All Encompassing Half Man Half Biscuit Thread

[Nowhere Man]

It seems pretty obvious that we need a regular thread to chat about the Biccies, I mean they're gods as far as CaB and the ghost of John Peel is concerned.

What album or song is grabbing your attention at the moment?

Right now I can't get 'Renfields Afoot' out of my head ("WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU, TRYIN TO GO ON EVERYBODY'S BATWALK")

and in the last year I think 'A Country Practice' has become my favourite song by Nigel and his mates. No One Cares About Your Creative Hub is defo up there with 90 Bisodol as the best things they've done Achtung Bono.

My New Years resolution is to try and see HMHB in concert for the first time in 2019.

[Lemming]

I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke
I'm a mate of the bloke

[SteveDave]

Some friends made me a C90 tape of their favourite HMHB songs about 15 years ago and it was wall to wall bangers.

"It Makes The Room Look Bigger" is my favourite I think.

"Elderly lady at the bus stop
Thinks I'm going to eat her
And so to reassure her
I ask her for the time
And her sense of relief at my friendly tone
Reveals itself in her karmic moan:
"You can wait twenty minutes
And nothing comes along
And then all of a sudden three thugs rob your pension
Oh there's generally one at twenty-five past
There's generally one at twenty-five past
They come swinging round that corner
They think they're Benny Goodman""

and...

"Oh tiptoe to the front row of the Korn show
With a submachine gun"

[Sebastian Cobb]

I should have just got a job on the bins

[MidnightShambler]

My mate Ian (or Jacko as he's known) is/was in the band. Also does a great dj set at 81 Renshaw street in Liverpool every month if anybody is ever up that way.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Cheers for creating this thread, it prompted me to check their website and 2019 gigs are listed. They're playing Edinburgh in Jun!

[The Culture Bunker]

I've been a fan for a while and enjoyed that on the last album they namechecked Keswick, as it was my grandma's hometown.

[famethrowa]

Never heard the band before, but I got hold of "Trouble Over Bridgewater" because it had a funny name and absolutely love it. Great, clever songs with my kind of references. But I've found it difficult to get into other albums... any suggestions of where I should go next?

[Nowhere Man]

Since i'm lazy, here's a post that ajsmith made in the HMHB thread from... christ, 13 years ago! Where he summed up some of the differences between many of the albums until then.

All Biscuti albums are kind of a playeau anyway, but here's how I'd describe the ones in-between the first and the last:

ACD: the 2nd and last 80s LP nice bright tunes and instrumentation on a lot of the tracks  compared to DHSS, though some of the humour on this one is quite unbecomingly sick  and mean-spirited compared to usual (check out carry on cremating)

Macintyre, Treamore and Davitt; Something of a classic, IMO, with ten fully-formed multipart Biscuit suites. "Outbreak of Vitas Geralitus", and "Hedly Veritiesque" in particular, more than stands comparison with the Smiths or the Kinks in terms of being quintessentially British sarcastic melodic poignant grim-pop. The last album to feature prominent use of keyboards (which lend a few track an almost Inspirasly hue here)

This Leaden Pall: kind of gone down in history thanks to the NME and it's  AMAZING album cover (one of their few to be any good at all) as the Biscuits Magnum opus, I don't find it particularly better than the others, but Nigel detects a "doom laden thread" running through it which you may be able to detect yourself. Once again, more mature surreal collagations of aspects  of the British experience, probably best exemplified in "4ad3dcd" and "Quality Janitor"

Some call it GodCore: cheapo album recorded by a line-up change riddled group, this actually once again contains loadsa classics, such as the football track "Friday night and the gates are low" (a more direct and witty follow too the Fall's Kicker Conspiracy) and a long spoken word number about watching a Focus tribute group.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Road: Probably the one to go for as a next buy: in spite of a pretty awful dirge of an opening track, it contains so many outright biscuit classics that hit the nail on the head and contain a slow-burning wit like "Bad Review" "Dead Men Don't need Season tickets" "CAMRA man" and the Noelrock satire "monmore hare's runnin"

Four Lads who shook the wirral: a strong opening (including the seminal classic "4 skinny indie Kids  and the Jenny Eclair-puncturing "You're hard" give way to a series of underwhelming folk tunes (from here on it, one folk tunes would become and increasingly core part of the Biscuits sound) alleviated only by the wonderful 6.30  minute state of the nation rant "A country Practice"

Trouble Over Bridgewater: for my money, possibly the Biccies finest and certainly funniest and sharpest LP. More skit based and musically varied than usual."Look Dad no tunes" manages to slag off and romanticise post-rock no-hopers at the same times, while "Gubba Look-a like" and "the Ballad of climie Fisher" are two of there more excitingly strange excursions into pure whimsy

Cammel Laird Social Club:  not really a favourite of mine, though the wordplay is as good as ever, by the point the tunes and over reliance of extant folk melodies is becoming a bit repetitive. Still, the first 3 tracks are pretty strong, and there's another epic state of the nation rant as on "Four Lads" (not quite as good though)

However Achtung Bono is probably their most famous album since their first, containing classics like Joy Division Oven Gloves, What Is Chatteris ect. Probably their most accessible, for whatever that means regarding the biccies.

I think Cammell Laird Social Club might be their most consistent album, The Light At The End Of The Tunnel and When The Evening Sun Goes Down are absolutely wonderful.

[jobotic]

I haven't got anything post Achtung Bono, apart from an EP. Really should have.

Karen's black tour jacket...I'm knackered man.

You're going home in a Crispy Ambulance.

I thought of Fear My Wraith, which is one of my favourite tunes of theirs, when Ole Solskjaer described his teams first half performance as "lacksy-daisy" the other day. Bit unfair, I know.

Another line I love is from Fretwork Homework - "Another Jack Daniels, then off with me top". Every time I see anything vaguely rawk I think of that.

Great band.

[ajsmith2]

Since i'm lazy, here's a post that ajsmith made in the HMHB thread from... christ, 13 years ago! Where he summed up some of the differences between many of the albums until then.

However Achtung Bono is probably their most famous album since their first, containing classics like Joy Division Oven Gloves, What Is Chatteris ect. Probably their most accessible, for whatever that means regarding the biccies.

I think Cammell Laird Social Club might be their most consistent album, The Light At The End Of The Tunnel and When The Evening Sun Goes Down are absolutely wonderful.

Gosh, thanks for giving my misspelt ramblings from my mid 20s enough esteem to quote a decade and a half on. I still largely agree with all that, but it's hardly definitve, and as many on Steve Hoffman say, Your Mileage* May Vary. Have recently been getting back in HMHB after a while of going a big stale on them. Properly discovering a lot of the 21st century stuff that I didn't really get enough time to the first time around. I still think they peaked for me around Trouble Over Bridgewater though, but Crimond Bisodol in particular is one later one I've been appreciating more of late.

*Chart

[studpuppet]

"Now my overweight girlfriend, she sits and she crimps" is one of the finest lyrics ever in music.

[Lost Oliver]

I'm going to see them in Newcastle in April AND Holmfirth in June. I'll post here closer to the time if anyone would like to say hello.

Loved the last album, Terminus in particular was a real treat. "Grey falls on the green, as I try to get used to me and not us." They're just the fucking best band going.

Pretty much sums me up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1WAhtgG2cQ though I think the lines "Kicking off on the goats" could be improved to "Kicking off on the coach".

And while we're here probably my favourite bit from a HMHB song is from San Antonio Foam Party...

"The reservoirs are colder
And deeper than you think"
Well stop, wait a minute Mr Spokesman
You don't know what I think
Is your lake about
(hmm now let's see)
A hundred miles deep
And ninety below?

And is it home to sharks?

Oh and my username is taken from something Nigel said at a gig a few years back during 24 Hour Garage People.

As told to a boil on the cab drivers neck.

[Captain Crunch]

I first discovered them through the CAB CD Tree, remember that one girls?  I also nearly crashed into a ditch the first time I heard 'Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo'. 

[Lost Oliver]

I haven't got anything post Achtung Bono, apart from an EP. Really should have.

Karen's black tour jacket...I'm knackered man.

Whenever anyone says to me they're knackered this song is the first thing that goes through my head.

[SteveDave]

"Now my overweight girlfriend, she sits and she crimps" is one of the finest lyrics ever in music.

I had that song in my head all weekend..."Ask me to Prestatyn, and that's what I'll do"

[Sebastian Cobb]

He's a good lad is Wilf.

[studpuppet]

By the way - their worst lyric is:

Oh he went to play golf on a Sunday morn' just a mile and a half from town
His head was found on the driving range and his body has never been found

Those two uses of 'found' in the last line really are really jarring!

[SteveDave]

By the way - their worst lyric is:

Oh he went to play golf on a Sunday morn' just a mile and a half from town
His head was found on the driving range and his body has never been found

Those two uses of 'found' in the last line really are really jarring!

It's from "In The Pines"

Her husband, was a hard working man
Just a mile and a half from here
His head was found in a driving wheel
But his body never was found

[studpuppet]

It's from "In The Pines"

Her husband, was a hard working man
Just a mile and a half from here
His head was found in a driving wheel
But his body never was found

Yeah, but this lyric doesn't have the 'town' that both 'found's almost rhyme with, thus causing jarring.

[Lost Oliver]

I've just seen Vengloss in Rock Ferry buying energy drinks. He's deffo taking over.

[Lost Oliver]

Sadly I have to work the weekend of the Newcastle gig so if anyone wants two tickets let me know. I'm gutted. Not looking for full price but somethng would be appreciated. If nobody fancies them by the end of the week I'll stick them on viagogo.