We'd seen that huge Down Syndrome kid a few times around the College, lurching over from Fiveways. Steve was much taller than usual, well over 6' with a shock of hair sticking straight up in an electrifixion / Eraserhead motif; a Silvikrin advert for the homeless and bewildered.
We needed a front man for our band and when we came across him on the grass in front of the College, soaked to the cuffs in the rain and yelling Damo Suzuki style at the black sky, we thought we'd found him. Dollar signs flashed in front of our eyes; not only was this guy a perfect viual foil for our primitive tub-thumping minimalism - we naively insisted at the time in only playing one note per song - but he could also sing, in exactly the kind of mangled ur-english otherness that we'd all tried to emulate at one time or another (cf. the frantic 'Sick as Children without any dogs' and 'Impaline' from the unreleased - naturally- and much ignored Ix Tab 'demo' album: Brained By Falling Stationery).
We would change our name to King Mong, crank up the volume and start reeling the cash in... I saw visions of me and the boys on the front cover of NME or Underground; digging up the new breed.
We never even made it to rehearsal. Someone in the College Principality had decided this was in bad taste and we were dragged into the Dean's office to explain ourselves. I can't remember exactly the long, elegant, almost Socratic, explanation we gave (we were making an artistic statement, after all) but I do remember it all kind of fell down around our ears when someone mentioned that giant bird/go-go dancer cage we'd recently been caught 'borrowing' from the Engineering Dept.
And so, King Mong, possibly the greatest rock band never to be, imploded and Steve returned to a life of basic skills , elementary catering and social engineering.
Our guitarist was going to be Mark Pritchard and he went on to make things like:
And by then fucking Reynols had came and stolen our glory.
1 comment:
If your band had taken off we may never of had Reload, Global Communication, Jedi Knights et al. There again we wouldn't have had that Rhubarb and Custard track either........
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