Half Man Half Biscuit Epics Poll

Live version of "24 Hour Garage People" is about seven minutes.

But as great as everything here is, "A Country Practice" is some fucking high water mark of British music in the past 30 years.

I think that's probably the truth to be honest. It's fundamental.

What Dom said.

Anyway, to the true purpose of this thread: education

Dear Americans, this is one of the greatest songs ever written:

No Soft Verges on Youtube, but no fear, brilliant as it is it's probably the weakest thing here.

When the horns kick in and play their woozy, utterly lovely refrain, I almost wish all music could be this simple:

Because I love you all, here's the definitive version of "A Country Practice", the live version taken from a Probe Plus promo CD circa 2005.

Let's hear it for Master Matthew Marsden!

Here, have a live performance. Again, brilliant as Thy Damnation is, I'd personally rate the other 4 just ahead.

OMG cheers Dom!!

Jesus, there is so much righteous anger in that vocal performance (and in the playing), awesome

A zip of the complete Peel Sessions is here for anyone wanting a career intro to these dudes.

Got to go with A Country Practice. Going to see them in May, excited already tbh.

love all of these, but it really has to be country practice

also, want a trouble over bridgewater poll

> A zip of the complete Peel Sessions is here for anyone wanting a career intro to these dudes.

thanks for that, specifically:

> 46. For What Is Chatteris

Chatteris being the answer to one of the Observer crossword clues i hadn't got! (13 down)

A zip of the complete Peel Sessions is here for anyone wanting a career intro to these dudes

And who would not want that?

A Country Practice is indeed awesome and will win this thing in a heart beat, so I am tactically voting for the magic that is Gubba Look-a-Likes.

I am not seeing them in May. I have never seen them due to all sorts of different circumstances, mainly of my own devising. I am now sad.

I kinda wanna vote for Gubba Look-A-Likes too, but...

"Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not" is getting slept on here though. "There's a bloke over there who says I can meet... Ken Livingstone".

Thing with TDSN is that while awesome it isn't IMO a standout on its own album. Which probably says more about the album, but...ahh I'll have to give it another listen

Ok, I was wrong then. Forgot that "savage ignorance" line. I don't think a single moral argument concerning the music industry is left unscathed tbh.

yeah, country practice

The great thing about Cammell Laird Social Club is that they obviously used the same fairly crappy Yamaha keyboard as we have at home on it, because in the awesome "Tyrolean Knockabout" we are treated to the worst guitar solo of all time, which is actually the "distortion guitar" setting on the aforementioned Yamaha keyboard (it still sounds oddly fitting), and, yet more audaciously, in "27 Yards Of Dental Floss" they button-bash the Yamaha's "scream" setting (trust me on this, the sounds are identical). Crappy effects forever! :D

I'm going for Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not because, as mentioned above, of its righteous anger, but yes, A Country Practice is also amazing.

Listening back to these Peel sessions remind me what a crime it is "Epiphany" isn't on any of the albums proper. Billing Aquadrome stand up.

I went for "Tour Jacket". The bus going home bit is surreal and sublime.

National Shite Day is a masterpiece even when in 64kbs quality from the radio.

I saw them live on the TV once (it's been released on VHS), and it was surprisingly boring.

I went for "Tour Jacket". The bus going home bit is surreal and sublime.

Also, "Are ya knackered, man?" "No, I'm Jan Ackerman"

Cammell Laird Social Club

Blimey, I've been to the Cammell Laird Social Club. Big rivals to Poulton Vics in the West Cheshire League back in the day.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

A Country Practice or Gubba-Look-A-Likes.

If 'Emerging from Gorse' were epic enough to be on the list, I'd pick that:

Well, it must have been about half past two in the morning, and just sitting there in the front room, with Carl and Brendan and Adrian. We’re just sitting listening to music, drinking tea, talking about the Palace Brothers, Bonnie Prince Billy, that kind of thing. All of a sudden the room fills with a harsh brightness and in barges my sister mob-handed from Cream. She points at the speakers on the stereo and starts chanting: “Shit band, no fans, shit band no fans…”

Well, I’m just about to defend our corner when her mate Natalie at the back pipes up with: “Yeah, the windy minimalism of that last track recalls some of Labradford’s isolationist period.”

Thoroughly defeated, I retired upstairs to bed, left them to it.

Great song, Craicwhore. But is it 'wimpy minimalism'? I quite like the idea of windy minimalism though, both in its suggestion of something slightly cowardly and also the idea of... well, minimalistic wind.

Like Mark E Smith's Shad Mock Whistle (or is it Shad Segment? I can't remember) off Post Nearly Man.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

This poll needs to be re-run.

I can't remember what I voted for now (Tour Jacket, I think), but I kind of wish I'd shown some love for Soft Verges, for the "us poor actors our out of work 90% of the time" bit, the "tricky manoeuvre that is/acknowledgement without breaking stride" bit, and the Cliff Richard ending.

"are out of work", obv.

Soft Verges is so beautiful.

The new stuff is really uninspired and crap

WRONG. Oh god, so wrong! "Took Problem Chimp...", "Ode To Joyce" and "National Shite Day" alone are all-time HMHB classics, and the rest is really pretty damn consistent.

Once upon a time there was a baker
Who spent all day making buns or cakes or
Rolls or loaves of bread or muffins
And he loved his work but it wasn’t enough and…

He longed to offer up his heart
to not just any tart,
but to one of substance and of virtue
but suitable candidates were oh so few.

Nigel Blackwell, pray please do tell:
How could your parents risk it?
A baker’s son, born of a bun…
Half a man, half a biscuit

He gently took her from the oven
Her sweet scent set off waves of loving
His eyes beheld her flakey crust.
He thought, ‘I mustn’t… but I must!’

Alas, Nigel’s dad could not resist her
He held her close and then he kissed her
Before another word was uttered
His momma’s buns were buttered

Nigel Blackwell, pray please do tell:
How could your parents risk it?
A baker’s son, born of a bun…
Half a man, half a biscuit

And so, please mark this poignant tale
Next time you see baked goods for sale
Which proves true love defies convention
(And leads to couplings we can’t mention)

And so, it comes as no surprise,
The kneady baker’s dough did rise
Though some may scoff, deride and scorn
From such forbidden love, Nigel was born.

Nigel Blackwell, pray please do tell:
How could your parents risk it?
A baker’s son, born of a bun…
Half a man, half a biscuit

That's by Dean Friedman, btw.

:D

is there an ILX thread for arbitrary artistic duels manifested in song?

guess not.