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The Dukes of Stratosphear are therefore born, an imaginary band
forgotten at the end of the sixties and only lately rediscovered, with
all that was holy to psychedelic groups of that genre from the circus
outfits and para-lysergic proclamations to the press release given by
Sir John Johns (Partridge), The Red Curtain (Moulding), Lord Cornelis
Plum (Gregory), EIEI Owen (Ian Gregory, Dave's brother and drummer on
duty): "We hadthought about buying a synthesizer, but when we entered
the shop none of us managed to pronounce the word".
Having been born as little more than a joke (the first EP, 25 o'clock,
was released on April Fool's Day in Great Britain), the project receives
some success and is expanded into a real album, Psonic Psunspot,
which took its ispiration from the late psychedelia, that already
heralded the foreboding bland progressive winds.
A large part of
the fun of
listening to the album is in the discovery of citations from the epoch,
that the group shamelessly admit:
"Brainiac's
Daughter is
McCartney -
the banana fingers and
falsetto. Brainiac was a character who seemed to be in predominance
during the 50s
and
60s
in
Superman comics. He's green and looks a bit like Oliver Reed and he's
got these little coloured lightbulbs sticking out of his head. I thought
if he had a daughter she'd be a pretty terrific
sort
of gal!
It's the sort of thing McCartney might have written about. And it has to
have bubbles in it. All
McCartney psychedelia seems to have bubbles -
Uncle Albert, Yellow Submarine, Octopus'
Garden".
Small gems that would not have been out of place
in XTC's repertoire (Callideascope,
Vanishing Girl,
the very same
Brainiac's Daughter), are not lacking and are even disseminated
with carelessness.
We
murdered them! They were all killed off horribly one by one. They choked
on their own paisley shirts. lt's like Frankenstein's monster getting so
big, we just had to kill it. There shouldn't have been two Dukes records.
We did the one thing as a joke and as a thank you to all of the bands
that made our school days colorful. Then people responded so well to it
and kept saying that we should do another one. I resisted and resisted
and Dave and Colin said, "C'mon, let's do another one. It was so much
fun". So we did another one. But we mustn't do any more. The whole thing
is that the Dukes can't go anywhere because they sound like your
favorite bands from 1967. Well, we have contemplated taking them
backwards making them a beat combo. Or they could come forward and they
can do a glitter album. They would actually change their name to the
Stratosphear Gang and they'd be in heeled shoes. Actually they would
probably do all of the Helium Kidz songs, songs from our earlier career.
The Helium Kidz had hundreds of songs, really crass songs. So maybe we
should do the Stratosphear Gang plays the greatest hits of the Helium
Kidz.
(Sir John
Johns)
Sir John
Johns (Andy Partridge):
vocal and guitar
The Red Curtain
(Colin Moulding):
vocal and bass
Lord Cornelius Plum (Dave
Gregory): guitar
E.I.E.I. Owen (Ian
Gregory): drums
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