Billy Reeves was the songwriter and guitarist in 90s indie band theaudience, the group that gave Sophie Ellis-Bextor a leg up to stardom. This was their crowning glory...
Billy left the group in '98 and he's had a pretty chequered history since then, including a near-fatal car accident in 2001 and a place in the Guinness Book of Records for releasing the world's first playable jigsaw puzzle with the band Sugar Coat in 2006.
Since then, he's worked as a journalist, a radio producer and a football commentator.
But he still makes music too, and this is from his lates album, Postwar, which will be out in August. And he's got the Bluebells backing him on this track, but don't let that put you off if you're George...
The phrase "Holy Mackerel!" didn't originate on the Batman TV show. Apparently it dates back much further, to the Black American radio comedy of the 1920s, Amos & Andy. Holy Guacamole, on the other hand, definitely came from Robin. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any bands called Holy Guacamole... so if you're looking for a name nobody's used...
Holy Mackerel, on the other hand... well, you wouldn't be the first.
THE HOLY MACKEREL #1
We start our fishy journey in LA in the year 1968, when songwriter Paul Williams failed the audition to become one of The Monkees. In retaliation, he formed The Holy Mackerel... though things didn't quite go to plan and the band's first three singles failed to make any ripples across the pond. By the time their debut album was released, the group were no more, though Williams went on to write hits for Three Dog Night and The Carpenters (including We've Only Just Begun).
A couple of years later, a British Holy Mackerel surfaced in Kent. To quote a blog post about this band from 2012, "In the early 1970s music was more polarized between quality and complete lack thereof than any time in the previous decade since the psychedelic era and the beat boom." The writer then goes on to slag off The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace, so phooey to him.
I'll let George decide whether these guys represent quality or a complete lack thereof, but I quite like the tune below, which I first heard on Natasha Raskin-Sharp's old BBC Radio Scotland show before they kicked her off for playing records nobody'd ever heard of. Bastards.
And then, in 1996... along comes Les Claypool, lead singer and bass player with offbeat American rock band Primus. Fancying something a little bit different on his day off, he formed his own Holy Mackerel... and even wrote an eponymous theme song...
I have a number of reasons for including these guys, even though I'm sure they fall foul of regulations. Firstly, we should always give Christian Rock a chance. It's the Christian thing to do. Secondly, the photo above features some very bad cutting out and Pritt Stick arrangement - respect for that. Thirdly, it's bound to wind George up. Win - win - win,
Mon Rovîa is named after the place of his birth, the capital of Liberia, on the West African coast.
I think he lives in Nashville now. He's certainly taken to playing Grand Ole Opry... but his sound isn't immediately the kind of thing you'd expect to hear there.
There was a time when a lyric like this might have been more appropriate for certain parts of Africa than the USA. Nowadays... well, what do you think?
