The Bonzo Dog Band

RELEASE
1992
LABEL
EMI Music Distribution
GENRES
Pop/Rock, Comedy Rock, Song Parody, Psychedelic Pop, Psychedelic, Comedy, British Psychedelia

Album Review

Four-CD box including all five of their albums and various non-LP singles, rarities, and solo efforts. Of most interest to anyone who's enough of a Bonzo nut to invest in this, naturally, are the rare items, which comprise about half of the third disc (which also includes the Let's Make Up and Be Friendly album). There are the two 1966 singles for Parlophone, predating their first album, which find them at their most 1920s vaudevillian-influenced (even on the cover of "Alley Oop"). "Mr. Apollo" appears in its German version (which actually isn't German, except for a spoken passage by Vivian Stanshall), and its non-LP B-side, "Ready Mades," is a gentle folky tune that sounds like a Keynsham outtake. There's also one early solo item apiece from Vivian Stanshall (his 1970 single "Labio-Dental Fricative," on which Eric Clapton plays), Neil Innes (his 1974 single "Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues"), and Roger Ruskin Spear's "Trouser Freak" (from his 1971 EP). As an extra incentive, there are also lengthy historical liner notes. For all its length, however, it doesn't have everything by the Bonzos: BBC sessions are on Unpeeled, outtakes and rehearsals on Anthropology, and the 1966 outtake "On Her Doorstep Last Night" is on the By Jingo It's... British Rubbish compilation.
Richie Unterberger, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Cool Britannia
  2. The Equestrian Statue
  3. Jollity Farm
  4. I Left My Heart in San Francisco
  5. Look Out, There's a Monster Coming
  6. Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold
  7. Death Cab for Cutie
  8. Narcissus
  9. The Intro and the Outro
  10. Mickey's Son and Daughter
  11. Big Shot
  12. Music for the Head Ballet
  13. Piggy Bank Love
  14. I'm Bored
  15. The Sound of Music
  16. We Are Normal
  17. Postcard
  18. Beautiful Zelda
  19. Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?
  20. Hello Mabel
  21. Kama Sutra
  22. Humanoid Boogie
  23. Trouser Press
  24. My Pink Half of the Drainpipe
  25. Rockaliser Baby
  26. Rhinocratic Oaths
  27. 11 Moustachioed Daughters
  28. Hunting Tigers Out in "Indiah"
  29. Shirt
  30. Tubas in the Moonlight
  31. Dr. Jazz
  32. Monster Mash
  33. I'm the Urban Spaceman
  34. Ali Baba's Camel
  35. Laughing Blues
  36. By a Waterfall
  37. Mr. Apollo
  38. Canyons of Your Mind
  39. You Done My Brain In
  40. Keynsham
  41. Quiet Talks and Summer Walks
  42. Tent
  43. We Were Young
  44. Joke Shop Man
  45. The Bride Stripped Bare by "Bachelors"
  46. Look at Me, I'm Wonderful
  47. What Do You Do?
  48. Mr. Slater's Parrot
  49. Sport (The Odd Boy)
  50. I Want to Be With You
  51. Noises for the Leg
  52. Busted
  53. My Brother Makes the Noises for the Talkies
  54. I'm Going to Bring a Watermelon to My Girl Tonight
  55. Alley-Oop
  56. Button up Your Overcoat
  57. Mr. Apollo
  58. Ready-Mades
  59. The Strain
  60. Turkeys
  61. King of Scurf
  62. Waiting for the Wardrobe
  63. Straight from My Heart
  64. Rusty (Champion Thrust)
  65. Rawlinson End
  66. Don't Get Me Wrong
  67. Fresh Wound
  68. Bad Blood
  69. Slush
  70. Labio Dental Fricative
  71. Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues
  72. Trouser Freak