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WHO THE FUCK WERE THE BLOW MONKEYS AND WHY DOES "SHE WAS ONLY A GROCER'S DAUGHTER" ALWAYS COME UP WHEN I'M SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING ON AMG?

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I (very vaguely) remember one of their songs being on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. And the lead singer looks like a first-class ponce. Were they any good? And why the hell do they always come up when I'm searching for stuff on AMG?

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 30 September 2002 00:59 (twenty-three years ago)

OK, just looked at the AMG write-up for She Was Only a Grocer's Daughter. Title apparently a jab at Margaret Thatcher, and the poncey-looking lead singer had very strong lefty views. And the music is described as a late-eighties blue-eyed soul sorta thing (like Style Council? Spandau Ballet?)

I still don't get why they always come up on AMG whenever I'm looking for information on, say, The Teardrop Explodes or Echo and the Bunnymen. And while hating right-wing assholes like Thatcher is always a plus, the lead singer still looks like a ponce.

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 30 September 2002 01:03 (twenty-three years ago)

That single "Wait" with Kym Mazelle = classic. Reference to sax players in band name = dud.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 30 September 2002 01:06 (twenty-three years ago)

My only memory of the Blow Monkeys is of this one page of an L.A. Weekly from 1986, which had the following as a sample of shows happening that week:

* Sonic Youth and Saccharine Trust at the Roxy
* Guns N' Roses at Bogart's in Long Beach (the night before Jack Mack and the Heart Attack)
* and a HUGE AD for The Blow Monkeys, playing at Six Flags Magic Mountain

Other than that, I remember "Digging your scene".

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 30 September 2002 01:31 (twenty-three years ago)

they were awful, i'm basing this on their one song that made it in new zealand, called "it doesn't have to be that way", which traumatized me as an eight year old.

― di smith (lucylurex), Monday, 30 September 2002 02:43 (twenty-three years ago)

You were secretly looking for Zappa porn, weren't you Tad?

I recall the "Digging Your Scene" song, but that's about it.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 30 September 2002 02:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Nicole knows me too well! ;-P And "blow monkey" does sound suspiciously like a Zappa song-title, yes?

Interesting that "blow monkey" means "sax player." I kinda thought it was some sort of reference to cocaine or something. Actually sounds kinda racist to me (to the extent that lotsa sax players were Black, though there was that [white] greasy sax player from the Eighties but he looked more like Conan the Barbarian dipped in melted lard).

Still, doesn't anyone else think that it's odd that a pretty mainstream Eighties pop group would always come up as "similar/related records" when one is looking at, say, Smiths records or JAMC records on AMG? It isn't as if the Blow Monkeys had anything in common with those guys, except that they were all Brits (I guess someone at AMG thinks "eighties Brit act not well known to Americans" are all samey-same to us Yanks?)

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 30 September 2002 03:14 (twenty-three years ago)

The bass player was a ponce as well (silly hat and bodily movements).

― David (David), Monday, 30 September 2002 08:31 (twenty-three years ago)

That's nothing. AMG also suggests that Kate Bush fans give GG Allin a try.

― Captain Sleep (Captain Sleep), Monday, 30 September 2002 08:41 (twenty-three years ago)

seek the BM's 'La Passionara' for a tasty slice of Balearic cheel

― blueski, Monday, 30 September 2002 11:27 (twenty-three years ago)

That's nothing. AMG also suggests that Kate Bush fans give GG Allin a try.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

― g.cannon (gcannon), Monday, 30 September 2002 12:10 (twenty-three years ago)

The Blow Monkeys' singer, Dr. Robert (not a qualified GP I'll wager), became a cohort of Paul Weller and joined his live band for a time. A bit like those fellers out of Ocean Colour Scene now. Dr. Robert and Weller, along with Billy Bragg and the like, were active members of Red Wedge - a failed 80s lefty, awareness-increasing "youth movement".

― Dr. David Jackson, Monday, 30 September 2002 14:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Dr Robert also tried to make a comeback in 1996 jumping on the Wellah "Stanley Road" era style - failed dismally obv

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Monday, 30 September 2002 17:21 (twenty-three years ago)

That's nothing. AMG also suggests that Kate Bush fans give GG Allin a try.

Yes, indeed they do (said suggestion in relation to Ms. Bush's The Sensual World).

Now, if only some evil motherfucker at AMG would suggest that Tori Amos or Fiona Apple fans give GG Allin a try ...

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 30 September 2002 20:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I saw the Blow Monkeys first London show (or at least an approximation thereof). At the Clarendon, supporting... it was a reasonable Laughing Clowns pastiche, OK enough for me to pick up their debut single, the name of which escapes me, for 30p from Berwick St market. I hear that later they turned terrible.

Laughing Clowns, of course, are simply almost the finest (most danceable, vibrant, passionate) live band I ever saw.

― Jerry (Jerry), Monday, 30 September 2002 21:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Let us now praise Ed Kuepper.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 1 October 2002 00:36 (twenty-three years ago)

five months pass...
Blow Monkeys' used to be a racist Australian term for Aborigines, apparently.

― Gatinha (rwillmsen), Friday, 21 March 2003 13:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I always thought it was the specially trained chimp that retrieves the bands coke from the van after the show.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 21 March 2003 15:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was the oral sex chimp?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 21 March 2003 15:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I pondered that possibility as well, but I decided it was too horrifying to contemplate.
Shit even GG Allin wouldn't want a blowjob from a chimp. Have you see the teeeeeeth on a chimp.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 21 March 2003 15:29 (twenty-three years ago)

You need a geriatric toothless chimp (mmmm smooth)

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Friday, 21 March 2003 15:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Eeeeuuuuuwww! Eeeeuuuuuwwww! Bad Mental Image! Make IT STOP!

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 21 March 2003 15:48 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...
REVIVE!

THE Blow Monkeys were GRATE! They deserve their own thread, with a nicer title than this one. I never quite figured out what "Diggin your scene" was about. For a long time I thought it was about being gay, but seeing as Dr Robert apparently isn't, then maybe not.

YEAH, he was poncey but THAT'S NOT SUCH A TERRIBLE THING. In fact, he looked GRATE. Overlook the shoulderpads and just dig the cheekbones. So pointy.

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

i quite liked them. for a bit. then not so much. then not really at all.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 08:34 (twenty years ago)

I saw one of Paul Weller's first solo gigs, after he split from "The Paul Weller Experience" (did they carry on without him?) and Robert Howard (for it is him) was the support act.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

Dr. Robert is still going, here and there. Some of his solo stuff isn't bad. He's a very nice gentleman, too.

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 09:33 (twenty years ago)

I liked their Thatch-bashing choons: "Celebrate (The Day After You)", featuring Curtis! Mayfield!, which was optimistcally timed to coincide with the 1987 general election (except, of course, she won again). Also "Choice?", from 1989 I think. And yes, Robert Howard & Kym Mazelle's "Wait" was indeed a marvellous piece of poppy Brit-house. They weren't bad live, either. I remember a bass player with ginger mutton-chops and a bowler hat.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

http://www.drrobert.net/photo_library/turtleneck.jpg

http://www.newwavephotos.com/LloydCole/19840626_022LloydCole.jpg

― as, Wednesday, 19 October 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

it doesn't do the cheekbones justice.

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

He looks like Lloyd Cole there, a bit.

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

Lloyd Cole there looks like Bam Margera. A bit.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

eight months pass...
These dudes early stuff was okay, no? Got an urge to hear 'Wildflower' right now. Sort of lazily lounges around in a vaguely sleazoid and slightly fruity Lou Reed-ish way. Nice record to hear when you're drunk in the afternoon.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:09 (twenty years ago)

'Digging Your Scene' is the shit.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:11 (twenty years ago)

..aw they were fantastic, and they were cruelly robbed of the number one spot in the 80s poll because people voted for everything else of BIAS, yes that's it, BIAS.

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:22 (twenty years ago)

"Digging Your Scene" cropped up in the soundtrack to the recent BBC adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's The Line Of Beauty, n'est-ce pas?

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:48 (twenty years ago)

I got an EP of songs that mostly sound done by different bands, one of the best ones is this sort of cod-raggae thing with robotic singing. It's pretty great. Then I got "Grocer's daughter" and didn't like it so much. Goota dig those out & hear them again.

― -rainbow bum- (-rainbow bum-), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

"Digging Your Scene" and "It Doesn't Have To Be This Way" were both great singles. Everything else I've heard by them is rubbish though.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 17:59 (twenty years ago)

seven months pass...
I still love the Blow Monkeys. Dr Robert originated from Australia. Theres not much info on them. I love 'Sweet Murder' & think they were way under rated. Can't pronounce his R's too well and more interestingly is a self confirmed masochist! Listen to the lyrics...wonder if the rest were?

― Pablo (Pablo69), Friday, 26 January 2007 22:49 (nineteen years ago)

I liked "Wait" and "Choice", their two flirtations with deep(ish) house music.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 26 January 2007 23:22 (nineteen years ago)

seven months pass...

I am listening to "Digging Your Scene" right now. Just so you know.

― the next grozart, Thursday, 20 September 2007 22:40 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

Who knew?

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 22 April 2009 14:53 (seventeen years ago)

wowzers

http://www.theblowmonkeys.com/storage/post-images/rhythm-festival.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1236838375836

though I would probably enjoy the fuck out of an A3/Alvin Youngblood Hart bill so who knows?

― butt-rock miyagi (rogermexico.), Wednesday, 22 April 2009 15:00 (seventeen years ago)

Gandalf Murphy and the fucking what?

― Enemy Insects (NickB), Wednesday, 22 April 2009 15:01 (seventeen years ago)

I think they're Shamwow guy's old backing group

― snoball, Wednesday, 22 April 2009 15:03 (seventeen years ago)

three years pass...

Blow Monkeys - Classic

― mr.raffles, Sunday, 2 September 2012 03:20 (thirteen years ago)

twelve years pass...

Just played "Springtime for the World" and found myself wondering what Dr Robert's current existence looks like?

(I can't imagine him managing to tour his hits and his new stuff in a Lloyd Cole sort of way).

Alcohol and tidying shelves might have a part in this thought.

― djh, Monday, 21 April 2025 18:04 (one year ago)

for years I thought the line in "Digging Your Scene" was "I need a bourbon and friend."

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 April 2025 18:08 (one year ago)

lol @ thread title. was this like when now on letterboxd if you misspell a search and it can't find anyone with the name they just put Nolan and Spielberg as the search results?

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 21 April 2025 18:10 (one year ago)

Going back to my question, I'm less fascinated about this than "What does David Sylvian's lounge look like?" But, also, trying to work out where the Blow Monkeys ended up ... sort of culturally ... compared to, say, Martin Fry (who I'm guessing makes enough money).

― djh, Monday, 21 April 2025 18:33 (one year ago)


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