Excerpt from Hieronymus Boosh…
My favorite chapter pays homage to Julian Barratt’s & Tim Hope’s “The Pod”
Attack of the Pod People
“Blueberry Cage” was one of Vince’s latest former obsessions. They were a rogue band so esoteric and avant-garde that they never actually made any sounds. Sound, they felt was beneath the mo-derne, cutting edge musician. Since Vince could neither sing nor play an instrument, he was ideal as their front man. His job was to pose for obtuse art shots, lounge around in various states of undress and stare blankly at the press until even the most flamboyantly pretentious art magazines, such as sugaRAPE, walked out on him.
Gigs consisted of the five members going to clubs, dressed according to Vince’s fashion directions. They always looked fabulous. They would never stand together, and they never played anything nor stood on the stage. They believed that if they conceptualized music, the people would begin to “hear” their concepts and fall in line. So far, they had no success. In fact no one in the clubs even knew they were actually at a “Blueberry Cage” performance. It was all a part of the carefully laid sneak attack plan, their entre into the subconscious minds of the audience. It was not going very well.
Collectively, “Blueberry Cage” was disappointed with their album sales—and the consistent returns of all units moved— but they knew as artists that people were not able to grasp the enormity of the work, which consisted of a CD that contained 55.04 minutes of silence in cuts which varied in length between 4.27 and 16.5 minutes.
They were incensed by their inability to get any airplay whatsoever, and raged against the system of corporate dictated playlists. When even the outré pirate station that broadcast from a tugboat off the shores of Bristoltwistenanni refused to play them, they raged against the snobbery of the elitist artier-than-thou set.
When their Wall of Lack of Sound was rejected, they merely pish-toshed the primitive public hive mentality which insisted on the out-dated paradigm that music, in order to be valid, must actually sound like something—anything. Their work, they assured themselves, was well beyond the ken of the average uninitiated plebian moron that formed the foundation of the mewling masses. “Blueberry Cage” believed that their eponymous CD would someday be hailed as the masterpiece that it was and that they would take their place alongside other forward thinking giants of art, music and culture. But not anywhere near John Cage; he was an idiot.
“So, you won’t come back for Blueberry Cage, then. Well what about that other one, what was it…?”
“Morte de Bergamote,” Vince finished. “Don’t want them anymore either.”
I Love Rocks N Roll
Ringing Rocks Park
“Morte de Bergamote” was an emerging talent on the bleeding edge of the horizon (that is, in their own minds). They were impressed with Vince’s work with “Blueberry Cage”, largely because he continually bombarded them with shots of himself lounging about in various states of undress, either looking like a helpless rabbit, a sick walrus or like an angry super model. In any case, the images were unsettling enough to grab the attention of “ModeBe’s” leader, and Vince had joined them and performed at a few gigs right before this whole ugly Toy Maker incident began.
“Morte de Bergamote” actually did believe in creating sounds. Their raisen d’etre was in Rocks (sic) Music. Their sound was not the ubiquitous raging guitars, wailing singers, thrumping bass and driving drums of traditional rock music, but rather music which issues forth from iron-filled stones strewn about in fields of boulders. Evidently what appears to be a large garden variety stone will “ring” when percussion is applied using a ball peen hammer or other heavy blunt object. The greater the content of iron in the rock, the better the tone emitted. This is true.
Again, Vince did not actually have to do anything remotely musical, but he did have to wear a costume dipped in hardening cement and pull shapes representing the various boulders being played and occasionally he would throw his back and shoulders out of place due to the odd poses and weight of the costume.
Their whole problem was in getting roadies or anyone at all to transport their “instruments” to their gigs since their selected travel boulders were many and weighed in at quite a few stone.
The group had another issue. They were facing charges of defiling several public parks as they removed sections of the natural attractions. Their defense was that the earth belonged to everyone and that they were merely borrowing parts of her for the benefit of mankind. Somehow the Judge was not impressed and they were forced to release their “instruments” back into the wild or face prison for their art, a sacrifice none of them cared to make.
In lieu of actual rocks, the keyboardists used samples recorded in the fields to re-create the sound. Tempers flared and the group polarized over the issue of purity vs. feasibility of the whole Rocks Music concept. Three members insisted that without the actual boulders at the gigs, the sound was compromised beyond redemption. Vince joined the keyboard sampling side as he was suffering from his own orthopedic ills. The remaining two band members, one of whom was sporting a severely herniated disk and the other one a broken foot, a pulled ligament and a crushed hand, were adamant about the sampled sounds model. The resulting schism smashed the group apart, but the samplers were going to reform as “Dirty Lil’ Ringing Roxy and the Hyphenated Rowsdowers” as soon as their injuries were healed.
“Fine, then come back to be in a band with me,” Howard pleaded, his desperation apparent.
“Look, Howard, I’m done will all of that,” Vince told him plainly. “I’m Vince Noir, beautiful Harlequin doll…forever.”
“What is wrong with you? Has your brain turned to plastic already?” Howard asked, exasperated.
Howard had nothing left to lose so he pleaded, “What about you and me, the team? Exordium and Terminus? Thing One and Thing Two? Bert and Ernie?”
Vince looked a bit upset for a split second but his sunshine face returned. “We could still be a team, Howard. Why not stay here? Be one of us.”
Naboo and Bollo walked over to Vince and Howard.
“Join you? And, then what?” Howard asked.
“Well, we could have tea parties, and,” Vince looked over at the table of girls and waved. They all giggled. “I know a lot of cute dolls. I could fix you up, Howard. Find you the one with the perfect figure. You could play house.”
“Really?” Howard said, his interest peaked.
“Oh, don’t you start, Howard,” Naboo broke in. “Look, Vince, we have to leave now, and besides…”
“What?” Howard asked.
“If you stay, you won’t even be anatomically correct, if you catch my drift,” Naboo said with a wry look on his face. Bollo chuckled.
“Same’s true for you, Bollo,” Naboo scolded, shutting up the ape. “What d’ya say, Vince?”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Vince said. “You can join me if you want to or leave. I’m staying!” Vince turned and went to the girls and resumed the party, trying to pretend that Howard, Naboo and Bollo were not standing right there.
Howard felt like a trapped rat. Why would Vince not listen to reason? He was about to be enlightened.
tbc…
Bristol Twistin’ Annie
“She’s got a shape like Rin Tin Tin and a face like my Uncle Ben…”
Hieronymus Boosh 