The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (more often the Bonzo Dog Band) was the brainchild of the British art-school set of the 1960s. Part jazz band, part psychedelic rockers, the Bonzos came to the attention of a broader British public through a children's television programme, Do Not Adjust Your Set. In the spirit of their origins, they were originally called The Bonzo Dog Dada Band. Bonzo was a popular British comic strip character created by artist George Studdy in the 1920s.

The band was founded by two dada enthusiasts, Rodney Slater and Roger Ruskin Spear (a descendant of Victorian literary giant John Ruskin and son of the British artist Ruskin Spear). Roger Ruskin Spear specialised in the manufacture of early electronic gadgets/objets d'art and sound-making systems. Also from art school came the two main songwriters in the group, Neil Innes piano/guitar and Vivian Stanshall, trumpet (as well as other wind instruments, including belly wind) and vocals. Others from art school included "Legs" Larry Smith, drummer, dancer and chanteuse and others listed in "The Intro and the Outro" below.

Although they started out playing jazz, they changed their style of music from jazz to rock in order to counter claims that they were beginning to sound like the Temperance Seven . In fact, a former member, Bob Kerr went on to create his own band Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band which combined the lunacy of early Bonzo music with music which did in fact have a great deal in common with the Temperance Seven .

They appeared on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's show notable for having several future members of Monty Python's Flying Circus and David Jason in the cast.

Their first album Gorilla included "Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold" which savagely parodied their early 'trad' jazz roots and featured some of the most deliberately inept jazz playing ever recorded. "The Intro and the Outro" in which every member of the band introduced and played a solo, started with genuine band members:

Hi there, nice to be with you, happy you could stick around.

Like to introduce "Legs" Larry Smith, drums

And Sam Spoons, rhythm pole

And Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, bass guitar

And Neil Innes, piano.

Come in Rodney Slates on the saxophone

With Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax.

I, Vivian Stanshall, trumpet.

before including such improbable members as:

Say hello to big John Wayne, xylophone

Looking very relaxed Adolf Hitler on vibes

Eric Clapton on ukulele (it was actually Clapton playing),

Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion.

Rather wild, General! Thank you, sir.

Roy Rogers on Trigger (sound of flowing liquid).

They had a hit single in 1967 with "I'm the Urban Spaceman" which was produced by Paul McCartney under the pseudonym "Apollo C. Vermouth". The Beatles were great fans of the group and they featured them performing the song "Death Cab for Cutie" in The Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour. Their anarchic song "Trouser Press" -- featuring a solo by Roger Ruskin Spear on a genuine trouser press he had fitted with a pickup -- gave its name to an American anglophiliac rock magazine. "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?" put the needle to the British blues boom and tap dancer/drummer "Legs" Larry Smith was an onstage hit with his lubricous dancing. Another notable number, "Humanoid Boogie" clearly presaged rap music. See roots of rap music. Of their many songs parodying parochial suburban British attitudes, arguably the best was "My Pink Half of the Drainpipe" on the album "The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse", whose lyrics were printed in minuscule fluourescent pink type on a generally grey background, with amazing consequences for the reader's eyes.

Other favourites from the album Keynsham (1969) were "We Were Wrong", starring Rodney "Rhino" Desborough Slater ("Rhino", seemingly because of his facial skin) and including the inimitable lines "I'm going to rhino all over your lino, I'm going to rhino with you ... In all kind of weather, we'll rhino together, we'll keep rhinoing through" and "Tent": "I'm gonna get you in my tent (tent, tent), where we can both experiment (ment, ment)...".

The band appeared at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival .

The Bonzos toured the United States with The Who and also appeared at the Fillmore East with The Kinks. Their stage show was true to the dada spirit, with Stanshall doing a mock striptease and Roger Ruskin Spear with a platoon of robots, including one that sang "I'm forever blowing bubbles" while actually blowing bubbles. "The Canyons of Your Mind" features the worst guitar solo ever recorded.

Neil Innes, an accomplished song-writer, comedian and occasional radio performer, went on to feature in the second Python film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, playing the annoying minstrel who serenades "Brave" Sir Robin with tales of his cowardly exploits. He also created and performed in the Beatles parody project The Rutles (the "prefab four") with Python alumnus Eric Idle.

Roger Ruskin Spear continued as a performance artist with his robots in a show called Kinetic Wardrobe. A feature of this was a tailor's dummy fitted with proximity switches, which produced increasingly high-pitched screams when his hand approached its tits.

Vivian Stanshall performed the only vocals on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells and later featured in a number of cult films and comedy albums; among his creations was his classic parody of British colonialism, Sir Henry Rawlinson. Stanshall might well have become a major force in British comedy, and among his his many friends, colleagues and admirers were the Pythons, Steve Winwood (they co-wrote songs on Winwood's album Arc Of A Diver), Captain Beefheart, Stephen Fry, Keith Moon and Eric Clapton. In later years Stanshall succumbed to depression, exacerbated by chronic alcohol and prescription-drugs abuse. He became increasingly reclusive in the last years of his life and died tragically in a house fire in 1995, aged 51.

"Legs" Larry Smith toured with Clapton and Elton John and can be heard tap dancing on John's "I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself".

One of the Bonzos' song titles, "Cool Britannia", was revived as a label for a supposed trend in the UK media following the 1997 election of a Labour government (oblivious of the patently satirical intent of the original song). This alleged trend was seen by many to be a symptom of political spin, possibly intended to boost tourism to the UK.

Their line-up varied, sometimes on a weekly basis and a list (although incomplete) of members would include: Vivian Stanshall on trumpet, "Happy" Wally Wilks, Tom Parkinson, Chris Jennings, Claude Abbo, Trevor Brown, Tom Hedge, Rodney "Rhino" Desborough Slater on saxophone, Eric Idle, Neil Innes on piano and guitar, Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax, Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell on electric guitar, Mike Oldfield, Eric Clapton on ukulele, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Martin "Sam Spoons" Ash on the rhythm pole, Leon Williams, John Parry, Raymond Lewitt, Sydney "Big Sid" Nicholls, "Legs" Larry Smith on drums, James "Jim Strobes" Chambers, Bob Kerr , Dave Clague, Joel Druckman, "Borneo" Fred Munt, Chalky Chalkey, Dennis Cowan, Aynsley Dunbar on drums, Jim Capaldi on drums, Anthony 'Bubs' White on guitar, Andy Roberts, Dave Richards, Dick Parry, Hughie Flint and Glen Colson.

Discography

• Gorilla
• The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse (a euphemism for a toilet built in a back garden)
• Tadpoles
• Keynsham
• The Beast Of The Bonzos
• Unpeeled
• The Peel Sessions
• Cornology
• Let's make up and be friendly

See also

The Alberts