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Let's Be Nice To Each Other
145 Plays5 months ago
C’mon pilgrim, you know we love you!
Giles and Steve are back with another episode full of joy and tears, They’ve got lots to talk about in this one! Including the legendary "joke" band Twat’s Garden and 90’s gig partner Misterlee.
Will they choose a song for their Best Of compilation? Have they broken the podcast? You'll have to listen to find out.
Featuring:
- Going for the marketing dollar
- Synth tips
- Manly voices
- Boingy songs
- Dick and his lovely body
- Brotherly love
Related audiovisual material is available on the This Are Johnny Domino blog.
Visit the Johnny Domino website
Connect with Johnny Domino on Facebook and Instagram
Podcast artwork by Giles Woodward
Edited by Steve Woodward at PodcastingEditor.com
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Transcript
Resolution: Embrace the Funk
00:00:00
Speaker
I have to be myself and do my thing. A little soul can't do no harm. Everything I do gone be funky from now on. Some may say I've got no class, but I'm doing what I want to do. So groove with me, if you can, or just do what you can do. Oh shucks, why are you whining? I'm on fire. Everything I do gone be funky from now on.
Parody Theme Tune and Beatles Influence
00:01:47
Speaker
Welcome to the This Are Johnny Domino podcast. Wow, I felt like my whole world was going in slow motion there for a moment. Yeah, that is probably the nerdiest thing I could have ever done on what is already a pretty nerdy podcast. That was great. well What was going on there? I feel like something just kicked in. What's happening?
00:02:11
Speaker
I did a version of the usual theme tune, J.D. Stomp, by the Johnny Domino Band, in the style of, I want you, brackets she's so heavy, by the Beatles. It was pretty heavy, that was. I quite liked it, though. Cool. I was on a completely different vibe, then. I know. I know. I was quoting the lyrics to my favourite New Year song. Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
Which is? Which is. Everything I do, gone be funky from now on. G-O-H-N, gone, gone in brackets from now on. There was a great lyric in there towards the end of it. Could you just give me the last couple of lines?
00:02:55
Speaker
Oh, Shucks, why are you whining? I'm on fire. That's the one. Yeah. ah Yeah. I know. I didn't deliver it in exactly the same way as Lee Dorsey, but I did it as good as I could. But yeah, that's the resolution for this year.
00:03:11
Speaker
You know, because, you know, it is is our first episode of the new year, and it's Steve. Yes. And everything that you are going to be doing this year is going to be funky. From now on. And everything you're going to be doing is weird. In the style of the late period Beatles song. Yeah. Okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah, cool. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you. But yeah, welcome to the podcast, everybody. We're back again. Yeah. And I'm Giles. and I'm Steve. That's Steve. And we are here with episode number 41.
Introducing This Are Johnny Domino
00:03:47
Speaker
41. Number 41.
00:03:50
Speaker
of the This Are Johnny Domino podcast, a podcast which the initial raison d'etre for the podcast really was for us to listen to our old music, you know the music that we recorded decades ago, and then sort of reappraise it really and decide whether we're going to put it onto a mixtape.
00:04:12
Speaker
yeah And we are one mixtape down a week after this podcast goes live. Volume two. Yes. Will be, as the kids say, dropping. Can you believe it? And look at that. It's like marketing. We're talking about like stuff that we're doing. It's cross-platform marketing. Fabulous. It's going to be good. And it's called the best of this, our Johnny Domino.
00:04:37
Speaker
volume two. Yeah, we had a lot of meetings to talk about the title. um and But we focus grouped it a few times. And that was the one that came back with the that's the one that got the most tracking got the best tracking yeah in various markets. So we're happy with that.
00:04:53
Speaker
So obviously if you're listening to this in a couple of weeks time, you can you can go as soon as you've listened to this podcast, you can go and listen to that tape on your platform of choice. Yeah. It'll be on Spotify, YouTube and all the different places and Tidal and all that kind of shit. But it will also be on Bandcamp and I'm going to hold myself accountable.
00:05:16
Speaker
and say that every track on the Bandcamp version will have a little note about the recording and various little stuff. That is nerdy. Yeah, well, you know, what's the podcast about? You're not holding yourself accountable in terms of the quality of it. No, there'll be something there. just No, but I mean the music.
00:05:38
Speaker
Oh, no. Well, you know, we've talked about it. We like it, don't we? Yeah, I would have lost a few tracks. But, you know, you see if people can listen to it and figure out which ones I would have lost.
00:05:49
Speaker
If they've been listening to the podcast, I'm sure they'll know immediately. But I always agree with what Andy Warhol told the Velvets, which was always leave the audience wanting less. Yeah. That's, that's one of our favorite maxims, isn't it? Throughout our long illustrious musical career. Definitely. And that would be why no one's ever heard of us. Yeah. Apart from people who listen to this podcast. Hi there. Hi there. I've, I've got a bit of a power.
00:06:19
Speaker
for you. I'm sure people are going to be very excited to hear that. Oh, I'm very excited. Yeah, because you know, it's one of those things that I like to do occasionally is ah is like foist my, my poetry onto the listeners of the podcast. And um this one is called The Art of Costa. I wrote it while I was sat in the local Costa, which is it's very nice. It's been
Poetry and Art in Costa Coffee
00:06:45
Speaker
refurbished. It's very nice. I enjoy it very much.
00:06:48
Speaker
Anyway, so here we go.
00:07:01
Speaker
Literally nothing going on at Costa, but I've got my notebook ready. There's nowhere to sit except on the overflow table, around the corner, even the whinging baby left.
00:07:17
Speaker
Imagine making the art they have in Costa. What kind of a soul would you be? Like slightly better Ikea furniture? Or a substitute teacher? I steer my eyes away. What art can I create in Costa?
00:07:36
Speaker
with the items at hand on my tray. The receipt is the long spoon arm reaches vainly for the stained
00:08:03
Speaker
okay there you go what do you think about that it was very nice can you tell us some more about the art that was in Costa well you know the art that they have in Costa is just like really banal and yeah bland and it's like just there and I was just staring at it thinking who what kind of person would make that you know Why? I mean, obviously I don't know why they've made it because they've been paid to make some art of costa, but it's like, I don't know. It just, it drew me into a bit of a spiral looking at, you know, but it made, it didn't make me think, right? You know, maybe one of the things that we could think about in the podcast is getting some sort of sponsorship by a large brand. You know, possibly, you know, I'm a big fan of Ribena.
00:08:55
Speaker
Oh, we've mentioned this before. They haven't called you, have they? No. And Spotify, obviously. But like my, my dream would be to get some kind of endorsement or advertising or sponsorship through Ribena. That would be amazing. Right. What do you think? What would you, what would be your brand of choice? Well, I quite, I do quite like Costa.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, Costa would be good. I could write some more poems about Costa, right? Do that. Do that. And maybe we could get this... Maybe a be a bit more positive about it. Yeah. maybe Maybe not this one, but but maybe we could get this shit piped into Costa's. It's kind of made me think about an opportunity de fiancée. Or engagement. Or a gallegenheit zum engagimalt.
00:09:42
Speaker
Excellent. yeah Or in English, in an engagement opportunity. okay yeah What about if we, and all the people who are involved in our endeavors here, write a song about, or blatantly featuring in it, a large and popular brand?
00:10:03
Speaker
It's a product placement engagement opportunity. Yeah. So you got to, you know, choose something, but really make a blatant song about something. What do you think? I think Bill Hicks would love it. You know, he's a big fan of marketing. weren't he he He loved marketing. yes Yeah. Yeah. you If anyone here is in advertising or marketing, what did he say they should do?
00:10:29
Speaker
Well, you're talking to somebody who used to work in marketing and I was well aware of this quote, obviously, and I used to say it myself. If anybody in here is involved with
Sponsorship Humor with Ribena & Costa
00:10:38
Speaker
advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Yeah. Just just a little thought, he said. um i'm just I'm just planting seeds. yeah and see Yeah. But then he sort of starts starts going on about the fact that he's going for the anti-marketing dollar.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yes. yeah yeah so like oh oh Bill's going for the anti-marketing dollar. Maybe that's what we're doing here, but we're not ask we're not going for the anti-marketing dollar. We're just going for the marketing dollar. We've gone past that now. I think that's tough i think one of our problems is that we would listen we listen too much to Bill Hicks.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yes. know We thought it was something sordid about selling CDs exactly and having people come to our gigs. We listen to him too much. I think we need to go the other way now and start making songs about stuff that people can buy. We could try writing songs that people like. About stuff that people can buy, yes. We need to focus group some of these songs.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. So anyway, there's ah there's an engagement opportunity. Write a song that's got some product placement in it, please. Yeah. And send it to us. Make it as blatant as possible. And maybe we can put it together into an album and then, you know, we can garner some attention that way. That sounds cool. Amazing. Amazing. Even if it's just through lawyers contacting us, it tends to stop. It's the Johnny Domino podcast. Give it a chance.
00:12:10
Speaker
Right, but should we get on with the general business of the podcast today? Have we got a few songs that we're going to talk about? We have done, yeah. And we are we considering some of them for the ah the best of this Arjuna Domino volume three? Volume three, which is...
00:12:25
Speaker
probably going to be coming around quicker than volume two did. I don't know about that. I think things are moving more slowly, slowly these days. we should Okay, we'll see. We'll see. um Yes, let's do that. As Charles has said earlier, the original reason for doing the podcast that that we had listened to songs that we recorded in the past, they would be put forward for inclusion on a, at the start, a purely theoretical mixtape. Now it is an actual mixtape.
00:12:55
Speaker
So we will listen to some songs that we did, choose one or none to go on to the next volume. The first one we're talking about is a song by the eight legged version of Johnny Domino, which is the full band version. And it's from the fourth Johnny Domino album, which was called Solid Ground, which we released in 2004. Christ, 20 years ago. 21 years ago.
Exploring 'I Heart 1883' Inspirations
00:13:22
Speaker
You always say that sort of. Yeah, but these things, you know what I mean? It's like that Philip Larkin poem I have started to say. And it's a song called I Heart 1883. Yeah, an intriguing title. In 1883, do you know what happened in 1883? I don't know. And Tony Gowdy started work on the Sagrada Familiar. Wowzers. In Barcelona, yeah. One of the most popular songs in 1883 was a song called There is a Tavern in the Town.
00:13:52
Speaker
which goes to the tune of heads and shoulders, knees and toes. This is just a folk song. yeah and There's a version of that by the singer Burl Ives.
00:14:24
Speaker
well That's the most common version that I can find of it. And it features very, very manly voices singing in unison. Interesting. And so does our song.
Musical Creativity and Improvisation
00:19:03
Speaker
born from an egg on a mountain to top monkey is funky he never stops he knew every magic trick under the sun are you done i think we should re rewind re what it's time for a rewind rewind i want to hear that keyboard solo again the keyboard solo i want to hear the keyboard solo again
00:20:00
Speaker
What are you going to say about that keyboard? That is virtuosic. I'm imagining some guy. It's the guy who plays synthesizer for Frank Zappa in like in the mid 70s. I can't remember his name. He's doing it. He's doing it.
00:20:17
Speaker
Can you remember when we made that bit of music up? This was when we we spent probably about two years just meeting up and plugging everything in and just making noises and recording it, and then we would go away and pick the best bits. Now, when we made that bit of music up, for a start, it was half the speed.
00:20:35
Speaker
it was really slow. And I think there were only three of us in the room, so I don't know if Jim was there, so it was me, you and Mark. The musicians in the band? ah Well, nu poop anyway, we'll come to that, because that's not strictly true. However, Mark was playing his keyboard, playing the synth chords, and he left his beautiful Korg micro preset on the floor near where I was standing.
00:20:58
Speaker
And I thought, oh, this song's in a bit of a strange key, which is E flat. Right, whatever. Is that a strange key? Well, it's not a very rock and roll sort of key. Anyway, anyone in the audience who knows anything about musical theory, the pentatonic scale, the five note scale, is basically the black keys on the keyboard. And I thought, oh, we're in E flat. I could just tread on Mark's keyboard.
00:21:25
Speaker
And that became the solo. So the first version of it has got me doing the solo whilst playing guitar with my foot. And then when we recorded it... Did it sound anything like that? It sounded pretty much the same, but Jim... But that's Jim playing the keyboard solo. And he used to play it live as well. He did. He used his elbow quite a lot, I believe. Did he? Yeah, I think I remember using his forearm.
00:21:52
Speaker
Certainly. The forearm was involved. Just hit the black keys. That's what you've got to do. Hit those black keys. It sounds good. But in my head I'm listening to it now and I'm thinking that's somebody who really knows what they're doing. Yeah. That's some jazz chops going on there. I'm sorry that I lifted the veil and revealed the sad old man you thought the wizard was. You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to do that.
00:22:18
Speaker
I was joking. and That's not really what happened. That was a really difficult to play keyboard bit. Yeah, right. Anyway, what do you reckon? I like that song. We used to play that one a lot live and it goes along at a nice pace. And I like the communal singing on it. And I like the line. And I think I live by the line. I think we should live by the line. and I don't know how much time we have. So let's be nice to each other.
00:22:43
Speaker
those are perceptive lyrics there it really is it cuts to it for such a grumpy bunch of men as we were thought to be also as we are yeah yeah it's a very nice open-hearted line let's be nice to each other which is beautiful yeah i was listening to that recording now i mean this is a very small thing and i may not keep this in the edit But when we recorded those songs, there's only one track on that album where I recorded through an amplifier, everything else I went straight into the 8-track. And when we started recording them, obviously it's the drum machine, so the drum machine goes straight down, and then I recorded the guitar bits and then everyone else recorded underneath me, as it were.
00:23:31
Speaker
And I didn't re-record the guitar bits. You know what I mean? So I think the guitar playing, it's just a bit bloodless because it's not responding to anything. It's not responding to anything that you're doing, even though you know you and Mark are playing the the parts that you've worked out.
00:23:49
Speaker
I think that's just your perception of it. I just hear it, and I think the guitar... if i Why didn't I go through an amp? I don't know. I don't i don't think it matters. I think that's just something that you can hear. ah Exactly. It is something that I can hear. I don't think anyone else can hear that. Well, yeah, it's like... There's that podcast, The Life of the Record, and there's one deer hoof talking about their album, The Runner's Fall, which I think has got a mighty sound, and the drummer's on there going, oh, I hate the drum sound on it.
00:24:20
Speaker
You know, because he he said I spent hours trying to get a really great drum sound and the drum sound is just sounds like someone's like punching a bag or something. I think it sounds like smacking around the face. right That's a problem with some of this ah overanalyzing music. I think that maybe that might be a fault with this podcast. Oh, man. du't don i think I think maybe maybe we just, you know, the the lift in the veil comment was true. Right. You know, maybe we need to just like not Talk about like all the things that we how we did it and and all the the the the faults with it, right? I think maybe we need to just go that's freaking great. Have we just broken the format? Yeah, oh man, that was freaking great Wow
00:25:05
Speaker
I like the fact that you said, oh, this song has ah got lots of manly men singing on it, but then it's got Jim singing and I'm doing the falsetto in the background, squeaking along.
00:25:19
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know i i think it shows a certain security in your and your masculinity. well yes what that you that you you know if we I mean, come on. Del Shannon. Del Shannon. He was a dude. right and he anyway and and he He did some real high singing, didn't he? Frankie Valli. Frankie Valli. Frankie Valli walking like a man. He had big balls. He had some big balls. He had big balls. He walked like a man.
00:25:49
Speaker
So, you know, yeah yeah, there's nothing wrong with the the high vocals. and and And then you've got the kind of the the Russian. no have quiet Yeah. yes You know, on the chorus. That's what we like. Yeah. Because I think it's a very manly song. it's a weird It is a very strange song. It's a manly song. I don't think it's for the ladies, that one. Well, I'm not necessarily sure that's true.
00:26:16
Speaker
ah Towards the end of the previous century, there were lots of programs called, the logo was I Heart, and they did the 80s, so it's I Heart 80, 81, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I Heart the 80s. And I think in the year 2000, or like the early 2000s, they finished the series with I Heart 1999, which was literally five minutes ago, and all these talking heads are going, oh, can you remember?
00:26:45
Speaker
ah think i recall I think that's really where the idea came from. yeah yeah The idea of I Heart 1883. It could have been any year really. yeah But you should listen to the Burl Ives song. I will do. There there is a tavern in the town. In fact you could put a little clip of it on. I already did.
00:27:02
Speaker
I already did. I've already done it. Oh, you already did that, did you? Yeah, we've moved on, mate. That was a few minutes ago. I think you must have just stepped out. I missed that, man. Yeah. Freaking hell. This podcast stuff, it mystifies me. The This R Johnny Domino podcast. It's got bongos.
00:27:24
Speaker
It certainly does have bongos. Sometimes. Well, you know, a lot of the times it's got bongos. not every Sometimes they're psychological bongos rather than physical bongos. yeah yeah Okay, something we do occasionally on the podcast is we talk about our own songs and ah and celebrate our own in scare quotes, genius.
Gigs with Mr. Lee: Style and Challenges
00:27:44
Speaker
But sometimes we like to shine a light on people that we have known in our long travels around the... A life's long lonely highway. A life's long lonely highway. And one of the people we were talking about the other day was Mr. Lee.
00:28:00
Speaker
Mr Lee, an alternative rock band from Leicester, England, centred on the talents of Lee Allatson. Yes, we did a couple of gigs with him. The first gig we did with him was on the 12th of December 2002.
00:28:15
Speaker
And I seem to remember seeing him a few times, more than more than just the oh yeah definitely definitely just the times when we played. But yeah, that was a gig I remember well that we played with him because it was one of those, I think, did he play before us? He did, yeah. And I felt i felt a little bit like, shit. yeah Now we've got to follow that.
00:28:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah, there was that. But I also had the feeling that it was, shit, there's no one here. Also, you know, part of me did want to do a good gig and it was, you know, there were some people. It wasn't like there was nobody in there. I have been to and I have played gigs where there was nobody in the room, but there were actually people in the room. You you do you do over-egg the there was no one there sometimes. I'm just going to point that out.
00:29:08
Speaker
But I remember the gig and I remember him being very good. And every time I saw him, it was very good. And he played with two of the guys and he played the drums. Did he just have one drum? I don't know. No, he had like a minimal drum kit. And I think there was a light underneath the snare drum. So he looked a little bit demonic and he had a handheld microphone.
00:29:33
Speaker
but he played the drums so i think he had did he play with maracas in his hands and he used that all it was there definitely yeah yeah i remember him doing that and he had jamie smith on guitar and a guy called mick oxtoby who played violin i think he played bass as well but they were kind of ferociously jazzy. They were really interesting. And yeah, it was quite intimidating following him. But yes, I do remember it was a long night. We talked about gigs where we played to nobody. Can you remember the gig that we did at the social? and It was a daytime gig. It was in the summer of 2003. And you put a post up that said, free air conditioning with live music.
00:30:19
Speaker
It didn't bring anybody in at all. Well, you know. So, mr lee marketing again. Marketing, you see. yeah yeah If we'd kind of, we could have just added some sort of product placement in there. Free Ribena or something. She was to a song.
00:30:35
Speaker
but I just want to say that Mr Lee was was ah it was a really nice bloke despite his intimidating artistic persona. but you know He lived in Leicester but he used to come over and see us play in in various places in the East Midlands and you know and we did a couple of gigs with him and he was always a top geyser.
00:30:53
Speaker
probably still is. Yeah well as far as I know he is and Mr Lee and this is a track from their album Chisel Given. That's Chisel Given and it's a song called Rubber Band Shoe Shine.
00:33:47
Speaker
Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha
00:34:47
Speaker
I didn't know you had the lyrics. so bit more communal sea and go on steam Bring it, bring it, bring it. I was looking on the on his bandcamp page and that recording for that album started in the kind of the late 90s.
00:35:00
Speaker
And around that time, up until the early 2000s, there was a lot of stuff which had that kind of groovy, not really groovy vibe. I'm thinking of people like um soul coughing. You know what I mean? Remember that? that yeah remember the screenwri Is it Screenwriters Blues? I think it is. Yeah, it's a good album. Still stands up. I listen to it over a month, weirdly.
00:35:28
Speaker
But, you know, there's that kind of, it's very groovy and danceable without really hitting you over the head with yeah the grooving or something. It's kind of, it's not funk. Accidentally funky. <unk> Yeah. It's got awey guitar that doesn't it's got a boingy guitar, which I quite like. yeah The trumpet's really good. And it's the whole rubber band kind of thing. Maybe it's sponsored by rubber bands.
00:35:54
Speaker
Wow. God, he was there. He was there right from the start. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, all shoes. Rubber Band Girl by Kate Bush is another song that is a similar metaphor and has it also has a boingy sound. Boingy. We need to get a new version of that jingle that says it's the Johnny Domino podcast. It's boingy.
00:36:18
Speaker
Well, we haven't got any Boingy songs. but I don't think we ever did write a Boingy song. We must have done something Boingy. ah Maybe that should be my resolution. Everything I'm going to do, it's got to be Boingy. You got to write something that's Boingy, Steve. OK.
00:36:33
Speaker
If anyone else has got any boingy songs, please send them in. Yes. Anything boingy. But yeah, I enjoyed that. That was good. Mr. Lee, thank you very much for your music and thank you for being a good musical colleague back in the days.
00:36:49
Speaker
It was a good guy. But we'll link to some more Mr. Lee stuff in the show notes.
Show Notes and Extra Content
00:36:54
Speaker
Yes. And please do remember to look at the show notes because we always put some videos on and little clips and things about the stuff. Links to interesting stuff. Yeah, that we've been talking about. so Yeah. You know, it's endless amusement. Well, it's not endless, but it's it's amusement. Yeah. It's time for the This Our Journey.
Twat's Garden: Unconventional Creativity
00:37:26
Speaker
Aren't you about something pointless, oh yeah
00:37:32
Speaker
On the last episode of the This Our Johnny Domino podcast, we talked about a song by one of our old bands, The Millers, which was called Joey Knows What He's Done. And in the discussion, we realized that a lot of the lyrics were taken from a song by a joke band that I was in called Twat's Garden. Fabulous name. It's punchy, family friendly.
00:37:57
Speaker
And most of their songs were not family friendly in any way. But the song that you took some lyrics from was called The Ballad of a Lonesome Joey. Can we hear a bit of it? Let's have a little bit. Can we hear a bit of it? Woah, woah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:50
Speaker
That was poignant. I was thinking like, you know, Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska, we were talking about that album. Yes. You know, I'm getting that from it. I'm getting that. There's a bit of that. Yeah, it's it's something that was twice God and that's me on guitar. Dick Dickie Rock on vocals and Chris on keyboards on that performance. He doesn't play the keyboard bass. He plays a bit of organ.
00:43:17
Speaker
So there's a bit low end missing from that, but Twats garden weren't scared of changing things up and messing with the system really. I don't i think this section of the podcast is called having fun with your mates and just having a bit of a mess around and making shit up. yeah And yeah, I don't know man.
00:43:43
Speaker
I wasn't there. I wasn't there. You went for that, were you? We did used to do videos, didn't we? If our mum and dad would go out, we'd get our mates around and we'd, you know, write songs and having a laugh with our mates and writing songs and being daft. And occasionally did videos. And Twasgarden appeared on those videos.
00:44:03
Speaker
I remember one time, Tom and Dad came home and they said, well, let's see what you've been doing. And you were on this one because you played a performance artist called Jesus Woodward. We had a bit of a conflab and said, do we swear a lot on this one? No, it's not that bad. you know I think it's OK. There's no swearing on it. And we started the tape and one of us said, oh, what's the band called? you know So every time the band's influence is introduced is Twat's Garden.
00:44:33
Speaker
And at that age, we were a little bit embarrassed about swearing in front of our parents, weren't we, at that point? It was a golden era. It was a golden era. It was a bit like, oh dear, Mum, I'm sorry. I was more concerned about the fact that I borrowed some of my mum's clothes for one of the videos as well. I wonder if you still got them. No, I don't have the clothes. No, the VHS tapes. I had it for a long time. I don't think I've got it anymore.
00:44:59
Speaker
I'm not sure. I wonder if Dicky Rock's got them. I doubt it. He's a very professional man. I'm sure he will have destroyed them as part of his application process for his various jobs.
00:45:11
Speaker
but That was Twat's Garden in quite a tame mood, really, wasn't it? Yes. You know, they were being sort of like respectful, really. I mean, it did have like, it was a song about murdering your girlfriend and then killing yourself. But there wasn't, you know, that much really bad stuff in it. Some of the other songs were worse. We're going to have to kind of leave those up to your imagination, though, because you can't play them. I could give you some song titles. Go on, then. OK.
00:45:38
Speaker
Do you have to bleep the song titles? Well, I might have to with one of them. Well, actually a couple of them. Go on then. There was one that was called ****. Bleep that one. Yes. ah See, I have no memory of this one. Jump in jujitsu. That's easy for you to say. Yeah, throbbing phallus, erection dejection.
00:45:59
Speaker
You know, you can't with a title like that, the song writes itself. um I want to ****. Homosexual plumbers. which is We laugh now. We laugh now, don't we? Yeah, but you know, it wasn't saying... It's not good, is it? It's not big or clever. I don't think it was saying anything bad about plumbers.
00:46:21
Speaker
sexuality in any way. I think it was fighting humour. In like juxtaposition of words. Yes. That was it. Homosexual plumbers. Possibly. and Possibly. I think one of the best songs and it sounds like it could be rude and it's not. It's called Around the Lizard.
00:46:39
Speaker
And what that was, can you remember that Dick had, he found in his mum and dad's house, a magazine or a map or a book about holidaying in Cornwall. yeah And most of the lyrics are taken from the chapters, and one of them is Around the Lizard. yeah We turned it into a yeah Brian Adams, Rick Springfield-esque driving song about driving around Cornwall.
00:47:06
Speaker
Yeah. And then we turned the song into a holiday. We did go around the lizard. We did. We went and lived out the actual song, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we went down there for a week purely so we could get a photo of Dick pointing at the lizard point. That was the whole point of going there. It was. It was. It was the whole point as well as having a lovely time with our friends. It was a good holiday. That's great. A long way to drive though in a Land Rover.
00:47:35
Speaker
Well, it is when you're balancing on the on the tent equipment in the back of the Land Rover. Jesus. Travel sickness. Oh my God. Maybe we could listen to Around the Lizard someday. We're going to have to do it.
00:47:50
Speaker
What you will miss from the video is the bit when I think Jock was filming it and in a lot of Twat's Garden songs there was an inordinate amount of guitar solos.
00:48:06
Speaker
by me and I was trying to do some hammer-on guitar solos on around the lizard because it's a rocking song and at one point I'm doing that and and Chris is in the background trying to get jock to move the camera to the right, crying with laughter because by this point... and This is a classic. You had to be there. Dick had his shirt off. OK. OK. He did the rest of the song with his shirt off. I was too busy doing my hammer on to realise until jock
00:48:44
Speaker
turn the camera to point at Dick and for the rest of the video.
00:48:50
Speaker
ah Jock, his hand appears at the bottom of the camera pointing at Dick. Oh God, I'm really sorry. I'm just killing myself laughing at this. I need to see it. I need to see it. Does it exist?
00:49:06
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know if I have any videotapes. We can imagine it from your description. Oh, it was, it was a beautiful thing. What? Dick's lovely body. Dick's lovely body.
00:49:17
Speaker
ah
00:49:20
Speaker
Oh dear. I am sorry. I'm sorry, but I enjoyed that. Yes. So that is, um, the Ballad of the Lonesome Joey by Twatskull. Good times. Good times. Good times. It was a good time.
00:49:35
Speaker
We're going to play one more song today. Yeah. And it's a song by us and it's the most recent song that we ever did write and record. It is. And we wrote it still over a year ago. Yeah. But we're going to play it and it's a song called Old Habits.
00:53:56
Speaker
Sounds like you dropped the guitar there at the end. No, I was just spanking it. It's been a long time since I've recorded any music, I think when we did that. And it was quite frustrating. And you know what I'm like with frustrations and recording.
00:54:09
Speaker
So it was born of frustration. It was born of frustration, yes. yeah yeah but There's also a bit of catharsis as well because I've got to the end of it. Can I ask you some questions about that? Please do. Did you enjoy recording the music, even though it was frustrating? A bit of background. The guitar that I bought When we were doing Johnny Domino stuff on the four track all those years ago, it was a Yamaha acoustic guitar. um And you ended up keeping it for a while. And when I got it back, I made that bit of music up. It was in a bit of a poorer state when you got it back. Well, I mean, what's a what's a missing tuning peg between brothers?
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah so it was really nice to have that guitar back and it just made me feel like making bits of music up and having a bit of a play um and that that one came out and we were talking about starting the podcast at the same sort of time and I was contacted by people from Artists Against Success, the record label that released the three of the Johnny Domino albums so and they were doing a 25-year celebration compilation and they said, have you got anything in the vault that it could go on the compilation or could you make something up? I mean, the answer is we have got lots in the vault but we decided to write a new one.
00:55:31
Speaker
But did you have that bit of music hanging around for a while? No, just having the guitar back made me make up a bit of music. Sometimes it's like that, innit? You just get an instrument in your hand. As it were.
00:55:43
Speaker
Does it work? Make beautiful music. But yeah, and ah probably the first time I've heard it in a while, listening to it just then. And I still really like it. I like the the lyrics. You've got any questions for me about my input on that? Who's giving who the finger? Who's flipping the bird? I meant to say I miss you, but I just flipped the bird.
00:56:07
Speaker
The songs about my relationship with you, Steve, obviously. Is it? Old habit. Yeah, because obviously I do, you know, we have a complicated brotherly relationship where we are quite mean to each other when we see each other sometimes.
00:56:24
Speaker
Yes. I don't think, by the way, I don't think that's special. I think no that's a standard thing. It's normal isn't It's normal. But you know, it it's the phenomena of when you go to your parents house, you immediately turn into 14 year olds again. Yeah. And it doesn't matter how old you are really. So I just, you know, I just end up being Mardi and abusive towards you sometimes. You don't get abusive, you just find something that is winding me up. And that's what it's about. yeah that's what it's about yeah But it's just the same thing that we used to do and writing songs in that way is something that we used to do. That's what it's about.
00:57:10
Speaker
It's very nice. It's a good compilation with with how many songs on it? Good Lord. 25 songs on it. People like ourselves, MJ Hibbitt, The Validators, Frankie Machine, Parlour, who we we talked about before, the mysterious Dr. Coca-Cola McDonald's. Oh, yes. Good talk about him, Sue. Oh, I think we can have to. I.M. Wilberham is on it as well. Our main man. And Marko, the other main man.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, they're the main that's a main man. i thinking about a lot We've got a lot of main man. We're very manly. Absolutely. Right. We have reached the summit of the songs that we are talking about in this episode. And now we you should choose one to go on the best of this Art Johnny Domino Volume 3. And of the songs that we've listened to, I think We've got I Heart 1883 and we've got old habits. We can't have the ballad of Lonesome Joey. No, probably not.
00:58:08
Speaker
No, that's a hard choice, man. Well, we could just do what we always do. We just go, we would have them both. Let's punt it into the long grass and decide later. Yeah, I think so, because I'm going to give My Heart 1883 another listen and see if I can get over the fact that I'm thinking about how the guitar bits were recorded. And I'm going to play it loud as well, actually. Definitely.
00:58:35
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Johnny Domino podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please share it with a friend. one second though oh just oh oh um just thought nearly forgot ah would like to mention i've got an audio for a section and it's the return of the primer that i'm starting I've decided to start as a primer for ah listening to the contemporary Christian music artist, Larry Norman. I mentioned him a few episodes ago because I found the album Upon the Rock ah in the charity shop. Do you remember? And it had the rather magnificent front cover.
00:59:14
Speaker
of the giant baby yes i'm determined to bang the drum for this music can i just ask a question because last time you mentioned it you made it quite clear he had enough of this album and you wanted to get rid of it so you're determined to get rid of this album i still haven't got rid of the album but i'm i'm not i don't know i've got you know i listened to it relatively regularly. I still, yeah I've not got bored of it yet, but I found another album that he's done, not an actual physical copy, but I've gotten into another album that he's done. And it's a later album by Larry Norman called Something New Under The Sun, S-O-N, see what he's doing there, see what he's doing there, Something New Under The Sun. And the track particularly, watch what you're doing
00:59:58
Speaker
And that song has no right to rock as hard as it does seriously. It really doesn't. It is a cracker of a song. And please hold onto your prejudices for a bit, right? And give it a listen. Give it a chance. I want you to listen to it. I'm begging you to listen to it.
01:00:19
Speaker
But I know you're too busy and I know you don't want to listen to Christian Rolke, but I'm going to make this plea anyway. And you know what? I'll give you the timestamps for the best bits in the song, if you like. So you can just listen to the first bit and then you can fast forward to the bits that I'm talking about. So two minutes in, there is the first guitar solo. And if that doesn't make you prick up your ears,
01:00:40
Speaker
then you're going to be basically dead from the belly button down. Then three minutes, 20 seconds, it leads into to the contender for the weirdest yowling scream ever recorded in a rock song. Genuinely, right? And and I've heard a lot of songs with yowling screams in, right?
01:00:58
Speaker
Okay, this goes in at three minutes 50 into the strangest guitar part and solo its guard is very avant trust me Okay, then if that's not in enough right at the end five minutes to see something on this so Let me just do the last bit, then you can interrupt me. oh and on on god Then at five minutes 20, nearly the end of the song, right? Proof if you need it that this stuff was definite influence on the young Black Francis. Yes. And this was what he was listening to and what was in his head when he recorded and named the first Pixies album.
01:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, I was looking at the lyrics as you were talking, and that was what the intake of breath was for. Because I got to that section. Because there are some cracking lyrics, but that one just made me go, hello. Yeah. Come on, Pilgrim. You know he loves you. You know he loves you. You got to listen to it. You got to listen to it. Larry Norman.
01:02:15
Speaker
the song, watch what you're doing. Excellent. We're going to make this music cool. Definitely, definitely, definitely having that. Anyway, that's that's that's my section. But thank you, everybody, for listening to the podcast again. And please do get in touch, send us some music, you know, anything, engagement opportunities, stuff that you're recording now, songs for the eternal halls. Join us in the joy of what we're doing here because we're doing it for fun.
01:02:44
Speaker
And we will be back probably in a couple of weeks, but we'll see. you know ahll see We'll see how it goes. We'll see it goes but we'll definitely be back soonish with more of this kind of bobbins. Thank you for listening. Please do like and subscribe to our podcast and recommend it to someone who you think might like listening to all this kind of weird shit. Send us some of your old music and enter the eternal halls of the four-track gods.