Title: Bad News - Still Funny
Tags: Bad News, Funny
Blog Entry: BAND : Bad News LINE UP : Vim Fuego (aka Alan Metcalfe) - Lead-vocals, Lead-guitar Den Dennis - Rhythm guitar Colin Grigson - Bass guitar Spider Web - Drums REAL LINE UP : Adrian Edmonson As Vim Nigel Planer As Den Rik Mayall As Colin Peter Richardson As Spider GENRE : Heavy Metal,Comedy FORMAT : Bootleg Tape 1986 TRACKS : 01.Tommy Vance Introduction 02.Band Arrive On Stage 03.Fuck Off And Burn 04.You Are A Shit Audience 05.Vampire Spunk Merchants From Hell 06.Bitch Hell Mother 07.Motorbike 08.Warriors Of Ghengis Khan 09.Bad News INFO : MYTH : The band first appeared in 1983, when they toured the UK for free. Hardly anyone attended these shows, but the band still landed an appearance on Channel 4’s TV-show "The Tube".Sadly a fight between band-members broke out, on-camera, and the band split up right after. The band reunited in 1987, when they were offered a record contract with the independant label "Frilly Pink", a gay label most renowned for their discoreleases. The band recorded one single for the label, "Warriors of Ghenghis Khan", before they were sold on to EMI (Every Mistake Imaginable), a major label renowned for almost having turned The Beatles down. The label released the bands debut album, "Bad News", in 1987. The band appeared at the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington that year. Their set was cut short when the band was attacked by fans (fans of Heavy Metal, not fans of Bad News) on stage. Apparantly bandleader Vim Fuego had made some remark about being the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix, which incited the riot. The intire band was hospitalised after the riot, but in December they were back on the road. They were supporting Motörhead, on a national tour, in the wake of their first hitsingle, "Cashing In On Christmas", recorded, produced, and released by EMI, almost without the bands involvement.They also gigged with Iron Maiden for a charity show for Clive Burr,jeff Beck played with them as well! Vim appeared on a childrens tv show talking about the “Heavy Metal Lifestyle” and then the band split up again.Their final appearance was on the Comic Relief '89 show, where only Vim, Spider, and Den turned up. Colin couldn't be bothered! The lack of decent Heavy Metal instruments prevented them from performing on the show. INFO : FACT : Hiding behind the stage names of Vim, Colin,Dennis & Spider, were: Adrian Edmonson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer (hot of the success of The Young Ones), and Comic Strip writer, producer and director Peter Richardson. All four had worked together at the Comic Strip stage shows in the early 80's, and had by 1983 got a deal to make a series of films for British TV. Bad News was almost instantaniously a cult hit, both amongst comedy and metal fans.What we had here was a surprisingly realistic portrayal of a Metal band anyone remember the NWOBHM band Tooth and their legendary drunk tapes (1979-1982). Bad News then found themselves in the position of actually being a real band and what followed was appearences on Wogan,Tube,Top Of The Pop’s etc as well as 2 albums (the first of which featured Queen’s Brain May and John Deacon and a sample of jimmy Page from Whole Lotta Love).Playing the Donington Festival was a dangerous choice,although set up by Chanel 4 it was a serious music festival.Sharing a bill with legends Motorhead, Ozzy Osbourne and Def Leppard. Rik and Ade later went on to bigger sucess with the tv series Bottom,this lead to the Cd reissue of the first album and a best of compilation with some (but not all) of the second album titled Bootleg. (Information courtesy of Ye Mangled Mynde's Blog)
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