Sin and Sodomy at the Bridgwater Arts Centre

Kim Newman as sex pervert  'Prince' surrounded by
'actresses  from the 
Sheep Worrying Theatre Group

In 1980 the Bridgwater Arts Centre was labelled a 'jive joint for wierdies' by Tory councillor Margaret Rees who moved in next door and then complained that there was an Art Centre next door to her. So appropriately it was the venue for the launch of Sheep Worrying Theatre Company in September 1980-with the play 'Another England' -written by Kim Newman and about a Fascist takeover of Britain. 

The show was a success and the Theatre company's next production was agreed to be the play previously banned by College Principle JC Miles when the Youth theatre had planned to do it 'The Scandalous History of the Reverend Henry James Prince and his Abode of Love'.

The story of Prince - basically a religious nutjob who lived in Spaxton and set up an 'abode of love' where he saved sexy young women by shagging them whilst proclaiming himself to be the Messiah - is told on the Westover web here.

http://westoverward.co.uk/day-history-january-10th-1899-death-reverend-henry-james-prince/

Smedley & Byrne as Victorian tabloid
journalists in the Prince play

The Sheep Worrying show was written by local  playwright Charles Mander with music by Brian Smedley and starred Kim Newman as Prince and premiered on the anniversary of the night of the Son of God's surprise death.

Several of the songs went on to become features of  Smedley and Newman's band Club Whoopee along with other songs from the future Sheep Worrying musicals that loomed over the horizon.

'Sin and Sodomy' was what the villagers of Spaxton drinking their ears off in the Lamb inn next door to the Abode of Love ,undoubtedly  assumed was going on next door to them and probably exactly what Mrs Rees assumed was going on next door to her.

Smedley overacting like a twat

'Sin and Sodomy' was recorded on 22 February 1982 at Milborne Port studios along with a pile of other tracks thrown together one take style including 'He could save me anyday' sang by future screen actress Liz Hickling and also from the Prince Play. The whole session was released on an album 'Sheep Worrying at the Club Whoopee'.

The musicians included Kim Newman on lead vocals, Smedley on bass, Andrew Napthine on guitar, Neal Heckford on piano, Robin Tucker on drums plus Lynne Cramer, Liz Hickling and Sarah Marks on backing vocals. Peter Grieve was also doing some vocals  - but not on 'Sin and Sodomy'. If anyone wants to play along it's in the key of C Minor . Well, most of us.....

Yet again PARTISAN SONG tops Red Smed Christmas Playlist

It remains absolutely no surprise that for the 6th year running, in fact that's every year since it was released, the PARTISAN SONG has topped the Red Smed  'You Tube' playlist, now reaching an unassailable 323,867 plays, which is more than Gary Barlow put together.

Red Smed explains. "I keep saying , it's because people think they've found the Red Army choir version. "

This certainly explains the next song on the list too. 'Katyusha' is also big with communists scouring the net for songs with a big anti fascist history so it must be an extra special pleasure when they accidentally stumble across Red Smed playing it in the style of Hank Marvin.

Red Smed continued "It probably isn't 'that' welcome a surprise. Theyre probably angry as fuck."

However, with 5,739 plays it's a long way behind the dizzy heights of the Partisan Song. But, oddly not so far behind 'Leon Trotsky', currently on 4,118. Finally a self penned song ! So to what does Red Smed attribute this?

"Well, people probably trying to find a website about Leon Trotsky is my guess" He hazards a guess.

But how could this be the case with the next song on the list, the celebrated  1980 Dangerous Brothers hit "Secret Seven" . Actually, by this stage it was pointless asking as it was all becoming pretty obvious......

Here...notwithstanding...is the full list...which...if you want to influence the running order...you can click on and listen to.....

Song	Artiste	Composer	Dec-14
Partisan song	Red Smed	Trad	323,867
Katyusha	Red Smed	Trad	5,739
Leon Trotsky	Red Smed	Smedley	4,118
Secret Seven	Dangerous Brothers	Smedley	1,762
Route 666	Club Whoopee	Trad	1,177
Bridgwater	Red Smed	Smedley	1,015
Me and My Clone	Red Smed	Smedley/Newman	929
Fat Bald Dave	Red Smed	Smedley	683
Drop Dead Darling	Red Smed	Smedley/Kane	586
I'm Too Fat to Rock	Red Smed	Smedley/Newman	570
Ello Ello Ello	Dangerous Brothers	Smedley/Newton	534
County Councillor	Dangerous Brothers	Smedley	505
Bohemia Sekt	The Visitors	Bartlett	423
Buddy can you spare a Dime	Club Whoopee	Trad	375
False Nose	Dangerous Brothers	Smedley	356
Party at Brians	Red Smed	Smedley/Beasley/Fraser/Bruce	353
The Internationale	Red Smed	trad	300
Swedish Language yeh yeh yeh	Red Smed	Smedley	292
Rock n Roll Lizard	Club Whoopee	Smedley/Newman	276
Do the Washing up	Red Smed	Smedley	280
When Teddy’s Gone	The Spanners	Smedley/Vernon	268
The Magnificent Several	Red Smed	Trad	262
Don’t be so bloody Miserable	Red Smed	Smedley	253
Rock n Roll is Pretty Exciting	Red Smed	Smedley/Beasley/Fraser/Bruce	230
Greed	The Sedgemorons	Smedley	212
We’re all going Shopping	Red Smed	Smedley/Kane	173
Multifreight	Red Smed	Smedley	159
I Need a Girlfriend	The Sedgemorons	Smedley/Beasley	155
Stogumber Cajun Gumbo	Red Smed	Smedley	119
Bonny Van Driver	Red Smed	Smedley	107

THE SEDGEMORONS- Who,What and Why.......

Back in 1984 the Sheep Worrying organisation had run up a £1,000 debt trying to keep it's alternative listings magazine going. To save the project the editorial team formed a band. The idea was to do cabaret songs for money and give all the money to Sheep Worrying to pay off the debt and thereby keep the magazine going.

The Sedgemorons played a few cabaret gigs , quickly got bored of that and then started writing their own songs sending up bands that were playing cabaret gigs - especially themselves, brought out an album "We're Bonkers" (September 84) and a single "Drop Dead Darling"b/w "I Need a Girlfriend" (april 85) and while they were at it wrote a stage musical "Rock n Roll is Pretty Exciting".

The premise of the Musical was that Rockin Brian, an intensely tedious brummie car park attendant (Brian Smedley) was going to have his car park re-developed into a 'disco' and so needed, in true Cliff Richard fashion, to get 'the kids' led by the sickly sweet and naively hopeless Bobbie Bland (Lianne Bruce)  on board to help him save it. In true Yul Brynner style they rounded up a possee of gunmen to help them save the car park. Ghenghiz 2-Stroke (Stuart Croskell) a pretentiously abstract poet with a  penchant for Johnny Cash songs, Bing Beasley (Gareth Beasley) an over exuberantly anarchic nutjob and Betty Bonkers (Anne Dixey) a rebellious feminist housewife .

The single -Drop Dead Darling (Kane/Smedley) was backed up by 'I

Need A Girlfriend'(Beasley/Smedley) and featured Bing on lead vocals and improvised scat singing with Bobbie and Betty on backing vocals, Ghenghiz on bass and Smed on twangy lead guitar.
Also featured were Nervo on drums and Barry 'Bazza' Thompson on whistled intro and outro and sax solo.

The record was played on John Peel and reviewed in Sounds by punk poet Seething Wells and the band went on to tour extensively before knocking it firmly on the head in January 1986.

A freshly unearthed video forms the backing for the remastered (not really) song and is taken from a BBC2 documentary about the Bridgwater Arts Centre which featured the Morons rehearsing in an upstairs room.

"UKIP are a Bit Daft" : Red Smed the man not afraid to tell it like it is

It might just be the prospect of celebrity right winger Jim Davidson winning Celebrity Big Brother that makes me think the whole countries going to hell in a reactionary handcart, but why is this happening, why do more people vote for un-reality shows than in a general election, why do people vote for UKIP, a party with no policies just knee jerk midnight internet chatroom ranting and most importantly why aren't Hope Not Hate outside the Big Brother House with their placards instead of picking on some Hungarian Nazi whose got every right to stand on the streets of Britain  spouting bigotry. How else is he going to blend in!!

So it's high time for an in depth look at whether UKIP are a decent normal party contributing democratically to the ongoing debate on Britain today, or if in fact they're a bunch of nutters. Research over, they're clearly all bonkers.

Bonkers

UKIP had a candidate in the last election (yes, here in Somerset) who was filmed apparently doing a Nazi salute. His defence was  that he was impersonating a pot plant. So that's alright then.

One UKIP Councillor thought that MPs voting for same sex marriage has caused the floods. Presumably God has now smote down with a mighty wave the Moorland gay communes engaging in their debauched green wellied multitudes. Oddly, in their own heartland...we have 2 out of 6 UKIP MEPS in the South West and 3 UKIP County councillors in Somerset. Presumably God doesn't have his sat nav set to 'Gay Finder General' at the moment.

But no sooner has Farage suspended one UKIP foot in mouth job than another appears. So now its UKIP financial backer Demetri Marchessini buying an advert in the Telegraph to tell people that Homosexuality is an 'abomination' and there are '12 mentions in the Bible to prove this'. This is the same 'expert in gender politics' that a year back advocated giving unwed mothers 'a good slap' and that date rape allegations 'cannot be taken seriously'. At least they've got their best men on the job.

Digging up King Dick

Which brings us to Godfrey Bloom another 'voice of UKIP, now suspended'. Bit's of Africa he can't bring himself to identify are called 'Bongo Bongo' land, women he can't find a place for in his hierarchy of morality are called 'sluts' and a journalist who points out racial inequality in UKIP publicity material is called 'racist' and then physically hit with the UKIP manifesto. You'd have thought at least Godfrey would shut up. But no, now he's guest speaker at a Oxford Union debate (..er..why??) and likening a disabled student to Richard III. Fortunately, his victim David Browne turned the tables on his taunter by saying "he was flattered by personal attacks from his opponents as it just demonstrates they have run out of arguments."

Nutters

Which is of course the whole point of this. UKIP don't have any arguments, any policies or any points to make. They just have votes. They have nutters. Yes. So they have votes for Nutters. That should be their campaign slogan. But people vote for them. Not for their policies - they don't know what they are. "DO something about immigration". They don't vote for their candidates. They're nutters. But they get millions of votes. Basically they're the angry, bitter, midnight chatroom crusaders who finally have a voice. It's not a sensible voice and like the level of their arguments in the chatrooms of smalltown papers all over the land, they fit whatever they're thinking it might be all about into their own version of reality. It's a kind of engaging with the democratic process of sorts....so long as you include wrapping a turd up in newspaper and posting it to someone you don't like in that.

One day to go....HOPE NOT HATE, get your act together and stop Jim Davidson winning Celebrity Big Brother...this could be a Cable Street moment!!!


If Trotsky was alive today we know exactly what he'd be saying (apart from 'oww my fucking head!!) it'd be UNITED FRONT NOW.

RUFTY TUFTY WORK SONGS OF LIFE ON THE ROAD

Being a horny handed son of toil and a muscle bound donkey strangling hunk of a district councillor, Red Smed has dug deep into his archives and come up with a couple of modern day work songs recollecting his hi-octane life on the roads , pavements and soft grass verges  that IS van driving.

In the depths of Thatcherite repression, Smed worked for the evil Multinational parcel delivering mega-corporation 'Multifreight'. For 13 weeks then was sacked. Ostensibly for wearing IRA badges while delivering to a nuclear power station. Since blown up. 

Smed recalls "I was delivering to Oldbury in Gloucestershire and my mate Dave had bought me a James Connolly badge for my birthday but this eagle eyed security guard spotted it and imediatly realised that my plan was to occupy Stroud Post Office and declare independence for Wessex launching our new fledgling Socialist Republic   in the blood of her martyrs."

Dave, a bastard, remembers it differently. "I just wanted to get him sacked".

Ignoring plain facts, Smed continues, "With 'Multifreight' the tune is lifted from an IWW song about hauling timber somewhere in America that I read about on my mothers knee. She used to write political history on her knees with a felt pen. It may seem odd now , but most of the family did that. But this was in the days before computers, books and television. Lyrically the people are real but I've kept their names instead of making them up so that they can track me down and beat me up".

Having been sacked from Multifreight, Smed couldn't get work for 2 years in the Haulage industry as he was blacklisted by the 'Economic League' who had him down as a 'raving communist' and 'a bit of a twat', however, after changing his CV hobbies and interests to 'Liking Margaret  Thatcher' and 'Thinking of ways to maximise the profits of hard working bosses' he got a job at NJ Singletons where he was the sole workforce under 2 bosses. "This seemed an odd arrangement" Smed ponders    " as their day seemed to finish at 9am and then I did all the work for the rest of the day. But I was just glad to have a job, especially one so important to the health and well being of the Nation as delivering plastic plumbing pipes , vanity units and toilet seats. Without me what would the arseholes of the Nation do!!"

The song 'Bonny Van Driver' tells of Smed's near death driving escapades working for Singletons, and the transport cafes he was compelled to use several times a day. The song is based on a Scottish coalmining song  and is naturally sung in a ridiculous Scottish accent "..to emphasise the horror Dick Gaughan would feel if he ever heard it."

"One of the features of this song is the authentic bagpipe playing in it. The entire Highbridge Bagpipe and Communism Collective  managed to fit into Monkton Heathfield studio, but I was so appalled by the averageness of their performance that I overdubbed them on my melodica. So that's another thing that Sooty can stick up his arse."

'The Internationale' out on 'You Tube' for Easter

In a cynical attempt to try to get as many you tube hits as his version of 'The Partisan Song' (currently on 300,000) Red Smed has now put up his 30th you tube link to a former recording by one of his shit bands.

"This time it's that old classic 'The Internationale' " said Red Smed , taking a break from overthrowing capitalism to buy some jaffa cakes from Lidls.."a song which of course has been sung by Stalinists and Trotskyists alike with absolutely no sense of irony or unity. I thought maybe Ed Milliband would like to try it."

Smed had noticed that 'the Partisan Song' has received so many you tube hits "probably because people are looking for a different version and stumble on this one by accident. So by picking an equally famous song i reckon people will probably do the same."

A totally irrelevent photo of  Red Smed in a scene from a
not connected play back in the pointless 1980s 

The song was recorded at the Monkton Heathfield studios in  2002 and features Smed as both Hank Marvin  AND Jet Harris, reprising the verse melody on lead guitar and then on echo laden 6-string bass. The chorus was sung by Elaine Di Campo in 3 part harmony. Smed says "Sadly when the guy mixed it down he had never heard the original 'Internationale' and so didn't know which of the 3 melodies was the lead...and so got the wrong one. That may be why some people won't recognise it."

Rare CLUB WHOOPEE recordings unearthed

Sunday 25th 1983 (as my diary NOW tells me...) saw a one off recording session by a one off version of the band CLUB WHOOPEE at the Milborne port studio in Dorset.

The studio was booked from 11am to 7.30 in the evening and 3 Kim Newman/Brian Smedley songs were recorded.

The first track 'Brazil' had already featured in the musical 'The Gold-Diggers of 1981'-script & lyric by Kim Newman, Music by Brian Smedley, starred Kim on lead vocals , the second 'Philadelphia Cheese' had Lynne Cramer singing and the third track 'Rock n Roll Lizard' had a host of guest celebrities .

The music for the day was exclusively down to Brian Smedley - playing guitars,bass and keyboards and Kevin 'Nervo' Freeman on drums. The lead vocal was shared between Rob Hackwill and Brian Smedley with Lynne Cramer, Kim Newman,Kevin Freeman & Eugene Byrne on backing. Opening dialogue is by Dean Skilton, beach party back chat from Lynne and Eugene and Vincent Price fade out from Kim.

There's an odd 4 note Dali-esque sax flourish at one point from a girl called Sian (who we never saw again) but who also played clarinet on Philadelphia Cheese.

The other odd note I have in my diary is that I stayed on to mix down the session and hitched back through the night to Bridgwater....one lift being in an ice cream van....but life was THAT exciting in them days.