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Let's start this with a little story.
A married couple is hiking in the mountains. She says: "Oh dear, this landscape really leaves me speechless..." He replies: "Perfect, darling, then we'll camp here!"
Not funny? Better that way.
Because neither gods nor women love buffoons and jesters ("I'm with him because he makes me laugh" is not only a pathetic falsehood, but doesn't even sound like a great compliment...). However, now that I'm on this stage, let's continue with the show.
There are two guys in a pub.
One is a chubby fellow with big plastic ears, a euphonium under his arm, small purple glasses, and is dressed in Victorian style; the other is Neil Innes (now, if I were your friend, I’d tell you not to forget this name — assuming, of course, that Monty Python and the Rutles mean something to you, otherwise, I don’t understand why you are here — and I’d suggest you listen to at least his "How Sweet to Be an Idiot").
As for the guy with the plastic ears, he is our Victor A. Stanshall, who will soon decide to call himself "Vivian" (a sort of homage-outrage to his father). Viv has a band, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and is looking for other musicians. The two sniff each other out and decide they like each other. They will become a fantastic pair: the creative engine of that extraordinary war machine against idiocy that the Bonzoes were.
It will be a story of low-cost concerts around England in an old van crammed with musical instruments, objects, and strange stage machinery; of television appearances in children’s shows and important friendships (Keith Moon, the Monty Python, Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, John Peel, the Kinks, and many others). And then four records (plus two reunions).
Four records that — if you go around chatting about music — you should certainly get, provided you don’t mistake them for rock music albums and attempt to understand at least part of the lyrics and references contained within them.
A great story, that of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, but it will be someone else who will tell it to you if they feel like it.
A story that — moreover — ends badly in a scrappy American tour.
What’s the height of irony for a comedian?
Easy: to be afraid of the stage!
And Vivian knew that fear well; even when he appeared dressed only with a rabbit head and large underpants, anxiety consumed him from within. He tried to fight it with alcohol and Valium, and soon lost the battle.
However, although filled with anxiolytics and alcohol, Vivian continued to write, record albums, and go on tours. He formed two groups with some friends (like Clapton and Moon and members of the Bonzoes): the Freaks and then the Grimms. And then he discovered radio: he became a regular guest and even presenter on several BBC programs.
But, above all, Vivian managed not to lose his sense of humor. His exploits with his long-time drinking companion Keith Moon are legendary.
For example: Stanshall would arrive at a very luxurious tailor shop where he tried on a pair of trousers. Then Moon would arrive, pretending to be another customer, insisting on buying those very trousers. At this point, the two would start to argue and tear the trousers into two parts, so they ended up with half a pair each. While the poor tailor was going crazy, an actor with one leg — hired by Stanshall and Moon — would enter the scene, see the split trousers, and proclaim: "Ah! Just what I was looking for! I'll buy them!"
There are an Englishman, a Nigerian, a Ghanaian, a Frenchman, a South African (and a bunch of other people).
The Englishman is, of course, our Viv. The Nigerian is the percussionist Gasper Lawal, the Ghanaian is Rebop Kwaku Baah on congas, the Frenchman is the violinist Ric Grech, the South African (uncredited) is Mongezi Feza on trumpet, and the others are Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Anthony "Bubs" White, Deryk Quinn, and the regular Neil Innes. Then there’s also a Yoruba choir, an unspecified Indian taxi driver playing bass and a friend of his playing drums, plus a few more people on backing vocals.
They are all there playing on this record "Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead"; the first solo album by our Vivian, which sees the light — for a very short time — in 1974. Very short time because Warner Bros, acknowledging that this album is really "too" strange and also acknowledging that it's unlikely to sell more than the 5000 copies printed, removes it from production and sends everything to be scrapped.
Thus the album disappears for thirty-six years, until in 2010, a phantom Harkit Records reissues it on CD. A CD that is quite a mysterious object: it was a kind of "stolen" copy, of poor quality (almost a bootleg), with notes in Dutch and bonus tracks from an even rarer single.
Fortunately, in 2012, Poppydisc reissues everything (also on vinyl and with the authorization of the Stanshalls) in a finally remastered and decently curated version.
Lucky for us because the album is extraordinary: the lyrics are often darkly comedic, talking about the alcohol and anxiety Viv lived with and then there are touches of surrealist poetry, literary references, and a rather keen analysis of the author's relationship with his own penis. While the music, thanks especially to Lawal’s percussion and the use of Yoruba choirs, can legitimately claim to be an early and markedly ahead-of-time example of the crossover between world music and rock music. Without, moreover, losing the usual keen sense of parody that has always characterized our man's music.
And then — damn it! — just reading the names involved you can tell there’s good stuff here!
And now arrives a very serious English Lord.
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet Rawlinson, was a traveler and diplomat, a military man, and a scholar of oriental cultures. Furthermore, it seems that modern Assyriology owes its birth to him.
Now, for what reason such a peer of England swirled in Viv’s head since the first Bonzoes LP (he is quoted in "The Intro and the Outro") is not known. What we do know — instead — is that Sir Henry Rawlinson will be the protagonist of the "Rawlinson End" saga, a saga that will remain — at least in the land of Albion — the most significant work of Vivian Stanshall (although most of our readers might know him more for his participation in Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells").
The surreal and hilarious stories of the Rawlinson family and their dilapidated and haunted residence have been the material for various BBC show series, a couple of books, and as many records, and even a film (never distributed here) and would have continued in many other projects (supposedly also theatrical) that Viv would have continued to work on if he hadn’t left us in the absurd way we will see.
Speaking of unsolicited advice.
If you have a long and thick beard and the habit of falling asleep while smoking (and also rather "high"), the least you can expect is that a number of your relatives & amp; acquaintances advise you to be, at least, a bit careful.
And if in the end, you kicked the bucket precisely because your house caught fire (together with your big beard), it would certainly not be surprising if those same relatives & amp; acquaintances, between one tear and another, also mumbled — under their breath — a "told you so, though."
Even if, the truth is that smoke and beard had nothing to do with it; it’s all the fault, instead, of a crappy electrical system that would have done you in the same even if you were hairless and allergic to nicotine.
And to think that, until a little while earlier, Viv and his wife Ki were living in a houseboat, The Searchlight, moored on the Thames between Chertsey and Shepperton, which the two had considered transforming into a theater as well. Instead, that plan didn’t come to pass (what a subtle pun!) and so Viv took a small apartment in the city with — as we have seen — a crappy electrical system.
Just to demonstrate that bad luck never goes on vacation and that jesters and jugglers certainly do not enjoy the favors of Gods and the Powerful.
And now (drum roll) the grand finale!
Well, ladies & amp; gentlemen, paying and non-paying public, kids, and soldiers. Remember that Sir Henry Rawlinson (yes, the one with Assyriology, the one of "Rawlinson End"), the pompous peer of the Realm?
Well, do you know on what day Our Lord called him up into the Grace of the Heavens?
March 5th.
And do you know on what day the electrical system of Stanshall's house decided to fail and serve us "remains of comedian in charcoal"?
March 5th!
Even this doesn’t make you laugh?
Surely you’re an awful audience.
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