"…Trouble With
My Trousers And A Struggle With My Shirt…"
Following on
from his daft-as-a-brush “Electric Shocks” album from October 1972 – one year
later and the ex BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND main man was at it again. “Unusual” is
a another cocktail of wonderfully eccentric send-up - Monty Python type lunacy where
men struggle with submersible trousers and go bumpity bump in roadsters made
for two as vaudeville songs played on Tubas waft out of a wireless hidden by
Billy Bunter in Felsham hedgerows… As you can imagine it’s very funny and very,
very silly. Here are the Mad Dogs and their certifiable Englishman…
UK released on
CD September 2014 - "Unusual" by ROGER RUSKIN SPEAR is on Esoteric
Recordings ECLEC 2464 (Barcode 5013929456440) and is a straightforward remastered transfer of the original 1973 11-track LP that breaks down as follows (34:23
minutes):
1. Pinball
Wizard [Side 1]
2. On Her
Doorstep Last Night
3. Trouble With
My Trousers
4. Shove-Off
Shostakovich
5. I Love To Go
Bumpity Bump (On A Bumpy Road With You)
6. When Yuba
Plays The Rumba On The Tuba Down In Cuba [Side 2]
7. Frank The
Ripper
8. Morecombe And
Wise
9. Heartbreak
Hotel
10. My Goodness
(Or The Revolutionary New Concrete Mixer Show)
11.Unusual
Tracks 1 to 11 are
his second solo album "Unusual" - originally released on vinyl LP
October 1973 in the UK on United Artists UAG 29508
Quite apart from
the sheer craziness of the proceedings - the first thing that hits you is the great
remaster carried out to perfection by BEN WISEMAN at Audio Archiving. The dense
multi-tracked original tapes have been given a right polish and all the instrument
antics, funny voices and animal noises are here in fabulous sound quality.
The 16-page
colour booklet features photos of our Roger with his boggle-eyes, white lab
coat and massive Tuba - looking like a doctor who shouldn’t be let loose in any
ward. He shares his typically brill reminiscences of each song and how they
came to be (the band HELP YOURSELF guest on “Bumpity Bump” while THUNDERCLAP
“Something In The Air” NEWMAN plays the piano on his fabulous send up of The
Who’s classic “Pinball Wizard”). And as with the preceding “Electric Shocks”
issue – there are superb further liner notes from noted writer MALCOLM DOME.
It’s very classily done.
Carrying on in
much the same tradition as the Bonzo albums on Liberty - the songs are full of
madcap rhythms and old timey melodies (like he’s on the set of Boardwalk
Empire). You’ll find yourself giggling a lot and his brilliantly deadpan cover
of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” will have you wanting to You Tube it immediately
(telling the world of your fab new find). Spear in fact felt that “Unusual” and
its comedy suffered unfairly against the more popular “Electric Shocks” album from
1972 (see my review) - and that now in 2014 - it genuinely deserves reappraisal.
He’s right because there’s songwriting/comedic genius amidst all of the tomfoolery
(check out “Trouble With My Trousers”).
No one but no
one does bonkers quite like the British – and well done to all the good people
in Cherry Red and Esoteric for getting this forgotten piece of stark-raving mad
back out there...
