Half man Half biscuit: OPO-line

"Pfaff and Bats and Joseph Antoine-Bell"

mine? hmmm, so many to choose from but probably:

"Lazy greedy farmers, pick your own strawberries"

cos it mentions Tarkus. I like them best when they're just stringing phrases together rather than making jokes, I think.

"Inspired by no-one, other groups bore us / How can you say we sound like Frazier Chorus?" because my brain starts singing it during 50% of band interviews I read.

What song is it from though, I forget and I'd love to download it.

(i have heard v.little by either of them - but one bit of a macc lads song has stuck in my head for about 10 yrs due to
- very catchy tune
- very sick humour lyric)

i was in a band once who supported HMHB
(this is a long long time ago......)

when Nigel figured out i was the bassist he spent at least ten minutes going 'NER NER NERNER NER.....go on, what fall bassline is that then...eh? eh?'

it was great.
(i got about one right)

"if i had agoraphobia / and i had claustrophobia... trapped / inside my porch..."

I fancy I'll open a stationers, stock quaint notelets for weekend pagans, "while you were out at the rollright stones, I came and set fire to your shed"

Close runners up:

"They declared their love in a hot air balloon and got married on a Caribbean beach"

and

"Every time you're by the lake you're bound to hear 'Careful now, that swan could break your arm' "

As a kid this line puzzled me for years, and still does!

I have decided next year I am going to call my fantasy football team that.

Dawn: "WHAT?"
me: "urr, you had to be there I guess"

"Well I heard a lovely rumour,
That Bette Midler had a tumour,
So gleefully I went to tell my friends.
But they said it was a lie,
That she wasn't going to die,
And by the way, have we got news for you!"

comes pretty close

In fact pretty much the whole of Look Dad No Tunes is brilliant.

thou my fave ("In fact pretty much the whole of Look Dad No Tunes is brilliant" is a rather OTM statement) was quoted up thread.

http://s30.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=32AJ8E54R0W9Z2RJNZO1N2BH27

New album out at the start of September as well, entitled "Achtung Bono".

HALF PAST FOUR? HALF PAST FOUR? YOU SAID HALF PAST TEN TO US!!!

Ah, that is different!

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. It goes on for two hours because we've got a new Moog."

This is so true.

Currently:
"If it's her desire, I'll put my fingers in the fire / 'Cos I've got Joy Division oven gloves"

I saw them the other month and Nigel preceded Vatican Broadside with a rather lovely version of Laughing Len Cohen's Hallelujah. There was also a bit of The Mercy Seat in the middle of 24 Hour Garage People.

the best HMHB lyric is whichever one you're listening to at the moment

Possibly the most OTM thing in the history of ILM.

If you're going going to quote from the Book of Revelation/ Don't go calling it the "Book of Revelations"/ There's no "s", it's the Book of Revelation/ As revealed to St John the Divine

Is your child hyperactive or is he just at twat?

I don't know what to do/ I've only got three bullets and there's four of Motley Crue

NICK FUCKING KNOWLES!

... and a pulled up at Bangor-On-Dee

Sometimes instead of Arthur Lee/ I'd much prefer some Arthur Lowe

We all new somebody at primary school who had a very powerful magnet

See also Mary Hopkin/She must despair

xpost

"I've died and gone to hell, and then I've fallen through a trapdoor and landed on planet progrock"

"I asked if you would like to go along to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show/ You said you'd love to, so I murdered your family, because I hate the Rocky Horror Picture Show/ Besides, I'm going browsing around hardware shops"

'you're optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead'

'with my rugby shirt signed by justin hayward, i will rule the world....playing risk'

"It fills me with joy to see moshers out jogging"

"I can put a tennis racket up against my face and pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki"

Look, my favourite song by them remains the one that caused me to fall in love with them in the first place "Reasons To Be Miserable". That doesn't mean I have a ready handy one-line quote from them, take pity on me, I'm an American. Thanks.

the best HMHB lyric is whichever one you're listening to at the moment.

This is true. I thank the people on this thread for giving me the joy of listening to all the albums again for two days straight.

I just wish they could be like the Bonzos and have some kind of random mega hit single and make LOADS AND LOADS of money. Like what they deserve.

"If you're going to quote the Book Of Revelation, don't go calling it the Book Of Revelations."

I just wish they could be like the Bonzos and have some kind of random mega hit single and make LOADS AND LOADS of money. Like what they deserve.

Nigel made enough money from that BP advert. Something like 100k.

BP Advert? Do tell!

One of the BP adverts from the turn of the century (01?), the voiceover artist was Nigel Blackwell, for no real obvious reason. I think it was just someone in advertising was a massive HMHB fan and decided to get him a big payday.

ah right! Nice one, advertising person!

There's an interview during one of the Kershaw sessions where Nigel says as long an album every couple of years is enough to keep him going. I'm assuming Neil does something else, since he didn't get a BP payday.

So I borrowed 'Four Lads...' and 'Voyage To...'. 'A Country Practice' is indeed masterful.

"In the kingdom of the blind they say the one eyed man is king
In the kingdom of the bland it's 9 pm on ITV"

"The Y is for Yate, the kind of town that referees come from."

"Deck quoits with the French trance vets, come one come all"

"A woman who described herself as 'a little bit Bridget, a little bit Ally, a little bit Sex In The City' and chose to call her baby boy Fred, as a childishly rebellious attempt at a clever reaction to those who might have expected her to call him Julian, or Rupert. Bit of advice: call him Rupert. It fits, and besides it's a good name. Don't be calling him Fred, or Archie, with all its cheeky but lovable working-class scamp connotations, unless you really do have plans for him to spend his life at William Hill, waiting for them to weigh in at Newton Abbot"

Well today I knocked upon their door
And said that I was passing,
And charlie launched a scathing attack.
When I asked him what I'd done, he said
"You stupid bastard! We live in a cul-de-sac!"

No relationship to this thread at all, I'm sure:
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/staff_top_10/top-ten-half-man-half-biscuit-lyrics.htm

I could have put my head in a bucket full of porridge and moaned about the hospital parking scheme.
I would have saved £14 that I just splashed out on your second album.
Cause thats what its akin to, and further more...

You've got a shit arm, and thats a bad tattoo

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002L581I.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

holy fuck i picked TWO of dom's top 10

psychic shit g'wan down here

Dudes need a new album out asap

I've actually decided that my favourite thing about "The Referee's Alphabet" is the wistful harmony of "Wouldn't it be fun...if they gave the ref a gun", over the outro.

New album "early 2008", including the track "Bad Losers At Yahoo Chess"

anyone heard their recent Marc Riley session? or sharing it on slsk?

didn't know about that, but I'm hunting for it now.

Very much looking forward to new album, it's about bloody time.

Also, gig in striking distance of London please

since they never play over here, heres Irelands HMHB tribute act

http://www.halfarsedhalfbiscuit.com/

which album should I get first?

All of them.

Although if you have to get just one, go with 1998's "Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral", and work backwards and forwards from there.

session

I've got six of them, and they're all magnificent. I wouldn't describe this as my sort of thing at all on paper, but matches are never decided on paper, are they? Stick it on...a combination of deep-ingrained folk/church/terrace tunes, slyly intelligent (sometimes downright unpredictable) song-structures, and above all the best lyrics money can buy whisks you away into a place where England is a bit shitty but hey at least there's a lot to laugh at and besides you'll always find something to warm your heart. Listening hint: take each album in one whole go. You'll understand what's going on far more quickly.

I'd argue that of the ones I have, Trouble Over Bridgwater is the most wonderful. It's close, though.

Man, just listening to "Totnes Bickering Fair": "I want a suntan/Not Vashti Bunyan"

I don't actually have that song. Albums I got are

Back In The DHSS
Trouble Over Bridgwater
Achtung Bono
Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral
Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road
Cammel Laird Social Club

Favourite line atm probably a toss-up between "Chris De Burgh Sun Ra Del Amitri John Coltrane" and "I picked up all the elastic bands dropped by the postman on my driveway and took them up to the pub on a Thursday evening cos that's where he likes to go for the quiz. He believes he is needed for the music round; his friends obviously humour him. Anyway, I place myself at a nearby table and whenever he tries to light up a cigarette I fire it out of his mouth with one of the elastic bands, which he finds most annoying...most annoying."

anyone think the newer stuffs better then the old stuff? sorry i know thats a horrible cliche...all their albums are great cept for 'mcintyre, treadmore and davitt' btw. fave is 'cammell laird' which just about edges 'trouble over bridgewater' (the 1st hmhb i heard)

MT&D is great! Outbreak of Vitas Gerulitas and pragvec at the melkweg are cracking

HMHB are better as a folk act than as a quasi-punk act, this is true

For a month I went all floppy just to see where I'd end up
The morgue was my considered guess, or maybe Martinique
Instead I stayed exactly where I was and suffered endless Feltz

What, only one line? Oh. Er... Love Froth Tuesday, Lime Sky Spooky Pills, or thereabouts, thanks.

Oh! Lovefroth Tuesday already claimed (but no Lime Sky Spooky Pills, guess I got the order wrong). Uh... "we'd better let him in, he's got a theremin"

the Brampton session on the hmhb websitre is a good 'un, especially the 24 hour garage party people with added hal an tow and especially there stands the glass

'corgi registered friends' drips with so much anger. but its like yknow really really really funny and stuff. hmhb are offically my fave band. god i love em.

also to reiterate doms statement new album now!

also the version of 'no regrets' is getting a lot of play too.

Look Dad No Tunes is still my favourite

Could anyone please re-up that Riley session, please, please, please...

HMHB are better as a folk act than as a quasi-punk act, this is true

hmhb top 10

faithlift
fear my wraith
the light at the end of the tunnel
24 hour garage people
corgi registered friends
a country practice
all i want for xmas is a dukla prague away kit
depressed beyond tablets
four skinny indie kids
turned up clocked on laid off

(hon mention)
i, trog
deep house victims minibus appeal
dickie davies eyes

Okay I will have you ILMers know I still have the bloody Len Ganley stance on LP. So get out of my way.

Deep Blue, in 1997 I voted for you, as Sports Personality of the Year

I ring up Dial-A-Pizza and say “That’s not how I’d spell Hawaiian”

Final decision, the best line from the new album is:

"Paris Fashion Week caught me off-guard/ I was busy with trellising the yard"

"I'm going to feed our children non-organic food and with the money saved I'll take them to the zoo."

Brickbats for Sottsass/Bouquets for the chuckling footstool

This works for a while, but then I encounter Primark FM

He'd only been locked up for public nuisance offences, one of which saw him beachcomb on the Dee estuary, found a dead wading bird, took it home, parcelled it up, and sent it off to the rubber-faced irritant Phil Cool, with a note inside which read "Is this your sanderling?"

Need to give the full verse of that:

I try to put everything into perspective
Set it against the scale of human suffering
And I thought of the Mugabe government
And the children of the Calcutta railways
This works for a while
But then I encounter Primark FM

"C is for the continual criticism i receive from the touchline. Get back in your technical area."

"But he also gave us Lionel Bleurggggghhhhh"

"a no-rosette situation for Mr. Galbraith"

"You come on like a dream, Julian Bream, lips like David Vine,
When a sneeze doesn't come,
I look up to the sun, and I praise him for making it shine,
Yesterday Matthew I was a Factory completist,
But tonight Matthew I'm gonna be with Jesus"

Timing..

David Vine RIP

How long before everyone mentioned in HMHB songs is dead?

Flip N Fill better watch their backs.

Is this the first computer game to quote HMHB?

Revive, because I still can't listen to Breaking News without laughing out loud at "Lisa Riley", also that bit Louis quoted upthread about little bit Bridget, a little bit Ally...waiting for them to weigh in at Newton Abbot.

I have zillions of HMHB on my iPod and I have been listening to little else for days, to the puzzlement of anyone sitting near me on a bus. The randomness of "not long now until lollipop men are called Darren" set me off yesterday. Is anyone going to see them in Glasgow?

"Fresh Broad Beans And Aubergines"
Euphemisms Audrey, euphemisms.

is probably my favourite HMHB line. It's the absolute peak of one of their best numbers. The scansion and delivery are perfect and in the context of the song, which deals with the conflict between paranoia and parochialism (a common source of humour for them) it hits the perfect blend of mockery and affection for both of those unfortunate states.

From the new album;

"There’s a girl I’m told who rolls her eyes / at the Gok Wan acolytes"
"Put the wrong bin out on the / wrong day again"
"And know Chesil Beach is far away in time"
"A jar of language pills"

and the whole of the National Shite Day MkII that is "Rock'n'Roll is full of Bad Wools" about the complete muso c*nts that appear on "Soccer AM"

"But then disastrously / they ask him casually
“You come from Leigh-on-Sea, Do you ever get to Roots Hall?”
which to him means fuck all
Can only look askance / And cast a sideways glance
Could use some help with this / But Heston’s gone for a piss"

Oh, and "Tommy Walsh's Eco House" ....

"Sixteen teams are taking part
Sixteen camps of hope
Some contain top, top players
Some are just a crock of shit"

Have a very soft spot for their purely bucolic lines, like

"Please don't tell me what you think while I tell you about
the copse that I retreat to where I'm hemmed in by the larch" (Numanoid Hang-Glide)

"When my grave's waist-deep in meadow grass" (Malayan Jeulutong)

"yet by the stream in summertime
The charming lark, the country chime
Smite this faithless pantomime.
Welcome to the daylight at the back of my mind" (Even Men with Steel Hearts)

Other than that, I find it hard to improve, just as a line, on "deck quoits with the French trance vets". It expresses balance of word weight and selection and meaning that wouldn't be out of place in Wallace Stevens, but is only the furthest extension of something Nigel does all the time. (You get something similar on Tommy Walsh's Eco-House - The elements of whimsy and his encyclopedic knowledge of all minor celebrity allow a flexibility to put words together for the pleasure of their sonic and cultural poetic adjacency.

I'm not sure I find them funny that much, although they certainly put a smile on my face. More important to me is the way they're able to transform domestic misery and forlorn love into things that are not entirely fucking awful, which really they are most of the time. For this alone I am thankful every day for their continuing existence. The quality of their anger is, I suppose because of their defences of love and kindness, also amongst the most satisfying and righteous I can think of.

All that said, I think my favourite line from the last one might be 'Iguana Andy and his... iguanas'.

Also love the great exposition of that specific time of night that is contained in the line "But when it's too late for drunks, and too early for milkmen, give me the moonlight, give me a spade".

also "Break out from grouting, Willie, lay down your puzzle, Jan."

And all of Fix It So She Dreams of Me, especially:

"And she lives somewhere you wouldn't want to get stuck
That can't be found in the Domesday book
Cromwell's troops never billeted there
Dick Turpin never had Bess shoed
Where this girl, i'm told, rolls her eyes at the Gok Wan acolytes"

"Hey, where did that bloke go who said I was vital? "

new one out, tomorrow is it?

i got so enraged by a v irritating gig (the fans not them, but they sort of encourage it) that I've been off them for a while now. Will obviously get this though.

stretching the definition of a line here, but w/e i can't go past.

"And then there’s the person who collects all things Pierrot and loves Siamese cats and
thinks they’re sophisticated ‘cos they eat Fry’s Chocolate Cream,
and they’d do anything to spend the night with that fella off the Turkish Delight advert who’s full of Eastern monosodium glutamate"

magnificent & otm fizzles post above. latest one is worrying though. embarrassing fans? o no

just a sort lumpen bloke culture, imago. it's tiresome enough when you encounter it out and about - a large number in one place chanting and it got a bit wicker man.

In bed again
Can’t be bothered getting up
Swing the lead again
I’m just waiting for the man
From Camelot
Telling me
That I’ve won the Lottery
Let’s trash
The Murder Mystery Weekend
Lets stage a couldn’t-give-a-thon
Summertime’s here
And I’ve got no hassle
I could be a goth
On a bouncy castle
Wouldn’t it be nice
To call off the Barn Dance
Wouldn’t it be nice
To sabotage the
Hot Pot Supper

it feels invidious to complain, but fuck it. this album is a bit of a bore. the dropping of parodic elements to their music in favour of fairly strate rockabillly/rock since Trouble Over Bridgewater hasn't been a problem with some a couple of excellent albums - CLSC, CSI: Ambleside, and the other ones have been good, with some excellent songs on. but this latest is very dull. the enjoyable dreary inventiveness of their early albums has been absent for a while. lumpen chantalong rock for the politically insular soft-wing lower league blokes who use irony-so-called to have their cake and eat it.

I, bloody quadhopper, shall be the judge of that ;)

fwiw I thought the last album was excellent and maybe a National Shite Day short of CSI:A

I was kinda disappointed w/ "Achtung Bono"

Excavating Rita MIGHT be NB's best melodic songwriting hour to date

Anyway, Tranmere might get relegated out of the Football League, Nigel will commit suicide and we can all move on

i never particularly liked National Shite Day (preferred Bad Wools for that template), but yes, some v good stuff on the last one - tho nothing to beat the righteous opening quarter on CSI:A. and would be interested to hear what you think of this latest - can't work out whether it's me or them, but i think they're too close to some fans, and not willing as a consequence to be more rebarbative. that could be completely wrong of course, born of watching the live dynamics between them and some fans who obviously follow them everywhere.

yeah I think I erred there - it has a (less lyrically poetic) Shite Day, but no Problem Chimp, no anarchic musical fuckaround that somehow completely works

Is there one on the new one that fulfils the Joyce -> Rita -> ? continuum of sublime ornate-songwriting genius?

The Bain of Constance feels like it should by name, but it's not really that sort of song. Hmm. Just had a quick review of the songs. 'No' i think is the answer.

think Stiperstones was the Problem Chimp on the last one - instead of gleeful chaos we get full-on mental breakdown, everything curdling to mania. Quite appreciate that.

Also, aw :(

Will review, though

Problem Chimp had those awesome rhyming couplets though

HMHB are the sort of band that encourage songwriting archetype trainspotting but maybe they really are changing whatever formula they may have had

Many laugh out loud moments abound.

I went to see them for the first time not too long ago.

Taking a good look around, I'm guessing it was like attending a real ale convention. Cruelly ironic

I wasn't too keen on the last album either tbh, loved "Ambleside"

The Bain of Constance feels like it should by name, but it's not really that sort of song. Hmm. Just had a quick review of the songs. 'No' i think is the answer.

― Fizzles, Wednesday, October 22, 2014 11:27 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Listening now and it's My Outstretched Arms obviously! :D

Almost TOO similar to Rita, but lyrically very strong. HMHB's romance songs are great

The Bain Of Constance, for its part, rips off Magazine's Believe That I Understand something rotten. Bad Nigel!

"Adam Boyle Has Cast Lad Rock Aside" rings very true re things like www.caughtbytheriver.net/

In Fizzle's bucolic vein mentioned above, I am very fond of:

"I wanna fly my biplane
Low over Swaffham
I wanna wave at astonished rustics
I’m gonna plead profitless chicanery"

yeesh, yerright FIzzles, this is pretty boring - will have to listen a few times, see if the lyrics sink in. So far I've only really been impressed with the first two and Arms - it's terribly frontloaded

last two tracks were ok to good

but yeah this is horribly frontloaded

Chipping in to agree violently. A very average record wig some obvious parody and self-parody moments - "as told to the boil on the cab driver's neck" turns up on two albums on the spin, the second time repeated on this with a tired-sounding "again" tacked on - provide a veneer attempting to give he listener the impression there's more, but I think that's all it is; a veneer.

Baguette Dilemma Is supposed to be The Birthday Party, yes? Nigel comes in all hoarse and says "a-whoopin' and a-hollerin' " which I'm certain is a Nick Cave lift, and the bass solo that starts near the end is supposed to be Tracey Pew I'm sure.

At this time of my life I have no need for a HMHB instrumental track.

Speaking of The Birthday Party I only just discovered this the other day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YeqJCcHY4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRtZDOqSk3A&feature=youtu.be

The entirety of Get Kramer

'OK, Let's pedestrianise the High Street!'