminded me of great scenes like this from those Sunday afternoons of yore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIWcCvQNqQ
All Hollwood medieval knights movies are funny, but at least here it’s intentional.
10 January 2022
cream cheese and chives
Derring do always gets a red line in Word. It just has now as well but you won’t see it.
Derring-do is a quirky holdover from Middle English that came to occupy its present place in the language by a series of mistakes and misunderstandings. In Middle English, dorring don meant simply “daring to do.” For example, Geoffrey Chaucer used dorring don around 1374 when he described a knight “daring to do” brave deeds. The phrase was misprinted as derring do in a 16th-century edition of a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there, assuming it was meant as a substantive, or noun phrase. (A glossary to Spenser’s work defined it as “manhood and chevalrie.”) Sir Walter Scott and others in the 19th century got the phrase from Spenser and brought it into modern use.
Dorring don has a lovely ring to it.
11 January 2022
I, problem chimp
Maybe dorring don is something Tess would do in a Dormobile?
11 January 2022
Counterblast to Agnosticism
One of the good things about this board is that if a post prompts me to find out the derivation of something, I only need scroll down (or wait a while if it’s fresh) to find out, without having to trouble Wikipedia. As a lazy old ditherer, I appreciate it.
11 January 2022
Oh no, it’s Ono
@THIRD RATE LES – nice to see a fellow Lloyd Park runner. But more like the Bog of Nightmares when I was slogging through it, especially the hill on the second lap.
Ah, unhappy days!
12 January 2022
Wiltshire John
I think it would be nice for Devizes to get a mention, but hopefully a more positive one than Mr Maconie gave it in one of his books. Incidentally, Swindon won the League Cup in 1969.
13 January 2022
Moo
Not entirely sure I’m going to be able to fathom that spreadsheet, so in the event that I can’t, please may I have Bishop’s Cleve? TIA, Moo
(See the first instruction in comment no.77 above – CtSO)
13 January 2022
Moo
Thanks Chris, I’m not sure why I didn’t spot that before. Probably goes without saying, but ignore any weird requests you got from me to enable editing on the spreadsheet.
13 January 2022
Millard rausch
I wonder if they’ll release a song or two ahead of time.
14 January 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
@Millard Rausch – there were two songs (When I Look at My Baby and I’m Getting Buried in the Morning) featured in session on Andy Kershaw’s podcast last summer – https://andykershaw.co.uk/podcast-5-3rd-august-2021/
14 January 2022
Rickenbarking Mad
Ghost Of Kirkus – Kia Ora bro
Yes, of course it was Matinee Idle that introduced me to HMHB, I’m here now because Simon Morris announced the new album last week. I’m a long time listener and have 3 of their T Shirts!
I dare say we’re not alone down here, I suspect there’s a growing audience for the band in NZ, I wonder what we have to do to get them to tour down here… It might actually be easier to round up all the HMHB fans and charter a flight to England.
I’m also lobbying the Sodajerker On Songwriting Podcast to try and get Nigel on as a guest. They’re intelligent hosts that don’t pander to cliche, and they’re based in Liverpool. If anyone has a chance at getting to the core of what makes the band tick then it’s them.
14 January 2022
GHOST OF KIRKUS
Chur bro as they say round here – for those on Albion’s Plain I should say winning 3 T-shirts from Matinee Idle would be like having three Dukla Prague away shirts, all given to you by John Peel.
I was driving back from the Heaphy when my youngest when he found the email from CTSO about the new album; as we were listening to Idle I got him to text 2101 with the news – but as is the case lost phone reception and National, so had no idea if they ever found out. Evidently they did (unless they are on the email list – which to be fair is entirely plausible).
After due consideration, I elected against Whakapapa for the place name bingo in favour of an obscure hamlet in North Shropshire – which is probably all for the best!
15 January 2022
Dr desperate
You never know, there might be a line about opening up a Japanese noodle bar in the Whakapapa area.
15 January 2022
EXXO
@Rickenbarking Mad
Great to have you on board. Unfortunately the band will never, ever tour overseas whatever the offer. A better option might be to do what the Irish have done and get your own HMHB tribute band. Well it worked for Australia with Bjorn Again, The Australian Pink Floyd, etc.
Failing that, why not bribe the musicians at your local folk club to learn a couple of HMHB numbers and inevitably some of them will fall in love with the band and keep learning more?
Regarding getting to the core of what makes the band tick, what is it that you want to know? The answers are mostly on here somewhere.
15 January 2022
FLOREAT ULTONIA
“Unfortunately the band will never, ever tour overseas whatever the offer. A better option might be to do what the Irish have done and get your own HMHB tribute band”
Given that Stranraer, Kirkcudbright etc feature regularly in songs is it really that outlandish to daydream about a brief jaunt over to Belfast?
15 January 2022
EXXO
It’s pretty outlandish, yes.
@Rickenbarking. I’ve just had a look at that Sodajerker bunch and I have to say I’ll run naked aroung an egg sandwich in June if Nigel Blackwell agreed to do a podcast with them. From a local perspective they just come across as about as mainstream as it is possible to be.
15 January 2022
Audrey’s Euphemisms
I am of course delighted at the news of the new album.
@David M (Post 107) : Couldn’t agree more about wanting the band to play in Ireland – Wexford for preference, but Dublin or Cork would be grand. In the meantime, I’ve been spending a bit of time this weekend planning another trip on the ferry to Wales for the next Cardiff gig where I’ll be meeting mates from Bristol and Bradford for the gig. With the new album duly memorised!
15 January 2022
Ferenc puskas to you
@LUX INTERIOR (post 102), @CtSO and @ALICE
Extraordinary that I too was going to guess at Haverhill, because I also grew up there between the ages of 5-18, and went to most of the Rovers home games in that era including the Chatteris title-winning game. Was that the one when Jim Thomson flicked the ball over this own head and volleyed it in? The big rivals were of course Gt. Yarmouth – went to the away fixture, 1-1 with a Steve Murray equaliser…although the afternoon had a mild “Rovers Ultras, You’ll Never Make The Coach Home” vibe.
If NB57 does go for Haverhill it has to come with a “Pioneers In Town Expansion” quote, I would hope.
17 January 2022
ALICE van der meer
So is there anyone here who *doesn’t* have a Haverhill connection?
*whistles “Twilight Zone” theme*
18 January 2022
Brumbiscuit
*Sticks hand up*
I always curse the place as I drive to Foxearth from Warwickshire. Those bloody roundabouts do my head in!
18 January 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
@Alice I don’t have a Haverhill connection but would dispute the ‘it’s the largest town in the UK without a station’ claim. Newcastle Under Lyme has a population of 75000 (almost 3 times that of Haverhill), while Washington has a population of 67000, both lost their stations in the Beeching era.
18 January 2022
Dr desperate
Wikipedia’s list of towns (not subdivisions of larger conurbations) in England without a railway station has Haverhill at 14th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_towns_in_England_without_a_railway_station
18 January 2022
Alice van der meer
I might have known that not only would I be disagreed with, I’d also be put right! Just to add to my pain, I drive past No 3 on the list every day…
18 January 2022
EXXO
Ha, I’d have said Corby and was gobsmacked that wasn’t on the list. It was on QI in the days when the elves didn’t twist the facts quite as much, so it must be true.
But whoosh it turns out that was 2005 and stations get re-instated. By the time you’re watching it on Dave you’re on the midnight express to Fib Central.
19 January 2022
Mi-homme mi-biscuit
We want it in Paris ! No local store there ?
19 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
For anyone outside the UK, I’d contact Proper Music, who are the main distributors, and ask who’s getting stock in their country.
19 January 2022
Lux inferior
@Ferenc (post 159): I was a skinny indie kid of 12 when Rovers clinched the title – most of my matchday memories are pretty vague, although I do recall the victory celebrations after the Chatteris game with a little more clarity. Great photo halfway down this old article: https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/haverhill/sport/donning-the-all-red-kit-once-more-9069704/
@Alice (post 103): The smell to which you refer was certainly unique. It seemed to be a complex mixture of the stench from the sewage plant combined with the sickly sweet aromas pumped out by the IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances) plant on Duddery Hill. There ain’t no stink like it.
Maybe Chris needs to start an A-Z of places not mentioned in the HMHB canon so as not to pollute the new album thread 😀
19 January 2022
King Euphoria
@GHOST OF KIRKUS. I’m an old HMHB fan now in NZ too. Where were you planning on ordering the new CD from? Slow Boat?
20 January 2022
FERENc puskas to you
@Lux Inferior – well, you’ve made an old man happy just looking at that Rovers picture. It’s been a long time since I lived in the UK let alone Haverhill but it feels like yesterday seeing that. I was a contemporary of Neil Farlie and Derek Richardson who both went on to play for Rovers – making me a couple of years older than you.
All very much from the era of seeing dogs on the pitch. Lovely stuff.
20 January 2022
EXXO
Glad to hear there were dogs on the pitch – but by the looks of the photo the fans over the age of fifteen were too cool to be associated with the players?
20 January 2022
Millard rausch
I wonder if the band have any fans in Japan, somehow, I could imagine it.
20 January 2022
BOBBY SVARC
“Unleashed in Prenton East”
20 January 2022
POP-TART MARK
Fans in Japan? Well, many have wondered over the last decade about the authenticity of Jegsy’s comment 191 in the lists thread…
Let’s face it, though, even Big in Japan weren’t ever big in Japan. But their singer was number one when ‘Big in Japan’ was number two. Neither ‘Big in Japan’ nor Big in Japan ever played live, or was ever played live, in Japan.
20 January 2022
ghost of kirkus
Welcome King Euphoria to the Aotearoa Chapter!
As I no longer own a CD player any purchase is solely supportive, so the time of arrival is pretty irrelevant – happily or sadly dependent on your point of view. Generally I get a parcel of things from the UK sent over by the family each year, now we can’t actually fly anywhere. I wonder what the Token Covid Song has to say about that?
20 January 2022
EXXO
Judging by recent comments, Token Covid Song may well moan about all the extra people people clogging up the Wirral country footpaths and bridleways on new mountain bikes and with new puppies, neither of which they know how to control. The bastard child of L’Enfer & Bell Rings?
20 January 2022
POP-TART MARK
@Millard
See post 191 in the lists thread where a local taxi-driver shares his experience of this matter. It seems that some Japanese guidebooks suggest a wander over the water, once the ‘Beaters Tour’ has been completed.
23 January 2022
EXXO
@Millard
One of our local former pop star cabbies posted a credible spiel on the subject of accommodating the needs of the Japanese fanbase at comment 191 in the lists thread.
23 January 2022
Primitive creature of the heath
Wow, how did it take me this long to notice the bit about a new album being released? Been checking this site regularly over the past few weeks and somehow missed that every time. Ah well.
Anyway, I’m very excited. Started listening to the band sometime in mid 2020, think someone on twitter posted Turn A Blind Eye and it just hooked me. Only recently started listening to all the albums, and so far have only found a handful of songs I actively don’t listen to. Getting to have a new album drop and being able to sort through the lyrics in real time will be good.
On the track list: can’t say anything on what they’ll be like, except the Token Covid Song. Honestly, I expect that to be like Song For Europe, where it’s poking fun at the vapid “let’s do good things and not do bad things” songs you occasionally hear on the radio. Though I will admit to over the past year having wondered what the HMHB covid-response-song would be.
I’m sure it will be another great album that will worm it’s way into my head and that I will never stop thinking about.
24 January 2022
Flintlock
I don’t know- I’m expecting Token Covid Song to be a Visitor for Mr Edmonds/Stavanger Toestub kind of thing.
24 January 2022
Irking purists
“I’m expecting Token Covid Song to be a Visitor for Mr Edmonds/Stavanger Toestub kind of thing.”
I certainly hope so.
25 January 2022
Kendo Nagasaki 2
Morning all. Message received from Rough Trade this morning saying “Just to let you know that the release date for Half Man Half Biscuit, The Voltarol Years, CD has changed from the original release date of Friday 18 February 2022 to Friday 25 February 2022”. Anyone else hearing the same?
I suppose it gives us one more week of anticipation….
26 January 2022
Parsfan
I did my trade rough too and received the same email.
26 January 2022
Bad loser
The day I received the email from this site about the new album, I immediately texted my wife with the news. Later that day, she bumped into Neil and he said something about they hadn’t started pressing them yet. I was hoping that just applied to the vinyl but I’m guessing not. I’ve been half prepared for a spot of disappointing news since.
27 January 2022
warden Hodges
So Miles’s merch desk could be Voltorol-less it would seem.
Any info would be fine. Cheers.
27 January 2022
warden Hodges
Voltarol. sorry.
27 January 2022
EXXO
If I test positive in the morning I’ll certainly be hoping it’s Voltarol-less, if negative I hope there’ll be a lorra Voltarol. TBH if I miss the gig, a 7.30pm text from someone to tell me there’s none on the stall would be an immense comfort.
If they hadn’t started pressing 3 weeks ago and yet the delay is only one week, then I’d guesstimate that it’s all pressed by now, pretty much printed and edging towards the distributor. 7 weeks is supposedly about average from start of manufacture to release for an indie label and 7 weeks from 6 Jan is 24 Jan.
On another matter, now that we know Myles has it on sale on the PP website for £10.99 I would suggest taking down all other links to other organisations, especially the big ones. But that’s just me.
27 January 2022
Chris The Siteowner
The band have nothing to do with Probe Plus any more. They sell the CDs to the distributor, which is where Probe Plus and everyone else get it from. I don’t see how the band (or anyone) could have copies this week if the distributor clearly isn’t getting them for another 3–4 weeks.
27 January 2022
EXXO
I know the first part, obviously. I was just suggesting doing a big favour for the most local and smallest-scale operation who did have a long time association and who run the stall.
The second part doesn’t fit in with what I’ve read. To ensure smooth distribution by release day – when it really is important for the distributor’s reputation that retailers and get stocks in time and at the same time – they will be planning to get their supplies in it at least a fortnight before. Putting it back just a week is therefore in some ways a very good sign that the manufacture part is complete.
27 January 2022
schoon
Exxo will probably point me to a post where this was discussed in 2006 but just in case it hasn’t been mentioned…
At work we had ‘Post songs with a name in the title’ day (always fun at our work). I posted Bob Wilson. And thought there must be loads of others.
Sure enough the first 2 albums are riddled with them but by the 5th or 6th album there is an alarming decline. Only one ‘Renfield’ on Hedge.
Should I be worried?
28 January 2022
EXXO
Good point, but maybe the worrying times are over, green shoots of recovery on new album? Tess and Sean. Good names both of those.
28 January 2022
Surveyor Of Suffolk Ditches
I can only think of one happening of note in Suffolk ditches and it did not end well for anyone involved.
Just discovered it was dramatised; Nine o clock, Sarah Lancashire, BBC1, a near miss
31 January 2022
Parsfan
Another email received from Rough Trade, they’re now back to the 18th.
1 February 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
Free bottle of Travis with every order, I hope.
1 February 2022
RJP
Latest from Rough Trade
The Voltarol Years, LP has changed from the original release date of Friday 25 February 2022 to Friday 22 July 2022.
The Voltarol Years, CD has changed from the original release date of Friday 25 February 2022 to Friday 18 February 2022.
2 February 2022
EXXO
I know it’s hard to keep up with the hysterical whirl of hype as we count down to the new record (about 16 sleeps to go ) but I thought Marc Riley managed to sum all the emotionally draining excitement of it all quite well on Monday’s show at around 1.05.30
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0013ymx
2 February 2022
EXXO
Lammo’s mention of the forthcoming album was even briefer than Lard’s at around 1.06.47 into his Wednesday show from Birkenhead this week. Good show, with Louisa Roach taking on a tour including Skeleton and Future Yard, and featuring the Boo Radleys’ song about Hamilton Square rather than the Biscuits’ one, for obvious reasons (but they should have at least mentioned the latter offering, as Roach had mentioned the ‘Left Bank Soundtrack’ project).
3 February 2022
Dr desperate
Nige (‘Mr Gig’) Tassell tweeted today: “Nothing gets between a man and a morning of transcribing interviews – except the new HMHB. I’m going in…”
3 February 2022
CARRIE ANNE
Very brief mention of the album on Gideon Coe’s 6 Music show last night, How Low Can You Go, A Bass Special. After playing Time Flies By (at 2:45:42), he says that he believes the new album is due out next week, and he has it on order. Any chance of hearing some preview tracks, Gid?
4 February 2022
warden Hodges
Did the walk of shame once, walked into Probe 4LWSTW time, asked about the new album and I got from a guy rolling cigs ‘ It’s the Biscuits lar- who knows?’
This was (for me) pre- t’internet days.
4 February 2022
Dr desperate
‘Rogation Sunday’s Here Again!’ is now available on Spotify!
4 February 2022
CArrie Anne
Also available on YouTube here, for those boycotting Spotify alongside Neil and Joni. Does this count as a ‘single’?
4 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Oddly (and amusingly) though, it’s on a YouTube channel called ‘Various Artists – Topic’, not the ‘official’ (as much as these things can be) Half Man Half Biscuit channel which someone put together 3–4 years ago. Perhaps that’s still to come. Is the current upload legit? The channel has a lot of subscribers. At least the Spotify release can reassure us that – despite the changes with the label an’ all that – the music will most likely continue to be distributed widely through all the many services now available. Clearly this is something for which they are all geared.
4 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Update – there’s an explanation of ‘Various Artists – Topic’ here and in a video here. Seems the band/distributor have somehow registered the song with YouTube, even though it’s not on the ‘channel’ for now.
4 February 2022
Moo369
It’s on Amazon Music as well. Just that one track though. What’s going on there then?
4 February 2022
EXXO
It’s standard industry practice to have a ‘lead single,’ and now that they have a distribution deal it’s that company – Proper – who have released the ‘single.’
Somebody on Facebrit has probably already started a campaign to get it to number 36 in the charts to mark the 36th anniversary of The Trumpton Riots EP being number one forever.
4 February 2022
transit full of keith
Alehouse Futsal came out a couple of weeks before the album last time, I think. As an easily irked purist I’ll try and avoid hearing anything till the CD hits the doormat.
4 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
Being less of a purist, I’ve had several listens on youtube to cheer up a cold and snowy friday!
@TFOK – would you get really irked if I posted my first stab at transcribing the lyrics?
4 February 2022
transit full of keith
Nah – I’d be fine about it going up on an early lyric page (that would be Chris’s call, of course – last time he invited submission by email) … but maybe not in the comments where nobody could help seeing it?
4 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Yep, email would be great. I’ve added at the top of this page: “As songs appear, if you want to have a stab at transcribing the lyrics, and get a credit on this site for evermore, please feel free. Just email your contributions to chris@chrisrand.com“
4 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
@CtSO – email sent as requested with lyrics.
4 February 2022
John Anderson
I’ve also submitted an early stab at Rogation Sunday. There is nothing better in life than deciphering the lyrics to new HMHB songs.
4 February 2022
Kendo Nagasaki 2
Well that’s certainly brightened an otherwise bright day. No leaking the lyrics here but it’s heavy rotation for Rogation, and if the rest of the album is this good…….? Too early to talk of Brit Awards?
4 February 2022
Pirx The Purist
If RSHA is any guide, I think we’re in for a real treat on the 18th. Could even be better than ‘Hub’, which is a high bar to have to clear. Waiting is…
5 February 2022
Primitive creature of the heath
Have listened to RSHA too many times to count already. Absolutely great song, and I hope the rest is going to live up to it!
Just two more weeks, just two more weeks…
5 February 2022
John Anderson
Gideon Coe received a copy of The Voltarol Years yesterday which suggests the release of the album is on schedule.
6 February 2022
EXXO
I suppose it’s Sod’s Law that that any pre-release songs played by Messrs Coe, Lard & Lammo will ones we’ve already heard.
Seems like the average length of the three tracks that have been released in some form so far is about two and a quarter minutes, which gives me hope of some of the others being epics. Oblong of Dreams will be a majestic album closer in the grand tradition of National Shite Day, Bad Wools or Gwatkin one dares to hope, rather than a Stavanger Toestub.
7 February 2022
John Anderson
I’m hoping BIg Man Up Front is a paean to Ross Jenkins.
7 February 2022
transit full of keith
Finally – a football reference on here I get!
My resolve to wait crumbled, and I’ve just listened to “Rogation Sunday Here’s Again” eight times.
7 February 2022
EXXO
Just checked my Watford v. Tranmere programme from early 1973 and there’s a few lines on every player in the line-up … except Ross Jenkins who’d not long been signed. So yes, perhaps the gap will finally be filled. I’ll be surprised if it’s about Jim Steel. And mostly just relieved that’s not about some big oaf up front at gigs mithering the frontman with boorish nonsense. 😉
7 February 2022
EXXO
Tranmere v. Watford, I obvz meant 🙁
7 February 2022
Exxo
Those who live their lives to a soundtrack of six music and HMHB may perhaps agree with me that the conversation between Messrs Coe (got the album)and Riley(jealous) at 8:16 p.m. this evening was the best fanboy discussion of the band’s legendariness on national radio since the same gentlemrn organised their Irk Night nearly 12 years ago (see Irk the Purists thread, March 2010 posts).
7 February 2022
Quizshow Knobhead
I’ll not enter the place name competition having heard Awkward Sean there on Gideon Coe but I cannot wait for the 18th, a new HMHB seems like a brighter tomorrow
7 February 2022
Wendell Spanswick
Could BMUF be Autobiographical? Tall lad, sings all the songs.
Can’t wait to see them at t’mill on Friday.
8 February 2022
Wendell Spanswick
Haven’t seen them since the 90s in the city with beautiful sparkling healthy spa waters…..in BANES now unfortunately. Well Excited!!
8 February 2022
JIM in pandemic exile
Morning all
I’ve now binged on RSHA – what a cracker! Spare a thought for us Antipodean types. Not only do we have to beat crocodiles to death with venomous snakes before we can get to the outside dunny, we have to wait much longer for the arrival of a new HMHB CD.
I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be able to keep away from this website after the 18th. It’s a bit like recording the game when you’re out, and not wanting to know the score from those watching live.
There! I’ve had my little hissy. Somehow that feels just a tiny bit better.
8 February 2022
dr Desperate
As QSKH suggests, entries for The Voltarol Years Placename Bingo are now closed. As in previous rounds, results will be posted once we’ve reached agreement on what the lyrics are for every song (this may take some time).
8 February 2022
dr Desperate
(Especially since there were over 100 entries.)
8 February 2022
Lux inferior
RSHA is just superb. Awkward Sean (played approx. 37 minutes into Gideon Coe’s show last evening) is better still, imho.
No spoilers, but the count of footballers referenced just shot up considerably. Some top, top players, too.
8 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I’d have loved to have found Chris Sutton in a Norfolk ditch, no such luck.
8 February 2022
EXXO
Your game, your rules Doc, but I would just point out that the game only opened after we already knew that Garstang, Alabama and Suffolk get mentions on the album … which is more (real) places than got mentioned in ‘Awkward Sean’. I have pondered too long on which oblongular conurbation to select and have missed the bus. But, at a simple ceremony this afternoon in keeping with the times, I shall announce which has been chosen for this honour, from my shortlist out of:
*Perch Rock, New Brighton
*Upton
*Lever Causeway, Storeton
*Thornton Hough
*Eureka Cafe, on the way to Shotwick.
*Burton Marshes Boardwalk or cafe.
*Queensferry Bridge, probably in the context of not being able to get into Wales.
‘Awkward Sean’ (last night’s Gid Coe show, 37:12 into the programme) is at moment my favourite from the four songs now heard and at just over 3 minutes raises the average length of songs heard so far by a few seconds.
8 February 2022
EXXO
@Wendell. No. Not big in footballing terms and played on the left.
8 February 2022
dr Desperate
In my defence, I did mention in the PNB rubric (at post 77 above) that entries for Garstang and West Berlin would not be accepted; similarly Alabama and Suffolk, for reasons we’ve already discussed. However, I’d be graciously prepared to stop the bus and allow late entries until midnight tonight, as long as they don’t appear on tracks played by Gid.
(To my ears, AS contains four placenames, one of them imaginary.)
8 February 2022
EXXO
Hmm, well there are two words in ‘Awkward Sean’ I haven’t got yet, so maybe. It also mentions a topographical feature that there aren’t too many folks know more about than me, so I shall have to promise not to bore you too much in the A-Z or rant too dementedly about tw*ts in sp*****ats.
8 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I reckon Ffos Las will get a mention
8 February 2022
INJURED BUZZARD
A late entry on the place names: Ecclefechan & Eskdailmuir. 2 local obscurities ‘famous’ for a tart and a Buddhist retreat in that order.
8 February 2022
INJURED BUZZARD
#Eskdalemuir
8 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Could do with a few more racecourses
8 February 2022
INJURED BUZZARD
@Bobby Svarc: Fakenham, mare’s running.
8 February 2022
Exxo
Tonight at 20.17 in Riley’s show was round 2 of fanboy biscuit wars, as the host waved a prestigious oneupman piece of paper at Coe and we all cheered wildly. Coe still £150 up as he played ‘Rogation’ at the precise moment I tuned back in, nearly 3 hours later but you feel that Lard has games in hand.
8 February 2022
Natalie at the back
Is it too late to barge in with Norman Hunter?
9 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Or Francis Lee
9 February 2022
transit full of keith
Idly speculating on Placename Bingo tactics now entries have closed: the obvious comedy-sounding placenames which scatter these isles, like Ecclefechan or Wetwang or Netherthong or Booby Dingle, never actually appear in the songs.
9 February 2022
EXXO
I got a bit swept along with the afterparty yesterday, when STORETON was finally chosen as the panel’s selection for Exford’s entry in placename bingo…. hence the late announcement on here, but the Wirral Globe are all over it, alleging compromise…
9 February 2022
Ferencváros Fan
Joe Jordan archetypal BMUF. Great nuisance value and never ducked a challenge, including with Gennaro Gattuso when he must have been pushing 60.
9 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Mention at the start of this week’s always excellent Word In Your Ear podcast (No.437, should be out any moment) – seems Mark Ellen has been sent a copy by Nigel too, and loves it.
9 February 2022
A Factory Completist
@Transit Full Of Keith, with Lord Hereford’s Knob as a notable exception
9 February 2022
Brumbiscuit
Nero Fiddles while Kenny Burns
9 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
BRUMBISCUIT: You might like this part of a feature I wrote for The Roof Fanzine ‘1977…and all that’
‘The long harsh winter finally arrived with a vengeance on the 4th of December that year, when, in sub-zero temperatures, we welcomed Birmingham to the Filbert Street ice rink. For some reason, the City players didn’t seem to give two fucks that day, starting with taking to the pitch in screw-in studs. Brum on the other hand had turned the pitch into Freeman Hardy and Willis pre-match, and by the time the game kicked off, they’d picked the right footwear. In yellow they raced into a four nil lead attacking the Tundra End, and four became six early in the second half. Six nil down seemed to be the wake-up call the home team had been waiting for, and we pulled two goals back. But there was no credit in a second-half draw, draw? My arse!’
10 February 2022
Brumbiscuit
Cheers Mick. Scroll on 45 years and not only can we not draw level with a team down to 10 men, but we allow them to increase their lead!
10 February 2022
dr Desperate
Fanboy Biscuit Wars Round 3: Lammo now has a copy (sent by post with a copy of an old Tranmere programme) and promises to play some tracks next week.
11 February 2022
GORDON BURNS
Not for sale at The Leadmill tonight. 🙁
11 February 2022
nige
Amazon (I know…sorry) emailed to say its delayed a week
11 February 2022
CARRIE ANNE
Tess Of The Dormobiles has just been played by Steve Lamacq on 6 Music
15 February 2022
I, Problem CHimp
Someone mentioned track lengths a while back and while messing around on iTunes earlier, I discovered that the Apple store has the track timings listed for the new album… For those hoping that Oblong of Dreams would be an epic closer, I can confirm that at almost 6 minutes it does appear to be… In fact, out of a running time of around 44 minutes, the final three tracks make up getting on for a third of that total… For those who prefer their biscuit short and sweet, there are 4 tracks under 2 minutes…
15 February 2022
Bad loser
Played Tess 4 times in the car on the way to work. Looks like people and their differences might be a theme on this album. No room for uncertainty when the lyrics for this one are written up for this site.
Very pleased with what i’ve heard so far. Awkward Sean hasn’t totally grabbed me yet despite one of my closest friends being called Shaun and ‘Awkward’ would be quite an understatement for him. Works for that reason though.
16 February 2022
EXXO
When Gideon Coe also played Tess (approx 1:18:45) it happened to seg from a track by The Age of Chance, from a Peel session aired the day before HMHB’s debut album was released. Coincidence? Yes.
So far we have three lost love songs (all where she has left him, of course), one lost Sean and one serial killer.
16 February 2022
paul f
A running time of 44 minutes? Nigel is clearly looking after the home taping consumer and his/her stack of TDK C90s.
16 February 2022
transit full of keith
I’m going to resist listening to Tess of the Dormobiles until I get the album which may be only a couple of days away. (For all the comedy of ordering through Probe Plus last time, the delivery was bang on time).
Mostly from what I’ve heard so far I’m enjoying the cast of characters, especially the ones with Stringy Bob-type nicknames – Chemtrail Brian, Pop Tart Mark (again) and Awkward Sean – someone so hard to pin down the song tries to stick 11 different nicknames on him.
16 February 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
(Also wondering if we might hear more about ‘Lost Oliver’ on the album).
16 February 2022
The Almost illegal elton welsby
Disappointment abounds. I’d read here about the earlier switcheroos between the 18th/25th/18th, but it appears that they’ve now settled on the 25th? At least that’s what those fine people at Apple Music reckon. Sigh.
Also, I’ve so far heard Rogation Sunday, Awkward Sean, and Tess. Are there any others that have been previewed that are still accessible please?
17 February 2022
dr Desperate
Live versions of ‘When I Look at My Baby’ and ‘I’m Getting Buried in the Morning’ are still available on Kershaw’s podcast 5.
https://andykershaw.co.uk/podcast-5-3rd-august-2021/
17 February 2022
The Almost illegal elton welsby
Many thanks Doc!
17 February 2022
Kendo Nagasaki 2
Seems all outlets are going with the 25th February release date but I will still check for evidence of streaming copies at midnight… Not where I ordered it from but I see the album is currently #8 on Amazon’s Indie & Alternative Best Sellers chart, and given there are two versions of Alt-J’s new album above it that’s effectively #7. Confusingly it’s #2 on the Indie & Alternative Hot New Releases chart but only #30 on their Indie & Alternative Most Wished For chart. Suggests Biscuit fans are less likely to prevaricate?
Seems we could be in for a decent chart placing…
(All chart placings correct at time of submission.)
17 February 2022
Exxo
Was clear it would be Riley’s turn to play a track tonight, and knowing how stubborn he is, it was not a surprise he played Tess, even though both Lamacq and Coe had spun it since he first implied that he was going to.
17 February 2022
Billy
I was really hoping to hunker in during this storm and listen to the new album, shame about the date change.
18 February 2022
Troy Munns
(very)Long time lurker, but wanted to send thanks to Dr Desperate for sharing the link for Andy Kershaw’s podcast. Not only are those 2 new tracks absolute belters, but the cover of X-Ray Spex’ Germ Free Adolescents both broke me, and made me feel old at the same time. In a good way, of course.
18 February 2022
Dr desperate
Passed on your thanks to AK47, @Troy. (BTW, @PF, he has a copy of the new album, and the back cover reveals that one of the song titles does indeed have brackets.)
18 February 2022
Kendo Nagasaki
I see someone has decided to co-opt my long used handle. Much sadness
18 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
I’m sure he wasn’t aware. I’ve changed his name to Kendo Nagasaki 2 and let him know.
18 February 2022
Ste
So, is it definitely being released on the 25th now?
18 February 2022
A factory completist
This week’s Culture Bunker podcast has a great review of the album. They play I’m Getting Buried In The Morning at 38:34
https://play.acast.com/s/the-bunker/e1486706-90da-11ec-96a4-3ffb610e6493
19 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Brilliant. Presenter Andrew Harrison has been a proper fan since the start, as far as I know. Lots of love for the album too in the chat, from guests Jan and Martin from Sea Power and Ian Harrison from Mojo.
19 February 2022
Exxo
That is a really special appetite whetter – thanks. Plenty spoilers in the review of course (just to warn those who dislike that sort of thing). I love what I heard about Suffolk Ditch and Oblong especially. Not come across Harrison or any of them before but some choice phrasing that certainly sums up the writing nicely and good to hear the influence on a new generation of bands discussed. The album review is about 44 to 50 mins into the programme.
19 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Andrew Harrison will be most distressed, Exxo! He’s been right round the block with the band. Here he is reviewing TLP in Select back in 1994.
19 February 2022
Exxo
Well I remember that review almost word for word and very fine work it was too. I even remember buying the mag from Woolies or WHsmiths in Limassol. So I take it back though it’s not a name that’s stuck.
19 February 2022
Kendo nagasaki 2
Just to say I had no notion that the Kendo Nagasaki moniker had already been adopted, and meant no offence to the original KN (great choice by the way). Chris let me know and has kindly updated my posts. Ironic given the use of the pseudonym by two wrestlers out in the real world…..
My chosen Biscuit pseudonym was inspired by my love of Everything’s AOR. I’ve searched the site and can’t find anyone posting as ‘Just Another Lackey’ so if it’s OK with everyone I’ll switch to that from now on. My original posts can stay under the name of Kendo Nagasaki 2 to confuse future Biscuit historians.
19 February 2022
Coronial Footnote
Both Apple Music and Qobuz are going with 25th Feb release date. Apple Music has Rogation Sunday… up for streaming. I’ve ordered the CD from Crash records in Leeds and it hasn’t been posted yet.
20 February 2022
One of Cromwell’s troops
After being depressed beyond tablets at the start of 2022, this is the best news.
21 February 2022
Toastkid
Anyone know if it’s possible to buy a digital copy of this? I don’t have any physical media players any more, and would happily give the CD price to the band in order for a high quality download.
Apols if this was mentioned above, I did skim through but it’s a long thread…
21 February 2022
Toastkid
Hmm, just saw the thing about Apple music/Qobuz on the 25th feb, i guess that’s the answer. Is Qobuz like Bandcamp then?
21 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
You should be able to download the album at CD-like prices from stores on the streaming sites, I’d imagine, such as the Apple iTunes Store, Qobuz, Amazon Music, 7digital, etc. The iTunes Store, for example, has the last few albums at £7.99 and £8.99. Let us know here if you find other sources for legit downloads.
21 February 2022
EXXO
One fine retailer here in this mediocre city has just told me they are expecting delivery this afternoon.
22 February 2022
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
Ordered mine from Proper Music, they are now saying 25 Feb on their site (first thing on their front page too, which is nice). Not ordered from them before – anyone know about their reliability/punctuality?
22 February 2022
dr Desperate
I once bought a Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs compilation from them, no problems as far as I remember. Ordered mine from Rough Trade, also reliable in my experience.
22 February 2022
RJP
Had a dispatch confirmation from Rough Trade today
We are pleased to confirm the following items are on their way:
What you ordered
1x The Voltarol Years, Half Man Half Biscuit, CD – Disk
Released Friday, 25th February 2022
Delivery by Second Class – Royal Mail
22 February 2022
EXXO
Well in this case Keith they’re the distributor, so they have a head start and no excuses for delay. All the other outlets are just receiving them from Proper around now and some will be dispatched today if using 2nd class.
22 February 2022
ALICE van der meer
Not sure I’ve ever bought by mail from Proper, but they do the sales tent at Cropredy, and have since at least 2008, they seem like proper music fans (sorry, crap pun!).
22 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Oh Yes, At Last
22 February 2022
EXXO
You got it, Mick?
22 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Not yet, Tomorrow If the postman doesn’t nick it
22 February 2022
DeReck flannel
Back off the Posties Bobby, 26 years (& counting) on the post & never heard of any of me hard-working chums scousing any lazily procured parcels… Please attempt half a day in our jiggered Gloria Gayners before saying stuff like that!
22 February 2022
Exxo
“scousing”
Jeesus wept.
22 February 2022
INJURED BUZZARD
On/off topic. There’s a great Indie cassette compilation “Corrupt Postman” from 1989. Just a title.
23 February 2022
DerecK Flannel
…Into the same soggy tissue as the wrongly accused Postie.
23 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I’m sorry Dereck, you must think I’m right James Hunt. It was tongue and groove mate, no offence intended. I suppose the months of waiting had finally got to me. Anyway, a few of my mates worked on the post, good lads, one ended up doing twelve months at North Sea Camp but that’s another story. Enjoy the new album. x
23 February 2022
paul F
Careful Dereck – I suspect there are more Scousers on here than Posties. And you don’t do yourself any favours in the lazy generalisation stakes by saying things like that.
23 February 2022
Just another lackey
CD’s just arrived! Thank you Rough Trade. Question is, will I cause a rupture in the space-time continuum if I play it before the official release date? Anyone else with a similar reason to be cheerful?
23 February 2022
warden Hodges
Casual Xmas at Copperas Hill Sorting Office many years ago. Light fingers Warden they called me! ha.
23 February 2022
BAD loser
Anyone had a despatch notification from Proper Music yet? Will not be at all impressed if it’s not on my mat on Friday.
23 February 2022
transit full of keith
Nope …
23 February 2022
Lux inferior
For those desperately waiting on further new material, I’ve somehow stumbled across a jingle on a Dandelion Radio Festive Fifty highlights show from 2006 (it’s new to me anyway). Very brief, at approx. 1:38:15, here:
https://www.mixcloud.com/DandelionRadioArchive/andrew-morrison-2006-12/
Full show track listing here: http://www.dandelionradio.com/andy/tracks/06/06.htm
23 February 2022
transit full of keith
Nice find!
Intrigued by that being labelled “Jingle #4”, I looked through other track listings and found Jingle #2 right at the start of this show: https://www.mixcloud.com/DandelionRadioArchive/andrew-morrison-2006-10/
23 February 2022
Lux inferior
Great work, TFOK. The hunt is on for Jingle#1 & Jingle#3, and who knows what others?!
23 February 2022
ds
It appears that Rogation Sunday is now on iTunes and Spotify
23 February 2022
transit full of keith
Jingle #1 is on the same show as Jingle #2, posted above, at 1.51.57. Bit of an early Floyd sound about it.
23 February 2022
Lux inferior
AND Jingle#3 is here at 30:46: https://www.mixcloud.com/DandelionRadioArchive/festive-50-2010-01/
23 February 2022
transit full of keith
Lovely stuff … Campaign for them to get their own lyrics page (see also: that version of “Mandy”) starts here.
23 February 2022
EXXO
I’ll join you on the march, as long as we’re campaigning for ‘It’s a Clear Day (but I can’t See the Point)’ as well. 222 pop songs and a couple of jingles picked over by pedants.
23 February 2022
John
Woo hoo – My copy has turned up in the post this morning (from Rough Trade)
23 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Yes indeedy………
https://ibb.co/Ph6qSTy
23 February 2022
EXXO
@Keith (comment 303) according to listings I found, the show you linked has jingle #1 (“tie on/Dandelion”) at the start and jingle #2 (“gloom/room”) just before the final track. So is that now all four?
23 February 2022
EXXO
Ah OK sorry Keith, missed comment 306. All go on here today.
23 February 2022
transit full of keith
Four jingles found, but possibly more exist. I’m off to badger Proper Music.
23 February 2022
dr Desperate
Woo, as you say, hoo, @John! Another RT delivery to another John this morning. (I only ordered it yesterday.)
23 February 2022
Stuart
Got an email today from Norman Records, telling me that my CD has been shipped. Hurrah!
The only problem is that, whereas post between Britain and Sweden for many years was always 2-3 business days (in either direction), these days it’s usually more like 2-3 weeks and occasionally 2-3 months. My thanks to the 52% for teaching me the value of patience. Still, Brexit issues notwithstanding, I should have something good to listen to by Easter with a bit of luck…..
23 February 2022
Ste
Anybody heard anything on orders from Norman Records?
23 February 2022
EXXO
“Enjoy the anticipation,” someone said. This is doing my head in. I cycle past Norman on me way to work. It’s not much of a shop, just a bunker in a building that looks like a 1960s dole office and still has 1960s dole office type paraphernalia lying around. I should maybe have ordered it to be shipped by them and said I’ll ship it to meself, instead of going with a more sentimental option. Thank feck there’s football tonight and tomorrow. Should try to keep off here till Friday. Two more sleeps. At least when I get it my first listen will be _very_ loud in a _very_ big lecture theatre.
23 February 2022
Bad loser
Just rang Proper Music. Was told it will be going out today or tomorrow. Given the unconvincing tones in which this info was delivered, I’m not expecting it to be today.
23 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
As a bit of housekeeping, I’ll probably put up the lyrics at the rate of a song every couple of days, starting no earlier than the end of this weekend. You’ll be able to see on the album’s track listing page which songs have been added, and there’ll be the usual chat for each one. All transcriptions welcome, in return for a credit in perpetuity! Just email your contributions to chris@chrisrand.com and thanks to everyone who’s already sent in lyrics for the songs played on the radio or released for streaming. Keep them coming!
23 February 2022
EXXO
Talking of plays on the radio, Riley last night made it 4 plays in a row of ‘Tess’ on 6 Music – you’d thing that was the ‘single.’
23 February 2022
Schoon
Anyone else just realised they no longer have a CD player to play it when it arrives?
23 February 2022
CARRIE ANNE
@Exxo Gideon gave Awkward Sean another airing on Monday evening
23 February 2022
CORONIAL FOOTNOTE
Posted today from Crash Records in Leeds!
23 February 2022
gipton teenager
I’ve just been touched by Norman (It says here). But I can’t touch TVY until Friday.
23 February 2022
Charlie
The album is in Sound Clash in Norwich. Collecting mine tomorrow!
23 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I miss the organised chaos of a good old ProbePlus release day, lt sort of calmed me down. Anyways three cheers for Yodel.
23 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
This could be something special.
23 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Number 9 (nine) in the overall chart at Amazon too. Bear in mind that’s a very fast-moving chart. But it does bode well for the official UK album chart. Here’s a reminder of the band’s, er, ‘high’ points in the chart over the years.
23 February 2022
dr Desperate
Those who like their Trade Rough seem to be getting the best service at the moment.
24 February 2022
Cream CHEESE AND chives
@Schoon My only CD player is in the car and I only use that to go to Sainsbury’s. Time to start travelling further afield or sitting on the street outside.
24 February 2022
dr Desperate
If you’ve got a DVD player or a games console it should be able to play CDs. (Though unfortunately, as John Peel once remarked, no matter how hard you stare at a CD you can’t make laser beams come out of your eyes to play it.)
24 February 2022
Ste
I’ve had an email from Norman records saying my order is being processed.
24 February 2022
schoon
@CREAM CHEESE AND CHIVES Hah, I forgot I have a car one! I also spend a lot of time going to Sainsburys in it.
@DR DESPERATE those went with the CD player i am afraid.
24 February 2022
Parsfan
No PC? Laptop?
24 February 2022
Ste
now had the despatched email
looks like I’ll have the album in time for travelling to Wembley this weekend
24 February 2022
Parsfan
Positives late. I can only imagine everyone else in Leith has ordered one as well.
24 February 2022
parsfan
FFS! “Postie’s”
24 February 2022
Woodnoggin
My CD just arrived. I switched off Cardiacs’ ‘Sing to God’ to listen to it. Imagine my surprise to hear that very album mentioned in ‘Persian Rug Sale at the URC’. Funny how these things happen.
24 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
Nothing in the post for me today *sob* and I’ve not had any communications from Probe Plus. If it hasn’t landed by Monday, I’ll have to chase them…
24 February 2022
schoon
@parsfan yes but it is modern. Modern people don’t use disks, it seems.
24 February 2022
schoon
Now up to #8 in Amazon’s overall chart.
24 February 2022
bomaya
Postie has just arrived in the middle of a hailstorm with a Rough Trade delivery. What a hero.
24 February 2022
Problem chimp
Does anyone know if the album will come out on Spotify at all? Sorry if this has been answered already
24 February 2022
ALICE van der meer
Just got the email from Proper to say it’s shipped. I haven’t been this excited since… well, Hedge, actually.
24 February 2022
Bad lOser
Shipment notification at last. Now can I get away with getting into work 4 hours late so that the postie can deliver before I go out?
24 February 2022
Pete
Good advice Dr Desperate in #332 re using a games console – it’s my only option. Now just got to negotiate PS4 access with my kids during half term week….
24 February 2022
Matt lee
Awkward Sean is up on YouTube now too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z0hv_p7sMk
24 February 2022
Chris
Same process as always for me when buying an album these days. Rip on my desktop computer. Stick it into itunes and onto my plex server and never look at the cd again. I confused myself last week when Frank Turner’s new album turned up and I realised i had ordered both CD and tape versions. I’m not sure why, it was ages ago. Possibly to get the signed postcard which does look quite cool. But i now fancy getting a tape player off ebay/ facebook marketplace just to play it. I had one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265458485989 and i blooming loved it… am feeling all fuzzy looking at that. I also had one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265555819908
I spent a terrifying amount of money on batteries in my teenage years. My friends were all buying fags and i was buying the batteries to soundtrack our time together. The result? I was never a smoker. 🙂
24 February 2022
Parsfan
Mine didn’t come in the end so I nipped across the road and bought that new Frank Turner album to meet today’s absent new music fix. Listening to it as i read Chris’s post. So far so good.
24 February 2022
EXXO
I was gazing longingly at an image someone posted on twitter of the back cover, and noticed the credit for guest on tracks 6 & 13 so been filling the void till tomorrow listening to some of his music … assuming I’ve got the right one … 😀 but even if I haven’t it’s good stuff.
24 February 2022
Flintlock
@Problem Chimp – I’m sure it be on Spotify at midnight.
For anyone who’d like to buy the download, it’s available to pre-order at the iTunes Store. Although it only says “expected” 25/2/22.
24 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Exxon – presumably the trumpet on track 6, piano on (the wonderful) track 13…
24 February 2022
EXXO
OK, thanks – I’m not listening to the right fella of the same name – but it was a pleasant waste of time.
24 February 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
Got a bit excited earlier when I received a package from the Postie. It was Motown Instrumentals 1960-1972 which I forgot I ordered. TVY comes tomorrow by Norman records….
24 February 2022
Pirx The Purist
Still showing as just ‘Ordered’ at Keymail. Sigh…
24 February 2022
JITSU_G
@Parsfan. Re Frank Turner. I first became aware of him when I saw him do a live cover of Vatican Broadside. It’s out there on you tube. His new album is pretty good too
24 February 2022
John Anderson
It’s up on Spotify.
25 February 2022
Ferencváros fan
It’s now on iTunes.
25 February 2022
EXXO
Never realised till just now that Mrs Exford had free Spotification on some sort of friends and family deal at her footie team, but it amazing what comes out when WW3 is starting on Newsnight. Could be an all-nighter here then. Wow the battle of Towton and Norman hunter in the same song. This means more.
25 February 2022
Counterblast to Agnosticism
Like many, my only CD player now is in the car. Heading up to the NEC tomorrow (feel like I should have a Problem Chimp with me), so hopefully our really nice postie will be extra nice (and early) tomorrow…
25 February 2022
EXXO
Wow. I’m in bits here. Everything I was hoping for. No album of which five tracks have been available prior to release has EVER been this much better than those tracks.
25 February 2022
Matt lee
Not showing up anywhere in the US yet. I guess it’ll be a midnight drop on everything.
25 February 2022
Poloneckjean
Magnificent and worth the long wait. Oblong of Dreams and I’m off to bed looking forward to tomorrow for a change
25 February 2022
Hosepipe ban
Hello, been scrolling this site for many years without posting. Just been listening to the new album and feel like I may have directly influenced one of NBs lyrics on ‘I’m A Suffolk Ditch’.
I bumped into him in Liverpool One about 3 years ago while he was with his family, had a quick chat and got a photo with him.
Anyway, it was National Ukulele day and I was performing with band. The lyric is ‘Ukuleles outside Sports Direct’.
25 February 2022
TAYLO
Considering they are classed as a ‘comedy band’ by some (and TVY made me LOL as well as CQTM) there was an awful lot of death on that album! Of course there always has been but it really stands out. I found the final two tracks quite moving and I’m sure there was a nod to Nelly the Dog in Oblong of Dreams.
25 February 2022
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
@MATT LEE – you’re a fellow American fan? Good to know I’m not alone.
And yeah, it doesn’t appear to be on Spotify in the US yet. Maybe they roll it out at midnight whenever midnight gets to you.
25 February 2022
Stuart
It’s up on Deezer too (if you’re into streaming and trendily trying to boycott Spotify).
25 February 2022
Bad loser
Have to get ready for work having heard a few tracks. The line about the monkey in ‘Grafting Haddock’ will have me giggling all day.
25 February 2022
Ferencváros fan
Midnight Mass Murder. Hope it’s going to prove a great gig singalong track. ‘Take your chips and fuck off home.’ Quality.
25 February 2022
aLL sNOWY iN THE pOND
Enjoying the album so far, esp the reference to ‘Sing To God by Cardiacs’ In Persian Rug Sale At The URC… one of my favourite bands referencing one of my other favourites.
25 February 2022
dr Desperate
Ditto IASD. Looking forward immensely to hearing others’ interpretations of the lines I couldn’t get, especially in BMUF.
25 February 2022
dic aberdaron
HAPPY “NEW BICCIES ALBUM” DAY!!!!!
25 February 2022
Ste
CD getting delivered this morning but I’ve got Apple Music so currently avoiding work listening to it
25 February 2022
Cream CHEESE AND chives
There is no joy like a new HMHB l.p.58 and it feels like Christmas morning 1973.
25 February 2022
Coronial footnote
Still waiting for CD, but it is on Qobuz and Apple Music. Listened to most of it driving to work. Lyrics well up to standard and almost crashed the car twice laughing. Betamax vs. VHS in a song; genius.
25 February 2022
Bad loser
To anybody on the A562 wondering why someone was sitting at the lights shaking with laughter, I apologise. I was listening to Midnight Mass Murder.
The band’s ability to improve with great age is one of life’s biggest joys.
25 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Several songs from the last 3–4 albums have wormed their way into my all-time HMHB top 10, but all have taken a while (and certainly a lot of plays) to do so. This may be the first time a song (OOD) has gone straight in within the first week of hearing it. And I agree, Bad Loser, MMM may be one of the funniest songs the band has ever recorded.
25 February 2022
Schoon
So far I only noticed the end of MMM which is indeed fantastic.
Musically this album is great, absolutely love Big Man. Pinball Wizard influence?
25 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Or Nice’n’sleazy?
25 February 2022
I’M THE TALENTLESS NIGEL
MMM will certainly have the crowd singing along at the gigs
25 February 2022
Ferencváros fan
Final 2 tracks. Wow. The hauntingly beautiful Slipping the Escort followed by the stunning tour de force that is Oblong of Dreams. Album packed with brilliant lyrics. Really looking forward to chewing over them slow time. Happy listening all.
25 February 2022
Mark holme
There is nothing better in life
Than listening to the new album whilst walking the dog
On a Friday morning instead of going to the office
25 February 2022
Gary Evans
Not quite sure where to start. Am I the only one who nearly lost it when listening to Oblong of Dreams first time. Just stunning. Dusty in here.
25 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
By the way, I haven’t listed streaming sites at the top of the page because, well, I assume if you subscribe to any of them, you know where to find the stuff. According to this article, artists might expect to get about a fiver per thousand streams, so if you’re not going to buy the album because you subscribe to a streaming service, I guess you should try to play the tracks a couple of thousand times, or the album more than 100 times. I guess you could leave it on while you were out of the house. I’m about to do so…
25 February 2022
Nothing to do with the cheese
Has a second half of an album ever been so much better than the first?
25 February 2022
Oblong native
As an oblong native, the final song on the album might be the first HMHB song to have made me….emotional??
25 February 2022
Mavis Enderby
I’m in the rather paradoxical situation of liking all of the individual tracks, but not too keen on the album. Although the normal wordplay and dark humour is there – in spades – there seems to be a harder edge to the sound, that has dulled any sense of delicate whimsy. It’s almost as if HMHB have doe a pastiche of themselves. Still, what would I know in my sad little uncreative life; I’m not the one with hordes of adoring fans.
25 February 2022
CARRIE ANNE
@Gary Evans, you’re not alone. Pass the tissues…
25 February 2022
Bad loser
The money given to the artists from streaming sites is beyond atrocious.
I will only play music I’ve paid for on a playlist (the odd extra track may get included) or a one-off play of something that is new to me and I’m playing to see if I like it.
Midnight Mass Murder reminds me of the NTNON sketch with Rowan Atkinson lambasting those filling the pews because they’ve been selected to appear on Songs of Praise.
25 February 2022
Jonnyrev
I hate using the word “serious” as it implies all their other stuff isn’t, but “Big Man Up Front” and “Oblong of Dreams”. Bloody hell. The first completely straight NB57 songs?
25 February 2022
Frightening The Birds
Just listened through twice on the bus, what a corker! Oblong Of Dreams is an instant favourite, but also loved In A Suffolk Ditch and Slipping The Escort. Looking forward to the individual song dissections though, as not sure what a few are really about.
25 February 2022
Frightening The Birds
Also, Beneath This Broken Headstone seemed like a (much improved) version of What Made Columbia Famous.
By the way, what does ‘grafting haddock’ mean?
25 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Maybe you’ll have to wait until we discuss the individual songs over the next few weeks…
25 February 2022
FEATURELESS STEVE
Impatiently searching for lyrics to the new album this morning, I found this
http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/myfairlady4.shtml on a “song parody” site.
Lyrics include:
I’m getting buried in the morning.
Ding! Dong! the bells are gonna chime.
Stuff and embalm me,
no need to calm me,
but get me to the crypt on time.
Zero points for an absence of parody in line 2 of the chorus.
25 February 2022
HGANAVAC
It’s a belter, time for new translations once the lyrics are up
25 February 2022
NO Legs Best
Having to slum it on Spotify until payday, but after two goes around the monkey gag in Grafting Haddock, the punchline of Token Covid Song, and the whole of Midnight Mass Murder have had me giggling like a loon.
25 February 2022
Ben Woodcock
Arrived this morning on CD from Norman Records but I don’t have a CD player any more so I’m streaming it too – best of all possible worlds
25 February 2022
transit full of keith
Postie’s been…
Still got an afternoon of teethgrindingly irritating online meetings to get through before I can put it on though.
25 February 2022
EXXO
@CtSO might as well answer FtB’s question since it’s in a song title?
@FtBIt just means selling something (something that has probably fallen off the back of a lorry). He’d be going from pub to pub (rather than being based in the George). This used to be a normal legit trade with packets of seafood for people to have with their pint, but to do so with deep sea fish, presumably frozen and rapidly defrosting, would be unusual to say the least.
25 February 2022
ANAMEONLYVANCECOULDLOVE
I tell you what was not expecting a Cardiacs reference on Persian Rug Sale feels like worlds are colliding
as everybody stated so far the last 2 songs deserve to be added to the canon but i think i prefer Slipping the Escort
25 February 2022
jerome of prague
The words ‘second hand hessian sack’ in ‘In A Suffolk Ditch’ are delivered with a delightful level of contempt not heard since ‘Stop analysing Strava’ on ‘Every Time A Bell Rings’. Had me punching the air in the shower.
25 February 2022
warden Hodges
Second at Probe today, would have been first had I not had a swift half at Carnarvon Castle.
Anyway, this is my Friday night sorted.
25 February 2022
paul f
@Exxo – I did always have great sympathy for those seafood traders, having to listen to at least 10 people every night drunkenly ask them “Do you have crabs?” whilst pissing themselves at how funny (and original) they were being.
25 February 2022
Ron plasma
Brilliant. But what’s the lineup under the cd? Hilton etc
25 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
Thank you Probe Plus and Mr. Postie, I have Voltarol…
25 February 2022
IGuana andy
Wow! another truly superb effort – well worth the wait as ever. I too am relishing the first few plays via the dreaded streaming service as my CD has apps arrived at home but I’m in Italy. (Trip initially planned around the 18 Feb release date). Looking forward to the lyric analysis and debate.
25 February 2022
dr Desperate
Since you ask, @Ron, that line-up is the Barnstoneworth Utd reserve team, Yorkshire Premier League 1922, as listed in the Ripping Yarns episode ‘Golden Gordon’ – see also ‘McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt’.
(I believe ‘Sydney Cave’ should read ‘Sidney, K’, and there may be other misspellings: Alton, Tapwell, Thorswell? Does anyone have the Ripping Yarns book to check?)
25 February 2022
cream cheese and chives
With regard to grafting haddock, this was thrown up when I googled.
https://www.abctales.com/story/terrence-oblong/grafting-haddock-george#:~:text=Before%20the%20main%20course%2C%20it%20was%20time%20t
A great lp already. The expected blurring of humour, ennui, rage and emotional genius. Slipping The Escort puts me in mind of Terminus and Oblong of Dreams of some modern day pastoral poetry. Once again this disproves the lazy idea that they are a comedy band.
Having missed so many gigs of late due to previously arranged holidays and the like, I may have cancel a holiday or break a friendship to see them performed live.
Am I alone in wondering whether any posties had more than one to deliver today and if so I wonder if they pondered what lay within the Jiffy bags. Thank you to mine for getting it here so promptly this morning.
25 February 2022
Phyllis Triggs
Postie arrives a full 45 mins earlier than usual – just as I’m taking the dogs out. Brilliant! I can play it in the car. Laughed all the way there, cried all the way back. Fantastic! Can’t wait to be shouting “Take your chips and fuck off home” at a gig.
25 February 2022
IDIOT SAUL
@Doc
Reserve team
Yorkshire Premier League 1922
Alton, Roberts, Carter, Sydney K, Tapwell, Mason, Manningham, Bailey, Boswell, Dobkins, O’Grady.
Goals for: 6
Goals against: 81.
25 February 2022
ron plasma
Playing 4-4-2? Ahead of their time.
25 February 2022
Slow dempsey
Oblong of Dreams is a fantastic final song. Fitting that its closing refrain references two flowers. This seems by some distance their most botanic album.
25 February 2022
SHROPPIEMON
Dr Desperate
Holton,Roberts,Carter,Sydney Cave …er…Ralph Cave, Manningham,Horsewell,Dobkins,O’Grady
Goals for …six
Goals against …seventy-one …
25 February 2022
Frightening The Birds
Thanks @Exxo and @CreamCheese!
Maybe it’s always been the case, but it strikes me how much work the bass does carrying the melody on these songs.
25 February 2022
EXXO
Just to explain further, FtB, this Terence Oblong character publishes short stories & sketches on his blog before each album comes out, based on the titles alone. His ‘Big Man Up Front’ is my favourite of the ones he’s done for this album. But they do not in any way elucidate. As you can see, for his ‘grafting haddock’ page, he’s covered every possible meaning except the one in the song.
25 February 2022
IDIOT SAUL
@Doc
Found that team on t’Interweb, but I’ve just watched it and it’s Horsewill (or Horswill?) rather than Boswell.
25 February 2022
Chigley skin
Well, having deliberately avoided the advance “singles” and sneak peeks, and with my appetite whetted all the more by the extra week’s wait, I’ve just had my first full listen-through. A really terrific mixture of the poignant and the laugh-out-loud funny, which has grabbed me far quicker than the last outing. I already can’t wait to give it another (metaphorical) spin.
I definitely agree that Midnight Mass Murder is a rehash of the NTNOCN Rowan Atkinson Songs of Praise sketch from forty years ago (“Where were you bastards then? Sitting on your fat agnostic arses watching Holiday ’82!”) but it’s a cracking addition to the HMHB singalong hymn/footy-chant canon which has felt a bit neglected in recent times.
25 February 2022
Frightening The Birds
It’s all first impressions at this stage, isn’t it, but that said, this is where I’m at after 4 listens through:
God Tier: Oblong Of Dreams, Slipping The Escort, In A Suffolk Ditch
Cracking: I’m Getting Buried In The Morning, Rogation Sunday’s Here Again, Grafting Haddock In The George
Good: Awkward Sean, Big Man Up Front, When I Look At My Baby
Solid: Tess Of The Dormobiles, Beneath This Broken Headstone, Midnight Mass Murder
OK: Token Covid Song, Persian Rug Sale At The URC
25 February 2022
Cardinal richelieu
Good to see, or hear rather, Nicholas Witchell finally get a name-check. Prince Charles will be delighted.
25 February 2022
Third rate les
Was grumpy and hung over when I first heard it and mainly enjoyed Midnight Mass Murder and Tess, and not so much the grimmer ones. At first listen it doesn’t sound anything like as good as the last one but I can see it will do by the end of the day.
25 February 2022
EDward Ian L’ampune
I know Its only voltarol but I like it.
25 February 2022
warden Hodges
Thinking of that sketch too ‘Didn’t the hat shop do well?’. Where were you bxxxxxds last week??’.
25 February 2022
ron plasma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O1pH-NEa6I About 5 mins in
25 February 2022
ron plasma
My day is complete. I’ve remembered I went to see the latter-day incarnation of the side (Brodsworth Miners Welfare ) in 2006 when FC United beat them in the FA Vase 3-1. (“We often score 6 but we seldom score ten”)
25 February 2022
I, problem chimp
Well, after a pretty rubbish week and yesterday’s news of deliveries from Rough Trade, etc. but Proper only sending out a dispatched email late afternoon, I was grumpy and resigned to not getting to hear the album until at least tomorrow…
Imagine my joy, then, when on arrival chez Chimp a little package looking suspiciously like a CD was waiting on the mat… After a protracted argument over which of the kids would get to open it, it was like a second Christmas morning when they discovered it was the new Biscuit long player… We’ve only had a chance to listen to the first few tracks so far, but one of them is now playing Minecraft and periodically hollering ‘awkward Sean!’, so initial reactions from the younger end of the fanbase are looking positive…
25 February 2022
dr Desperate
Thanks for the ‘Golden Gordon’ transcriptions – I was hoping the version in the ‘Ripping Yarns’ script book (as posted by Shroppiemon above, and available in Google Books) might be definitive, but it seems the least accurate, getting even the number of goals against wrong.
25 February 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
Alf Roberts with the therapy leopard uncannily looks like Vladimir Putin…
25 February 2022
Bloke out walking the dog
First listen and it’s definitely a big thumbs up from me Brian.
25 February 2022
limpiadora parda
Royal Mail Yak Wins Through. Took 20 mins to remove cellophane wiith stanley knife but well worth losing a finger for. Catharsis for me and the ghost of Rob Roy (less Liam Neeson more Arthur Daley). A necessary soundtrack to accompany apocalyptic gymkhana. For this relief, much thanks..
25 February 2022
dr Desperate
It’s certainly taken over Fuck*ng Hedge’s mantle with aplomb.
25 February 2022
John darwin
Lovely stuff….
25 February 2022
Sloppy
@Oblong Native @Gary Evans @Carrie Anne
Growing up on that estate over the Fender, it got a little dusty in here too.
I think the Pleasure Peninsula now has it’s own anthem!
25 February 2022
EXXO
@Sloppy. You were always favourite for the Placename Bingo … but I dunno if Dr. D will accept “up by the school” (St. Saviour’s Primary) as a definitive mention of Oxton.
25 February 2022
Deacon in misguided trousers
Got it yesterday. Have listened to it twice since then. First impressions- possibly not quite as great as their best (Achtung Bono is their high point for me) but I thought that about “Hedge” and I grew to love that. I’m Getting Buried in the Morning is certainly top tier, bound to be up there with NSD and Trad Arr Tune as a future gig favourite.
25 February 2022
Sloppy
@exxo well, was worth a try 🤪
25 February 2022
THat chiSEller idris
This is the second album I’ve heard as it was released and, as with NOCAYCH, I was underwhelmed on first listen. Back then, it was Renfield’s Afoot that served as my key to getting into the album; this time, Nigel and the boys kept me waiting till the penultimate track to serve up the gateway but as soon as I’d heard that, followed by Oblong of Dreams, it clicked. Another great album and Neil’s bass playing deserves particular praise. Track for track, it might even be better than the last one although so far Harsh Times In Umberstone Covert’s place as my favourite HBHB song remains assured.
25 February 2022
Moo369
The riff from Pavement’s Grave Architecture make a brief appearance in Persian Rug Sale at about 2:28
25 February 2022
Pirx The Purist
Ooh, me order at Keymail is showing as ‘shipped’! Perhaps it’ll reach me on Saturday morning after I get back from Sainsbury’s and will provide an excuse for not retouching the woodstain on the upstairs floorboards!
25 February 2022
warden Hodges
Lingham Lane follows a field lane of indecency. Oblong.
Yes, cars do pull up there even in broad daylight!
25 February 2022
HeNdrix-tattoo
Or the Kids are United?
25 February 2022
Kendo Nagasaki
The new album is absolutely amazing. Instant hit. Grafting haddock is an all time classic
25 February 2022
Injured Buzzard
With the anticipation of a new album there’s always been a slight fear that it won’t match up to previous classics. Quashed as always with an absolute belter.
IGBITM: already a live staple,
RS: early fav,
AS: a grower,
TOTD: Television Personalities-esque classic.
GHITG: Gwatkin style that’ll have the ‘custard’ reference revered for all time.
BMU: Another instant favourite. Melody reminded me of a Leonard Cohen tune.
WILAMB: One of those great little pub sing-a-long tracks.
BRBH: Reminds me of the likes of RSVP/Columbia.
IASD: Absolute classic mid-album anthem.
PRSATU: Another classic.
MMM: One of those that set the band apart from any other. A few have compared it to the ‘songs of praise’ NTNOCN sketch but they did a 3 part pastiche using the same tune: Failed in Wales/Made from Whales/Laid in Wales.
TCS: Another solid track likely live favourite.
STE: This is the one that’s taken me the longest to fully embrace.
OOD: Absolute instant classic.
Look forward to hearing as many as possible at Nottingham next month.
25 February 2022
Alice van der meer
My post this evening consisted of Old Glory magazine, the latest Old Lawnmower Club newsletter, and last but most certainly not least my CD. Either my cup overfloweth or I am dribbling again.
25 February 2022
transit full of keith
Just brilliant. That’s all for now.
25 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
I guess it’s next week we have to look and see if it’s made a dent in the charts?
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/albums-chart/
25 February 2022
jodrell banksy
Just arrived in Portland OR (from Proper) which seems to violate the laws of physics if not post offices. Almost took off the new Voivod before it was over to get to the Voltarol…
From Dept. of Coincidences: recently ordered the LP of Cardiacs’ “Sing to God” and it spent a good month in some mysterious mid-Atlantic limbo before arriving. And just watched the “Golden Gordon” episode of Ripping Yarns a couple of days ago (although that’s not so much a coincidence as, well, the sort of thing you do waiting for a new Biccies album to show up).
On “Broken Headstone” now…
25 February 2022
Kittymcdermott
Showtime! Still taking it all in but am left with a more profound than ever sense of gratitude – life would be so much poorer without Half Man Half Biscuit. It doesn’t bear thinking about, really. Like many others, was a blubbering wreck by the end of Oblong of Dreams, especially as I’d barely recovered from the ‘if she could hold the needle steady’ line in Slipping the Escort. Wasn’t expecting that. Lots of surprises, I thought. Anyone else in real suspense during Big Man Up Front? I found it genuinely unnerving. Also, so many moments of pure euphoria, what with Kelvin McKenzie safely dispatched in a second-hand hessian sack – hallelujah. You wouldn’t pay full price for a new one, would you? Mostly, though, I can’t get over the delivery of Christine’s Paine’s, “No, he’s alive,” which is so spot-on and familiar that I can’t think of it without awe and chuckles. What a great day to be alive (am steadfastly avoiding the news, just for tonight.) Sorry for disjointed ramblings, am thoroughly giddy. I mean… ‘buskins of mottled cordovan’. Don’t think anyone saw them coming. Fabulous.
25 February 2022
Lord leominster
If I’ve heard correctly Ludlow and Walmington-on-Sea get mentions. Which makes me very happy.
26 February 2022
Rickenbarking Mad
I’ve been streaming the album until my CD arrives, I’m most taken with Neil’s bass tone, one of the highest compliments you can pay any musician is that when you hear them, you instantly know who it is and that they’re the only person who can make that sound. I own a Rick bass and I can’t get it to sound like that, hats off to Mr Crossley.
I’m enjoying the album, dark and funny in equal measure as expected, oblique and intelligent. I particularly like the call back to Pop-Tart Mark, It’s got me thinking if I’ve forgotten or missed other characters making an appearance in other songs. I’m also wondering if they’ll eventually rue flirting with brass…probably not, they’re tastefully done and add to the songs without getting in the way.
26 February 2022
Gargoyle bob
Is that Garstang getting on the HMHB map? (When I Look at My Baby)… that was some excuse to be that far up the M6 when they were actually in the Coach & Horses in Moreton (on the Wirral). Which is 55 miles or 89 miles depending on whether you got through the Mersey Tunnel or not 🤔
26 February 2022
warden Hodges
Paid in cash at Probe. Keep the pretty green going!
26 February 2022
warden Hodges
Sure I’m not the only one mumbling ‘ Redeem me now thy great Jehovah’ after hearing MMM. That and monkey/custard/dickhead in track 5 made my chuckle.
26 February 2022
Ste
My God! Oblong of Dreams. Utter genius.
26 February 2022
_ \ | / _
I suppose I don’t go to Biscuit for the music (“all our songs sound the same”) so it was nice to hear Slipping the Escort. Musically, it is the most interesting thing they have ever done.
26 February 2022
dic aberdaron
“doremisofarupyourownarse”
genius
26 February 2022
Floreat ultonia
Loving it so far 😀
Whatever happened to Chicory Tip?
26 February 2022
Gok wan acolYte
Only had time to give it one spin so far, but ‘does not disappoint’ would be my initial view
26 February 2022
Moo369
@Kitty, I’m with you on the delivery of Christine’s Paine’s revelation. I’m equally blown away by the “didn’t care, still don’t” on Grafting Haddock. It jumps out of the speakers and directly into my insular cortex.
I’ve often thought that in another life, Nigel might have made a great actor. I could well imagine him taking a David Thewlis-style role in a Mike Leigh joint.
26 February 2022
Parsfan
I listened a couple of times yesterday while trying to work. Big Man Up Front reminded me of something I couldn’t quite place (a bit like Fix It So She Dreams of Me still does). Listening now again and think I have it…Days of Pearly Spencer. Anyone else?
26 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
See 379 and 380 above!
26 February 2022
RustySpanner
The cover is proving troublesome.
A JCM800 and older Marshall 4*12, both slightly foxed.
Couple of Fenders but can’t nail the models. Blackface, odd knob placement. Best guess is Princetons.
More regular gig goers can help with this, I’m sure.
The vehicle is giving me VW vibes, but nothing concrete.
I’m puzzled by the footwear.
The modern, multi-coloured loafers are brave, but offer little to go on.
I’ll venture Docs rather than Solvair for the boots (a hint of yellow stitching?) but could be way out.
Possibly Gazelle for the Adidas daps, but it’s an obvious guess.
As to the last pair, no idea.
Anyone?
26 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
The CD is in the car for the weekend, and I had an absolutely perfect PBR while coming back from refilling the car this morning – seeing a sign for an oriental rug sale tied to a lamp post just as the line “Persian rug sale at the URC” was sung.
I’m glad I didn’t have my mouth full when I first heard the monkey line in Grafting Haddock, and I’m probably going to get into trouble for singing MMM while out walking the dog sooner or later…
26 February 2022
Sloppy
All you people with reliable postie’s, stop rubbing it in 😭
Be quicker to take a stroll round to Nab’s see if he’s any spares
26 February 2022
Sloppy
Posties and NB’s…..I’m off for a lie down ….
26 February 2022
Gezzar
Oblong of Dreams is sublime, biased obviously as a resident of the leisure peninsula but it should be played just before the Rockford Files at Rovers games forever more!
26 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Final entries for the Placename Bingo contest can be found here. Feel free to claim a win!
26 February 2022
Stef
“I consoled myself with a bap, Sing To God by Cardiacs and a beer” – my two greatest musical loves meet in one song on a brilliant album. Nice one Nigel, fucking nice one. I’m sure Tim would’ve appreciated it. All spectacular.
26 February 2022
Paul f
The verses of OoD are reminding me of Tom Robinson’s Glad to be Gay.
26 February 2022
CHRISTIE MALRY
Being a placename bingo novice I am unsure of the exact rules. Does the place mentioned in a song have to be human settlement? Does it count if it is part of a longer phrase? For example, ‘the Leasowe Light’ contains the name Leasowe, which is a place, but what’s mentioned is actually a structure rather Leasowe itself, although the former lies within the boundaries of the latter. Anyway, it seems Oxton Village might take it for its proximity to Woodchurch, though actually Saughall Massie is pretty close to one end of ‘Lingham Lane’ (if a street name is permitted.) But the lane is split into two halves by the railway line and you wouldn’t actually use that end to reach the aforementioned ‘Leasowe Light’ so maybe only the other half should count. Hm. (As a recent incomer to the Oblong of Dreams I am still learning its psycho-geography.)
26 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
The rules are in Comment #77 above:
3. Anybody whose chosen placename is mentioned in a song wins.
4. In the event of nobody winning outright, the placename closest (on Google Maps) to one mentioned wins.
26 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Right, here we go. A little earlier than planned, but one song, and indeed one part of one song, is creating so much correspondence that I almost wondered if the enjoyment of the song is being lessened by people’s confusion or bemusement over it. So let’s get this one out of the way.
See lyrics to Slipping The Escort
26 February 2022
Poopleby
Oblong of Dreams got me first time. Boom. Gets better on rehearing (over and over). Can’t wait for the anthemic rendition of “Cowslips and Celandine” by the masses at forthcoming gigs.
26 February 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
Yeah! Paul I hear it also, I also hear If the Kids are United in MMM which I think will become the new VB…
26 February 2022
PADDY SHENNAN
If I still worked for the Liverpool Echo I would have gone to town on Voltarol. I hope you don’t mind me doing it here, you lovely people…
GETTING BURIED – it just makes me smile… the music and, of course, the words. A perfect opener (and, I would imagine, a perfect gig opener). But how could a song about such a subject be so uplifting? Who cares, it’s great stuff.
ROGATION – another fine foot tapper. Love the line “PS Yes, I have left you” and the way it’s delivered. And the subject of selfish sods who put up posters about missing pets (usually cats around here), and leave them up for what seems like years, is one that has been criminally ignored in popular music…until NOW!
AWKWARD – I don’t normally enjoy whistling, but the whistling of The Skye Boat Song here is a treat. Great to hear a mention of The Sweet, too!
TESS – poignant songs about ageing are right up my street these days. Love the line “So close yet so nowhere near.”
GRAFTING – this is so good. So many great lines. The already much-quoted “It’s for the custard, dickhead” has to be the best. Delivered with such delicious disdain. And re Happy Larry: “He reckons a contented mind is a continual feast.” I had never heard this proverb before (“perpetual” wouldn’t have worked as well, would it?) Love the happy man/van/scale the Matalan lines, too – and love the fact that it’s all rounded off with “Made it Ma! Top of the world!” from James Cagney’s character, Arthur “Cody” Jarrett, in White Heat.
Some nice tuba sounds, too! A classic. As is…
BIG MAN – a really sinister feel to this one – well, it’s a sinister tale. With a great last line.
WHEN I LOOK AT MY BABY – after Big Man, this almost feels like a drinks-break in a tense Test match. Things are lighter. A time to relax. Good to hear Garstang get a mention.
BENEATH – love the “In a pub in the west end of Rhyl…” lines. Another short and sweet one.
lN A SUFFOLK DITCH – Buzzcocks-esque guitar – no finer compliment. Again, so many great lines and laugh out loud moments – starting with the continuity announcer. And love the double whammy Clash reference: “Complete Remote Control!”
This will be great at gigs – not least the Kelvin MacKenzie mention. Plenty will join in with that.
“It’s not illegal, it’s in the Bible!” Marvellous. Space for your installation/Nicholas Witchell – also ace.
PERSIAN RUG – this one grew on me, from something like an eight to a 9.25 out of 10. Great to hear a mention for Cardiacs (as well as a cheese and onion batch). Love the guitar, too.
MIDNIGHT – The “Where were you in mid-July?” line evokes happy memories for me of my days as a young reporter. While working for the Wigan edition of the Lancs Evening Post I went on the Wigan Athletic team bus during its parade through the streets of the town with the Freight Rover Trophy in 1985. I remember hearing a couple of the players quietly singing to the crowds “Where were you in February?”
It’s going to be quite something hearing audiences singing “Take your chips and f*** off home!” at future gigs.
TOKEN – so glad Nigel targeted the attention-seekers who “had a good pandemic.” The “Do ray ME, ME, ME, so far up your own arse” line is sublime.
SLIPPING – beautiful music. Beautiful song. And incredibly sad, too, of course. I might be the only one, but I get slight echoes of the beautiful music on Skin Deep by The Stranglers. Another singalong finale, courtesy of the “30 Airbus” line (Airbus UK Broughton FC are currently top of Cymru North, I believe). Giving it the big un – a great phrase. Like Dr Desperate, it reminds me of Lampard’s clash with Klopp and Co when he was managing Chelsea: “Only league title you’ve ever won and you’re giving it the big un! F*** off!”
OBLONG – full of delights. A “tellypudlian” mention – love it.
This is such a wonderfully touching song – “And now I’m in paradise…Everything I want is here, and everything I need is here… Estate memories, all good…Clouds part, showtime, cowslips and celandine.”
Like others commenting here, I had tears in my eyes. A stunning love letter.
It would be churlish to single out a few of the above as being my (current) big favourites, but let’s be churlish… Oblong of Dreams, Slipping The Escort, In A Suffolk Ditch, Grafting Haddock In The George, Midnight Mass Murder, Big Man Up Front and Persian Rug Sale at The URC.
But Oblong…it has to be one of their greatest songs. Ever.
26 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Always welcome here, Paddy.
26 February 2022
warden Hodges
Great that Paddy.
26 February 2022
Geordie gaz
We live in Woodchurch and me and the wife nearly fell off our chairs. Loving it.
26 February 2022
Bruce grime
Midnight Mass Murder to the tune of Clementine is sublime
26 February 2022
RustySpanner
A delightful album.
I’d like to write something profound about our experiences of dementia, both familial and work related, but I’m not sure I have anything else to add.
These are not just songs.
Love to all.
26 February 2022
julian or Rupert
Since I grew up there, perhaps it is not surprising that Oblong Of Dreams had me checking for tissues in my pockets and wondering if I had forgotten my hay-fever pill this morning.
But Mrs Julian or Rupert is from much further afield and also said on first listen that “this is going to be one of my favourites”.
Also, @Christie Malry in #470 – there is a footbridge over the railway joining the 2 parts of Lingham Lane. So you could get to/from the Lighthouse from either end. (Don’t think this is going to affect the outcome of the placename bingo in any way…)
26 February 2022
malcolm of arimathea
“These are not just songs.” What a great way to put it.
CD arrived yesterday from Proper, no complaints there.
On each album since I really started listening to HMHB (90 Bisodol onwards), there has been at least one song that brought a lump to the throat. This time it was OOD immediately (as so many have said already, an instant classic), followed by STE – on second listen, when I was paying more attention. Think I was nowhere near with Placename Bingo though.
26 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
@Bruce: I hear Cwm Rhondda (Bread of Heaven}
27 February 2022
Canadian Alice
As a culturally non-British person whose first language is not English
It is now my personal theory that all deaths in Voltarol, aside from those with specified or alluded causes, are COVID deaths
I, of course, cannot support this claim with any evidence. Just a feeling here with whatever words I could catch
27 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
We say goodbye to my old mum on Friday another victim of the evil Mr Dementia. Playing this album daily has been great comfort to me.
27 February 2022
Floreat ultonia
Sorry about your Mum Bobby S.
Agreed re ‘Bread of Heaven’.
My favourite response to ‘Where were you’ etc was at a Division 8 Worcester v Bath game.
“We were here, we’ve been mediocre for years. Where were you, at home in London?”
27 February 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Cheers, Thank you. I think Bruce is getting his ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ confused with ‘Whose your father referee’
27 February 2022
dic aberdaron
straight thru macdonalds
at least he read the sign
27 February 2022
German Rep
It just occured to me that since 2019 or so yt dropped me a Voltarol clip into every possible ad break (and there are a lot!)… does this count as my Voltarol years? Can‘t wait for the album in the post, meanwhile having it on infinite loop on spotify… love the horn sections especially on BMU – which musically is my pick of the album so far.
27 February 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
My Condolences to you and your family Micky. Sorry for your loss…
27 February 2022
PETER MCORNITHOLOGIST
@ Bobby Svarc. Love from Hartlepool. Take care lad.
27 February 2022
dr Desperate
I wasn’t intending to announce the winners of Placename Bingo until all the lyrics had been chewed over thoroughly, but since it appears that “Why do that today when you can always put it off until tomorrow?” is not our motto, here we go.
First of all, to answer Christie Malry’s reasonable queries above, the places mentioned in the songs do have to be human settlements, though if the song specifies a particular part of that settlement, that’s where measurements are taken from. (The example of the Leasowe Light becomes particularly apposite here; less so Caldy Hill.)
Street names were not accepted, even if they include the names of places – there was a Lingham, before it merged with Moreton, and there may, for all I know, be a place called Limbo, though that Lane’s name was originally Limber. The same applies to rivers.
From this you may deduce that, surprisingly, of the 108 placenames entered, no cheers could be raised for any that hit the bull. However, unsurprisingly, those that came closest were all in OoD. (All measurements are taken from the 1 km/1 inch scale of Google Maps.)
In time-honoured fashion, I shall reveal the Top 3 in reverse order:
3. Exxo, running to catch the bus at the last minute, with Storeton, 3.49km from Woodchurch.
2. Sue W (are they the same as Sloppy?) with Oxton Village, 3.06km from Woodchurch.
1. Rubber Faced Irritant with Saughall Massie, 2.99km from the Leasowe Light.
Those on the podium forcing grins of congratulation to RFI may take some consolation from the fact that their entries were both closer than Leasowe itself, at 3.66km from SM.
27 February 2022
dr Desperate
Congratulations are also due to Ferenc Puskas To You, whose entry of Great Yarmouth was furthest from a named place, at 7,800km from Nashville.
27 February 2022
dr Desperate
(Apologies, @Ferenc, that should have read 6,800km, which means that @Stu pipped you to the post with Kathmandu, 7,300km from Dover.)
27 February 2022
EXXO
I will offer a special handshake across in front of the gold medal wearer towards Sue, who will surely be aware that the daffodils up by the school are only 700 metres from Oxton village.
27 February 2022
EXXO
And of course a massive hat-tip to the person – Warden Hodges I think – who predicted Leasowe Lighthouse for ‘Hedge’ in 2018, in reply to which I mentioned the phallic symbol on the O/S map being enhanced by the tantric ‘lane name Lingham’. But he seems to have been replying to someone when he wrote that about it being in Moreton. Do recall if you were the first to suggest it, WH?
27 February 2022
EXXO
PPPS – just right click to measure distances on google maps doc.
27 February 2022
Nick Robert Walters
Three listens in and wow…
Found the music a bit ‘samey’ at first, but it doesn’t take long (three listens) for details and textures to emerge and stand out.
And it ROCKS like an absolute basmard! Drumming, and especially bass, excellent and satisfying throughout.
Usual mix of humour and melancholy with perhaps and understandably, starting with teh album title. Loads of laugh out loud moments (monkey, chips, see ya later undertaker, etc etc), these are the little canapes that draw you in to the main course.
NO IDEA yet what Big Man Up Front and Rug Sale are about – which is part of the joy – with time the meaning will become clear. I’m in no rush, always make your pleasures last, but perhaps might try to get to grips a bit quicker before Putin’s Vodyanoi arrive on our shores.
In 2020, during lockdown, I dusted down my old Yamaha six-string dreadnought and began playing. Starting singing covers (including various Half Man songs!) and wrote a few of my own. Last year I took the big step, bought an electric-acoustic, and started doing open mike nights in local pubs, and I have gone down a storm. SO, YES, I AM LOCKDOWN LUKE! Thanks for that, Nigel, you tosser! How did you start off, then? In your bedroom with a Woolworth’s guitar, wasn’t it? Hypocrite!
In my defence I do not have a YouTube channel, and have done stand-up poetry/comedy before, so it wasn’t just a lockdown thing with me. Oh God, I’m making it sound worse, arent I? Stop digging! Stop diggin!
The final two songs… Slipping the Escort and Oblong Of Dreams… they really… well, blimey… the former is the saddest song he has ever written, and many will relate. My old man is in a nursing home – in Aberystwyth, coincidentally enough – so my family are going through this. The upside of it is he is blissfully unware of COVID and all the other shit going on… But it ain;t much of an upside.
Oblong… Terence Oblong is a Gorilla who featured in 2 episodes of obscure yet brilliant 90s sitcom Nightingales, you know, the one with Robert Lindsay, James Ellis. and David Threlfall as night security guards.
Oblong… He has often written about teh joys of Spring: and nature etc,
and this is the ultimate expression of that.
What a way to end an album.
Absolutely sue perb.
27 February 2022
warden Hodges
Re Exxo.
Possibly but in all honesty, I don’t know.
I would guess that Moreton is closer to lighthouse than Leasowe but what I’m deffo going to do now is not Lingham Lane (maybe to the bridge) but the obscure field road from Leasowe Road to the lighthouse . All good fun this..
27 February 2022
Darwin
Mrs came into the room while I was enjoying the new album. Keep repeating the first 4 tracks. Anyway she said ‘what’s this shite? It’s just a noise! (accidental Partridge). She’s gone back to Gabrielle and Simon fucking Webb(e) But she’s on to the early asparagus harvest so all is not lost…
27 February 2022
Third rate les
I wonder if the J-J-J-Jimmy thing in Persian Rug Sale is a South Park reference?
NICK ROBERT WALTERS – I was Lockdown Les too. Taking the piss is only funny when it’s very close to home – that’s what’s magic about HMHB and what’s not funny about much satire.
BOBBY SVARC – all the best.
27 February 2022
The Almost illegal elton welsby
Is anyone else disappointed with the album? It’s certainly no Achtung Bono, is it? Have tried to like it, but even after a dozen listens, the town hall band’s CD it ain’t.
Where have the funnies gone, Nige?
27 February 2022
Ritchie stevens
I’m not disappointed. About 18 listens in I think it’s their best album yet, just ahead of Creative Hub. Musically it’s a little bit behind that but it’s full of good jokes, catchy tunes and great serious songs too.
27 February 2022
Bernardo Soares
You might be on your own there, TAIEW.
I don’t see too much point in comparing one album to the next – it’s easier to see TVY as another addition to the oeuvre, but as a collection of songs, it has some fantastic moments.
I thought Terminus on the last album was the best thing they’d ever done, but Slipping the Escort may have just overtaken it. Nigel, with his bleak, almost devastatingly recognisable descriptions of ordinary lives succumbing to the inevitable horrors of ageing, really has become the Philip Larkin of pop music.
No, for me, this album has it all. From the short, sweet, and invariably sad moments of Tess of the Dormobiles and Beneath This Broken Headstone, to the epic Slipping the Escort and Oblong of Dreams, to the brutally hilarious Midnight Mass Murder. It’s a superb album with just so much to enjoy, to unpack, to cherish!
Hopefully, like the Town Hall Band’s CD, this will become a grower for you, too.
27 February 2022
Nick Robert Walters
THIRD RATE LES – I know I was cracking up! It’s not the first time he’s got me. I am a Doctor Who aficionado. And yes, I once went to a vintage car show, and it was the weekend.
TAIEW – I see what you mean. The material is darker on this one, for sure. Reminds me of This Leaden Pall. And the last album was such a larff riot, that this one does seem a bit humourless. But the funnies, are importantly still there. And are as good as ever.
And on the serious songs, the wordplay is just as good, if not better. Slipping The Escort is so eloquently heartbreaking… a life, two loves, sketched out with such humanity and wit.
That’s what makes em so special. Not just a comedy group.
‘These are not just songs.’ Rustyspanner nailed it.
Apols for typos in this and previous post.
27 February 2022
Dull Head Del
Not disappointed at all with the album. Enjoying the sentimental songs and the darker ones. Plenty of ‘funnies’ to be had too.
27 February 2022
The Almost illegal elton welsby
Nick, sure, more than a comedy group. Some of the best stuff they’ve done is the more poignant type. I just played this album thinking “Something great will be along in a minute”.. but I’m Getting Buried In The Morning started instead. Thankfully that’s one of the better ones.
Not even Brazil in their heyday could win every game I guess. Hopefully another new album will come swinging ’round that corner quicker than usual.
27 February 2022
Richie stevens
Oi, Ritchie Stevens! I was here first. Take your chips and fuck off home.
27 February 2022
Gagarin
Disappointing. No mention of me.
27 February 2022
John Anderson
In the spirit of evangelism I’ve contributed to the TVY thread on Steve Hoffman Music Forums. https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/new-half-man-half-biscuit-album-the-voltarol-years-released-18-feb-2022.1126695/#post-28623410
27 February 2022
That chiseller, Idris
Done my bit of Steve Hoffman, too, being careful to resist any best band from Merseyside comments this time (I suspect I still haven’t been forgiven for referring to Colin Moulding as Britain’s best songwriting bassist). Can’t believe I missed the thread – thanks for pointing it out.
27 February 2022
l.o.cant
Is anybody else super excited that the 2nd most maligned band ever and their magnum opus get a mention? I’m talking Sing To God by Cardiacs o’ course, Persian Rug Sale. Made me very happy.
27 February 2022
THE SPIRIT OF OLAF
I just read comment #422 from EDWARD IAN L’AMPUNE for the second time, catching up where I’d left off reading the comments yesterday, chuckled once more and then it finally dawned on me –
“The Rock’n’Roll Years” was a BBC TV programme that I was addicted to as a schoolkid in the early ’80s. Most of you will remember it too, I’m sure. Each episode dealt with one particular year, and it went chronologically from maybe 1955(?) to some time in the early ’70s, I think (I was mostly enthused by the ’60s and very early ’70s stuff, so those were the episodes I would preserve on VHS) (never Betamax).
It consisted entirely of footage of TV or movie appearances by the more popular musical acts of that year, and news footage which was usually soundtracked by other big hits. Captions would identify the performing artists on screen as well as concisely explaining and giving context to the news footage. This format eliminated the need for any gobshite presenters. 🙂
The programme did feature a fairly naff title sequence though, featuring images of electric guitars, jukeboxes etc. and a naff theme tune which attempted to squeeze in as many quotes from classic pop tunes as possible. That aside, I thought the show was great.
It’s probably not the only occasion that “The Rock’n’Roll Years” has been used for anything, but I can’t help thinking this programme may have been the inspiration for the album title.
In other news, the (one and only) Glasgow branch of Fopp had sold out of copies on Friday when I went there! I had to go to HMV (I misjudged the opening hours of the local independent record shop – I’ll go there though to get another copy for my sister’s imminent birthday).
This is already a favourite record for me, I’m not remotely disappointed. I think I may have been less frequently baffled by lyrics this time than usual (had to do a search on both “buskins” and “cordovan” though, I confess).
28 February 2022
Paul f
The Rock’n’Roll Years was a televisual follow up to a BBC Radio show called 25 Years of Rock (later extended to 30 Years of Rock). My brother taped every episode and I used to listen to them endlessly. Most of my knowledge of the events of the years from 1956 to 1979 comes from that show. I keep missing it on the rare occasions they broadcast it (last on 6 Music in December 2019).
28 February 2022
Paul f
*1955.
28 February 2022
transit full of keith
More likely I think a nod to compilations like “The Nashville Years”, “The Motown Years”, etc? I’d like to think it might be a direct answer to “The Stiff Years” (Kirsty MacColl).
I used to avidly watch The Rock & Roll Years in my early teens and much of my early knowledge of the previous decade’s politics came from the news footage and captions in it. In my head the Fall of Saigon will always be soundtracked by ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely?’ and riots in Belfast choreographed by The Sweet.
28 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
After a weekend with it as the constant soundtrack in the car, I’m loving this album more and more. “Persian Rug Sale” is growing on me, with the juxtaposition of the battle of Towton and a supermarket – if you’ve ever seen the Leeds city centre Morrisons on a Saturday morning, you’ll understand…
As for Oblong of Dreams, utter brilliance and probably the most beautiful evocation of the singer’s attachment to their home area since New Model Army’s “Green and Grey”. I reckon this one’s going to be the next Lux Familiar cup winner!
@CtSO – are there any of the new songs that haven’t had any goes at a transcription yet, or that would benefit from another set of ears? Might have some slack time today when I could try another one or two.
28 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
GHITG, BMUF, IASD and TCS have the fewest submissions so far. But every song’s had at least two people having a go!
28 February 2022
dr Desperate
See posts 62 and 95 above for Exxo’s and my thoughts on the title.
I think the mention of a (non-addictive) drug makes it more likely to be a play on such usages as ‘The Cocaine Years’.
28 February 2022
Markw
As a Prestonian, I am thrilled to see that Garstang gets a mention on When I Look at my Baby. Belting!
28 February 2022
That chIseller, idris
Probably not the first example, but Debbie Harry has referred to the period between the Blondie split and the release of her second (or third) solo album, when she put her career on hold to care for Chris Stein, as her Ice Cream Years, following a photo by a paparazzo which she considered unflattering.
28 February 2022
SALOHCIN TREBOR SRETLAW
The Fall, on their 2013 album Re-Mit, had a track called The Pre-MDMA Years, which seemed to take aim at the same target:
“The pre-non-MDM and Jet years
The post…
The post net also DMA years
…net also DMA years
The MDMN years
The pre-black eye and the tears of today years
The post net also DMA years
Me years
The MDMN years
The pre-black eye and the tears of today years
Thanks E. Stacy the present child of yours you prove for own child years”
28 February 2022
transit full of keith
Port Sunlight (my placename choice) seems to be 6.1km from Woodchurch. I considered both Rhyl and Meols, and I’ve got a dead leg from kicking myself.
Really great and bass-tastic album, with Suffolk Ditch, Oblong of Dreams, Big Man Up Front, and Grafting Haddock my early favourites. I think it’s fifty-fifty whether Oblong will become a live staple, or be left on the album (like Mileage Chart which seems to be another very personal kind of song). Looking forward to Suffolk Ditch live most of all I think.
As ever, even the few I like less still have brilliant lines to relish (eg “do-re-me-far-so-up-your-own-arse”). Rogation Sunday seems to me a Covid song – “beating the bounds” of the parish day after day in the first lockdown.
A tiny bit disappointed by a seeming lack of hillwalking and climbing references, unless “scaling Matalan” counts.
28 February 2022
bobbybottler
I thought Midnight MM was being sung to the tune of “Praise My Soul The King Of Heaven” but on reflection it’s Bread of Heaven.
28 February 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
@Bobbybottler – strictly speaking, “Cwm Rhondda”is the name of the tune used on MMM, while “Bread of Heaven” is the most common English hymn sung to it. Of course, there are many parodies, three of which are directly/indirectly used in MMM, plus the first lines of the first and last verses on MMM play on those of BoH
28 February 2022
Awkward Sean
Does the new album also mean a batch of new forum names are up for grabs? If so can I bagsy Awkward Sean?
Cheers Kenny (oops, I mean Sean).
PS What are the odds on Midnight Mass Murder usurping Bell Rings as an encore singalong?
28 February 2022
Cape ultra
Whatever became of the Man of Constant Sorrow (With a Garage in Constant Use)? Could he have ended up Beneath This Broken Headstone?
28 February 2022
cream cheese and chives
@Cape Ultra I think its more likely he’s moved to Suffolk
28 February 2022
Natalie at the back
Neil’s backing vocals are gorgeous and the line ‘sunbeams on my childhood’ resonates perfectly…..
28 February 2022
That chiseller, idris
Reading the speculation regarding the fate of the aforementioned Man Of Sorrow, I’ve realised that Awkward Sean has almost certainly landed up in Westward (or possibly Eastward) Ho!
(Nb, I realise the exclamation mark makes it look like I’m trying to draw the reader’s attention to a punchline that isn’t there. In my defence, it’s only there because there was a dire need for one)
28 February 2022
John Anderson
Can I just say that “Norman Hunter and Francis Lee are going toe-to-toe amongst the entrails of the slain” is one of the greatest lines he (or anyone else) has ever written.
28 February 2022
Brock
Some may read a book, like perhaps the rags-to-riches story of Lockdown Luke:
https://www.amazon.com/Lockdown-Luke-African-Penguin-Lulu/dp/0620885335
28 February 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added Rogation Sunday’s Here Again!
28 February 2022
John Stokes
Gadzooks, Witchell really gets it this time
28 February 2022
Hedley VErity
Number 10 on the ‘midweek’ chart …
It is probably all downhill from here though.
28 February 2022
Bernardo soares
Does anybody know the personnel on this record? Did Neil and Nigel play all guitar parts, or was Karl on board?
(AFAIK just Neil and Nigel – CtSO)
28 February 2022
EXXO
I assume it’s just Neil playing all the brilliant guitar parts he wrote – and stylistically it sounds like there’s loads of them as usual. If they’d changed their usual process for recording by involving Karl, I think we’d have had more new songs live by now. But that’s all just assumption. Maybe Neil himself will wander past and confirm this. Which tunes/riffs did you write, Neil?
28 February 2022
Watney MANN
I just wanted to say hello to Biscuits fans! I’m a fifty years old man.First heard Time Flies By on Peel and have seen them loads ever since. The new album sounds A- OK to me after one listen and I look forward to your lyrical clarifications.
28 February 2022
Neil
Yes it was Nigel and myself playing the guitars. It’s quicker and easier and we can get them to sound exactly how we want. Karl will now take them to the next level. No pressure!
28 February 2022
EXXO
Thanks Neil, for that and for an immense album which reveals new delights on every listen. And for the recent gigs that have lifted all our spirits so much too.
28 February 2022
Half Matt, half Byrne
Had my second listen on my commute this morning. First time in order and not on shuffle, as Spotify erroneously played it on Friday.
It’s a grower, and I’ve had lines from MMM, IGBITM and GHITG pouring out as I worked all day. Luckily I don’t work too closely with others when I belt out “See you later undertaker…”
28 February 2022
Android, eyes rolling
Album delivered today, very well packed by Norman Records. Bath is very poorly served for record shops, but I tried my best to shop local at HMV, heading out from work at lunchtime on the day I thought it was coming out. I hadn’t heard about the week’s delay, so I ended up trekking through Storm Eunice for nothing.
Second time I tried, right release date this time, HMV told me all their new releases had been sent to the wrong store and wouldn’t be in till today.
Only one listen so far, Big Man the standout – definite Simon & Garfunkel vibe to it. Oblong also epic stuff.
28 February 2022
EXXO
A few comments I would have liked to agree with over the last couple of days, apologies, might be some sort of record here with the @key.
@Mick. My deepest sympathies again for your loss. Really hope you can get to a gig one of these fine days.
@Lou. “Laughed all the way there, cried all the way back” has to be the most succinct summary I’ve heard of this album – a reviewer should nick that.
@Edward Ian L’ampune (what a handle!) & @Spirit of Olaf – yes, agreed, Voltarol/R&Roll is the main play of course. It’s only Voltarol but I like it. Hey hey my my, Voltarol will never die (& so on ad infinitum). @Keith/Dr.D – it is equally definitely a spoof of the drug & even the label titles as well, yes, as we first thought.
@Rickenbarking & Chiseller Idris – yes Neil’s bass lines are total class, as is his post-punky guitar riffage on several songs.
@Kitty – spot-on comments and thank you for clearing up the beautiful phrase “buskins of mottled cordovan” which until then was eluding me. Excellent guest appearances from the Old Yahoo Biscuitistas in this thread – Kitty, Moo,Taylo! @Taylo how’s Loop and Ginger and the gang? And yes the shaggy dog gets a shout on Oblong. Stick around Taylo!
@Warden. Not only did I pay cash for one of my copies of ‘the Voltarol Years’ at 9am on release day, but I paid the exact money all in silver, trying to replicate the saved-up pocket money sensation of childhood record buying and yes @FF, of 1973 in particular. By the way @Warden the Carnarvon castle is the place I most associate with dodgy pub seafood grafters.
@Hosepipe Ban – great story about the ukelele band. Meanwhile there are at least eight coats on my own newel post but I didn’t inspire any lyrics, so well played you.
@John A – agreed – what a line that is, what genius to put old school footy scraps and supermarket argy-bargy into perspective with the horrors of our island’s bloodiest day of slaughter … and to time it so that the album was released on a day of medieval carnage too… wouldn’t mind seeing Franny Lee v. Putin now I think of it.
@Johnny Rev (391) – I wouldn’t say a completely straight song, no (the title and the final chant subverting the subject matter a bit), but pretty close yes. But it’s not the only one – Soft Verges, Terminus and a couple of others spring to mind.
@Jerome (402) – did you mean the line “in full Sky replica kit”? If so, you’re right – the delivery of that one certainly has a rival now,
@Craig – I must admit I thought of you when I first heard the custard line, after a recent post where you’d been itching to translate some new HMHB, and I thought “well at least that one will translate fairly straightforwardly for Craig.”
1 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
My gig going days are a thing of past Exxo. I’m in bed by half nine Nowadays! . I’ve just retired from the model making lark as well. Gordon Ottershaw’s House was the penultimate effort. I co-publish a paper fanzine that keeps me semi sane.
1 March 2022
warden Hodges
This is where we go off topic but yep the prawns cockles mussles man selling his seafood for about 10 bob. Always enjoyed them mid bevying.
Bought other things in pubs not planned, Batteries, socks, sweets, cigs, meat and booze of course! . Mad days drinking in the 80s/90s.
1 March 2022
EXXO
@Mick. Last few years I’ve had this image of about 6 of us carrying you into a gig through the fire doors where they load the gear in, and plonking you down on the side of the stage. It’ll have to just remain an imaginary scene in an imaginary drama that I’ll never write. Great to hear Bentley’s Roof is going well – are you going to feature a review of this amazing album? If so, just tell them about the football stuff in ‘Midnight Mass Murder’ and ‘Awkward Sean’ and wait for them to have their minds blown by the rest. Keep on keeping on mate.
1 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I did actually go up from the green room to the stage floor by the cargo lift at Leamington, scary as fuck, Geoff was just pissing his self
1 March 2022
Cameron carter
I’ve listened to the album 5 times now, mostly in the car as we don’t have a CD player. On the first listen I had to stay in the passenger seat for 5 minutes after S had parked because I was trying to rearrange my face into something presentable after Slipping The Escort winded me and then Oblong of Dreams had me in tears. Very few songs you can dance and cry to. Possibly just one. What a beautiful, clever, immersive song. Even now at the trigger word “Showtime!” I feel my mouth dragging itself towards the shape of an infant’s wail. And the ovine backing vocal on Tess of the Dormobiles is splendid. It’s all fucking splendid. What a great songwriter. What a great band. Makes you lift your head up to look at the world. There will be daffodils.
1 March 2022
Cornish Biscuit
Sorry, half asleep, bumbled my real name into the name box. I usually come on here as Cornish Biscuit. Back to bed.
1 March 2022
John Anderson
I’ve just done a cursory head count on the characters (real and fictional) that crop up on the album. I’m sure there may be others.
Fictional characters: 20
Sport: 7
Music: 6 (not including Hank, Roy & Bill, pending a steward’s inquiry)
TV & film: 6
Historical figures: 4.
1 March 2022
SLoppy
Ohh just noticed my silver medal (yes, I lead an exciting double life).
And double celebration now the cd has finally arrived after taking the scenic route.
Off now to track down where the inner photo was taken..
1 March 2022
eZEKIAL PUNCHED DAN BROWN
Currently adoring Midnight Mass Murder’s “gormless bores in Superdry” and wondering whether we could get “take your chips and fuck off home” going tomorrow night.
1 March 2022
Alan
“I could have put my head in a bucket full of porridge
And moaned about the hospital parking scheme
I would have saved 14 pounds
That I just splashed out on your 15th”
come on be honest, it’s far from their best (bar MMM)
1 March 2022
paul f
Has the Russian bot factory finally found this site?
1 March 2022
eZEKIAL PUNCHED DAN BROWN
In A Suffolk Ditch – KELVIN MACKENZIE!!!
Well in, NB.
1 March 2022
Janet from accounts
#553 you can still listen to Achtung Bono if you want, no one is going to stop you. It does seem like lots of people here think this latest album is at least its equal, though. Either way, it’s certainly not wanting for some acerbic lyrics here and there, if that’s what you’re after.
1 March 2022
Jeff dreadnought
Bloody brilliant from start to finish. Already my favourite Biscuits album.
1 March 2022
Darwin
The album is faultless. My preference is for the brief chanty tunes. I’m a simple man. But overall this album is lifting me out of lifelong miserableness to enjoy something, at least ( take your chips and fuck off home!) Wonderful
1 March 2022
Darwin
Opening track pisses all over Janie Jones.
1 March 2022
Ferencváros fan
I was somewhat mindfcuked when I penned my most recent posts on Friday morning. I was about to attend a friend’s funeral and had spent part of the previous evening chatting to another friend about the depredations of dementia, which her dad is currently experiencing, and which did for my mum. So playing the album first thing Friday was just pure spooky.
Having now allowed myself some thinking time, my first impressions have only been reinforced. The depth, gravity, poignancy, compassion, humanity, and indeed humility are truly unparalleled imo. When you reach a certain age, as I believe a lot of us here have done, you will have experienced your fair share of personal loss, which means that this album resonates all the more.
The final 2 tracks still blow my mind, and I believe they always will do. I love STE to bits, but if it’s ever performed at a gig I’m at I know I will be in pieces. I also love Oblong, and hope that it becomes an A-list track at gigs.
I get the vibe that there is a small school of thought that considers the album errs on the side of introspection, but, the likes of LL excepted, most of us have been through the mill over the last couple of years. For me the album stands as a testament to our times. I’m 100% confident that it’s got history on its side.
To end on a lighter note, notwithstanding my earlier observations, there is plenty of pure comedy to be found. I’ve laughed out loud every time I’ve played MMM. I think I’ve got the lyrics sorted and I can’t wait to massacre it at a gig. It also allowed me to dredge up memories of Midnight Masses with my family in my early teens, and my bemusement at why the standing area at the back of the church was always such a lively affair. I also managed to laugh (as well as cry) during STE, as it reminded me of times I met friends at away matches. As a Preston fan not living in Preston I could pretty well hit town and choose my pub. I would then have to wait for my friends who had travelled on the football special and had to try and work out a way to avoid being frogmarched straight from the train station to the ground. There’s loads more, but my final thought for now is that Janet from Accounts is a bit too close to home for comfort. Note to self: time to stop banging on about the benefits of turmeric when out hiking and shut the fuck up.
1 March 2022
Superbreeze Bex
I keep listening to Oblong of dreams and it is so beautiful it’s making me cry. There is something tugging so hard at my heart in here. Clouds part, show time, cowslips and celandine is sending me to special places.
They’ve never made me cry like this before.
1 March 2022
ghost of kirkus
After an idle Google of “short term solutions for long legged men” I find a reference to George Harrison’s infidelities in a Beatles biography published in 2013, and his difficulties in sleeping on a chair-bed. I’m not sure this is of relevance, mind you, but it’s a great line.
Nice to bump into TFOK at a St Elsewhere site. Always a pleasure to meet, even if virtually, pedants to pick over the tunes!
2 March 2022
cream cheese and chives
I read a comment somewhere about Janet from accounts being a bit close to home (presumably because of the turmeric preaching that does seem a thing nowadays). One of the great things about Nigel’s lyrics is the way that they make you feel pleasantly ashamed of a previously held view or a guilty pleasure pursued. I feel I may have an Awkward Sean gene lurking within. As a kid I loved Best but was torn between Muller and Cruyff. I used a felt tip to draw and colour a 13 onto a white tshirt for the one and had an iron on 14 on a nylon orange kit for the other. The hall never stank though.
2 March 2022
EXXO
You can tell Mr. B has never worked with anyone from any accounts cos let’s face it turmeric is one of the better things she might bang on about. Fuckin accounts for a start. Counting down 5 weeks left on my admin contract, where already today I’ve been told off by a picket line, told off for lateness, told off for how I was labelling the files on sharepoint and hints were dropped (after I’d asked to go on some courses that might be useful in a better job) that the only courses I would be allowed on would be minute-taking (this from someone who does not know what a sentence is and isn’t) and time management.
2 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I was strictly Johnny Rep, split knee loons, Ajax shirt, love beads, Gitanes fags, I even got my mate’s sister dye my hair blond.
2 March 2022
FerencvároS fan
Bestie all day long for me. I would boast that we shared the same initials (and very little else) and still often sign off emails with Best, George.
2 March 2022
EXXO
You couldn’t dream of actually doing anything Pele-like, Best-like, or in particular Cruyff-like, so if we pretended to be anyone other than our local heroes, of which we had more than enough, it might well be Muller for a nice back-to-goal turn and low finish, and if we were having our turn in goal it might well be Banks. The Maier line is the most truly eccentric aspect of Sean.
Arl fellas in the park asking you who your favourite player was would always scoff and talk about someone who’d retired in the fifties which seemed like forever ago, but now that would just be like talking about Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard. Not that you’d dare talk to kids you didn’t know these days.
2 March 2022
Lux inferior
Very little to add to what’s already been said by so many on here. Who else but NB could deliver a record so world-weary yet so uplifting and profoundly moving? The whole album is all we’d hoped for, and then some, but the final two tracks are magnificent and I’m currently playing them twice as often as the others.
Someone made mention of the lack of climbing references, but OOD takes you to a higher place than the trig points of any hills or mountains previously referenced (even for us non-Wirralians).
So many people have commented with eloquence on STE…to my mind, it’s so on the money and concise it can only have been penned by someone who has experienced at first hand the descent of a loved one into dementia.
@ John Anderson (post 550) – I make it 8 sportsmen 😃
2 March 2022
POP-TART MARK
I must admit I have been feeling a bit guilty about listening to 9 to 14 repeatedly and then only about one time in three going 5 to 14 and about one time in six going 1 to 14.
1 to 4 and skiffly 7 had become over familiar before the album came out. I’m guessing that I’ll eventually burn a ‘travelling’ CD without a couple or three tracks as I often do. Probably ‘Tess,’ ‘Baby’ and ‘Token Covid Song’ in the end.
2 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
@Bobby, I was Neeskens for reasons I’ve since forgotten, but yeah, Johnny Rep too. Still remember that 25-yard screamer against Scotland in ‘78. And still bitter about them losing to Argentina in the final.
2 March 2022
Jeff dreadnought
@Exxo And because it went against the grain to go for (unpopular) German players from that era when it was the Dutch and Brazilians who were winning all the plaudits?
2 March 2022
Awkward sean
“You couldn’t dream of actually doing anything Pele-like, Best-like, or in particular Cruyff-like”
I remember all the kids in the early seventies attempting to master (with very limited success in my case) the Cruyff turn.
2 March 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
Last track pisses all over Garageland….
2 March 2022
Stephen McDowell
Couldn’t wait to hear the new album, unfortunately nobody in Ireland has it yet (I’m old school and want a physical copy). I had to resort to the dreaded itunes site but now feel totally filthy! I really want to pay the relevant people what they richly deserve so I’m looking to find out where to send the money directly to. Any ideas ?
2 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
As satisfying as it would be, you can’t send the band money! I’m assuming they get much the same, whoever you buy the CD from.
2 March 2022
John Anderson
@lux inferior
Are you including Anthony Power as a sportsman or is there another one I’ve missed? I would have thought a 76 year 1972 Olympic fencer with a single line on Wikipedia is a bit obscure even for Nigel Blackwell.
2 March 2022
Lux inferior
@John Anderson – 7 footy legends plus Bradley Dredge.
2 March 2022
MR SPOKESMAN
So then Nigel it seems every track on the new LP involves death, loss and diabolical dealings. Does this reflect your current state of mind?
What an album. Only got into the band fully last year for my sins so this is my first anticipated album of theirs and what a belter. This site has been invaluable in my trawl through the catalogue this past year and I hope to be at my first HMHB gig in April in Durham.
2 March 2022
POP-TART MARK
Paypal me a tenner Stephen and I’ll pass it on. Would you prefer it popped through a band member’s letter box or chucked on stage in Durham? Or I could pop it on a 100/1 double and give them a grand if it comes in.
2 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added Awkward Sean.
2 March 2022
Stephen Mc Dowell
I like the cut of your jib POP-TART, let me know the contents of your proposed double but heed my warning…. if there is even a mention of any of the “super six” I’m out!
2 March 2022
third rate les
I’m glad to see that it’s not just me who cries in Oblong of Dreams.
It’s the simplicity of it – as a songwriter he always has some kind of persona, but this one is just him. No need to analyse or guess the clever references, because there aren’t any – just simple joy.
Cheers to you all and thanks for sharing your reflections on it.
2 March 2022
Dull head del
Has anyone mentioned the inlay? Good isn’t it.
2 March 2022
Nick Harrison
Those last two songs – just wow! A career high?
We rightly praise NB for the lyrics, but musically I think they are spot on too. Bravo Nigel AND Neil.
2 March 2022
Peter ross
Hello. I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying the discussion of the new album. It’s touching to see everyone’s passion for the band, and to see a work of art appreciated and analysed in real time. It’s a tonic. Cheers!
2 March 2022
INJURED BUZZARD
It’s going to be disappointing to not hear all the songs off the new album at the Rock City, Nott’s. But I’m struggling to chose which ones they won’t play.
2 March 2022
CARRIE ANNE
Catching up on some listening, and heard Gideon Coe play Grafting Haddock In The George on his show from Monday 28th Feb. And it wasn’t a radio edit. I think that’s 3 or 4 songs he’s broadcasted now from the new album.
3 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
I was going to wait until the individual lyric pages were up for some of the following, but I’m off work ill, so a welcome chance to listen to the new album again and make permanent some of the random thoughts drifting around my head this last week…
Completely concur with most of what’s already been said re Voltarol – musically and lyrically up there with the band’s strongest work, with a big shout out from me, too, for Neil’s fretwork… Plenty of laugh out loud and surreal moments, but as with most other commenters the final two tracks still blow my mind having listened to them pretty much on repeat for the last 6 days (I don’t think I’ve yet managed to listen to OOD without immediately putting it on again)…
One thing that has struck me is the structure/sequencing of the album/individual tracks – I think the running order is pretty much spot on (as was Creative Hub) – I’ve always found previous albums have runs of tracks I tend to skip, but I don’t think this will be the case with TVY – Creative Hub is bookended by two short, reasonably straightforward tracks with the ‘heavier’ ones (thematically at least) scattered among the the rest of the tracks, whereas Voltarol saves the big two for last – a bold move, but definitely the right call…
However, I’m very much seeing Token Covid Song as key to this late-album punch – both STE and OOD can be read in the context of lockdown – the doubly whammy of a loved one going into a home and not being able to visit them (another sense of losing them twice?) and the sense of exhilaration of rediscovering the simple pleasures when they have been denied to you for a period of time, reconnecting with what’s important and realising that it is important…
Structurally all three tracks have something in common – I actually baulked initially at the first verse of TCS as it was so ‘straight’, before hitting us with some nice takedowns of the social media sensation, but I wonder now if it precisely the sort of thing Lockdown Luke would come out with… The same thing is true of STE – pretty much straight up and heartfelt until the ’30 Airbus’ singalong at the end – obviously it fits with the subject matter of the song in terms of a lone memory escaping from the fog of dementia, but I wonder also if it’s Nigel’s way of keeping the song anchored in more traditional HMHB territory…
OOD reverses this with a very typical character observation in the first verse which could easily have developed into a more surreal and witty take on life, but Nigel (freed from lockdown and free to roam) strikes out on his own, away from the obvious and the asinine, and again we get the heartfelt, the personal, no jokes, just rays of sunshine on things and places that are important to him… Again though we are taken back from the brink of a more straightforward and cliched ending by the return of the opening riff right at the end – we could have had a long fade out, more cowslips, even – heaven forbid – soaring strings, but wander over, we’re back to the start, back to reality, no need to fear Nigel turning into Lockdown Luke…
Other musings:
Could the guy encountered at the start of OOD be Awkward Sean (somewhere completely different from any of his suggested locations)?
STE as the continuation of Umberstone Covert – has been mentioned before thematically, but the line about the needle also echoes the sewing metaphor of Geraldine, but this time the certainty of being able to fix things is waning…
STE also echoing Terminus – the conduct report and sewing names into clothing is reminiscent of primary school and Terminus has the observation that both the very old and very young are located at the front of the bus…
Kids’ favorite is still Awkward Sean but they did comment that one of the riffs in GHATG sounded like a tuba – a sport of mantra-filled oom-pah perhaps?
Tess is a fantastic exercise in condensing a life-/love-story into under 2 and a half minutes
Some earlier in the thread mentioned OOD as being reminiscent of Green & Grey by NMA – I hear that too and the line about the bonfire also brought to mind Bonfire Night off their Carnival album (like OOD guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye) – aside from the obvious the sense of happy/sad that places and shared rituals evoke, a sense of loss, but also the need to carry on that the final 10 minutes of Voltarol so successfully conveys…
I’ll leave you with a very good question, asked by one of my kids yesterday, after they had asked why the only thing we’d had on in the car since Saturday was Voltarol: “Daddy, what sort of music would you say HMHB was?”
3 March 2022
Nick Robert Walters
There’s Anthony Power the fencer – then there’s this Anthony Power:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-21790396
Not saying that Nigel is referencing this, but given the mordant tone of the album, it’s an eerie coincedence… is it not…?
3 March 2022
Frightrate
Token Covid Song is good. Until you realise (or in my case are told) who inspired Lockdown Luke. Then, it is brilliant.
3 March 2022
Roger DeanS poster
Loving the new album.
Best tracks so far:
Grafting haddock in the George
OOD
Token Covid song, which my youngun likes a lot.
Cant wait for Durham in April.
Midnight mass murder will be ace.
3 March 2022
Quickben
Listening to “Beneath a Broken Headstone” and it seems to follow on logically from “A Man of Constant Sorrow” both in the theme and especially the musicality. Same key and some similarity of style. His constant sorrow may have caused by unrequited love resulting in a swift exit from Crieff, Perth and Kinross. Though admittedly NB does allude to unrequited love at least once per album (I presume there is a statistician that can confirm?)
3 March 2022
Bernardo Soares
Pray tell, FRIGHTRATE!
3 March 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
@Problem Chimp – I get what you mean about parts of OoD resonating with NMA’s Bonfire Night, but the difference as I see it is that in the latter track, Justin Sullivan was reminiscing after getting the news about Robert Heaton’s death on the good times they’d shared. In OoD, it’s almost like NB is thinking about what would happen were he to keel over in the street, then saying that his own personal paradise would be the Wirral countryside in spring, and he wouldn’t have wanted to have spent his life anywhere else or other than he did.
3 March 2022
Roger DeanS poster
Yes DO tell, Frightrate!
3 March 2022
Harold GiMbLett
Every song slowly dawning on me as each listen washes over me. Forgot how good that feels. Oblong of Dreams, When I Look at my Baby and Grafting Haddock in the George . Irking the purists by sharing them .
3 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Lock Down Luke is a hoss
3 March 2022
IDIOT SAUL
On 30 August 2020, Lock Down Luke, trained by Jackie Stephen in the Scottish Borders, won his first race, the bet365 Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race, at odds of 22/1. He hasn’t won again since, but he holds an entry for a novice handicap hurdle at Newcastle next Tuesday.
3 March 2022
Hedley Verity
Now at 18 in the Wednesday update, so still on course for a new peak.
3 March 2022
Nick Robert Walters
I’ve just realised, on the cover –
They’re parked on a double yellow!
Hence the sense of frustrated urgency in that tableau.
It really is very well crafted.
Evocative.
You can almost hear that bald chap going ‘HNNNG!’
Can almost hear the discs slipping.
No wonder they needs the Voltarol!
3 March 2022
EXXO
“That bald chap” 😀
3 March 2022
Nick Robert Walters
Is it you?
3 March 2022
Nick Robert Walters
*Squints* It’s Neil isn’t it?!
Ooops!
Never mind, I’m with the bald brethren, like Larry David.
I’ve got it worse – I’m ginger.
3 March 2022
PoOPleby
#590 @Frightrate. How did I miss this? You can’t keep it to yourself, unless Lockdown Luke is just a horse.
3 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
Re: Lockdown Luke’s real life identity – a quick Google identified a possible candidate, who may or may not be the same as the one Frightrate was alluding to… I wonder if Luke might also end up in a Suffolk ditch at some stage?
4 March 2022
FOOarchive
Don’t think I’ve seen in mentioned ^ up there, but after playing Tess of the Dormobiles on his 6music breakfast show last Saturday, Stuart Maconie said Nigel is his guest on this Sunday’s Freakzone:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014v21
4 March 2022
alan
No 37 in the charts
4 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Inside info, Alan? I thought the charts are announced at 5.45pm on Fridays nowadays.
4 March 2022
Roger DeanS poster
Oblong of Dreams
What a track to close a show on.
Just putting it out there.
4 March 2022
third rate les
Today am mostly admiring the “at least he read the sign” line from Big Man Up Front, having finally understood it (he drove through McDonalds, like the sign said).
Oooh that’s clever.
That’s a grim old tale.
4 March 2022
Janet from accounts
#610 I’m killing myself trying to work about what comes between the roundabout and the McDonald’s. It sounds like “Straight through the roundabout, through the chiffon tea so fine, straight through McDonald’s, at least he read the sign.” Chiffon tea? Huh?
I’m also wondering which McDonald’s it was. By my count there’s three on the Wirral that are immediately next to roundabouts, but I don’t think I can narrow it down without knowing what the “chiffon tea” is.
4 March 2022
Lux inferior
@Frightrate (comment 590) – could it be Robert Fripp? All that guitar craft stuff fits in nicely with the ‘do-re-mi…’ line.
4 March 2022
woodnoggin
@Janet – the best guess I could come up with was “in a chiffon tee so fine”, as in he’s wearing a fine t-shirt made of chiffon.
4 March 2022
The chisEller, IdRis
#611, 613
“Through the Chiffon’s, ‘He’s So Fine’”. Song from which George Harrison ‘borrowed’ the melody for My Sweet Lord. Possibly on the SUV radio, though there may be a deeper significance which eludes me.
4 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
Les – it’s grim tale indeed. That McDonald’s line is the single moment of levity – the rest is all righteous anger.
JFA – yeah, me too
4 March 2022
Alan
27 33 1 BEATLES APPLE CORPS UMC6762 729
30 34 FINE LINE HARRY STYLES COLUMBIA 19439705122 117
32 35 SHOOT FOR THE STARS AIM FOR THE MOON POP SMOKE REPUBLIC RECORDS 747475 87
31 36 NIGHT CALL YEARS & YEARS POLYDOR 3838024 6
NEW 37 THE VOLTAROL YEARS HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT RMQUALTROUGH RMQUALTROUGHCD0 1
24 38 SEVENTEEN GOING UNDER SAM FENDER POLYDOR 3834451 21
4 March 2022
CARRIE ANNE
@Janet. I think it is the 1963 hit “He’s So Fine” by The Chiffons
4 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added Big Man Up Front.
4 March 2022
JEFF Dreadnought
@ Idris He’s so vain, he probably thinks the song is about him
4 March 2022
Janet from accounts
Thanks all – seems like it’s “To The Chiffon’s ‘He’s so fine’” like that’s the soundtrack to the events. Just had another listen and that fits.
4 March 2022
Schoon
So what’s up with the charts? It was #10, then Alan reckons 37, and now the ‘official’ charts no longer has any mention of it.
4 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
– The number 10 was the so-called “Midweek Chart”, which is based just on the weekend’s sales, and if a record was released on the Friday, includes all the pre-release sales (which would be the vast majority for bands like HMHB). Ongoing sales of more established albums from bigger acts will usually steadily drown out those pre-release boosts as the week goes on.
– The official one showing when you wrote that, Schoon, despite the misleading dates of “25 February 2022 – 03 March 2022” (it’s the chart issued to be current for those dates), would be the one announced last Friday before the album was released.
– The one Alan has ‘previewed’ will be the full end-of-week chart, the one which will be in the record books long after the “Midweek Chart” has been forgotten (sadly). I imagine I’ll be commenting on it below.
4 March 2022
Schoon
Thanks CtSO.
4 March 2022
transit full of keith
Steve Hanley’s book about his time in the Fall is called ‘The Big Midweek’ for the reason that fans would pre-order (in bricks-and-mortar record shops in those days). So Fall albums and singles would ride high in the midweek charts before sinking out of sight in the official charts. No surprise that Biscuit would still be following suit.
4 March 2022
EXXO
Just about every day this week I have had the CD on in the office when everyone else has gone. A rather prim academic I don’t know at all just popped in to return some borrowed equipment before the weekend, and the only lines she heard were “take your chips and fuck off home” on her way in, putting down box, turning and “take your chips and fuck off home” on the way out. Oops.
4 March 2022
chris from future doom
There would be appear to be some confusion over the album’s chart position.
23 here:
https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/central-cee-scores-first-ever-uk-number-1-album-with-23-beating-tears-for-fears-comeback__35398/
but 37 here:
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/albums-chart/
Chart Placing Confusion Kerfuffle – possible next album title?
4 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Well, here we go everyone, confirming what Alan told us earlier, the Official Album Chart showing The Voltarol Years at number 37. On the plus side, it’s only the sixth Half Man Half Biscuit album to make the Top 100 ever, and just the second to make the top 40. But it’s a slight disappointment after Creative Hub’s record-breaking one-week appearance at number 33 back in 2018 – I was really hoping the album might have beaten that. Presumably it will disappear next week.
It might also be a good opportunity to bemoan the near absence of reviews: I know we don’t have the traditional music press any more, but at least Creative Hub got a few websites writing about it. Thank goodness for Radio 6 Music, I guess.
The band’s complete album chart history can be seen here.
4 March 2022
Rich Scopie
I’m still buggered if I can get the very last line in “When I Look At My Baby”… any ideas? The Kershaw session is no clearer.
4 March 2022
That Chiseller, idris
#627
Spoiler alert given we’re not doing this one yet.
I hear it as, “I’d like to Seeley Town’ which appears to be a type of brick. I’ve not heard the phrase but I’d interpret it as suggesting the protagonist would like to either metaphorically brick up Richie Stevens’ snidey little mouth or literally hit him with one. I
4 March 2022
Bernardo soares
“With that low down, no-good, pig-thick waster Richie Stevens and his weird, uneven eyebrows, and his snidy little mouth which I’d like to see leave town.”
That’s what I hear.
4 March 2022
Paul f
Me too Bernardo.
4 March 2022
dr Desperate
That’s how I transcribed it (apart from “low-down” for “low down” and “snidey” for “snidy”).
4 March 2022
Gary Evans
This is off the Official Charts website. Weirdly, there are several different album charts on the site – in the ‘Sales’ chart, The Voltarol Years is number 10.
“Elsewhere on the Official Albums Chart, the ever-experimental Bakar’s Nobody’s Home is at 22, Half Man Half Biscuit’s fifteenth studio album The Voltarol Years is a new entry at 23 and Bristol-born Americana artist Elles Bailey makes her mark on the mainstream with her Shining in the Half Light (29).”
https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/central-cee-scores-first-ever-uk-number-1-album-with-23-beating-tears-for-fears-comeback__35398/
4 March 2022
EXXO
It’s quite a literal sort of album all in all.
4 March 2022
Pirx The Purist
Bernardo’s interpretation is surely the correct one; I can’t hear anything other than that there.
4 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Patience everyone, we’ll get there.
4 March 2022
Gormless Bore
Listened to the whole thing at least 3 times a day since I got it. I doubt I’ll hear a more poignantly uplifting song than Oblong of Dreams for the rest of the year. Looking forward to the time when all of the lyrics have been posted and pored over.
5 March 2022
Schoon
It’s now saying new entry at number 23
https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/central-cee-scores-first-ever-uk-number-1-album-with-23-beating-tears-for-fears-comeback__35398/
Doesn’t Central Cee look cool?
5 March 2022
Rich Scopie
“See leave town” – obvious now you point it out. Many thanks guys!
5 March 2022
Woodnoggin
23 in the album chart is a great result, especially considering the very light touch promotion that accompanied it.
Central Cee looks like Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock. “How do you do, fellow kids?”
5 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Sadly, whatever the article says, it’s not number 23.
5 March 2022
S
I may be wrong and hope that that’s the case, but I believed that all sales, even Bandcamp ones, count right up until midnight on the night before the Official Chart is announced. Hence Yard Act doing ‘deals’ on their album on the Saturday, etc. Is what we’re seeing not just some sort of running total with other stuff like streams or physical being added in later, right up to the wire? (I stand to be corrected when the scores go on the doors…)
5 March 2022
Nick Robert Walters
Is it just me, or is the ‘Oh yes!’, in Dormobiles, the sexiest moment in HMHB?
5 March 2022
WATNEY MANN
But can we agree that Lockdown Luke is filler..? I noticed that Paddy’s very good review didn’t mention it, and I must admit to sympathy for those who committed the crime of taking the guitar out during lockdown… have heard the album about ten times now and I put this one down on the side of Nigel’s writing that I don’t like, along with Cremating Hattie Jacques.
5 March 2022
POP-TART MARK
Stating the obvious, the thing that makes Nigel Blackwell’s writing over the years so special is that nobody else could have written most of it. And so the 5-10% or so that somebody else could have written, and probably somebody else has written similar, is not so special – not a criticism, just an inevitable fact if you value originality of vision.
Somebody else could have written Lockdown Luke. A BBC R4 Now Showwriter could have written Lockdown Luke. In fact, maybe Lockdown Luke himslef could have written most of Lockdown Luke. A similar song could feature on some satirical sketch show, written by some ambitious Edinburgh fringe satirical sketcher, a wannabe Now Show writer.
But it’s those same tracks that a lot of people will and do like about HMHB. Arguably HMHB for people who don’t like HMHB? As such, it will do probably better than it deserves in the next Biscuitvision Song Contest.
5 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
@P-TM Precisely – I admit I did wince a little at the first verse of TCS for that very reason – it seemed far too earnest and simple, but I genuinely think that’s part of the joke and why it does work – it’s exactly the sort of thing a Lockdown Luke might come up with but used to ridicule him… I’ve mentioned the sequencing of the album and song structures before and I think TCS also serves to heighten the impact of the two closing tracks – a bit of a palette cleanser before the really meaty stuff, if you will…
5 March 2022
Jeff dreadnought
Token Covid Song – I think the clue’s in the title
5 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Back to the album charts, there’s also one called the Official Record Store Chart – “The UK’s biggest albums of the week sold through 100 UK independent record shops … compiled by the Official Charts Company, based on sales of CDs, vinyl and other formats – in partnership with Record Store Day.”
In this chart, the album features at an impressive number 8.
6 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Isn’t it funny that two of my all-time favourite bands both released records about muscle pain relief gels. The lads from Wirral with Voltarol, obviously, and Bon Jovi with Ibuleve.
6 March 2022
Janet from accounts
#646 Agreed. The song is there because it has to be. It’s own existence is ironic.
6 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added Beneath This Broken Headstone…
6 March 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
I remember a Xmas eve, Me and my mates after spending a night underage drinking in the White Hart. Decided to go to Midnight Mass in a church nearby, The priest taking the mass Father Smith was a six foot plus with ginger hair beast of a man.
I remember him ejecting someone from the church who was eating chips and then carrying on giving the mass…
6 March 2022
Gary Evans
Nigel on Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone now. Interview recorded at Leadmill. BBC Sounds etc for catch up.
6 March 2022
Roxanne
Is it only me who thinks ‘ Persian rug sale’ is an absolute belter?
7 March 2022
Roxanne
Its so Biscuity
7 March 2022
Stuart
Gary Evans, thanks for the tip. Over here in Sweden, I confess I very rarely listen to anything on BBC Sounds, and I’d never actually heard of Stuart Maconie (or his very appropriately named “Freak Zone” – my other half might stop moaning now that Nigel’s music is “way out” if I play her half an hour of that show!) so would never have caught this interview without your guidance. Anyway….
Always great to hear anything with Nigel and his ideas/perspective on life, especially talking about the new album (which I’m enjoying more than I even expected to – there’s some seriously good stuff on this one). Thanks again.
7 March 2022
EXXO
Like Maconie’s equivalent interview for the last album, it was OK if you didn’t go into it with high expectations. We found out more about just one song off the album (Token Covid Song). Given the way the interviewer focused on the titles, we started to wonder if he had actually listened to the album. Apart from talk of that song and lockdown, there was a bit of general song-writing process talk, mostly confirming what we already knew, ie that Nigel is self-deprecating and dismissive when talking about his work. Given that he trailed it as an interview about the new album, and given the short time available before the gig, IMHO Maconie needed to make more effort to ask about the stand-out and in many ways less accessible tracks. I seem to remember it was similar in that last interview, where we just learned a bit more about ‘Knobheads on Quiz Shows.’ We can only conclude that he hadn’t heard the album yet, but if so tell us that, ‘cos it was a massive let down when the buzzer suddenly went.
By the way on the preceding show, Tom Robinson’s early 20th birthday party for 6Music also featured much love for HMHB and the inevitable spin of JDOG with the usual hat-tip on being unwittingly part of the campaign in 2010.
7 March 2022
PAUL F
Worth it for “Solpadeine Plus though – not Max. I’m not Lou Reed.”
7 March 2022
EXXO
I have no photoshop skills – who’s gonna do us the album cover “Deep heat – in rock” with one of the rock-hewn figures bending over showing signs of back trouble. Or just bending over with an amp.
7 March 2022
transit full of keith
I quite enjoyed the interview though yes, I’d have happily listened to an hour digging into Oblong of Dreams. Laughed out loud at synth-jazz side project Quest for Lasagne.
7 March 2022
Roger DeanS poster
Reading some of the comments about Token Covid song slightly bemuse me.
Its a great track and one that might, and has, got a none fan into the band.
My son.
These things matter.
And frankly, having listened to 100s of albums down the years, where the majority of the album is filler, TCS is pretty awesome.
Its not quite up there with Oblong, or MMM, or Headstone, but its a song I can listen to with a smile on my face, especially as I found I wanted to murder the lockdown lukes of this world.
And breathe
7 March 2022
EXXO
So which are Neil’s 5 tunes then?
I’m going for:
Rogation Sunday
Grafting Haddock
In a Suffolk Ditch
Persian Rug Sale
and … Oblong?
7 March 2022
Bernardo Soares
I’m Getting Buried…could be a Neil song to these ears.
7 March 2022
EXXO
Interesting shout. I always think those ‘virtually a cover’ ones are classic Nigel where the tune and lyrics look after themselves as soon as the idea of reversing ‘I’m Getting Married in the Morning’ occurs to him … but then I’m often wrong.
Can’t decide if I think ‘Awkward Sean’ is a Neil one.
7 March 2022
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
Not had as much time as I would have liked to listen to the album but first thoughts
are that STE and OoD are fantastic (and I agree with several who’ve pointed out the Wordsworth link to OoD – my first reaction was ‘this is Daffodils as a pop song’.)
MMM is a bit of a ‘funny the first time’ song and TCS is ok but not great, Big Man Up Front’s title is a very clever play on words (and the female character could be modelled on the Scott Walker song “Rosemary”). And there seem to be more fictional characters that all the previous albums put together.
One question however – what is the correct title of Track 2? The CD just gives it as “Rogation Sunday” whereas online services like Spotify have it a “Rogation Sunday’s here again!”
7 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
GWA: Discussion and resolution to your last point here.
7 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
For Neil’s 5 tunes I’d go with Rogation Sunday and In A Suffolk Ditch as my bankers and Persian Rug Sale as a near-certainty. Then I’d put a reverse combination forecast on Awkward Sean, Grafting Haddock and Oblong of Dreams
7 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
@EXXO: Here you go
https://ibb.co/zHtZDRL
7 March 2022
Schoon
So according to the can’t-make-up-its-mind charts it’s a new entry at 37, worse than Hedge which went in at number 33. I bet heads will roll at the marketing department of RM Qualtrough.
7 March 2022
EXXO
@Mick. Brilliant.
“Why-y-y don’t you use it? Try-y-y not to bruise it.”
7 March 2022
John Foot
Oblong of Dreams is simply beautiful.
7 March 2022
John andErson
I’ve just seen an advert for Voltarol (the pain relief gel not the album) on Channel 4.
7 March 2022
Mark B
Another belter.
The local RC church near me in Cov used to have a bouncer on Christmas Eve.
He was a former top level hurling player and rumour was he kept his hurley in the vestibule.
Particularly liked In a Suffolk Ditch and Oblong of Dreams.
7 March 2022
Woodnoggin
On chart placement: The Voltarol Years has the disadvantage of its vinyl version being unavailable yet. Hedge had all formats available at the same time, for some minor chart benefit.
8 March 2022
Neil
Post 661. You got 1 song.
Post 666. You got 2 songs.
Post 662. Correct.
8 March 2022
Simon d
Token Covid Song sounds like a Neil riff to me.
8 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
Post 674. Thanks for the clues.
So it’s I’m Getting Buried, Awkward Sean and only one of Suffolk Ditch, Rogation Sunday, Persian Rug Sale, Grafting Haddock and Oblong of Dreams, plus two that haven’t been mentioned yet?
By the way the album’s perfect, the bass is genius and the backing vocals are superb, so thanks for all that too.
8 March 2022
dr Desperate
My entry for today’s Neildle:
I’m Getting Buried
Awkward Sean
Suffolk Ditch
Midnight Mass Murder
Big Man Up Front
8 March 2022
Neil
Post 677. I played the guitar on MMM, The rest of your selections are correct. One left.
8 March 2022
transit full of keith
I’m going with “Persian Rug Sale”.
8 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Neil Crossley’s drawing of Pam Ferris is brilliant, he’s certainly ‘captured’ her. Well done that man.
8 March 2022
Jeff dreadnought
I’m going to guess Slipping the Escort. There’s a one in five chance I’m right (I think)
8 March 2022
Neil
Post 679. No. Wish I had. Great little tune that one.
8 March 2022
Neil
Post 681. 4 left.
@Bobby Svarc. Alway difficult to choose a period for a good Pam!
8 March 2022
dr Desperate
I’ll have a go at the last one of four, then leave it to others:
Tess.
8 March 2022
Neil
Post 684. Did the solo on that Dr.
TCS
There you go.
8 March 2022
EXXO
I’m truly dire. I’ll give meself 2 out of 6 though (post 663) rather than 1 out 5.
But thanks Neil. Can write a ‘review’ of sorts now. Question is, where to send it?
Country Life perhaps.
8 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
@Exxo:
https://ibb.co/yW5dmbn
8 March 2022
dr Desperate
Pam Ferris was on R4X’s ‘Inheritance Tracks’ yesterday, inheriting Richard Tauber and passing on Ali Farka Touré. She finished by saying, “I’m very happy to fade into history. I am not desperate to be remembered, but I hope sometimes people will watch some work I’ve done and go, “Oh, she was good, wasn’t she? What was her name?” ”
Perfick.
8 March 2022
EXXO
I can’t recall ever seeing or hearing her on or in anything, except the odd at glimpse at gigs of course.
@ Mick – Liberally, you say? That’s uncanny, as the only time I’ve seen a Cher impersonator was at the local Liberal Club when my mate was seeing the barmaid, Ooh, Carol.
Anyway, I’ve found a nice statue of Achilles where it looks like he’s got some right old spasms in his lumber region. Just need to work it into my Deep Heat -In Rock cover now.
8 March 2022
stuart
The CD finally got to Sweden today, 13 days after being shipped. Not bad, post-Brexit, although a tad worse than the 2-3 days of those heady times pre-Brexit. Perhaps someone can tell that nice Mr Rees-Mogg that (seriously) testing the patience of expats is a “Brexit benefit”, as I gather he is looking for such things?
As for the CD itself, it’s great to have some new surreal artwork to study again. At first glance, for example, the image supposedly of a deleted scene from an episode of Coronation Street nigh on 50 years ago might take some working out….
8 March 2022
Fronk zoppo
Lock Down Luke racing today 2:40 Newcastle.
8 March 2022
EXXO
Now that I’ve had a look at them in that race I’ll have have an each way go on Bestiarius, and a bit of a place bet (he’s 3/1 to be in the first 4) but there’s no money coming for him so just a little punt really.
8 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
The only thing in its favour is the jockey booking.
8 March 2022
Shouting At Polenta
CD arrives tonight. I’ve already screamed at my daughter (the one-headed one) that she was supposed to let me know when she’d finished cutting the hedge & she just didn’t bother letting me know that I’ve already gone weeks without hearing it. Desperate for Voltarol but can’t have any anyway because of the immuno-suppression.
8 March 2022
EXXO
Made a profit on the race. Thanks for drawing it to my attention LDL fans.
8 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Hoping I don’t end up in one tonight on the way to the match, here’s In A Suffolk Ditch.
8 March 2022
shouting at polenta
CTS – Reading your In A Suffolk Ditch. Very weird reading it before the audible stuff’s turned up. I want to hear the Timothy Too intonation.
As a newcomer I’m not trying to be rude – personally rude that is – but with all this album’s references, do you ever get mixed up with the Catholic Truth Society? If album is still an allowed word . . .
8 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
That must be why I’m usually abbreviated to CtSO. Although if misconstrued I guess that could probably put me on the wrong side of the unpleasantness currently dominating the news.
8 March 2022
shouting at polenta
CtSO noted – beginner’s error. There is only one person on the side of the current unpleasantness & it isn’t you. Thing still hasn’t turned up. Practically panting . . .
8 March 2022
D list paul ross
I usually manage to avoid contact but I heard him introduced as “Nick” Witchell on the radio the other day. Was like junk mail addressed to the dead.
8 March 2022
Bruce el moose
Oh my darling,
Oh my darling,
Take your chips and fuck off home….
How to fall out with your significant other in a chippy, especially if their name is Clementine and it’s late on Christmas Eve.
8 March 2022
shouting at polenta
So it finally arrives, a day late (thanks a bunch Amy), at the same time as Andy the Chimney-Sweep. So I put them both to the task. Andy finishes first. Typical HMHB – always second . . .
Oooh nice bass on Slipping The Escort . . .
9 March 2022
Bad loser
The seagull only told him there was no need for the tin opener!
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/horrified-mums-tiktok-monkey-battering-23332922.amp
10 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
The actual story is less horrific than the wording in the web address makes that seem…
10 March 2022
paul f
It’s still pretty horrific though! Albeit the King Kong parallels are undeniable.
10 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
Following on from Nigel’s comment about his ‘side project’, Quest for Lasagne, on Maconie’s show, I think ‘TikTok Monkey Battering’ would be a fabulous name for a band…
10 March 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
“monkey battering” makes me think “euphemisms, Audrey, euphemisms!”…
10 March 2022
CHRISTIE MALRY
There’s a Persian Rug sale at the URC!
https://imgur.com/gallery/pAxFCV9
10 March 2022
Janet from accounts
That’s the URC in Heswall, next to Tesco.
10 March 2022
Baldy Davitt
So, do we think this is “our” nil points Lockdown Luke who will be representing the UK at this years Eurovision? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-60647606
10 March 2022
Half Matt, half Byrne
The more I’ve listened to it, the more I appreciate just how essential this band has become to my daily life since I properly found them in late 2019.
Regards TCS, I love that it’s so on the nose; earnest in its observance and style, yet equally as damning of the sort of personality a Lockdown Luke would be through the content.
10 March 2022
GORDON BURNS
I finally googled URC, assuming it was some football or political thing I’d never heard of. It’s not always football though…
11 March 2022
Shouting at polenta
Can anyone explain to an idiot beginner whether the band (HMHB, not The Band) get any money from the likes of TeePublic for merchandise or are they unlicensed ripoffers, as distinct from RIP offers which is what the spillchucker’s suggesting?
11 March 2022
EXXO
No, nothing. Geoff Davies (or a minion) occasionally used to get onto Redbubble and ask them to desist, but I doubt that the band are arsed really. Still it’s fun to call them names I always think. Redbubble and the like I mean.
We really need an Oblong of Dreams t-shirt (but don’t tell TeePublic/Redbubble please).
11 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
Miles still clears out any t-shirts that are a genuine rip-off of a Probe album cover.
11 March 2022
shouting at polenta
Exxo – thanks. Still trying to replace my Trampled By Turtles T-shirt. It’s so hard finding T-shirts for bands whose drummer knows the tunes . . .
11 March 2022
Kick Start Jr.
As a Leasowe boy living in Scandinavia, and being a bit of a half wit, I’ve only just worked out what oblong of dreams means and it made me lose it a bit, since Nigel’s banging on about old stomping grounds. Be still my aching breast… in my mind I’m poking a stick at my cortez to get the dog toffee out after passing Lingham Farm..
11 March 2022
Schoon
Are there any other bands that come up with something this good for their 15th (and 1 to 14th, maybe not Godcore) album?
11 March 2022
EXXO
@Kickstart – that’s poetry mate, poetry I can see and smell.
In my college band I had a real block on writing lyrics, for lots of reasons. Just happy to go with singing stuff the bassist wrote. The one decent song I wrote the lyrics for was called ‘Leasowe Bay,’ partly inspired by pulling a dickhead out of quicksand thereabouts.
*******
For a lot of reasons concerned with work, human health and dog health, I have mostly listened to the album alone so far. Mrs Exford is a HMHB fan but she has been unable to give it time and attention and we haven’t discussed it. it’s like she doesn’t want to know until she can give it her full attention. But she came into the room just now and laid a bit of carpet (for the dog) while I was dancing round to it (and interesting combination od activites). I ended up sobbing on her shoulder during ‘ StE’ and she didn’t even know why, didn’t know it was connected to the song even. She is eighteen years younger than me and an only child. she doesn’t need to know yet.
11 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
As part of my ongoing Biscuit outreach work, I’ve been banging on about the album to one of the lads in my Year 13 class who has broadly similar tastes in music and his reaction having given it a listen is largely in favour of the rockier/more humorous numbers – I was trying to explain OoD to him and the best I could come up with was it being a love letter to ‘home’…
On the junior Biscuit front, the kids have progressed beyond Awkward Sean and have added Tess, WILAMB and TCS to their list of requests in the car and discovered that although Alexa won’t play the new album, she does offer a rather nice little selection of older tracks, although thankfully Vatican Broadside hasn’t appeared as yet, as I’m not sure their mother would appreciate that as a new favorite sing-along!
11 March 2022
Hendrix-tatToo
Some call it Godcore is a great album, It’s got Tour Jacket with Detachable Sleeves, Friday Night and the Gates are Low, Fear my Wraith, Faithlift, Sponsoring the Moshpits and Song for Europe which rings true with what’s going on in the Ukraine at the moment…
11 March 2022
That Chiseller, IDRIs
I always think I don’t like …Godcore but then I remember it has Fear My Wraith on it which is one of the best distillations of everything I like best about the band. It’s still the album I listen to least (after Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral, for which I’ve had a 6 year blind spot since buying, though I’m expecting it to click eventually). There’s nothing wrong with it, but with a body of work as consistent as this, there’s bound to be one or two records which don’t meet the standards of the rest.
That said, one of my favourite HMHB memories is my youngest daughter, then two or three, joining in with the “Oh my God, Helen!” bit on Tour Jacket.., when I’d taken her on a supposedly soporific evening drive. I wasn’t far from Arley Hall as it happens. I didn’t see the matrix sign.
11 March 2022
Shouting at polenta
For the amusement of Bobby Svarc:
I too think Godcore is a classic & to this day I want Fear My Wraith played at my unattended (except by me) funeral.(*) For professional reasons the very last thing I would ever do when I got back to the Hut each evening would be to wade through the ever-thickening ether, so I never referenced sites like this – didn’t even know they existed. As a consequence I spent years – & I do mean years – desperately trying to find what SVARC stood for. I was convinced the S was Society & the C was Crematoria. With a stretch of imagination the R could have been Registered. Just get the V & A & I’d have cracked it.
That’s what happens when you convince yourself that it was:
“SVARC rejects new layer tombs.”
Made much worse by the fact that at the time I was traipsing all over the place carrying the scarf my father wore. Just never got to Colchester . . .
(*) I’m also a follower of Greg Brown: “And when I’m dead just throw me in a ditch”
12 March 2022
Treadmore
Loving this album – just got to be careful I don’t overdose on it.
The following cheese and onion batch review and reply just fit so well…
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g504201-d2084210-i143320658-The_Crows_Nest-Nuneaton_Warwickshire_England.html
12 March 2022
dr Desperate
See also Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias’ (or Paranoias’s) ‘Gobbing on Life’:
“Don’t wanna be cremated or buried in a grave,
Just shove me in a plastic bag and leave me on the pave-
ment”.
12 March 2022
Watney cupp
I always thought Godcore was the weakest. It’s better than I remembered although Styx Gig is their weakest song IMO. And forgive me, I don’t like Tour Jacket either.One of the few songs that sounds like Nigel is kicking down rather than aiming broadsides at those who truly deserve his wrath.
How lucky you people are to pick up on local references. I wonder what would go through my mind if I heard Nigel mention Pentwyn Barmy Army.
12 March 2022
Watney cupp
When I listened to Godcore the other day , I made exactly the same connection with Song For Europe!
I have to add, I think all the other songs are absolute belters and my favourite is Faithlift.
12 March 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
@SaP – the ditch will be in Suffolk, I trust?
On the subject of unorthodox funeral arrangements in popular music, there’s Sir Henry Rawlinson’s “Afterlife, aftershave! When I’m dead, just stand me in the hall, put a bit of flex up my arse and a lightbulb in my mouth!”
12 March 2022
Murderous Giraffe
@prof… “of course you’d have to dry me out first if you’re going to use electricity”
12 March 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
Thanks @MG, that was the bit I couldn’t remember off the top of my head, and wasn’t about to go and try to find the CD. Could have looked on Youtube I suppose, the Peel Show versions were certainly there a few years back, including the two parts that were cut from the album.
12 March 2022
dr Desperate
“She’s got a flex coming out of her head
Stands in the corner or she sits by your bed
She’s got a bulb in her mouth and a switch in her legs
That’s why the lady is a lamp.”
(Justin Edwards, ‘The Consultants’)
12 March 2022
Shouting at polenta
@Prof – The only ditch I’ve ever dry-runned for the actual event was on the road back from Groombridge to Tunbridge Wells many many years ago. I was cycling back after five pints of Guinness & a lot of no food & a very lot of physical work & forgot to keep pedalling – probably too busy staring at the countryside, the celandines, etc. Didn’t remember the Flann O’Brien in time.
If you can dry-run a ditch . . .
12 March 2022
Jim IN THE ANTIPODES
Post 719 – Exxo – a huge YES to your emotions on StE. I too have a younger partner AND I have watched my mum slide down the slope of dementia. I’m not going to dwell on that, but StE is quite beautifully balanced. Curiously (I think) it’s the final ‘chorus’ that carries the whole sad story – to me ‘his’ final lucid memory. Such a brilliant song, because it’s so utterly sad and (very Nigel) everyday and humdrum.
Now I’m going to listen to MMM to give me a good laff….
13 March 2022
THE MAD HATTERESS
Huh.
An entire album of The Coroner’s Lament.
A grief athlete’s paradise.
I wanted cheering up, everything is miserable as fuck as it is, without adding to it.
Thanks. NOT.
14 March 2022
Darwin
The whole album is wonderful. But the last line of the first verse of the first track? Cheer? chair? No idea. I wait for the collective view.
14 March 2022
John Anderson
@Darwin. It’s chair as in electric chair.
14 March 2022
ghost of kirkus
#731 – A joy to see this. I used to sat next to Justin in English and History, some decades ago. He was always very odd and very musical; he was the only other person I knew at the age of 15 who had heard of Jake Thackray.
Incidentally the misguided trousers of Jeremy Lions, Children’s Entertainer, were a splendid feature even then – flapping around mid-calf.
15 March 2022
dr Desperate
Aaa-aaa-aaargghh! (The noise of a lion.)
15 March 2022
ghost of kirkus
I suspect NB would enjoy aspects of the 12 Days of Christmas (“Six… years since she left”).
15 March 2022
chris from future doom
My copy of the album arrived here in Poland today, and I ordered it virtually as soon as it was possible to. Anyone else still waiting for theirs in further-flung corners of the globe?
16 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added Persian Rug Sale At The URC – thanks all.
17 March 2022
nick walters
For the Lockdown Lukes amongst us (like me), a lot of the album lyrics and chords are on the Ultimate Guitar website / app.
I blasted out “I’m Getting Buried In The Morning” at a local open mic last night, it went down well, especially when I acted out getting electrocuted at the end…
17 March 2022
THE BOOKER PRIZE GUY
This is fascinating. For anyone wondering what RM Qualtrough means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herbert_Wallace#Background
17 March 2022
Jim IN THE ANTIPODES
Chris from Future Doom – I’m not sure what this says about various posties, but mine arrived in rural Western Australia last week. In truth I was amazed….
19 March 2022
Paul f
“Rural Western Australia” doesn’t narrow your location down much more than “antipodes”.
19 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added Grafting Haddock In The George…
19 March 2022
EXXO
@myself, a couple of weeks ago.
Woke up this morning and had the first complete spin of the album in abut 5 days, and was finally in love with every single track, including the skiffly ones. The BV’s on When I look at my Baby finally properly cracked me up. Just like the Carter Family, as Andy Kershaw put it 🙂
19 March 2022
Bruce not in the antipodes
the tune that is constantly in my head and has been all week is Tess of The Dormobiles….. and I’m freeview, bet you’re with sky
19 March 2022
Wounded Giraffe
G’day from Sydney.
Just did an order on the Probe Plus site for the new album plus T-shirt as a gift for my brother in the UK.
Paid via paypal and a company called Seeds Records came up as the recipient of the money?
Can’t see the order on my Probe Plus account.
Anyone aware of the relationship between Seeds & Probe?
Thanks
21 March 2022
Neil
@Wounded Giraffe – Miles, who took care of the mail outside of Probe Plus, runs Seeds Records.
21 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Lockdown Luke is here. But Desperate Dan is what, exactly?
21 March 2022
EXXO
It’s “absolutely dethroned.”
Desperate Dan is the previous FB “like” king, but he’s been dethroned by Luke.
At first I assumed Dan was a fictionalised version of someone like Nathan Evans the Wellerman sensation from just before the pandemic …
… but then I saw that a real Dan had 12 million likes garnered during the pandemic.
No, NB would not be targeting a real Dan, no way.
(I suggest we do not post this name or the site will get his fans coming on here, worse than Adele fans did for Skeleton Records on twitter a few months back)
21 March 2022
Moretonkid
well, Oblong of Dreams has done me in. My nan lived off Lingham Lane. what a beautiful song
21 March 2022
Moretonkid
Now, if he’d just mention Lloyd’s Corner, Seacombe, my life would be complete
“one and two halves to Lloyd’s Corner”
21 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Nearly there. When I Look At My Baby…
23 March 2022
John Anzani
In looking just now at the Durham venue I clicked through to the tickets page and found the Votarol cover photo and the band described to unsuspecting would be attendees as “Synth-infused trio from Usk”.
Made me want a ticket even more.
23 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Aaaand we’re done. Tess Of The Dormobiles. Now on to the A–Z entries. When I get a week or two free!
25 March 2022
WhyknittreEs
Sorry if this has been answered- couldn’t find it in the thread – but did anyone solve where was the cover photo was taken?
28 March 2022
dr desperate
I was surprised it didn’t start a ‘Nigel is dead’ rumour.
29 March 2022
HARRISON ADAMS
I can’t help but wonder whether a lot of the songs on The Voltarol Years are intimately connected and part of a sort of a narrative whole.
At least two songs (I’m Getting Buried and Suffolk Ditch) are sung from the perspective of a serial killer. Possibly three, depending on where our narrator is at the end of Tess. Another song of a jollier variety is called Midnight Mass Murder.
Could these songs be sung by one and the same killer? And is he Awkward Sean, what with skulking around at night and penchant for rooftops and Semtex? Does ‘Home End’ Sean’s tale have anything to do with the man in decline in Slipping the Escort, who gave it the big ‘un in the Town End seats? Is the hit and run victim in Big Man Up Front one Ruth Gould?
I dunno. These are not even semi-formed thoughts. I eagerly await the findings of better minds.
29 March 2022
transit full of keith
Without claiming any special insight at all, it seems unlikely. There are a few geographical/chronology reasons why the IASD and IGBITM killers can’t be the same, for a start.
I think the last album had a bit of a “meet the neighbours” theme running through a few songs, which also gave the title of the album, but this seemed more a culmination of a general tendency in NB’s songwriting than a “concept” as such.
29 March 2022
HARRISON ADAMS
A fair point re geography/chronology. But then, the narrator of Persian Rug Sale has a time machine …
29 March 2022
Peter ross
I was on Radio Scotland’s arts programme today, talking about this and that, and was asked at the end for a personal recommendation. I took the opportunity to mention HMHB and in particular Oblong Of Dreams. Only the briefest chat, but it was nice to have the chance to suggest people listen to the new album. People can still hear it, if they want. Listen from about two hours 23 minutes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0015spr
29 March 2022
dr desperate
Excellent recommendation, @PR! Did you get to meet Tash?
(Disappointed to hear that the TV adaptation of ‘Slow Horses’ is no good.)
29 March 2022
EXXO
Nice one Peter. Just bought your book based on your passionate lingo there. x
29 March 2022
Peter ross
@DR DESPERATE @EXXO Thank you very much.
30 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Review in The Star, Sheffield
2 April 2022
Geraldine
BBC Sounds, that’s not how I would spell Glasgow.
2 April 2022
ghost of kirkus
Matine Idle (see #121) had some excited comment about the Voltarol Years – and they played Lockdown Luke in its entirety at about 4.30pm ops Easter Monday, causing the Ghost of Kirkus to belt out a long and sustained “Arse…” possibly to the alarm of everyone else in the supermarket car park.
18 April 2022
Dave Wiggins
Been to Probe today, and picked up the CD.
You’ve all whetted my appetite, so thank you.
‘RM Qualtrough’ was, in fact, one of my myriad pseudonyms in the much-missed Everton fanzine ‘When Skies are Grey – a publication which had Nigel Blackwell as one of its subscribers for many years..
Not really food for thought, mind, as RM Qualtrough has long been a name known to every doyen of historical Merseyside murders.
29 April 2022
Sam Xavier
First song… the line is something I sing now and again – long before the HMHB song – with more than a little irony since I was diagnosed with cancer. My way of coping. It ain’t likely to kill me but I’d rather not have it, ta very much.
2 May 2022
Chris The Siteowner
All the best, Sam.
3 May 2022
Chris The Siteowner
OK, here it is: Track by track – Nigel Blackwell talks to Paddy Shennan about The Voltarol Years. As Paddy says, I hope you’ve got the appetite for around 8,000 words (of course you have!) on the transcript of a track-by-track pub chat which answers a lot of the questions in corners of your mind that lurk…
Make yourself a coffee, and dive in.
3 May 2022
dr Desperate
Oh yeah! May pour myself a small sherry while reading this.
3 May 2022
Lux inferior
That is just wonderful. Thanks to Chris, Paddy, and especially the man himself.
3 May 2022
woodnoggin
A good read, thanks for that.
3 May 2022
warden Hodges
Great that Paddy!
3 May 2022
Ferencváros fan
Breathtaking stuff. Totally living up to CTSO’s billing. Thank you so much, Paddy, for producing such an excellent piece. We are truly privileged to be given the benefit of NB’s heartfelt sentiments. Finally, I’m pleased to hear that Awkward Sean is an OK person! I know NB has said that we all know someone like him, but some of us can also see a bit of ourselves in him.
3 May 2022
BAD LOSER
A great read as you would expect. My favourite part is where Nigel says he already has new ideas for songs. Ever since someone on here suggested OOD might be their swansong, I’ve been frequently refreshing Ticketmaster hoping to see gigs added further into next year.
(and breathe)
3 May 2022
MULDOON LIVES!
Like Ferencvaros Fan I’m pleased that Sean is an ok person, there is a lot I can see of myself in him, except for the Semtex and that we never has a stinking hallway. Definitely a bit of Kwai Chang Sean in my early Karate life at The Beb Oval and Gerd Muller was a footy hero. Never liked Chicory Tip though. Weird is acceptable. Thanks to Chris for posting Paddy’s great article.
16 May 2022
Ferencváros fan
@Muldoon Lives – yeah Sean was imo an OK introvert. I see it that since most of his schoolmates didn’t really get too close to him, they made it up. I‘ve seen it over the years in real life. He is rapidly turning into one of those people who get analysed to the nth degree, then we hold back and think, hang on does he really exist? But he does. He’s here, he’s there, he’s every fcuking where. There’s a lot of him in a lot of people, and that makes the world a better place. Fantastic creation. Thanks, Neil.
17 May 2022
CARRIE ANNE
Unique signed (by NB10) test pressing of new album up for auction
9 June 2022
Hendrix-tattoo
My moneys on Jitsu G winning in the Auction…
9 June 2022
dr Desperate
…if it were signed by Danny Baker.
9 June 2022
nige
Don’t want it, but I’ve so far pushed up someones cost by £100 🙂
10 June 2022
Corn Biscuit
On way down from Scotland, very excited. Don’t have anything cogent to say, just excited. Anyone going to the Stone Roses indie bar afterwards? If you do, watch out for a tired, excited man with a large face.
10 June 2022
Professor Abelazar Woozle
The test pressing of TVY on Ebay went for £462 in the end.
15 June 2022
Mr Ed
It did. I’m away on business this week but it should have arrived at my office. Looking forward to having a listen next week.
23 June 2022
Mr Ed
The track order is different on the LP to the CD. In A Suffolk Ditch is promoted from 9 to 7 to finish off side A.
29 June 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Added ‘The Voltarol Years’ lyrics to The Almost Famous HMHB Random Lyrics Generator™. That’s 89 more ‘quotes’, making a total of 1,361 there now, so you shouldn’t get the same one too often. The longest remains a 137-word chunk of Descent Of The Stiperstones that I didn’t have the heart to break up, and the shortest “OK – let’s go to chapel”.
30 June 2022
EXXO
I’ve been a bit busy today and hardly had 6 Music on during their 7am to 7pm “best of 2022 so far” round-up. Just checked through their gubbins and no tracks from this album were played. Gobsmacked,
We’re going to have the same shit at the end of this year again aren’t we when we vote for an outstanding album that nobody even fucking reviewed.
*Gideon Coe did mention ‘Oblong’ last night in another context but he didn’t bloody take the chance to give it a radio debut.
15 July 2022
Telly savalas
Got my LP delivered by Royal Mail today.
Compared to the digital version I’ve grown accustomed to, there’s a slight order re-shuffle of note: ‘Suffolk Ditch’ is moved up to 7th, after ‘Big Man Up’ Front, to close Side A.
27 July 2022
Michael ORAWR
Not for me sorry.
29 July 2022
Quality janitor
That was early. Thought I was doing well with mine arriving a few minutes ago.
Odd that track move. I’d have thought WILAMB to be a good (less demanding sonically) choice for the end of side 1.
29 July 2022
mattl
Vinyl showed up in the US yesterday.
4 August 2022
CARRIE ANNE
Number 12 in this week’s UK Vinyl Album Chart
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/vinyl-albums-chart/
5 August 2022
dr desperate
Only just realised that the cover shows Nigel and Neil loading the arshall amp.
6 September 2022
parsfan
I’ve only searched through this thread, so someone might have mentioned it elsewhere, but RM Qualtrough was listed as the producer on CSI Ambleside.
5 January 2023
EXXO
I always appreciate your retrospective, forensic eye for a preview of a lyric, Paul.
Here’s one for you. In a discussion with Mr. B at the time of the ‘Fucking Hedge’ release, he mentioned hoping Liverpool lost the 2018 CL final in Kyiv because “it would keep all the Telepudlians round here quiet.”
5 January 2023
Gok WaN Acolyte
In case anyone is interested (this is the only thread we seem to discuss it) there’s an interesting article on the Wallace murder here https://open.substack.com/pub/liverpoolpost/p/chess-prank-calls-and-murder-who?r=bhabh&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
12 March 2023
Irish niall
Great read GWA. Just nit-picking a detail – I was under the impression it had been established in more recent years that Julia was likely 16 or 17 years older than William Wallace. That’d put her in her late 60s in 1931.
12 March 2023