Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
The Bonzo Dog Band (also known as Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band) was a British rock and jazz band formed in the 1960s. The Bonzos became famous in 1968 on the ITV comedy show, Do Not Adjust Your Set.
Formation and early years (1962-1966)[edit]
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was officially formed on 25 September 1962, when Vivian Stanshall and Rodney Slater watched the transatlantic broadcast of a boxing match together while eating cold pizza and warm soft drink. At the time, Slater was already in a jazz band (with his previous band being a jizz band despite the fact that Star Wars was not even in George Lucas' head yet). Roger Wilkes and Trevor Brown were the founders of this loose conglomerate at the Royal College of Art, consisting of as many as forty to fifty rotating members as nobody wanted to stay more than two days. Stanshall would join the band later that day, when he and Slater renamed the band to 'The Bonzo Dog Dada Band'.
For the next few years, the group would bring on more members which would make up the bands core members. These included Neil Innes, Roger Ruskin Spear and "Legs" Larry Smith — named "Legs" due to his awesome soccer skills (not the tap-dancing he would often do on stage).
The band made their TV debut in February 1966 on the children's show Blue Peter, performing "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey"; as he was always on the show 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and would not leave Rachel Riley alone. In April, they were given a record deal with Parlophone after a few of their antics caused a few of the rival record company executives die of laughing too hard. Their first single consisted of "My Brother Makes The Noises for the Talkies" and "I'm Going To Bring A Watermelon to My Girl Tonight". Their second single, "Alley Oop" backed with "Button Up Your Overcoat" followed in October of that year. Neither single sold well, so they blamed their manager (as one does). After not being able to find a new manager, the band thought that the job was easy so they managed themselves and went into the music world alone without parental guidance.
New sound (1967)[edit]
Although The Bonzos had started out playing and parodying trad jazz and 1920s-style popular music, by the time 1967 rolled around, they had to change and embrace playing rock music to stay relevent and to keep making money — as the clubs and shows they were performing no longer wanted to hear jazz music.
The sticky situation they found themselves in, however, fixed itself when they realised that they can just combine their jazz stylings with increasingly fashionable psychedelic tunes. As they got more popular and famous, perhaps one of the most famous people at the time also took a liking to the Bonzos' music. So, they were asked by Paul McCartney to appear in the Beatles' film, Magical Mystery Tour, at the end of 1967, in which they performed "Death Cab For Cutie". At the same time, they were also hired as the resident band on afternoon children's television comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set. The show also starred future members of Monty Python; Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Denise Coffey and David Jason (and Neil Innes of course).
After signing with Liberty Records in the United States, the Bonzos released their first album, Gorilla. While recording, they were only allowed two hours of studio time per track which caused a few songs to be taken in only take so that they could spend more time on other "more complex" jazz songs. In "The Outro and the Intro" every member of the band was introduced. It started with the genuine band members, before decending into madness with guest musicians joining them. They had John Wayne on xylophone, Adolf Hitler on vibes, J. Arthur Rank on gong, Prime Minister Harold Wilson on violin, the Wild Man of Borneo, Val Doonican, Horace Batchelor, and Lord Snooty and His Pals.
This first album was met with positive feedback and so the Bonzos started work on their second album.
The second album goes to space (1968)[edit]
In 1968, The Bonzos began to be featured more regularly on television and radio, while also becoming a popular live attraction at the Human Zoo. In October, Neil Innes wrote "I'm the Urban Spaceman". Paul McCartney and Gus Dudgeon, going under the collective pseudonym "Apollo C. Vermouth", came in to produce the song, and, voilà! The band now had a Top Five hit single.
In November, The Bonzos released their second album The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse, which marked a huge difference in artistic direction from their first album, Gorilla, as the album cover actually featured the band this time.
A series of 'straight-faced' street interviews with bewildered pedestrians was conducted by Joel Druckman. He would ask questions and show pictures in hopes of a "funny" responce. The publics reaction to Vivian Stanshall cavorting about wearing only his underpants, shoes and a papier-mache rabbit head was indeed noteworthy and "funny".
Along with "I'm the Urban Spaceman", the song "Beautiful Zelda" (which has no relation to the video game The Legend of Zelda), also was about space and all that jazz. With this, NASA, named and awarded the album 'The Best Space Related Album of 1968', and then blasted it off into space, so that nobody can ever hear it again, except for the alien life that finds the vinyl floating around in vaccum of space, and somehow has a turntable laying around. However, in 2014, the recordings of the album were found, and uploaded onto the internet in digital form. Despite NASA's best efforts, the album can now be listened to on YouTube and Spotify (and maybe Weezify if Rivers Cuomo covers the album).
Decline (1969-1970)[edit]
In 1969, the band decided to drop the 'Doo-Dah' from their name and now became just The Bonzo Dog Band as the long name was hard for people to remember and pronounce. In June, they released their third album, Tadpoles (the album did not turn into a frog, however). Most of the songs on the album were not new, and were instead performed on Do Not Adjust Your Set. When the show ended, the Bonzos rounded up these songs and bundled them together as a kind of "soundtrack album" for those that didn't watch the show. It also proved to be a financially good idea, as they didn't have to spend dough on recording/studio time. On the album was "Mr. Apollo", a sequel type song for "I'm the Urban Spaceman". NASA did not send the song into space this time around, however.
After this, the band kind of lost interest in both the music and each other. At live performences, Larry Smith would get caught up in his tap-dancing that he would just forget that he was the bands drummer. For this, Keith Moon of The Who, was bought in for a few shows.
In November, the band came together to record their fourth album, Keynsham. The album, for what is is, is considered some of the bands best material. The story/concept of the album was once known, as Vivian had a foreword on the liner notes of the vinyl. However, due to the change to CDs and reissues, the liner notes was lost to time. However, according to Neil Innes before his passing, he said it was about a town or something in south-west England.
The album got poor sales, which destroyed the group's morale and was the final nail in the coffin for the band to break up. Which they did in March 1970; after performing one last show, that wasn't as good as The Beatles on a rooftop in 1969.
The reunion (1971-1972)[edit]
In late 1971, the Bonzos record company asked, then forced them to reunite to fulfil a contractual obligation and record a fifth and final album. Only Stanshall, Innes and Dennis Cowan were available full time. However, Roger Ruskin Spear and Larry Smith did drop by for an hour to "help out". Rodney Slater is listed as appearing "in spirit" in the album's credits, despite not actually being dead. In 1972, the completed album, titled; Let's Make Up and Be Friendly, was released. In a later interview, Cowan said that the lads had made up, but were still not friendly.
Beyond the Bonzo (1973-2022)[edit]
In 1974, the Bonzos reunited for a few live shows. In 1988, they also regrouped to make a British parody election song for 1992. This was the last time Vivian collabarated on a Bonzo song, as in 1995 he was killed in a house fire.
On 28 January 2006, most of the surviving members of the band played a concert at the London Astoria, to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary. Calling themselves The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band again, the band released a live album and another in 2007 which was labeled as studio album for some reason.
Other stuff has also happened, but that's not really important.
| |||||||||||