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Tory: The Musical

Tory (sometimes known as Tory: The Musical) was a 2013 musical by Jonathan Fox-Spencer, baron Fox-Spencer. The plot concerned a twelve-year-old boy named Tory, who after an intense argument with his reactionary father wishes that the Tory party had never been formed. As a result he is visited by two ghosts—Mr Johnson (styled after Boris Johnson) and Lady Thatcher’s Ghost. They show the young boy, while travelling through time, what the Tory party has accomplished since its formation and what kind of place the world would be if the Tories had never existed. By the end of the show Tory has become a Conservative Party convert, proudly proclaiming his loyalty in a song called I Was Wrong, But Now I’m Right. The musical ran for four weeks at the Antigone Theatre, London. MP and thespian Michael Fabricant starred as Mr Johnson. The role of Mrs Thatcher’s Ghost was played by Helena Bonham Carter.

The opening song of the musical, (What’s The Story) You Great Tory, an Oasis cover, briefly entered the charts in 2014.

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Mick Bluff & The Fuzz - Done A Poo

Mick Bluff & The Fuzz (sometimes known as simply The Fuzz and later Savon Luxe) were an English band formed in Canning Town, London, in 1976. Fronted by loudmouth bassist and singer Mick Bluff, they are best known for their exuberant debut album Bish! Bosh! Bash! (1978), which included such songs as Gob On ‘Is Knob, Bash Time, Dirty Old Man! and Giz Uz A Kiss, which had a slight reggae vibe.

The band were early pioneers of punk and on several occasions supported the Sex Pistols, with whom they were good friends. For a time, Bluff shared a flat in Bermondsey with Sid Vicious, and the two were known throughout London for partaking in reckless, loutish behaviour together, such as having a poo on people they didn’t like. One of their victims, according to Bluff himself, was the Mancunian song weasel Mick Hucknall, who allegedly inspired Bluff to pen the crowd pleaser Done A Poo, which appeared on the band’s follow up to Bish Bosh! Bash!, You What?

Released in 1978, the album showcased a new experimental sound that the band had developed while touring with Ricky & The Shit Pistons the previous year.

Since separating from The Fuzz Bluff has enjoyed considerable success as a solo performer, but reunited with his former bandmates to perform a series of gigs in 1993.

He made headlines in 2017 when it was revealed he had head butted tennis superstar Andrew Castle, a gesture for which he has remained unapologetic. 

"You're a disgrace, the f*cking lot of ya!" - Bluff sounds off at reporters outside his home in Canning Town after the Andrew Castle fracas.

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Roland Cloth and Mates - Bognor Bus

Roland Cloth, often billed as a Roland Cloth and Mates, is a song and dance man who specialises in an exhilarating brand of cockney knees up music. He was born on Barrow Road in Hackney, London, in 1952, the son of Reginald Cloth, a chimney sweep, and Vera Cloth, a penny polisher.

He began playing the piano at the age of seven, encouraged by his uncle, who was known throughout the east end as Rex the Peeps on account of his impeccable eyesight. As a teenager, Cloth performed at the local pub, The Throng and Whistle, regaling punters with such cockney classics as Ooh You Daft Nancy, Get Outter It, Liquor My Nuts, The Squeaky Wheel (Gets The Cheek) and The Dog’s Bollocks.

Aged 18, Cloth joined a skiffle band, Reggie & The Toppers. However, he soon grew bored on the constraints of the genre and instead began perusing the music of his childhood. He released an album of songs in 1970 entitled Cloth Goes The Weasel, which furthered his popularity among Londoners. But it was not until 1972, when he released his follow up album, Bognor Bus, that Cloth broke into the mainstream.

The first single from the album, also called Bognor Bus, reached number 7 in the UK charts. It told of an enjoyable beer-sodden journey Cloth and mates had taken one summer to Bognor Regis.

While promoting the song on Top of the Pops, Cloth and presenter Simon Bates appeared in a rare on location musical segment, in which the two frolicked about shirtless on Bognor Regis leisure pier, eating candyfloss and whistling at young women. Music historians have often credited this segment with creating the concept of the music video.

DJ Simon Bates getting the drinks in at Cloth’s local pub The Salty Bishop on Hackney Road.

Cloth became reclusive in the 1980s and for some years lived in a small mud hut he had erected in the garden of his ex-wife. However, in 1993 he had a top 30 hit when Bristol house legends Melange remixed his song Gosh Cor Blimey! The music video featured former MP John Gummer and Keith Chegwin.

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Spirit Level - Heavy Duty Judy

Spirit Level are an English rock band consisting entirely of qualified builders and tradesmen. They formed on a building site in Stockport in 1972 and have since pioneered an intense brand of boogie rock, which some music critics have described as “denim rock” owing to the band’s love of jeans and jean jackets.

There are five members in the band: Ron Woolwich (a cockney rhythm guitarist and lead singer), Ted Lambert (a brummy lead guitarist), Barry “Bean Feast” Bedlington (a geordie bassist), Les Salmon (a Bristolian drummer and tambourinist) and Reynold McCoy (a scouse flash dancer). The regional diversity of the band members, coupled with their background in construction, has led some to call them “a sort of rock and roll Auf Wiedersehen, Pet,” a term the band have welcomed.

In 1973 they released their debut album Hot Denim, which produced the crowd pleaser Heavy Duty Judy, featuring the band’s trademark “boogie stomp” blues riff. While performing the “boogie stomp” live, the band spread their legs apart and rock to and fro in time with the riff, a motion the band’s fans, known collectively as the Denim Army, often emulate.

Other songs on the album include Hard Graft, Building Bricks, Chip Off The Old Block and WD40, which the inimitable Eamonn Holmes included as one of his entries on Desert Island Discs. The band have released 47 albums in total. However, most fans agree that these albums capture only a modicum of the magic that Spirit Level exhibit during their live shows, which feature elaborate onstage antics. Indeed, while performing a series of shows in Milton Keynes, the band once erected an entire Barratt home on the stage.

A replica of the house Spirit Level built on stage at the Milton Keynes Sound Hole.

In 2007 singer Ron Woolwich appeared in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street as the character Pete Knowles, a love interest of Gail Platt. Woolwich's autobiography, Hot Denim and Sausage Rolls, was released the following year.

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Mens All Rite - Guilty Of A Second Crime

Mens All Rite, sometimes known as MAR, were a UK boy band formed by John Frobisher in Prington-on-Funt, Staffordshire, in the late 1990s. They consisted of Rickets (the cute one), Muesli (the sensitive one), Padre (the pious one), Cranbourne (the bad boy) and Dunder (the thick one).

Following a bitter divorce with his wife Lesley, Frobisher formed the band as means of, in his words, “telling everybody what women are really like”. He wrote a number of the bands songs, including She’s A Bitch, Vile Woman, (She) Only Wants Me For My Money and You’re Just Plain Wrong. But the band’s legacy rests on the strength of their biggest hit, Guilty of a Second Crime, which deals explicitly with Frobisher’s failed marriage.

In the song, Frobisher asks his former wife to stop being such a bitch before explaining how, if she doesn’t take him back, he’ll kill himself.

Frobisher wrote the song in response to Blue’s All Rise, which took place in a court room. He enjoyed Blue’s song, but felt that the boys should “man up” and stop being manipulated by women. 

The crime to which the title of Frobsher’s song refers is revealed towards the end. Despite the song’s unusually adult theme, Guilty Of A Second Crime proved incredibly popular with an audience of teenage girls, who paid little attention to the lyrics and instead enjoyed the boyish good looks of the band members.

The Men’s All Rite lads on a memorable visit to the Derwent Pencil Museum. 

In 2002, Rickets was voted sexiest man alive by Smash Hits magazine; Cranbourne, meanwhile, came second in a poll determining the naughtiest bad boy in pop, narrowly losing to Spud from boy band No Way.

The band broke up in 2005, when Frobisher was convicted of harassment. He revealed in a 2018 interview that the word “All Rite” in the group’s name had two meanings: all right, as in okay, and all right as in right-wing.

In that same interview he explained that a short period in prison had only served to strengthen his resolve. 

“I’m working on a new band,” he said. “Mens All Reich. Very snappy dressers. I suspect they’ll be very big, since that’s the way the world’s going these days. There’s people now who want to hear what I’ve got to say, and hot dog they’re going to hear it!” 

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Norman Tonty & His Lovely Organ - The Executive

Norman Tonty, sometimes known as “Freshman”, was a British organ player, music producer, arranger and songwriter. He made lounge records for over three decades, beginning his career in the late 1950s, and wrote the music for a number of popular songs, including Sixpence For The Lady, Freshman, Slap & Tickle, Touch It. Please?, That Soho Sound and Tonty Bollocks.

Reticent and shy, Tonty preferred to let his organ playing do the talking. At gigs he often performed with a family-sized jar of pickled eggs on top of his organ, which he would delve into intermittently, sometimes while soloing.

Initially the organist for The Gary Chalet Group, who played the cruise ship circuit, Tonty started his own group in 1959 at the suggestion of close friend Bernard Matthews, the turkey magnate, whom Tonty had met during his national service.

By 1961, Tonty had attracted a devoted following by performing regularly at trendy London clubs, such as Boodles, Lionel Chesterton’s Swingers Lounge, The Cranbourne and The Bampton Suite. The Tory peer Lord Thartley-Bently, an early admirer of Tonty’s, gave him the name Freshman, owing to Tonty’s “fresh” organ sound and a trend in the 1960s of adding the “man” to the end of words.

Although a big name on the London scene, Tonty did not truly make an impression on the general public until the release of his album The Executive (1965), an ode to swinging London, which Tonty had been observing keenly from a distance for some years. 

The album’s titular hit was inspired by a brand of luxury condom that at the time was popular among middle-class men. The Executive came in an ornately decorated mahogany box; it was made of a silky material and advertised to successful young professionals who were engaged in the fast pace lifestyle of the jet age.

A series of film advertisements for the product were created by the Coolman Company starring future James Bond actor Roger Moore. In one of them, Moore, who is playing a travelling salesman jetting off Monte Carlo, is approached by a sexy air hostess. “Mr Johnson, isn’t it?” asked the lady. “Why yes it is,” replies Moore with a wink. “Mr Johnson, your Executive is ready,” the lady adds before passing Moore a mahogany box. After opening the box, Moore smirks at the camera, and a man’s voice says: “The Executive: for a man who likes a spot of slap and tickle.”

Sir Roger Moore showcasing The Executive.

Later versions of the advert featured Tonty’s song. It became an overnight success with middle-class men and aspirational working-class men who were eager to emulate the sexual conquests of Roger Moore. An earlier advert for The Executive, banned in the UK, featured Roger Moore receiving a blowjob while he finished reading his newspaper.

Other popular tracks on The Executive include That Soho Sound, Freshman (his signature tune) and Slap & Tickle, which was used as the theme to the 1972 sex comedy film Butter My Arse, starring Robin Askwith and Joan Collins.

Tonty married model Rita Rovanni in 1968. Dudley Moore and Michael Caine were both present at the wedding reception, as was future Prime Minster Ted Heath.

In 2001 Tony died at his home in Blepstow, Surrey. The post-mortem revealed that Tonty had suffered silently with high cholesterol for many years, which medical professionals believed had been induced by years of pickled egg abuse. 

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Savon Luxe - Newport Pagnell

When, in 1979, punk rocker Mick Bluff left his band Mick Bluff & The Fuzz, his former band mates started Savon Luxe with flamboyant singer Derrick Pipkins, formerly of the Pipkins Experience.

Savon Luxe were initially described my music critics as post-punk, but by the mid-1980s had ventured into new romantic territory, as exemplified by their hit single Newport Pagnell. This was effectively the band's love letter to a small Buckinghamshire town that became associated with the new romantic movement owing to its trendy brutalist architecture and high-end restaurants, such as Wimpy and Little Chef.

Along with other popular bands of the day, Savon Luxe relocated to Newport Pagnell in order to immerse themselves in 1980s chic. To them, the town symbolised culture, fast living and high fashion; it was their answer to Bowie and Lou Reed’s Berlin.

In the mid-1980s, after snorting several lines of cocaine, the band would regularly go to Club Pagnell, the coolest of all the clubs in the town, where they would drink Babyscham and other fashionable drinks of the day. Nights invariably ended with a late night curry at local restaurant Junior Poon followed by more cocaine and Babyscham.

Such artists as Fefe Puglia and Dunst Huggenstein were also part of the Newport Pagnell scene. Art critic Flous Orbton was first to describe their offbeat paintings of local service stations as Paghaus, which has become something of catch-all term used to describe anything associated with Newport Pagnell.

Residents of Newport Pagnell are sometimes called Pagnolians, which was the name of Savon Luxe's fourth studio album, released in 1989.

The band sometimes refer to the town as Naggy Paggy.

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Heavy Logic - Home Alone

Heavy Logic were a pop band from Saint Paul, Minnesota, consisting of Ray Chingford (vocals/keys), Watney Poppers (guitar), Gregg Lemon (bass) and Lay Winsdale (drums). Before disbanding in 1990, they released one album (Off The Chain, in 1988), which caught the attention of writer John Hughes, then famous for his work on such films as Sixteen Candles and Doober.   Hughes met with the band several times in 1989, eager for them to work on his upcoming project "about a kid in a house". Chingford and Poppers, who were big fans of Hughes’s work, immediately set about coming up with the bare bones of the theme song, and days later went into the studio to record it with the rest of the band. They sent the completed track to Hughes, hoping for his approval, but according Chingford never heard back from him: "We'd made this great track, Home Alone, and the next thing we know the film comes out, minus our theme. I was furious. They'd got John Williams to do it instead, and what he came up with was utter crap. Not at all funky or catchy like our's. I never forgave John after that. I also think he probably lifted elements of the song and put them in the film, like the eating ice cream and the kid shaving his face. That was all mine. He never said that to us." Heavy Logic disbanded in 1990 citing creative differences and financial difficulties.

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Theydon Bois are a UK grime group consisting of brothers Daryl and Dean Heinz, or Skiffler and Dootrascal as they are more commonly known. Although they were born and raised in Tiddleton, Surrey, they named their group after a village in Essex, where for four years they have lived, performing regularly at local club Loading Bay.

In 2015 they self-released their first single, Penge Munch. This received considerable airplay on Tim Westwood’s long-running radio show Slot Shifters, and was described by Westwood as “Off the chain insane in your face!” The following year the group found themselves embroiled in a feud with DJ Mike Read. According to Dootrascal, Read had ignored him at a charity event for Dogs Trust, and by the end of the night several punches had been exchanged. 

Mike Read, DJ and staunch supporter of UKIP

Read told The Sun: “I’d not heard of them, these Theydon Bois. And yet I get this chav coming up to me trying to pick a fight, telling me I’m this and that, because I’d ignored him. Shawoddywoddy. That’s a real band. These Theydon Bois, they are nothing, so I told them so, and that’s when things got ugly.” Theydon Bois released their debut album, Lady Fingers, in 2016. It produced four singles including the hit See It. Say It. Sorted., which they wrote especially for the transport safety campaign of the same name.  

“People thought we were sellouts," Skiffler  told Pump Magazine, "but that campaign was important to us, you get me? The highlight was going on the One Show and meeting Theresa May, who was wicked. She'd not heard of us, but loved that we name check her in the song. I was like, 'Let's go for that drink next Monday, yeah?' but she never rang, which is unfortunate."

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Das Billy Boys - Vokuhila

Das Billy Boys are a German Eurodance group based in Berlin. The brainchild of two producers Eberhard Flür and Wolfgang Schneider, the group are renowned in Euro dance circles for their assiduous approach to production and their severe demeanor, which some critics have described as "very intense". The group have released dozens of singles since their formation in 1988, though none as popular as their 1997 hit Vokuhila, a celebration of a radical hairstyle, popular among European clubbers, by which the front of the head is cut short, in stark contrast to the back, which is left to hang long and freely down the wearer's neck. The song helped popularise the Vokuhila at a time when the haircut was regarded by the general public as unfashionable and extremely dated. While performing the song live, Das Billy Boys often parade about on stage, scowling at the audience and repeating their mantra: "Business at the front. Party at the Back. Vokuhila."

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Melange Ft. Cassava - Mondeo Man

Melange, known for their house banger Norman Lamont, stormed the pop charts again in the summer of 1997 with their single Mondeo Man. John (Budgle) Topper and Max Loaded, the creative force behind the group, wrote the song about the Mondeo Man phenomenon, which at the time was much reported on by the British press. 

The term Mondeo Man is an example of a working-class voter who, finding himself in regular and well paid employment, switches allegiance from Labour to the Tories in the belief that he now belongs to the upper echelon of society. He is likely to own a Mondeo, a car some in the 1990s regarded as a status symbol.

Tory MP Stephen Crabb, who for many people epitomises Mondeo Man.

Speaking to Funt Magazine in 1997, Topper explained what inspired him to write the song: "I'm from South Bristol right. I grew up working-class and I'd never considered voting Tory, ever. But when we did Norman Lamont, I became quite good friends with Norman, who's a cool bloke. We even performed together a couple of times. And he used to say to me: 'John, what are you doing voting Labour? You drive a bloody Mondeo. You've made it, mate. You're one of us now.' And it was only then that I started to think, 'You know what? I am better than most other people.' So that's why the whole Mondeo man thing really spoke to me -- because it was me to an extent." The main hook of the song is sung by Swindon-born vocalist Cassava. Topper provided additional vocals, repeating the lines, "What have you got to offer me?" which became something of mantra for would-be Mondeo Men.

Tony Blair, then leader of the Labour party, insisted the song was "paying homage to an inextinguishable cultural revolution happening in our country, a revolution that the Labour party must not ignore". Months before the 1997 election Blair invited Melange and Cassava to Gay Hussar in Soho, London. Outside the restaurant he was photographed by the tabloid press, lounging on the bonnet of a maroon Mondeo, while Mondeo Man blared from the car's speakers. "What have New Labour got to offer you?" he said. "Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!"

Former Prime Minster Tony Blair, who for a period drove a Ford Galaxy.

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Chip Humbucker - Tax Cuts For The Rich

Chip Humbucker is a Republican, a singer, a business man, a spiritual leader, CEO of Uncle Chip's Burger Ranch and a regular guest on Fox News's Show Me The Money. He was born in 1951 in Wozniak, North Carolina, the son of Truck Humbucker, a toilet brush sales magnate, and Betty, a homemaker.

Having enjoyed an affluent childhood, Chip Humbucker inherited his father's business in 1977, becoming overnight one of the wealthiest men under the age of 30 in the United States of America. Using his newly-acquired prestige to campaign for tax cuts for the rich, he joined the Republican party in 1981 and immediately began lecturing working-class Americans on the what he described as the "the natural and just order of the world". At the suggestion of President Ronald Reagan, Humbucker embarked on a career as a singer in 1984 and after assembling a group of hired musicians wrote and produced a short album, The Pursuit of Wealth. A proud draft-dodger, a ruthless businessman and a self-confessed money, sex and drug addict, he was already extremely popular with Americans, many of whom queued up all over the country to buy the album on its release. Some fans were even convinced that the album was some sort of "get rich quick" guide, though by Humbucker's own admission the lyrics were merely a meditation on the lifestyle of a super rich all-American narcissist. The album produced one single, Tax Cuts For The Rich, which for a period became the official anthem of the Republican party. Humbucker loved the 1980s and both embraced and influenced yuppie culture. Together with Dunst Rottenbacher and Garth Nugget, he was often described in the music press as "yup rock" and sometimes as a "Republican rock".   In the early 1990s, following a lengthy stint spent in rehab, Humbucker founded Uncle Chip's Burger Ranch, which specialised in "traditional American meat-based, corn syrup-infused food, cooked as God intended". Although there was no shortage of similar fast food establishments in the USA, Uncle Chip's thrived immediately, in part because some Americans believed the burgers were infused with special money-accumulating powers.

An early advert for the chain began with Humbucker tearing up a copy o f popular New York newspaper. "Health care for the poor?" he says before picking up an enormous burger. "Not on my watch! Take a bite out of communism at Uncle Chud's and taste the power of laissez-faire capitalism. It's radilicious!" Since 2007 Humbucker has appeared as a regular guest on the Fox News programme Show Me The Money! and in recent years has used this platform to express his staunch support for Donald J Trump. He performed in 2016 at Trump Rocks, a conservative music festival, alongside Savage Garden tribute band Truly, Madly, Deeply and DJ Mike Read. He released a new album, More Tax Cuts For The Rich, the following year. 

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Jon Wheeler - Cheeky Wank

Jon Wheeler was born in Norton Caines, Staffordshire. His father, Barry, owned the local service station, at which Jon worked every summer as a teen. While cleaning tables at Spud U like, the young Wheeler dreamed of pop superstardom. His favourite band during this period was Nizlopi, whose name, in Spanish, literally means “cunt”; and it was Nizlopi, singers of The JCB Song, who inspired him to pick up and guitar and write songs of his day-to-day life.

He made a name for himself by impromptu gigs in and about Norton Caines. His songs were about things average people could relate to: getting pissed, eating, walking and breathing. They featured short segments of rapping and an irritating sound that Wheeler created by tapping the body of his guitar like a drum. Although some people regarded his music as cynical, derivative and prosaic, he quickly and inexplicably attracted an enormous following. In little over a year he had been signed by EMI and had released a bestselling album, ~, which resonated with people who like watching telly, going clubbing and having minimal interests.

The album produced five singles, including the smash hit Cheeky Wank. This popularised the phrase among lads, who were at this time fond of the word “Cheeky”, as in “Cheeky Nandos”,“Cheeky Edmonds”. Wheeler performed the song with legendary singer Engelbert Humperdinck at the 2014 Brit Awards, an event that has been frequently described by Wheeler’s friend James Corden as “seminal”.

Wheelers success, however, was remarkably short lived. A year later Ed Sheeran, another red-haired songster of middling talent, had emerged on the scene. In an interview with British GQ, Wheeler’s old pal Engelbert Humperdinck described him as “passé” and Sheeran as “a repetition of Jesus' enigmas, in amalgam with the ironies of Socrates.” Confronted with declining sales, Wheeler withdrew from the limelight and began living in a Mondeo in carpark of Norton Caines services. The Sun newspaper published photos of him defecating into a bag of Walker’s Sensations near the side of a layby. Reports claimed that he had befriended Tory MP Stephen Crabb and presenter Paul Ross, with whom he had attended Mondeo roadshow, followed by an indulgent lunch at Toby’s Carvery.

Finally, in December 2016, Wheeler’s record label, EMI, announced that Wheeler had retired from music in order to pursue “other things”. He was spotted by fans later that day skink-washing his unit in the toilets of a Weatherspoon’s toilet, while his new friend Stephen Crabb nonchalantly shaved beside him.

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Chode - Ted Heath (We Love You)

Chode (later known as Graham Spafford & His Chode Experience) were a British glam rock band known for their exuberant style and passionately right-wing lyrics. In a previous blog, we included their song Glamalamabangbang!, their biggest hit. Yet no song in their repertoire better demonstrates the band's ethos than Ted Heath (We Love You), a love letter to Britain's foremost yacht-loving Prime Minister. The song opens with the cry of a siren, establishing a sense of 1970s anarchy. In an interview with the Piers Morgan, Chode front man Graham Spafford explained how the song came about: "Being proudly middle- class, I've always voted Tory, and following that nasty period of unbridled socialism we experienced in the '60s, with Wilson's Labour government, the civil rights movement and all that the anti-war rubbish, I was very excited by Ted Heath. He just had that certain something. He was natural leader, and you could see that, even from the start, despite what the left press were saying. The song is really my way of saying, ‘Don’t listen to ‘em, Teddy boy! Keep on yachting!’”     The song helped bolster Heath’s popularity, particularly with young people. In 1974, he was voted coolest man alive by NME readers, narrowly beating David Essex. 

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Scamp - Lad Mags

Scamp were an English Britpop band from Doncaster, England. Consisting of Melvin Goff (vocals, guitar), Lisa Nizlopi (keyboards), Micky Sticks (guitar, violin), Gorgon Zola (guitar, keyboards), Nancy Chives (bass) and Bobby Banks (drums), they are best known for their 1995 hit Lads Mag, written by Goff about personal experiences.

The song tapped into the then flourishing lad culture, typified by such magazines as Loaded, FHM, Buzz and Scrote. Owing to its popularity, Goff and the band became reluctant figures in the Britpop movement, and were regarded by some as being part of the Britpop "big seven", along with Oasis, Blur, Menswear, Sleeper, Catch and Tallow.

Frenchgate shopping centre, Doncaster, where Goff and the rest of Scamp sometimes shop.

In 1996, at the height of the band’s fame, Goff appeared on the front cover of Loaded, with an alcopop (Hooch) in one hand, while holding the other up to his chest, mimicking the appearance of a breast. Social historian Garry Bushell, a fan of the band, described the cover as a seminal moment in ‘90s popular culture that heralded the arrival of the lad movement.

Goff became known for his outrageous antics. He frequently appeared in the tabloids photographed on wild night outs in Soho with his famous friends, most notably Michael Barrymore and Mr Motivator. In 1997, while appearing on Channel 4's TFI Friday, he caused controversy by pulling a moonie at presenter Chris Evans.

"Have a bit of arse, you big arse," said Goff as he bared his cheeks, prompting a horrified Evan's to seek refuge beneath his desk.

Evans, who famously got moonied.

In response to the incident, The Sun newspaper’s editorial team of privileged middle-class writers who write the way they think working-class people speak launched a campaign to have Goff hanged. Although it gained considerable support from readers, the campaign was ultimately ignored by the government, who insisted that hanging was illegal in Britain and had been for some decades.

Goff left Scamp in 1999. He released a solo album, Cheeky Bugger, that same year, and in 2000 began presenting a radio show on LBC, entitled Lad Chat.

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Mick Bluff & The Fuzz - Dirty Old Man!

Mick Bluff & The Fuzz (sometimes known as simply The Fuzz and later Savon Luxe) were an English band formed in Canning Town, London, in 1976. Fronted by loudmouth bassist and singer Mick Bluff, they are best known for their exuberant debut album Bish! Bosh! Bash! (1978), which included such songs as Gob On ‘Is Knob, Bash Time, Dirty Old Man! and Giz Uz A Kiss, which had a slight reggae vibe.

The band were early pioneers of punk and on several occasions supported the Sex Pistols, with whom they were good friends. For a time, Bluff shared a flat in Bermondsey with Sid Vicious, and the two were known throughout London for partaking in reckless, loutish behaviour together, such as having a poo on people they didn’t like. One of their victims, according to Bluff himself, was the Mancunian song weasel Mick Hucknall, who allegedly inspired Bluff to pen the crowd pleaser Done A Poo.

Southern Friend Chicken, Canning Town, where Mick Bluff regularly purchases an enormous munchy bucket of chicken.

The band’s first taste of success came in 1977 when their single Dirty Old Man! reached number 34 in the UK charts. Performing the song on Top of the Pops that same year, Bluff memorably threw a bright pink dildo at presenter Noel Edmond’s head, quipping, “Now there’s a dirty old man if ever I’ve seen one!”

Edmonds wrote of the incident in his 1999 memoir You Listen Here: “I’m all for a bit of fun, but that was ludicrous. I just remember seeing this boy -- no older than 15 he was -- pointing and laughing at me -- at me, Noel Edmonds -- and because I was seething with rage I grabbed hold of him and started screaming, ‘Think this is funny, do you? Well, you’re nothing! Nothing!’ He started crying immediately, which made me feel better at the time, but I can see now, looking back, that really the whole incident was quite unpleasant.”

Dirty Old Man!: Edmond’s describes to a captivated audience the sensation of being hit in the face with a dildo.

The band's second album, You What?, was released in 1978. It showcased a new experimental sound that the band had developed while touring with Ricky & The Shit Pistons the previous year. Although not commercially successful, the album received mostly positive review from critics, and has been described by punkman Jah Wobble as “smashing”.

After a year-long tour of Europe in 1979 Mick Bluff & The Fuzz disbanded when Bluff announced his intention to release an album of solo material. He released the album Wet Legs the following year, and the rest of the band, under the leadership of new singer Derrick Pipkins, reformed as Savon Luxe, which loosely translates as Luxury Soap. The band dabbled in the popular musical styles of the time, such as the emerging New Romantic movement, which Bluff saw as betrayal of their origins.

“I didn’t start The Fuzz to have them turn into a load of ponces,” he told the NME in1985. “You know what I think? I think they’re all a bunch of rotters, plain and simple, especially that Pipkins wanker.”

In 1989, the song Dirty Old Man! was used on an advert for geordie snack Tudor Crisps, in which a man twocks some prawn and lovage flavour crisps from a tramp. Directly as a result of the advert, the song was re-released, entering the UK charts at number 21, and leading fans to start a campaign calling for Bluff to reunite with his former band mates.

Savon Luxe officially broke up in 1992, shortly after Derrick Pipkins began receiving tabloid attention for his fondness for parading about in suit made of human skin; and the following year Mick Bluff & The Fuzz reformed briefly to play a series of gigs across the UK.

In 2001, Mick Bluff released his memoir Oi! Oi!: Exploits of a Genuine Punk Geezer. In it he reveals that his best friends over the years have included Tory minister Cecil Parkinson, entertainer Timmy Mallet and limescale intolerant toilet guru Barry Scott.

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LIV-ID - Had It Up To Here

LIV-ID were a Nu metal band from Wakefield, England, consisting of singer Teddy Sparrow, guitarist Wayne Batty, bassist Martin Bellond and drummer Keith Weasel. Heavily influenced by Limp Bizkit, they recorded only one album, Absolutely Fuming, from which the top 40 hit Had It Up To Here was taken. Sparrow wrote the song about his own experiences living with his mother in Wakefield. 

"I felt trapped," he explained to Kerrang! magazine in 2001. "She were always coming into my room, telling me to do this and that and whatnot. I were full of rage, so much so that one day, when I heard this band, Limp Bizkit, on't radio I just decided I were going to put all my rage to good use. It inspired me. It really did." With school pal Wayne Batty, Sparrow wrote the song in an afternoon in 1999. They'd never written a song before, but found the process cathartic, tapping into a bottomless pit of rage that existed in them both. The following week they enlisted mates Martin Bellond and Keith Weasel and began practicing and writing other songs.

Ridings shopping centre, Wakefield, where the LIV-ID boys sometimes shopped.

In weeks they were playing local pubs and rock clubs, slowly building a fan base of disaffected youths who, like them, were sick and tired of being pestered my their mothers. Before too long LIV-ID signed to Spludge records, Britain's foremost Nu Metal label, and recorded Absolutely Fuming, which Guardian music critic Alexisis Predintisis called: "A terrific din of indignation brimming with passionate yearning, like a vixen’s broken canter." With label mates Wank Stayne, LIV-ID embarked on a year-long tour of Europe in 2000. They were particularly popular in Germany, where throngs of incensed fans gathered outside gigs chanting: "Nein, Mama, ich werde mein schlafzimmer nicht aufräumen!" That same tour LIV-ID played Anger Fest in Leighton Buzzard, England. Sparrow invited girlfriend Fern Cotton on stage during their set, causing some fans to throw bottles of urine at the couple. Fred Durst, who was also playing at the festival, stormed the stage in their defence, pleading with the audience for a modicum of sanity.

Fred Durst at Anger Fest, Leighton Buzzard, pleading with the audience for a modicum of sanity.

"It were great to have Fred's support," Sparrow later told Melody Maker. "He's a huge influence on us obviously, and he was really fearless, getting in the way of those bottles like that. It was just such a shame when he were knocked unconscious. Problem is we couldn't get to him because they wouldn't stop throwing bottles, so he just stayed there for twenty minutes, sprawled out on his back. I couldn't help but feel partly responsible." Durst and Sparrow became good friends, and in 2001 LIV-ID supported Limp Bizkit on their Kick Shit tour of the US. Although the music press had predicted that LIV-ID would prove popular with American audiences, they received a hostile reception wherever they played, in part owing to the band's use of primarily British expressions in their lyrics. Bassist Martin Bellond explained to The Guardian in 2004: "They just didn't get us, because they don't really say, 'I've had it up to here!' over there. They say, 'I'm mad as hell!' and stuff like that, not 'I'm absolutely livid!' Plus, I don't think they got Teddy's accent. They thought he were Dutch or something." To add to the band's troubles, Keith Weasel left the band halfway through the tour in order to pursue a solo career under the name The Keith Weasel Excursion. When the rest of the band returned to the UK in 2002, beleaguered and disillusioned,  they broke up, citing creative differences. Shortly after Teddy Sparrow released an EP of Appalachian folk music, and Wayne Batty became a producer, collaborating with such distinguished artists as Busted and Son of Dork. Only Martin Bellond, who became a wooden spoon carver after leaving the band, ceased making music entirely. And as for Keith Weasel: he has recorded extensively with jazz supremo and sex symbol Kenny G, performing on G's legendary trilogy of albums, G Spot, G String and G Clamp (otherwise known as GGG).