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The Bebop Dustbins exposed like you've never seen them stripped naked before!

Owing to disparaging inferences by the Web page creator about my previous cyber-expose, I have been stung into providing a fuller, more enlightening and appropriate account of the lemon-scented toilet cleaner that was The Bebop Dustbins. I myself thought that I had covered their whole career in a nutshell - that is to say, succinctly, compactly and without leaving out any important bits. I felt I had captured their essence in a clear, brief and lucid nugget of revelation. However differences of opinion over what is important in a biographical investigation has prompted me to return with a more conventional piece entitled:

On The Bebop Dustbins. My Reminiscences 1984-1986.

May 1984. Mr. B___, Mr. E___ and Mr. M___ had found each other and verily I say unto you they were sore frustrated by the lack of a drummer. And lo, an angel appeared to them (honestly) and saideth to the assembled multitude of three to follow the badly maintained road and to journey to Chale where they would indeed find in a garage the son of quite a good drummer who used to play in bands in the sixties.

Mr. B___, Mr. E___ and Mr. M____ were afraid and said "Surely this hallucination is of God?" They had heard the good news but decided to go to Portsmouth for some recreation instead.

The band members met Mr. R___ over in Portsmouth at the 17th Annual Asbestos Awards, an event that loomed large in their social calendar. Mr. R___ was working for asbestos giants, Easi-Proof Plc, as a salesman but he had by then become increasingly disillusioned with the fire-retardant industry. He realised that asbestos had had its day and was definitely on the way out. He had been short-listed in the New Ideas Category for his particularly cynical product aimed at the elderly - the Supa Fire-proof Asbestos Balaclava. But he'd had enough and when the band mentioned they were looking for a drummer, he jumped at the chance.

Around June 1994, Channel 4, still very much in its naive and foolish early days, offered the band their own talk show to be called "Ask the Bebop Dustbins!" Some hair-brained deputy, assistant, sub-producer, since demoted to tea-boy, came up with the absurd idea that people with certain critical problems would come on the 1/2 hour show; discuss their innermost anxieties and pains; and then be advised on how to overcome them by the Bebop Dustbins.

This idea was greeted with great favour by the lead singer who had intellectual pretensions, although of a fragile kind, beyond his own small fishtank and felt he was well versed in "art, philosophy, history...oh, you know the sort of thing, luvvy". Often obsessive in his intellectual name-dropping (listen to "Businessman who came out of a cupboard") and on occasions ostentatiously complex in his ideas (listen to "cycling song"), the lead singer developed a visciously pompous streak during rehearsals, as he strutted slowly round the set, chest out, speaking in a most laboured Jeremy Paxman style.

The first and only episode, broadcast on July 2nd 1984, was a total fiasco. People with heart-rending, tear-flooding, blanket-soaking, abysmally sad problems, were subjected to the total non-advice of the untrained, empty-headed, unqualified, lazy Bebop Dustbins, who answered alot of the time with a shrug or a barely concealed yawn. They would mumble "um...err" and look to each other for the answer but of course most of the guests ended up undergoing extreme intensive psychiatric rehabilitation, for an "um...er" was far more of a rejection, a mental kick in the guts, than the worst jeering insults.

Channel 4 promptly dropped the Bebop Dustbins after plenty of encouragement from me behind the scenes.

No sooner were they out of that mess than they found themselves faced with a far more cunning and lethal outfit - the Trinity Street Residents Association (TRSA).

The Bebop Dustbins practised for a while in the crypt of Holy Trinity parish church. This was due to Mr. B___, bass player. He had once been a personal trainer and fitness coach to the Bishop of Portsmouth and his duties meant that he was responsible for the bishop's training programme for the 3 months that led up to the Annual Bishop's Chase-the-Brick Contest held each year in the country that brutalised, oppressed or persecuted the most religious minorities. The contest was multi-denominational and was immensely popular, especially, oddly enough, with non_christians. It was always begun by the Pope bunging a brick as far as he could. The bishops then had to run, in full ceremonial regalia, after the brick and the first bishop to retrieve (or catch) it was deemed the winner. Providing no utensils were used, the bishops were allowed to mete out on each other any amount of violence as they ran. The country from which the winning bishop came was then entitled to declare a religious war against any other contestant's country. However, Mr. B___, as trainer to the Bishop of Portsmouth, had come or rather eavesdropped upon a great variety of interesting information. So when the band asked the then vicar of Holy Trinity parish church if they could use the crypt of the church to practise in and when he replied, "You must be fucking j**ing!", Mr. B___ calmly took the vicar to one side and politely mentioned his past employment. The Bebop Dustbins were given prompt access to the crypt. But what the mighty Church of England were powerless to prevent, the even more prestigious TRSA managed finally to stop - i.e. the Bebop Dustbins practising in the crypt of Holy Trinity church.

The first practice session not only resulted in the spontaneous writing of the slightly famous "Cycling Song", but also in an advance TSRA reconnaisance party being dispatched. The response from the cowardly Bebop Dustbins, snivelling cowards as they were, was to consider various 'tough' courses of action involving swearing loudly but finally to counter by sending me out to encounter them. I politely pointed out to the TSRA that, however head-shakingly and unbelievably dreadful and nauseating my masters' music was and however much I achingly sympathised with the TSRA, they were in fact most unfortunately entitled by certain dubious freedoms granted by the Magna Carta to make a racket. I agreed with the TSRA that, like themselves, there was nothing I would have liked to do more than wring every last scrawny little Bebop Dustbin neck but, alas, the band weren't worth a long prison sentence. This defused the situation and they departed mumbling stuff about how music wasn't like that in their day etc.

At the next practice session, the band will tell you that the TSRA launched a mortar attack on them. This is to make themselves look hard. They were in fact bombarded with apples from the adjoining gardens. The Bebop Dustbins returned fire from the back kitchen. Mr.M_____ suffered from severe apple shrapnel down his trousers and had gone down in noman's land screaming about something slimey in his trousers. Mr. B___ courageously went out to drag him back which he was able to do although he received multiple head injuries and sustained some vicious Golden Delicious stains down his back. To this day, Mr. B___ still suffers from Self-Denying Apple Trauma. He can't stand the sight or smell of cider and now and then suffers from a nervous tick.

The Night of the Incredibly Big and Fierce Apples was followed by Das Unbetrieblich SexuallGeschrichtkartoffeltag, which translates as 'the day of the unbelievably sexually repressive potato'. The band continued practising until they received a telephone call from the Portsmouth Residents Association complaining about the noise and threatening to send military aid to the TSRA. The Bebop Dustbins, always brave on the end of a phone, replied in a rude manner, saying they took drugs and were therefore per se, ipso facto an a priori hard band. Contrary to the desired effect, this prompted the immediate arrival of military aid, heavy armour and air support.(Some readers may remember this incident in October 1984. It blocked the seafront for some hours.) As Series 4 Assault tanks roared up Dover Street, followed by heavily-armed PRA assault troops, the Bebop Dustbins started to cry and peer fearfully out of small basement storeroom windows. There was much sucking of thumbs and blaming of each other. Shortly after this at 10.00 p.m., a U.N. peacekeeping force arrived, resplendent in their blue helmets. Ceasefire terms were agreed. The Bebop Dustbins were not to practise ever again at the crypt. The TSRA were to give them a large Tesco bag full of decent, unbruised apples.

During this particularly traumatic period, apart from myself, it had been Mr. E___ who grovelled and blubbed the least and had helped to pull the others together. Mr. E___ was the erstwhile guitarist of the band, who is to be all the more admired for his chronic distaste for guitar solo limelight and for all guitar showing-off nastiness. The few solos he did perform were done under duress with a gun off-stage pointing at his head and were of very short duration. However, Mr. E___'s erratic dischord solos were legendary this side of the Medina and were always on the spot, incisive and moving, to the point of disturbing. Oh, he could play your typical proficient guitar solos as easy as squashing a past-its-sell-by-date banana in the groin of your audience but he chose not to. In fact, at a later date, Mr. E___ was to suffer a musical nervous break-down and could be found playing very excellent rockabilly guitar accompaniment in an outfit in small venues in the middle of nowhere. But like all great artists, such as Steps and Bucks Fizz, he was ahead of his time in his musical thinking and as the saying goes,"a great artist is disliked in his own century" or "a prophet always abhors a vacuum". He always used to say "Faced with the choice between a guitar solo or eternal torment, I'd make up the bed with hot cocoa for the Devil himself every time" or "Feed me with guitar solos and I'll wither! But tease me with minimal strategic rythm guitar and I'll flourish". Mr. E___ had a way with sayings like that.

However, Mr. E___ was the electrical wizard of the group. He worked as manager of a record shop, Happy Daze, in Newport and knew just about every song from Dare by The Human League. Although often mistaken for Himmler, and therfore frequently mobbed by hormonal pubescent girls, but more often boys, who, upon learning that he was not in fact their most favourite horny Nazi, they would run off screaming and wiping their lips visciously with handkerchiefs, he bore no great resemblance to the character of the Nazi, being fairly lazy and therefore incapable of harming others on a grand European genocidal scale. He was slightly intelligent which was unusual for a Bebop Dustbin, and was the only member who knew how much water to put in a Pot Noodle as well as the optimum moment to open an umbrella. Consequently, unlike the other band members, he rarely went hungry or got wet in light showers. His use of umbrellas had to be concealed from the others for umbrellas were strictly forbidden by the band, who harboured a psycho-obsessive grudge against them. Mr. E___ was also very good at working things out and fitting things in, when it came to music-making. In fact, several of the riffs he developed are now used widely as standard pop structures. For example, "the rolling 4th chord rythm", "the advancing-in-line-abreast, double accent","the mislaid chorus topped with a middle 7 1/2" etc. His years as a blues guitarist had left him with the name "Wimpering Mr. E" but the band just called him "Oi,git who's gone out of tune again".

In the early days we were graced with the presence of Mr. P____. A more uncouth, vile, bad-tempered evil trumpet player, you could not hope to find. If the band missed a beat, dropped a chord or timed it badly, which occured frequently (I can tell you), Mr. P____ would jump up and down furiously on the spot shouting "No!No!Nooo!" He particularly had it in for Mr. B___ and would empty the saliva from his trumpet on Mr. B___'s boots, as well as pulling his hair and pinching him on the arm. He would show us the scar where an Argentinian had sliced him open when he was in the army. Then he'd show us the bayonet the Argentinian had used and then had had used on himself by Mr. P____. We tried to get his community social worker to allow us to have his chain back but she said he'd only break out of it and besides care in the community meant that we were legally not permitted to coerce totally deranged psychopaths. When we thought of kicking him out of the band, the Job Centre, who had placed him with us as a Restart Trainee (the band had decided to recruit a brass section through the Job Centre!), we were told that by law we had to keep him for a minimum of 6 months. So we had to live with Mr. P____'s terrorising and brutalising. He developed a love-hate relationship with Mr. C___, which was in effect alot better than the relationships he had with the others, based as they were on hate alone.

At times he would show Mr. C___ (probably the most pleasant and kindest of the Bebop Dustbins) nothing but contempt and spite. He would become spittingly belligerent towards him, accusing him to his face, in front of others, saying that his souffles were declasse, lacked integral structure and suffered from a post haute-cuisine malaise and sourness that even Honest John's cooking avoided.

"You'll end up as nothing!" He sneered at a most patient Mr. C___. "You'll end up running a coffee shop... or even worse, you'll end up as a teacher!" He'd pick up Mr. C___'s cowbell, bite a chunk out of it, breaking a tooth or two in the process, swear and then stomp off. At other times, when Mr. C___ made the band a fresh nettle soup, Mr. P___ was purring putty in Mr. C___'s hands.

Many were the attempts on Mr. P___'s life but, like a cat, he always survived until one day Mr. P___ was found dead. He had been poisoned, tongue protruding, eyes rolled back and green saliva dribbling down his jaw. I knew only too well who'd done it. You didn't need to be a detective. Most of the band had problems trying to make orange squash, let alone a systemic, anti-coagulant poison. The only person with an expert command of foodstuffs, beverages and wild plants was Mr. C___. Oh, he knew only too well how to poison people as well as cook. He'd worked as a chef in many fine establishments. And besides he was slightly jealous of Mr. P___ on account of his slightly interesting penis.

"God, what a fruitcake," said one of the band. "Never again".

"Yeah, next time, we get another band member, let's get a swiss cheese plant. They're alot safer and they won't attack you!" Suggested another, making a joke. They all laughed but I felt I detected the faint hint of unease in their mirth. Little did they know how true and prophetic these words were to become. And little did they know just how much worse and more tyrannical a plant would be as a band member compared to a deranged and unhinged psychopath.

Mr. C___ was the second drummer and percussionist. "The secondary engine" I used to call him - a title he was not too happy with, thinking I was referring to his drumming. Mr. C___ was Chief roadie as he had a van - a dark blue Ford van that would later double up as a recording studio for singing plants. Naturally, I was Roadie-in-Ordinary and had to do all the carrying and lifting while Mr. C___ swigged from his bottle of vodka, feet up on some other Restart Trainee and waving his hand vaguely in the direction where I had to put the equipment. Later on the band used the Restart Trainee to move the equipment so they could all put their feet up on me. Apparantly I had a softer back. They were considerate like that.

Now Mr. C___ had worked as a chef at a certain nasty little establishment called Mrs. B's. I couldn't stand it myself, being a respecter of fine food and drink, but the band loved it with a vengeance. To them, it was legendary and it was pure Epicurean delight. I would respectfully ask leave to sit outside. It was here they would loiter, drinking endless cups of tea and eating burgers, made to Mr. C___'s own excellent recipe (these burgers were really the only food at Mrs. B's that a well brought-up Italian would eat or a Greek god would fight for). It was here that some of their more popular and therefore vulgar and common lyrics were penned. To them,"classic literature". To me,"ridiculous rubbish".. Never a band to miss an oppurtunity to appeal to the lowest and basest instincts in Island audiences, they would write the most prurient rubbish but they knew that prurient, facile tabloidisms would appeal and be a hit with the Island public. Careful craftmanship are not words that go well together with Bebop Dustbin lyric-writing. Indeed the very word 'lyric' is a misnomer when mentioned in the same breath as the Bebop Dustbins, being more associated with epic, heroic poetry from Ancient Greece.

"That'll do!" You'd hear them say. "Stick that bit in there! It don't go but who cares?" And finally "What rhymes with 'cat'?" Total silence. For the Bebop Dustbins, the ultimate conversation-stopper. But it was exactly this lazy, imprecise, lacsidaisical, irreverent attitude that lost Britain the pink bits on the map. The few decent lyrics were penned by myself, while the puerile, facile, incomprehensible was the glory of the Bebop Dustbin's imagination.

However, the lure of Mr. C___'s excellent burgers always drew us back to Mrs. B's cafe. In fact, the whole band and I were prepared to fix bayonets and form a defensive square to prevent others from getting their unworthy hands on Mr. C___'s burgers. No one could love those burgers like us and only we could give them the love they deserved. While waiting for orders, Mr. C___ would spend his idle moments beating out rhythms with two wooden spoons on such upturned pans, pots, dangling kitchen implements, bottles, fridges, fryers or on anything mobile or immobile that came to hand.(Boy, you should hear him playing the cat) Such sweet, divine rhythms issued forth from that kitchen that we felt we were hearing the enchanting melodies from the Island in Shakespeare's Tempest itself. The band wasted a bit of time, as they always did when faced with a decision, and then dithered before asking Mr. C___ to join them with his god-rousing saucepan percussion kit. He agreed to join which was just as well for several days later Mr. C___ probably saved the lives of the band.

It was a cold, windy November night. Three of the band were sitting waiting for the other two to arrive for practise. I was getting their equipment ready.

Suddenly the door flew open, and Mr. B___ rushed in through the door and slammed it shut.

"I've just been stalked by a mob of killer leaves!" He gasped, pale as a sheet and trembling violently. He leant with his back against the door and slid slowly to the floor, tears of fear rolling down his cheeks. The band and I looked at each other anxiously then at the crumpled figure of Mr. B___, head bent down. He had been sick. We ran to the window. Mr. B___ had been right. There, swirling round and round the building like an out-of-control, frenzied round-about, were thousands and thousands of seemingly angry leaves, ferociously undulating like a stormy sea.

"What did you do to them?!!" Screamed Mr. M___, always one to panic if in doubt. Mr. R___ had started pacing furiously up and down, head lowered defeatedly against his chest, mumbling a chant of some sort or another. Mr. M___, a staunch and ardent Catholic but only in desperate, terrifying situations,screamed, "Quick! A Rosary! Get a rosary!" before he realised no one possessed such a thing. Mr. C___ produced a toilet chain which Mr. M___ snatched and started fervently fiddling with but soon stopped for he was unable to think of a prayer. He then curled up in a tight ball in the corner, sobbing on simmer. In times of stress, I have yet to come across a bigger baby.

Whimpering, Mr. E___ found a cupboard to hide in. Only Mr. C___ preserved any sang-froid and British stiff upper lip. He had just seen the film 'Zulu' and, with his underpants full of true Isle Of Wight steel grit and his chest puffed out in cold determination and in a steady, deep voice, he called out, "Hand me a rake!"

"Oooh! I wish I'd thought of that!" Hissed Mr. E___ jealously through gritted teeth from the confines of the cupboard.

"Stand back, boys!" he roared as I handed him a rake I'd found in an adjoining storeroom. "This is a job for Isle Of Wight Catering Student Man!"

Mr. C___ swaggered over to the door and with one swift movement of his right foot, he opened it and stepped outside. No sooner was he out than we slammed and bolted the door and rushed eagerly to the window. The forthcoming slaughter of Mr. C___ was going to be better than anything on the t.v.

By the time we poked snivellingly coward eyes over the sill of the window, a huge howling zulu horde was breaking formation to hurtle towards Mr. C___. He stood there impassively, the excrement veritably pouring down his legs, in true self-disciplined British fashion, not showing any sign of fear(on his face at least) or feeling the turd torrent that flowed faeces-flavoured down his leg.

And then we heard it. Barely audible at first, but becoming ever louder until there was no mistaking the tune of 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen'. We gaped at each other in response to Mr. C___'s implaccable but rather sticky, trouser-uncomfortable determination and bravery, for we could not believe our stunned ears. Never, in all the history of Isle of Wight Rock music, had anyone come anywhere close to showing such selfless, trouser-stunning bravery in action. Mr. C___, in the face of overwhelming but strangely British odds, was singing the famous Noel Cowerd song! Trully we were witnessing the last brave but stylish bastion of the British Empire! And that it should come to this! How copasetic. We cheered but rather plaintively and very feebly, for we knew that after they had finished smothering Mr. C___, they would be in to plastic-bag us. I prayed to God that when they found my body, it would still have clean underpants on.

The first massed ranks of leaves were now almost on him. From our window , we too burst into sympathetic song with Mr. C___. Bravely, and with chin held high, Mr. C___ waited calmly and, to show his contempt for the despicably rustling pack that was undoubtedly about to destroy him, he started to sing in a minor key with contrapuntal modulation. We gasped at the sheer, belly-rumbling audacity and challenging provocativeness of this vocal smack across the cheeks that Mr. C___ had just delivered with a glove called Melody

And then with one swipe from his mighty slotted spoon, he sent the front rank of leaves flying into the rear ranks. This caused a momentary confusion amongst them, but they weren't going to let that disturb them for long. A huge wave of leaves lifted up into the air and crashed down on Mr. C___. The noise was horrendous, deafening and roaring like a violent storm and yet, not a noise did Mr. C___ make! Despite the cacophony, I could still hear the band starting to cry and to snivell next to me - not for Mr. C___ but for themselves. The pile of leaves, now grown to the size of a mini car, jerked and wobbled like some demonic compost heap, trying to get out of its crispy skin.

"Look!" I shouted as the whole heap erupted upwards like a leafy volcano. Up rose Mr. C___ flailing widely and furiously with his rake but all the time checking the hang of his tonic suit and making sure he didn't scuff his hand-stitched leather Breton brogues. Suddenly he stopped, a pained look on his face, and adjusted himself for Mr. C___ always dressed to the left and was a stickler for genital etiquette in a battlezone. No other Island rock band had a musician that could match this for style, I thought, allowing myself the only moment of admiration that I've ever felt for a Bebop Dustbin.

Leaves scattered in panic as he started to rake like a demon possessed. As he struggled to gather them into neat piles, he managed to look over his shoulder towards us, sweat moistening his brow.

"Quick! Get some large garden refuse sacks!" he ordered breathlessly.

The band deliberately lost plenty of time pretending to look for some. It was still dangerous out there. I grabbed a handful and ran outside to Mr. C___'s assistance. Feverishly we went to work shovelling armfuls of struggling leaves into the bags. The other leaves, that had not already beaten a rustling retreat, now decided that an additional attack was hopeless. Further bravery would only lead to bin bag hell. They fled. It was then and only then that the band emerged from the building still clinging somewhat to one another and shouting belligerent and provocative comments at the fast retreating leaves, and then laughing at each others tough taunts.

"Be off with ya!"

"Let that be a lesson!"

"And don't come back again!"

"Leaf here or you'll be compost!"

"Come an' 'ave a go if you think you're 'ard enough!"

I feel that it was more the terrible rendition of Mr. Cowerd's fine tune that really sent those leaves rustling away in terror. One of those pathetic New Age Hippies has told me since that leaves are highly sensitive to music and possess a very precarious aesthetic ability. However Mr. C___ had shown his expertise with a slotted spoon and the Bebop Dustbins were prepared to accept anyone who could prove their worth with a garden rake. To this day I have never met anyone who has proved themselves a match for Mr. C___ with a garden rake. And since then, he has never raised a rake in anger. It was also the last time I ever saw the John Wayne in him.

It was shortly after this incident that another desperate and slightly frustrated group of bandits, The Waltons, raised their sinister heads to test the resolve and strength of my masters by nicking one of my their songs. The Bebop Dustbins used to perform a song called 'Steak and Kidney pie' - one of their more contemptuously nauseating pieces of drivel. This was listened to carefully by The Waltons. They then copied it, changed all the lyrics, totally changed the music, changed the arrangements and the title and finally performed an incredibly sensuous and excellent song. And yet they had the audacity not to tell the audience it was a Bebop Dustbin cover.

The Waltons were also responsible for plagiarising the lyrics and tune of a Bebop Dustbin song "Umbrella Attack" to create their first and only hit single record "Brown Rice". The original "Umbrella Attack" did have bass and guitar parts but it was far too complex for the Bebop Dustbins to play so they reduced it to drums only. The Waltons took a section of the Dustbins song and made that their chorus. They added extra verses, a catchy tune, an addictive beat and an infectious bass-line.The Waltons song was far superior. I remember that I, not a great lover of modern music, was totally transfixed by the seductive tune and the enchanting beat.

However the despicability of The Waltons was what prompted the Bebop Dustbins to plan revenge on them. At the 1985 Garlic Festival, contrary to the press statement issued by the Bebop Dustbins but in total agreement with the popular opinion, speculation in the press and the rumours that circulated and have grown ever since into a mystery, the Bebop Dustbins did in fact effect the sabotage of the generator that powered the P.A. system in the music tent that day. They had ordered me to pour sugar into the fuel pump of the generator causing it to pack up. They were, of course, the first to produce crocodile tears of commiseration and sympathy.

Reprisals were quick to follow. (The Waltons were like that). That well known Bebop Dustbin standard "Red below the deck" (a moving song about Nelson's last hours below decks in H.M.S. Victory) became the even more popular Walton classic "Dead above the neck". Mr. E___ would be in the bath humming an embryonic song called "I mean to sack Heather" (a poignant and powerful political satire upon politicians' fear of sleaze and cash for questions - subject matter that was to prove way ahead of its time). The Waltons would be performing it within a few days as "I'm into black leather"(a nasty little trivial song about nothing more than dark-coloured animal hide) before the Bebop Dustbins had even finished their song, let alone played it at a gig.

Even obviously recognisable, well-known Bebop Dustbin songs such as "(Oh no, the Queen is going by and we haven't got a hanky to wave and we are up this scaffolding mending a roof so we will have to) Wave Slates"( a moving and revealing yet ground-breaking investigation into the decline of the building industry and the role of cartels in encouraging corruption), usually affectionately known to loyal fans simply as "Wave Slates", ended up as the even more well-known and infinitely more preferable Waltons song called "Wage Slaves". The Dustbins wrote a song about strange sex