Search - Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band :: The History of the Bonzos

Hello... and how did you find yourself this morning?

nicjaytee | London | 11/22/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bonzo Dog fans may argue over whether this really is "the best" but for the rest of us it's as good an introduction to their erratically and often brilliantly bizarre world as anything else that's on offer - you want the genuinely funny tracks they're here... you want the tuneful tracks they're here as well... you want the darker, out on the edge tracks, well more money's required in the slot.



Careering through the late 60's like an uncontrollable pinball between the inspired, the endearingly quaint, the weirdly avant-garde and the manically deranged the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band were a completely "English" one off. Totally left-field but underpinned by superb comic perception and (thanks to Neil Innes & Viv Stanshall in particular) excellent song-writing skills they were disarmingly "nuts" and seriously "cool" at the same time. But, like all such things, best not to analyse it too much... suffice to say that this excellent compilation contains around 10 tracks that are timelessly funny, another 10 or so that will raise a smile, and around 10 that will leave you totally bemused. Which ones will depend, of course, on your particular predilections, but unless you've had some form of comic bypass operation enough will hit the mark to make the cost worthwhile. You just roll back the sheets and there you are... as they say.

"

The Musical Bridge Between The Goons and Monty Python

BluesDuke | Las Vegas, Nevada | 01/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With a taste for both ancient radio music and classic British music hall pastiche bent to an absurdist contemporary pop sensibility, this troupe of music satirists soundtracked the bridge between Peter Sellers' legendary Goon Squad routines and the freewheeling, hydradimensional Monty Python (in more ways than one; co-founding pianist/guitarist Neil Innes would be a Python adjunct/support player for most of that troupe's prime existence). Unlike most pop and rock satirists, however, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (they shortened it to the Bonzo Dog Band after their first two albums) were sensible enough to know the limits of both topical humour and private in-joking (Frank Zappa, with and without the Mothers of Invention, never did quite get it, which explains why most of the Mothers' music post 1967 seemed dated within a week of its issue). And the fact that they were unashamed to let show their genuine affection for the sources of their zany attack somehow makes the Bonzos accessible in ways their actual and would-be contemporaries (as few as there were) could never have been. (Which may explain why, when Geoff Stephens and John Carter - the brains behind the New Vaudeville Band's surprise 1966 hit, "Winchester Cathederal" - needed a touring band fast to ride the wave of that shocker, having cut the song with studio regulars only, the pair first approached the Bonzos to be that band; the Bonzos as a band turned them down, but original sax/trombonist Bob Kerr threw in with the New Vaudeville Band for its brief touring life.)This 1974 anthology is still the best way to introduce yourself to this troupe of the cheerfully insane, led as always by the sensitive Vivian Stanshall and his nucleus - saxophonists Rodney Slater and Roger Ruskin Spear (who also became renowned for his sound and visual devices, especially his exploding devices and his cartoon speech balloons); drummer Legs Larry Smith; bassist Vernon Dudley Bohay; Innes (vocals, guitar and keyboards). The odd hits (they had a few, mostly in England, especially "I'm The Urban Spaceman") and cult favourites (the clever "The Intro and the Outro," the charming pop of "King of Scurf," the Cream-parodying "9 to 5 Pollution Blues," the needling of British blues in "Can The Blue Men Sing The Whites," among others) blend neatly into a package that, contrary to others' alarm, actually doesn't drive you out of your mind to hear it through in a single sitting. And if this set does strike a craving for more, hunt down copies of (especially) such classic albums as "Gorilla" and "Tadpoles." Even now, thirty years after the group called it a day, the Bonzos - who were well enough ahead of their own time - seem quite beyond the reach of much now passing for genuine humour."