The History of Rock

Part 19: The White Stripes

The White Stripes are a black and white band that has been colourised in post-production, mainly in red. Beginning their career as part of the garage scene, the band specialised in exhausts and shock absorbers, although they could certainly rewire an alternator in an emergency. Consisting of just two members, Meg White and her son Jack, the band's straightforward rhythms, stripped down production and free giveaways of air fresheners and screen wash quickly gained them a following with rock and roll motorists...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/stripes.php

The History of Rock

Part 18: The Spice Girls

During the 90s girl power was the next big thing, and at one point many it was thought it could displace solar or tidal power as the main contender to break humankind's self-destructive reliance on fossil fuels. Sadly all efforts have failed to come up with an efficient way of harnessing this power that doesn't involve stuffing Geri Halliwell into a boiler...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/spice.php

The History of Rock

Part 17: The Jarvis

There was great excitement in 1978 when, during a naked ramble through the Serengeti, the broadcaster and naturist Sir David Attenborough discovered the long lost Jarvis Cocker. Thought to be extinct, the last reported sighting of the timid and reclusive creature had been in 1879 when the explorer Stanley, whilst out one day looking for Dr Livingstone's car keys, inadvertently fell over one...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/jarvis.php

The History of Rock

Part 16: Guns N' Roses

Formed in Los Angeles, Guns N' Roses were a punctuation-based rock band that became very popular with typesetters in the early nineties. Originally called Cheese and Onion, the band came into being when lead singer Crankshaft Daffodil, real name Harry Web, ran into a guitarist called Comma at a McDonald's drive-thru in Minnesota. After an exchange of insurance details, the two realised they had a common passion - burgers. To finance their love for happy meals, they decided to form a band...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/guns.php

The History of Rock

Part 15: Goths

Goths are shy, retiring creatures who dress predominantly in black, shun social interaction and live in underground burrows on waste ground. They are chiefly nocturnal and their wide, pale eyes are perfectly adapted to low levels of light. They are not to be confused with Emos who often appear similar but are in fact a separate species, being more vulnerable, emotionally expressive and largely flightless...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/goths.php

The History of Rock

Part 14: Elvis Costello

As one of the more famous sons to emerge from the late 70s English pub rock scene, Elvis Costello's song writing talent, passionate delivery and ability to pull a decent pint have enabled him to pursue an eclectic career, slipping with apparent east from new wave to country, from doo-wop to jazz and blues. But there is more to this musical chameleon that meets the eye; an explanation which goes some way to explaining his shifts of style. The fact is that Elvis Costello is not one person but many, having been played by a number of different performers down the years...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/costello.php

The History of Rock

Part 13: Punk

The emergence of Punk in the mid-seventies was largely a reaction to the contemporary music scene, increasing commercialism and the spiralling cost of Jaffa Cakes. Punk reached out to a generation who felt excluded from mainstream culture. Its ethos was that anyone could make music and as a consequence the punk scene was mostly comprised of people who couldn't...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/punk.php

The History of Rock

Part 12: The Great Disco Rush

What is it that makes a grown man pull on a pair of Day-Glo socks, slip into satin shorts and a sequined vest and spend his evenings careering aimlessly around a dingy club, alternately being blinded by strobe lights and falling over people in the dark...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/disco.php

The History of Rock

Part 11: Glam Rock

Originating in the UK in the early 70s, glam rock is stylistically hard to pin down. That is, until you realise that it's all about the trousers...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/glam.php

The History of Rock

Part 10: The Great Vinyl Shortage

It's astonishing to think that because of the international vinyl shortage no records were pressed in 1972...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/vinyl.php

If I want to leave a post title blank, I damn well will...

Burgers

When amateur inventor Darius Bottomly discovered a cache of over 200 burnt and blackened bangers hidden in a patch of weeds at the bottom of his garden he obviously assumed that he had chanced upon some kind of natural sausage spring.   But when groundwater tests revealed an almost total absence of pork or beef, the mystery deepened.  It was only once he had observed his neighbour dropping them over the fence after a family barbecue that he realised that his garden was being used as a dumping ground for unwanted food.

Bottomly's response was to develop the self-propelling burger, a drone patty that can, at a given signal, flip itself up off the barbecue and strike any target within a two hundred yard radius.  The test flight of the prototype saw not only a successful launch but also a confirmed kill as it smashed straight through next door's patio window and fatally impacted the family's second favourite goldfish.  Bottomly's neighbour has since retaliated by stepping up his sausage dumping activities, launching wave after wave of the frazzled bangers over the boundary at random times throughout the day.  And although Bottomly admits that he is currently under siege, he is confident that the tide of the conflict will turn just as soon as he has perfected his sausage-seeking chicken drumstick which will be able to knock incoming meat products out of the air before they have chance to do any real damage.

The History of Rock

Part 9: The Osmonds

At the last count there were over four hundred thousand Osmonds and it wasn't so long ago that there was genuine fear that they would overrun the planet. Thankfully we now know that the population has reached equilibrium...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/osmonds.php

Ricky Stratocaster's Patently Untrue Rock Facts #2:

Lou Reed is David Bowie's imaginary friend.

There are three different types of rocks:  igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. (Note, this is probably the wrong type of rock fact).

The Beatles hold the record for the most consecutive weeks spent at No 1 Acacia Avenue, Leytonstone.

Elvis Presley was allergic to Tuesdays.

Record players weren't invented until five years after the invention of the vinyl record.  Officially, CD players still don't exist.

Disposable Sausages

Wally Caruthers has invented the world's first disposable sausage.  The 'Caruthers Mk IV Expendable Meat Tube' is more streamlined than a traditional sausage and has a friction-minimising outer shell which enables it to be easily hidden behind furniture or whisked away by specially adapted vacuum tubes.  As we are unable to determine why Mr Caruthers should be so keen to get rid of sausages, we can only content ourselves with the observation that 'everyone's got to have a hobby'.

The History of Rock

Part 8: Queen

The year is 1740 and a mysterious figure arrives in the court of Louis XV. Baron Frederique Von Mercury is an artist, musician and alchemist of some considerable reputation...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/queen.php

Great moments in Science -No 412

Milan 1933

Paul Dirac experiments by introducing pasta to his antipasto to see if they will mutually annihilate.  They don't.  All that happens is that Dirac makes a bit of a mess, is saddled with the cleaning bill then gets thrown out of the restaurant. 

The History of Rock

Part 7: Black Sabbath

When Tony Iommi was a widdle boy he ate rock and roll, slept rock and roll, breathed 100% enriched premium grade rock and roll...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/sabbath.php

Lost

Controversial archaeologist Barry Schliemann has once again caused an outcry with the outrageous claim that there is an undiscovered Inca settlement on the outskirts of Dudley.  Critics have scornfully demanded to know why he thinks a lost outpost of a vanished South American people is likely to be found next to a an overgrown motorway slip road in the West Midlands, and in his defence Schliemann has pointed out that you can't get much more lost than that.

National Tombola

Congratulations to Mrs Gladys Womble of Hartlepool who has been awarded the contract to run the UK's National Tombola.  The National Tombola, which raises funds for charities and local projects, will be televised on Saturday nights, right after the lottery, and players will stand a chance of winning anything from a bottle of wine or a box of dark chocolate liqueurs to a non-slip bath mat or a Victoria sponge baked by Mrs Collins from the corner shop.  Mrs Womble is confident that the Tombola will raise enough money in its first six months to pay for a new bandstand in the memorial gardens, with perhaps some left over to give the community centre a new lick of paint.  The government, however, appear to have set their sights a little higher, their spokesman making it clear that they expected this initiative to fund the National Health Service for the next five years.

Pyramids

Gary Osmosis believes that Egyptian Pyramids are the fossilised remains of interstellar starships that once carried aliens to Earth, many years before the dawn of human civilisation.  Where Mr Osmosis differs from other lunatics is that he has the cash to put his ridiculous theories to the test, and after experimenting with a scale model of the Great Pyramid in a wind tunnel he concluded that it was 68% more aerodynamic than a bungalow.  Proof, so he believes, that a pyramid could easily cross vast intergalactic distances and drop safely through a planetary atmosphere.  His results also explain, so he says, why bungalows are hardly ever observed to do that kind of thing.  In fact, Mr Osmosis is so confident that his theory is correct that he now plans to build a full-sized fusion-driven pyramid to take him to Jupiter, where he will descend to the surface in a nuclear Taj Mahal and roam around the surface using a solar-powered stealth-enabled Stonehenge.

The History of Rock

Part 6: Pink Floyd

Since their formation in 1967 as the result of a chemical spillage at the London School of Economics, Pink Floyd has always been known as a highly experimental group...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/floyd.php

Dog Wigs

Anger has erupted at the news that a laboratory in Essex has been testing wigs on dogs.  The testing of clothing on animals was banned in Europe in 2004 following a number of high profile cases involving kittens in puffer jackets, hamsters wearing wellington boots and 'trout trousers'.  In this latest incident the laboratory, owned and operated by rug manufacturer Wriggley's Wigs, have got around the ban by claiming that the wigs are medical appliances rather than items of clothing. 

Campaigner Paddy Barker of the charity Pets Against Pullovers, wants this loophole closed.  "There's nothing more shameful than seeing a Basset Hound wearing a beehive or a Great Dane in dreadlocks,"  she said.  "It's a horrifying reminder of mankind's cruelty to his fellow creatures."

A spokesman for Wriggley's Wigs, however, remained unrepentant.  "The work we are doing here is vital to so many vain and insecure middle-aged men who are going prematurely bald.  No more will they have to suffer the horror of a strangely immobile, oddly-coloured toupee.   Or, heaven forbid, the shame of the comically windswept comb-over.  And if it means that an Alsatian has to spend an uncomfortable few minutes in an Afro, or a Doberman is spotted grinning stupidly whilst wearing pigtails or a blonde mullet, then I for one think it's worth the sacrifice."

Tracey's Mobile Hair Salon

Troubled by unruly flyaway hair?  Do you struggle with those difficult-to-tame locks?   If your wayward curls are a little more mobile than you'd like, then call Tracey Domestos of Tracey's Mobile Hair Salon.  Tracey has been hunting rogue hair ever since she shot her first mullet in Kenya at the tender age of 6. Here's what some of her recent clients had to say:

"Tracey is a real wonder.  She tracked my ponytail halfway across town before cornering it an alley and rendering it temporarily insensible with a brick."

-Marcus Plank, Salisbury-

"I thought my pixie crop was lost forever, until Tracey eventually discovered it living in a cave in the Peak District, where it had survived the winter on a diet of pickled onion Monster Munch and bits of old twig."

-Denise Von Sydow, also Salisbury-

"When my beard went missing I thought my life was over.  But then Tracey correctly deduced that it had fallen down the back of the sink during a DIY misadventure.  She coaxed it out with a piece of cheese, and now we're getting married in the spring."

-Clifton S Bridge,  Andover (nr Salisbury)-

-Tracey's Mobile Hair Salon-

We're buggered if we can think of a strapline.

The History of Rock

Part 5: David Bowie

David Bowie fell to Earth in 1969 and promptly set about laying waste to human civilisation with his powerful heat ray. Oh, the humanity. However, when it was explained to him that this sort of thing was terribly bad form, he realised his faux pas and turned the whole thing in...

More: http://www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/bowie.php

An important announcement about your Sluggo Slug Repair Kit

Many readers may have recently purchased the Sluggo Slug Repair Kit after seeing an advert on this page. The distributors have made us aware that a number of these kits have been sent out without the correct documentation and have asked us to reprint the instructions here. Of course, we realise that it's a sad day indeed when intelligent people cannot be trusted to figure out the fundamental principles behind mending broken slugs. Indeed, I'm sure we all remember the basics from school biology lessons, along with untying worms and welding badgers, but in the interests of keeping the Health and Safety people sweet, here goes:

 *** 

Step 1 
Locate the puncture by placing the slug in a bucket of water and looking for the bubbles. Don't worry, the water won't harm your slug, but remember to hold his nose otherwise when he comes out he'll be all sneezy and cross.

Step 2 
Carefully dry your slug using a fluffy towel, hair dryer or blow torch.

Step 3 
Apply a few dabs of slug glue to the special patch, fix over the puncture and make sure you achieve an airtight seal by stamping on it repeatedly and laughing manically for about twenty minutes.

Step 4
Inflate your slug to 30 psi (or 38 psi if fully laden). CAUTION: Be careful not to over-inflate your slug. Over-inflation will give it wind and make its eyes bulge, and anything over 45 psi will make it go off like a rocket.

Step 5
And you're done! Your snotty little pet is now good to go. Make sure he watches where he's going next time.

Space Cress

Scientists may be one step closer to identifying a candidate for dark matter, the unknown substance that accounts for nearly 85% of the mass of the universe.  Professor Boz Dangler, Visiting Professor of Peanuts at CERN, says that inspiration struck him as he was tucking into a salad in the staff canteen.  "I noticed that while the celery, the lettuce, the radishes and the tomatoes were all easily identifiable, a significant portion of the total mass of my lunch appeared to be hidden.  It was only when I looked under the cucumber that I noticed the cress.  Tasteless and odourless, the cress only reacted weakly with the other ingredients and was therefore almost impossible to detect.  It was then that I realised that the universe's missing mass must be cress.  Not ordinary cress, of course - that would be silly.  Space cress."

The Professor may not have to wait too long for proof of his theory.  Next month the European Space Agency will launch OCO, the Orbital Coleslaw Observer, which will train its instruments on the Carina nebula, a vast cloud of expanding balsamic vinegar which has recently been the subject of much speculation as it is thought to contain herbs which do not occur naturally on Earth. 

The History of Rock

Part Four: Hawkwind

 Hawkwind were a space rock band from the planet Regulo 5 who came to Earth in a Silver Machine to teach the human race about universal love, galactic harmony and NVQ Level 2 bricklaying. Taking their name from the excessive flatulence that characterises their species, the band rapidly gained a following thanks to their soaring riffs, exotic sci-fi themed lyrics and special two-for one offers on masonry tools...

 More: www.bleeding-obvious.co.uk/rock/articles/hawkwind.php

Ricky Stratocaster presents...

A ground-breaking 20 part series tracing the development of rock music by Ricky Stratocaster, inventor of macrobiotic dandruff, discoverer of the lost pyramids of Doncaster and visiting Professor of Funk at the Kentucky Institute of Twangology.