For the last nine months or so I have been suffering on here. In silence mind. My proudest possession, is probably my record collection, which dates back to the early Eighties and fills several shelves and boxes in my Newcastle flat. It's as good a desciption of my life as a memoir would be.
Next would be my fabulous vintage record player, a cabinet Dynatron probably dating back to the Seventies. I bought it for a not inconsiderable cost of £500 about five years back, a fee that I never once regretted, given the fabulous sound and enhancement it gave to favourite records as well as records that I didn't realise were quite so good before as they sounded great when played on it.
Then in late summer of 2021 I did a terrible thing. I lost my temper, for good reason I hasten to add, with a friend who wasn't behaving as a friend should,, and drunk as a skunk late at night my elbow came back and the slid of the cabinet slammed shut, blowing the speakers. I've been without ever since and frankly, something considerable has been missing from my life.
It was a difficult problem to fix and I was reliant of the good will of Marek the owner of RPM Records, in Newcastle who I'd bought it from to eventually come up with a solution that was reasonable to both of us in terms of the bill.
Yesterday Marek came good. On the hottest day of the year, he turned up at my flat with a new board for my player and attached it. My record player is back. Not entirely, the sound only comes from one attached speaker as of yet. But that one speaker is good enough to convince me that I am reunited with a partner that I really never wanted to split from in the first place. And it feels as good as ever.
So, another occasional series. I never need much excuse. Given that I'm working from home much of the time these days, this will allow me to become properly aquainted with some of the more neglected records in my collection. Much as I love them, I can't listen to Murmur, Kind of Blue, Forever Changes and What's Going On all the time. I'll use this as an excuse to delve into the more obscure areas of my record shelves and boxes.
So to The Doughnut in Grannie's Greenhouse the second album by British arch-satirists The Bonzo Dog Band released in November 1968.. Not a record I listen to very much. In fact today is probably the first time I ever have in its entirity. It's a very amiable and easy album to listen to. If not a particularly funny one anymore though I'm sure it was at the time. Humour is not a thing that dates well generally.
Musically it still sounds very inventive though because the The Bonzo Dog Band were highly ambitious and covered a lot of ground over the course of their career.
The touchstones are The Beatles and Monty Python throughout. The Bonzos of course famously appeared famously in Magical Mystery Tour and were close companions with the members of Python through the late Sixties and early Seventies.There is a resultant confidence and authority throughout. They're official jesters of an imperial court after all,
Nothing is particularly laugh out loud but it's all perfectly amiable and I think a smile or the wry description was never far from my lips as it played.
Most of the songs here are written, individually or together by the band's writing powerhouses Viv Stanshall and Neil Innes. They function in the same way as Lennon and McCartney did for The Beatles. Stanshall is the more anarchic, black sheep veering into occasional darkness and semi-gloom. Lennon essentially. Innes, more easy going, melodic. Laid back. So McCartney.They compliment each other.
The record itself remains a good one though the world that it tells of seems a million miles from the one we're in now. It stands up. Will listen again certainly.
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