Blogs from on tour with Mickey 9s

The following scribblings are extracts from the blog I kept while on tour with my techno-metal-funk band Mickey 9s.

Warning - may contain insanity.

The Year Leading Up to Recording Album:

What a year of merriment we had!

Festivals last summer were beltour. What can I say other than we all got pretty magoo and had a bajubble bluster? Musta seen Colonel Mustard and the Dijon 5 about 10 times and gotte see other wee beauties like The Girobabies and Hector Bizerk and that a bunch inawl. Sung on stage with a few of the above as well, invited and uninvited. Also fell over and knocked down the Girobabies’ guitar amps and then backrolled off the stage. Fell over during Mickey 999 at Doune the Rabbit Hole inawl, crashing over all the cymbals… but I never stopped playing the riff coz I’m a beast.

Lesson = neveralways drink a bottle of bucky before going on stage.

We got to play the Barras which was class. Backstage it was cool coz everything was pure shitey and hadny been changed since the fifties. Looking at the ripped leather couches you could just picture Pete Doherty smokin crack, David Bowie gettin a gammy aff a toothless East End hooker, and Bob Dylan reading his Bible. I checked down the sides of the couch to see if I could find any gear but then got para that I’d get jabbed by a manky old syringe and get Freddie Mercury’s AIDs or something.

Got down to England a few times inawl. Nae offense to anybdy from England but it is pure shite. I mean, the English are alright – honestly couldny say a thing against yous – but the country itself is shite. Don’t get annoyed at me, you know it’s fucking true. I mean there is just something pure shite about everywhere you go in England. In fact, if anything, the only good thing about it is the English who are usually a good laugh. And by English, I mean Northerners. Southerners are alright too once you get to know them. Don’t worry English friends, Scotland’s pretty pish inawl. Have you ever been to other countries? They are all miles better than Scotland and England. What we consider like a famous monument or a nice bit of landscape or a nice day, other countries wouldny gie two fucks about.

But! But, we have the best music and that is a fucking fact. Other countries’ music is usually pure gash coz they’ve got better things to do than sit inside a tiny garage and plink and plunk until youve got a tune. They can go outside and do stuff. In Scotland and England we are ugly, but we have the music.

So that’s why we’re recording our album. Coz music is all we got. We laid that bad boy down in two days, recording it live without a click track, like a band of motherfuckers. Ten songs in two days minus vocal stuff and shaky things and things that go ding, cowbells and that. Turns out it takes 4 months to record cowbell. Christopher Walken, why didn’t you tell us! Worst mentor ever.

To elaborate, the studio was destroyed in a storm (actually happened) and we were sittin on our arses without a clue how to finish off the wee annoyin extra bits of the recording. Luckily our producer, Stevie (Bendy Toy), let us use the shed in the back of his suburban garden, complete with seesaws and a sandpit, in Dalgety Bay, to record the last parts. He has a microphone and a computer in there: all you need…

We’re all crammed into this wee shed reading old Football sticker books while listening to Ross shake an egg into the mic, when the computer crashes. It crashes like Schumacher in the Alps. Fucked. We all head home downhearted and none-the-wiser as to why Bertie Auld only had three caps for Scotland.

Anyway after much deliberation and swearing we got stuff back on track and I was up til 2am last Monday in that shed in the snow recording the last wee keyboard bit. Two hour drive home in the snow, a car crashed in front of me, but I didne care coz I knew that if I died, the album recording was done and the lads could probably overdub any mistakes post-production and then we’d definitely be famous coz I was dead.

So album should be out May 16th. We’ve told the producer to turn up the bass drum. Should be good.

Notes from on Tour Ya Bass:

I have been a bad boy and now my body is punishing my soul.

Last week we went up to Dalavich on the sunny shores of Loch Awe. Middle of naewhere: totally brilliant location for a wee festival. The youngest person there was seven years old (her favourite song is Shark in the Water) and the oldest was eighty seven (his favourite song is Smack My Bitch Up). Almost everyone was jiving away to the Mickey 9s beat except those sitting at a wee table near the front: a group of happy pensioners. However, when I announced during the breakdown of “Annoni” that they were about to experience a good old fashioned 60s freak-out, the faces of the old yins lit up, and they all hit the dancefloor to boogie to the psychedelic guitar riffage. A guy in the crowd had brought a little drum with him and he was hammering away during our set so we just got him up on stage and he did an absolutely stellar job of keeping up with the band. Can”t remember his name, but Mickey 9s salute ye, random drummer man! He said he was in the Fridge Magnets but when we played with Fridge Magnets later in the week, he definitely was not in the Fridge Magnets. A weird mystery that will probably never be solved.

We then all got pished and stoned and jammed on acoustic guitars and talked about the evolution of language, the paragon of animals, the art of teaching, Scottish independence, good Englishmen, and other things which I forget. We watched the sunrise over the misty loch, played a game of football with a dog and a guy on a bike and fell asleep on a log on the beach. Woke up sunburnt to fuck.

The next day we went to Edinburgh to play at a wee festival in the Cowgate. Ended up back at my flat listening to New Orleans funk, African tribal music, and watching projected images of space while listening to the new Daft Punk album. We then watched an episode of Carl Sagan”s Cosmos and a documentary about deep sea jellyfish from David Attenborough”s Blue Planet series. Smoked a lot of reefer that night.

THEN me and Ants spent an afternoon drinking in his flat talking about music and listening to some of Scotland”s newest bands. Some were pretty good.

THEN I went to a rasta night and decided to get a rasta to play with us on stage sometime.

THEN I went to an illegal rave somewhere in the dark depths of Glasgow.

THEN I went to another illegal rave somewhere in the even darker depths of Glasgow.

Then I woke up and we were on stage in Kilmarnock playing the Dirty Weekender Festival with Fridge Magnets and a few other great acts. The banter was brilliant, perhaps aided by the generous rider of 70 cans of Dragon Soop. It is rank but certainly gets the job done.

I woke up today and watched a three hour long documentary about The Doors. Later I wrote a song about being a Scottish shaman.

Good times do roll on.

THEN...

Had this pure amazing gig in London and then the day after had this pure amazing gig in Edinburgh.

Train doon to the English capital: boozin. Arrived at midnight a wee bit inebriated so decided to go straight to Fabric and dance to some techno. Turns out kids don”t dance to techno anymore, they just sway to breakbeat, so I whipped ma tap aff and started showin the London hipsters how to rock it like a mad man. Went down well. Spent all my money on vodka but …

After club we got those bikes that are lying all around London and cycled the four

hunner miles back to our hostel at 5 in the morning – some laugh. Couldny find the bassplayer, Afro-Dave, but that”s par for the course on a Mickey 9s night out.

Woke up and went for a wee sojourn in Hyde Park and chased pigeons, laughin like a buncha numpties who”d never seen pigeons before. MILFs were tutting and moving children away from us.

Luckily we found some plastic swords and knight helmets in a tourist gift shop so the whole day wasn”t totally wasted. Ross the drummer wanted to go roller-discoing in Kensington but I managed to talk him out of it.

Next: to the gig in Brixton. WAS PURE AMAZIN MAN. We were supported by the shittest band ever called somethin stupid: but they introduced us to the wonderful cockney term “dry lunch”, meaning something bad, as in “that”s a proper dry lunch mate”, which was good.

Also supported by a brilliant band from Glasgow (Manganese) who were doin their last ever gig, and a professional violinist who played a few surreal and wonderful numbers.

Had a party wi some very lovely and frightfully posh Londoners afterwards – one informed me in the most upperclass English accent I”ve ever heard that he “once represented Scotland in the men”s coxless four at the Commonwealth Games”. Told the queen what we though of her in no uncertain terms early in the morning outside Buckingham Palace … stuck the vickies up at the Houses of Parliament and shouted abuse … canne remember much else. O yeah, some guy stoatin about shoutin: “Luton Town! Luuuuuuttttooooon Tooooowwwwnnn!”

Chunder time for early train to Edinburgh. At the festival we were on lastamost of the lastamost and somehow a crowd turned up after place being empty all day. Got home at 4am and was up for work at 7am. Overall: good times.

AND THEN...

Mickey 9s versus Peterhead away:

So we sailed all the way up to Aberdeenshire on a bright sunshiney day and went to the beach and ran across the sand-dunes and me and Ross had a handstand competition

which Ross won, and then we watched Scotland vs Serbia and watched Scotland flounder like a kipper on a North Sea trawler in a storm.

Then arrived in Peterhead. There are hunners of massive seagulls in Peterhead – if you look closely you can see people as well, sneaking across the industrial docks munching fast food, trying to hide from their seagull overlords.

We arrived at the venue and everyone was super friendly. The support act (The Ironics - were they only ironically shite?) played Radiohead and Stereophonics covers and Ants (who didn”t die by the way) started to go back into his coma. Fortunately, with the help of banter, we revived him and the gig went swimmingly, I even let some fans wear my mask of destiny.

Had a drink with some lovely locals but I didn”t understand a word they were saying because they spoke Doric which is a lesser-used language invented by Scottish oilworkers in order to talk to mermaids.

AND THEN ....

Mickey 9s attacked the Granite City:

Aberdeen.

Absinthe.

Heavy Metal.

Jungle Book thrash metal cover.

More Absinthe.

Germans.

Girl who has a sitar.

I can”t remember anything else.

Drove back and Dave went to work without sleep as per.

AND THEN....

Some say Liverpool is all werch werch werch, but for us it was all booze booze booze.

Drove down on Friday night at 90mph listening to gansta rap with the windays doon on the M6. Stopped at Charnock Richards Services for scran. You know yer in Engiland when there’s a place called “Charnock Richards”.

Stand out tune of the journey: that Notorious BIG song that goes: “Birthdays was the worst days, now we sip champagne when we’re thirsty”.

So then we get on it, upon it, the troops are on fire, dancin with the Scouse birds in

Heebie Jeebies listenin to New Zealand electronica and James Brown funky sheeiit. The Kiwi Calvin Harris guy (Pikachunes I think he was called) slagged off Liverpool FC which, despite his enjoyable music, I felt was a mistake. People chucked lit fag-ends at him.

Tune of the night: The Commodores – “She’s a brick … HOUSE! Ugh!”

Saturday went for a wee rehearsal in an abandoned warehouse near the docks. After a hungover shite in which I believe I lost one third of my total Body Mass Index in one foul blast, I was startin to feel the groove once again. I found a thing and tried and succeeded to dance to it.

At the outdoor stage, we met Lawrence = Liverpool Legend.

Bought a carrot for lunch (this was all I ate all day – in retrospect, a mistake).

Tune of Saturday afternoon: sections of the Mass, especially “I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry, you who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save”.

Next up, one of the best bands in the world today … it’s us!

HOACH!

Everybody is buzzin after it, the crowd were amazing!

We chat up some Hollyoaks actresses. Watch Champions League Final. Fucking Drogba! (some player but).

We get blootered with The Imagineers and go and see The Tea Street Band in a big warehouse somewhere. Pure fleein. Charles Charlie Charles was present, but I intelligently avoided his company. Trippy dancey gold. Big Dambo Roy, our manager, is out his ever-lovin tits. As am I. Pitch, the festival organiser, is a grandiose gentleman.

something …

Chip my tooth by headbutting a van.

something …

Use delegate passes to get into an aftershow

something …

chunder.

By the morning we’re world famous. And rrrrrrough in the jungle. We go to Crosby Beach to look at the statues in the sea. Ants gives one of the statues a blow-job, I get my cock out for a photo with one of them.

Our conclusion: Fuck art, listen to Mickey 9s!

Tune for the drive north: some terrible terrible shite by the Lou Reed and Metallica collaboration. It sounds as bad as we feel.

Feed the ducks at the Westmoreland Service station. Home for a Chinese and a wank.

Overall: absolutely fanfuckintastic times.

Some Interviews with the Band:

Would you care to introduce yourself?

Mickey 9s. Superheroes by day, funksters by night.

How would you describe the music you make?

It’s like funk, only funkier.

How did you start out making music?

It all started just after the war years, my brother Jimi was just back from the front and the family had little to share round the table; many folk forget that the rationing continued a long after the armistice. To provide for my family I decided to become a deep-sea marine biologist. I planned to rake in the riches of the briny deep. While out in my submarine I found a mask at the bottom of a sharp oceanic ravine. When I put on this mask, I formed the band that has been known ever since as Mickey 9s. The rest is ahistorical.

Where did you get your name?

“Mickey Novem” is a latin name for a rare sort of sea cucumber.

What process goes into the way you write songs?

We have two books. One, The Giant Book of Bass, t'other, Tupper's Book of Proverbial Philosophy. These are not e-books, nay, but pulpus veritas. While watching an episode of Planet Earth we each rip a page out of the respective books and eat it. Once this has been watered down with some buckfast, we begin to write songs.

What can people expect from your live shows?

Visions of a prehistoric future.

If it were all to end tomorrow, what would you say has been your greatest achievement?

Nutmegging Conor McNulty in P6 and then lobbing the ball over Ryan McEntee who was in goals.

AND another one...

Okay, you’re the Mickey 9s, how long have you been together?

Ross: Since school. We were all into different kinds of music. At first we were trying to rip off the Stone Roses, then we went to see Daft Punk and everything changed.

(This is where things get amazingly disturbed, and just plain weird) Right, your lead singer jaunts about in the most ridiculous outfit, but I absolutely love it. (The ‘outfit’ consists of trackie-bottoms complete with socks tucked in, a bright yellow t-shirt with the slogan ‘HOACHIN’ emblazoned across it, a leather jacket, renaissance mask, bucket hat, and some strange, perhaps leather, shoes) What’s it all about?

St. Cool: It’s not an outfit, it’s a uniform. The mask costs 500,000 Euros. It is made out of pure saffron (and that was before the credit crunch). I inherited it from my great uncle, he was an ancestor from France. And the mask was fashioned from an ox.

Can you get me one? No, okay then. If you had a time travel machine, and you could back in time, what would you do?

Dave: I’d patent Velcro.

St. Cool: I’d patent bread. There’s big money in bread.

Dave: I’d de-invent fire. I’d make left right, and right up.

And if you could go forward in time?

Dave: I’d find out what happened in the Never Ending Story.

Ants: I’d go forward in time and tell people who we are and to buy our EP. Our EP, in the future, it will be worth millions then.

Dave: I’d see if we got taken over by China. Either that or just simply into a vacuum of nothingness. Yeah, have a heat death through entropy. Or I’d go as far forward as I needed to go until they had invented a time machine that could travel back in time; that means I could just come right back to this moment, just before this question, like nothing ever happened.

Haha! So what are you’re songs all about? That Sprechen Sie Deutsch is admirably mental.

St. Cool: Just stuff we come up with when we’re drunk, or in the mood for being daft and that! You know, crazy thoughts, mad banter. Sprechen Sie Deutsch was written when I was on holiday, and there were two German girls on the beach who were absolutely amazing. I was out my head, and I heard the beat to the song in my head after hearing the words Sprechen Sie Deutsch.

So, what is the Mickey 9’s ambitions?

Dave: To batter Bono. And go back in time and de-invent fire.

Why do you want your fans to get from coming to see you?

Ross: So everyone can have a good time, a laugh, you know?

What’s you favourite lyric then?

Dave: You know that song that goes - ‘down/down/down/down/down/down/down/down’?

THAT.

SO what is the Mickey 9’s mentality?

St. Cool: BIG MAD MENTAL ORIENTAL.

[In unison, collectively]: HOACHIN’.

And your motto?

Dave: You can only fail if you try, so don’t try. DO!

Anything you want to tell your fans?

Ants: We will hoach you to smithereens.

Ross: Beware of the shadow beyond the dark.

Sum up the Mickey 9’s in five words.

St. Cool: We…Are…Quite….A…Good…Band. Shit, that’s six! Right, ummmm….

Dave:…Xavi, Iniesta, Messi and Puyol.

Thanks guys. This has been enjoyably weird. Finally, tell me something about the Mickey 9s that I wouldn’t know.

Dave: We’ve actually got our own festival. It’s called Super T In the Park. [everyone laughs] Wait, we’ve got a few more. There’s Stella In The Cellar. Oranjeboom In Your Room. And….ummm….Vodka In Your Maw’s Car!

Mickey 9s Fans

It appears Mickey 9s fans come in all shapes and sizes: from 3 year old toddlers dancing to Shark in the Water to 60 year old yins who say we remind them of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

Really, anyone can be a Mickey 9s fan, but on one condition: you have to be a little bit mental.

Let me give you an example of a fan we met after a recent Glasgow gig:

We had just came off stage and went outside for a smoke when a few guys came up to us to say they’d had a great time at the show. One of them kept on kissing and hugging me. He then told us how he got tickets for the gig:

He told us he was a mental cunt fae Kilmarnock but had moved to Southhampton where absolutely naebdy got his quality patter. They all just thought he was a pure mental cunt and naebdy wanted anythin to do with him. Jist went, who the fuck is this warmer, aways oot his nut an that, jumpin aboot like a pure fandan gettin mad wi it and that?

Well, in summation, the southerners just didne get the banter. So he was pure sufferin from good-chat-withdrawl symptoms down in olde engerland and his pal posts a picture on facebook of himself wearing the Mickey 9s mask, oot his trolley after a Mickey 9s gig. He was like that, I’m goin back tae Glesca next fuckin chance a get to see this band and have a good night out like the olden days. But first he had to go to sea for 6 months in the Philippines…

So he gets back from the Philippines, horny as fuck. Gets a bird lined up and that, but let me tell you, he fucked it. Pure overdone it tae fuck man. Was pure all excited, gettin his flat nice, tidying it up and puttin everythin in place and that, waiting for her to come over, but he fucked it. He was goin to see the Mickey 9s the night after and he was pure excited about it. He put on the ‘Thing to Try and Dance to’ EP and was jumpin about his living room dusting and that, jivin to ‘Find a Thing’. But he got too fucked. Drank too fuckin much man. Took too much charlie man. Was absolutely rat-arsed when she turns up. Couldne get it up. Three times. Tried everythin. Couldne get it up. Just kept on goin on about this band he was gonne see the night after. Playin her the tunes and that. Showin her the videos. Eventually just told her to go. ‘Am nae use to ye, hen. Am nae use.’

He didn’t blame Mickey 9s for everything. He realised it was at least partly his fault. But he did appropriate a portion of the blame on me, but nae hard feelins. We had made up for it with the brilliant gig. His best weekend in years. Southampton must be really shite. And the Philippines inawl.

When We Did Our Own Festival in an Abandoned School:

Well, Mickey 9 Stock was a blast. I”m trying to think how to best sum it up …

I suppose it was kind of like that film “School of Rock” except everyone was grown-up and it was rated 18 for drug references, nudity, and scenes of a disturbing, unsettling nature. Jack Black was the singer from Mickey 9s (me) and Mr Shneebly was Ants (the guitarist) and the hot headteacher was represented by all the hot birds that were there. The fat Chinese kid who plays the keys was actually there as a guest of honour.

Anyway, it was class and a massive thanks to everyone who was involved.

Next one, we're thinking will be in an abandoned mental asylum and will consist of live reggae, pool and ping-pong tables, rum cocktails, Mickey 9s, and a rave afterwards. All this still to be confirmed but we will keep you all posted, fan-dans!

Mickey 9s, over and out

From When We Ran A Clubnight Called “Hoachin”:

HOACHIN. (vb. [intrans.])

Hoachin: chiefly Mickey
|ˈhō ch ‘in|
verb [ intrans. ]
- to be extremely busy to the point of mass and riotous spontaneous enjoyment.
“That Mickey 9s clubnight was pure hoachin wi minge!”

verb (to hoach)
to funk your pants off
“We really got hoached by Mickey 9s last night!”

noun
the greatest clubnight known to mortals
“I’m gonne chug hunners a swedgers at Hoachin the night!”

ORIGIN
Old Scots: hotchin: seething with eagerness to do something. It is derived from the verb hotch in its sense of to fidget or be restless. The original meaning of the verb hotch is to move jerkily up and down, to bob up and down. It can also be used to mean to laugh extremely heartily.
Hotch can also be a noun with meanings corresponding to those of the verb, for example jerk, jolt, bounce. However, it can also be used of an untidy mess or state of disorder and it stays with its messy associations when it is applied to groups of sluttish woman.
As to its more ancient origin, the verb may have connections with Dutch hotsen, to jolt and German hotzen, to move up and down.
First recorded usage: King James Bible; Deuteronomy, VII, 34-36 ‘Thou shalt hoach thine enemy until he submits to the ways of the Funk’

HOACHIN. (as discussed in an Elizabethan poem)

He who hath no stomach for this clubnight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made,

And pounds for a taxi put into his purse;

We would not dance in that man’s company

That fears his fellowship to dance with us.

This night is called the feast of Hoachin.

He that outlives this night, and comes safe home,

With a box of chips, cheese and curry in his hand,

Will stand a tip-toe when this night is named,

And will rouse at the name of Mickey 9s.

He that shall drink this night, and see the DJs,

Will monthly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say ‘To-morrow is the Hoachin clubnight!’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say ‘These wounds I had at

Hoachin clubnight.’

He’ll remember, with advantages,

What birds he shagged that night. Then shall Hoachin,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Hoachin: the night out wi Mickey 9s, shall never go by,

From this night to the ending of the world,

But we that attend shall be remembered –

We few, we happy few, we band of clubbers;

For he to-night that drinks buckie with me

Shall be my brother;

And gentlemen in Glasgow who spent the Friday night in bed,

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That danced with us, here, at Hoachin clubnight!

The Mickey 9 Commandments

1) Thou shalt break it down
2) Thou shalt built it up
3) Thou shalt repeat
4) Thou shalt repeat
5) Thou shall not be boring
6) Thou shall steal
7) Thou shall not cross Ross
8) Thou shall not not octave leap
9) Thou shall freak out!

From When We Decided to Become Superheroes!

Rightio, here are our plans for superhero powers:

Dave: Is a sort of silver surfer character but not silver and he surfs on waves of cosmic bass funk. Also has an indestructible afro.

Antz: Has all the power of Mohammad and Jesus put together. He can turn water into wine and heal us when we’re injured. He can also make people blow themselves up.

Ross: Has the strength of one man. When he drinks Super Tennents he gets super strength. Sometimes he tries to save us by stopping trains and stuff but just gets crushed. He tries to lift stuff but we all need to help him. He dies in every episode like Kenny. (Haha Ross, drummers aren’t real musicians so you can’t be a real superhero! – even though you actually play more instruments than all of us).

Dougie: When he puts on the mask he becomes the object of everyone’s desire. However, it also has the side effect of turning him into a rampant funk demon.

An Email from a Fan:

“Hey Mickey 9s!

Discovered this vibrator for sale in the sex shop I work in that you can hook up to your iPod so it rumbles with rhythm.

For a bit of a laugh/craic/serious research. We set it down on the counter and played a few random tracks through it. Anyway, of all the tracks we tried, Mickey 999 worked the best. Now, admittedly, we didn”t put it to the actual “test” but I”m now able to advise customers that it works better with Glaswegian Funk than anything else!

Just thought the Mickey 9s would like to know!

Stephen from Dublin”

If our single sales go up in Ireland, we will know the reason why…

When Antz Died

Mickey 9s are (relatively) sad to announce that their guitar player “Antz” passed away this evening due to a severe wank-haemmorage in his right arm. As such we have grudgingly had to cancel our gig tonight with Queen Jane at the 13th Note, which we were pure lookin forward to inawl. Antz will be replaced on lead guitar by his younger brother “Ants”, who is one inch taller, slightly slimmer, and can finger pick and do “hammer-ons” which his former brother never managed to master during his short but self-induced-orgasm-full lifetime. Antz served us well in his day: he was late for studios twice, which was considerably less than bass player Dave, and equal to the attendance record set by drummer, Ross. He once claimed to have written the “choirboy” section of Japanese Bhoy – this is unfounded but Mickey 9s have decided to give him a writing credit for it on the album sleeve (not in royalties, of course). What else can we say about Antz? Antz once did a great “yer maw” joke … but I forget the context. Anyway, in his memory we shall all sing his teenage favourite, Sum 41’s song, Fatlip.

A Blog from Back in the Early Days of the Band When We Had Nae Pals:

I love watching, from behind the mic, barstaff stare across their empty bar, cleaning a glass, and smiling at the oddity that is Mickey Ninal funk. Sometimes they might even clap.

Soundmen on the other hand, never clap, which has led to the famous paradox: What is the sound of a Soundman clapping?

Soundmen, it is a well known fact, hate music, especially modern bands. But, all soundmen no matter how humourless or alcoholic, love Mickey 9s. Soundmen all across the central belt of Scotland meet up at some secret and dour Soundmen Society, or AA meetings, and discuss, while mawing rotten sauerkraut and listening to whitenoise, how they have all had private gigs performed to them by the funkiest thing since Welsh rarebit, a band whose singer wore a mask and danced and sung all the funkier to spite the empty venue.

They are astonished: “You too, my fellow grump, have heard of this legend, this band with no fans?”

“Yes, I hear they turn up in a flash of smoke at empty venues, where-ever crowdlessness is a guarantee, the Mickey 9s appear and fill the ghostly hall with unappreciated merriment!”

“Aye. I hear they are not really a band at all but the manifestation of dark matter made light and sound when brought in contact with an awkward vacuum.”

“Tis possible.”

“If Mickey 9s were to play a gig in the forest and noone was around to hear them, would they make a sound?”

The Soundmen contemplate this on cold, silent nights, when pish singer-songwriters play to their girlfriend, in an otherwise empty room. What if the girlfriend was to suddenly up and leave, perhaps bored by her boyfriend’s neurotic whining? What then? Would the Mickey 9s appear and hoach the vacuous venue, with wonder-working sounds? Would the Mickey 9s appear and vanish like a bolt of lightening in the eye of the storm? Who knows?

The barstaff clean the glasses smiling. They have seen the Mickey 9s before and they will see them again…

Mickey 9s Sleeve Notes - The Party Manifesto

Awright. These are our tunes and they can be your tunes too. Get in about it.

The Bass - Big Gay Dave

The Beat - Ross Ross Ross

Waka Waka - Antz

Dring Guitar - St Cool

Angelic choir - all of the above

Shamanic preacher and lyrical genius - St Cool

Engineer - Auld Duncan

Production - Stephen "Bendy Toy" Evans

Some samples of lyrical genius:

Find a Thing

Fkchkfindathingandtryanddancetoit

Fkchkfindathingandtryanddancetoit ...

Electric Eel

Is it the magic of a shaman or a totem that will make you real?

Electric eel is the foetus of my new soul that I keep with me to make me real

While I'm dancing with the shaman in the jungle at night.

Computer Inventor

He broke the Nazi cypher

He mastered the Enigma

He tapped the Algo-rhythm

Chemical castration

Shark in the Water

SHARK … in the water

But what is the shark symbolic of?

Ammunition

Kim Jong shags Saudi Arabian lassies and one of them tells him to nuke Saudi Arabia to kill her evil uncle but North Korea's missiles are so pish that they hit Mexico instead and Mexico thinks it was America so they invade Texas for the oil and this leads to World War III and then Christian fundamentalists nuke the world and it all ends in nuclear holocaust with only Mickey 9s left to funk it up in the rubble of an abandoned seminary.

Mickey 999

Who you gonne call Mickey 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999. And ghostbusters. (Fuck the polis)

Psycho Control

Fuckin yaldy. A psychopathic profile is the key to success.

Berlin

Graffiti on the wall says the Stasi's gonna call

Welcome to Berlin

Police patrol the night beneath the siren lights

In the city of Sin.

A guy makes a run for it

They hit him on the hip

They let him bleed and beg

Across the no-man's land the people make a stand

They say: Die Mauer muss weg!

Who won the 20th century?

In Berlin banging on the wall

In Berlin breaking it down

Christopher Walken

We will follow you, Christopher

We will march with you, Christopher

We will walk with you, Christopher

We'll knee before you, Christopher

Give us your holy signature

This is the revolution and I am the voice

Christopher Walken is the weapon of choice

Esta es la canción de la revolucion

Y nuestras armas de opción:

Christopher Walken

Icarus

The universe is also within us,

We are made starstuff;

We are a way for the universe to know itself ...

These are the stars

Billions and billions and billions and billions …

So we live our lives around the sun

In a satellite

We call it home

Big cheers:

Damian "Dambo Roy" Beattie for never growing up

Raymondo Rigster for livin the dream

Big Jim Stewart for the comics and the patter

Damian's pal who had the yacht

Barry Conan for that guitar tone

Anton Slavin for being Antz's evil twin

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo for the ecstasy

Underground Glasgow techno for helpful brain damage

Colonel Mustard and the Dijon 5 for making music to party to

Stephen Evans for the shed rave

Matt Carroll for his portraiture of the well-to-do

Aw the lassies