The Major, ex-military strategist and circus entertainer. Brought up near Pitchley West Yorkshire in one of last surviving welsh speaking village. His brother, Sir Charles Bascomb toured the world with their Morris Dancing Rock n Rock band. The band were a long time feature in the hills of Yorkshire, regularly playing Bryan Ferry's mobile casino and niteclub.
Internationally recognised in this world and the spirit Domain by illuminaries such as Alvin Stardust, Chuck Berry & Hank Williams. The Bongoleers retired after 8 years of hard show business to pursue individual projects such as Filthy Turd, The Incredible Niblo & The Whistlin' Arseholes
The Bongoleeros are HOT PANTS MANIACS Live in Manchester, 2006
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Influences
Hasil Adkins, Alvin Stardust, Charley Feathers, Ectoplasm, The Sonics, The Fugs, Chuck Berry, Roxy Music, Speaking to voices beyond the grave, The Epileptics, Markos Vamvakaris, Hank WIlliams, Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, Dock Boggs, Doris Wishman, The Monks, Roy ORbison, Bouzouki music, Arthur Brown, The Incapacitants, Sam n Dave, The Musical Lynn Twins, Thundercrack!, Missy Elliott, Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads, Glue sniffin music, Stooges, The Child Molesters, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Jerry Lee Lewis, Butthole Surfers, Electric Eels, Captain Beefheart, Little Richard, The Groupies, The Cramps, Wanda Jackson, G G Allin, Sherry drinking in the park, Coffin Joe, Carl Perkins, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Bill Plummer & the Cosmic Brotherhood, Peter Singh the Singing Siekh, Smut, Booze & THe Coconut Dancers of BACUP Lancashire,
Sounds Like
The Bongoleeros however seems to be something different, with
band member names such as The Coconut Lady, Bogo Island, Bogo Yobo and Bogo
Hobo. Although there seem to be more Bongoleeros dudes involved. This weird
performance/improv collective sparked my interest through their website. What
you get here is 15 minutes of a live set from them. It starts out with some
death vocals and frantic screams and shouting. Song titles such as "Lick
Your Plate Clean", "Pee My Pissy Dream" and "Coconut Ladies
Revenge", they probably messed up the whole damn club. This is not harsh
noise but rather a band that plays fucked up sicko improvised music. Sometimes
funny to listen to, but most of the time just fucked up. For anybody into the
weird and the useless... [Ray Kluze]
FASCINATION AND FEAR
Ah! The Bongoleeros.... When asked to write this brief introduction I initially
thought of dada, performance art and the deconstruction/reappropriation of rock
'n' roll. Fuck that. There's nothing contrived or high-brow
about these freaks....
Bongoleeros are a rock'n'roll band who play songs about creepin
and a-peepin, sing homages to the sweet voice and filthy mind of Hank Williams
and perform downright righteous versions of Chuck Berry classics.
I'm not sure how many people are involved. They're a mysterious
group. They have names like Barry Island, Bogo Yogo, Peepin Tom Bogal,
the spirit of Chuck Berry, The Coconut ladies, Judge BongoWrongo and The Creeper,
perhaps alter egos of two or more people. The first time I saw them there were
three, last time there were only two. I'm not sure they were the same
people, it's hard to tell behind the masks and balaclavas. Maybe the third
member is in prison...
Even their product is mysterious. Grainy videos of hillbilly woodland stomp,
rumoured recordings based on "powerless electronics" and "remedial
ecstasy" make up their hard to find output. Easier to come across are
their now legendary live performances - a band possessed by the voodoo spirit,
instilling excitement, fascination and fear in audiences, promoters and venue
owners alike.
Maybe people go to a Bongoleeros concert with the hope of danger, perhaps with
the same fascination that causes motorists to slow when there is an accident
on the other side of the central reservation. Fuck that too. I say "WHAT
ABOUT THE MUSIC!"; stripped down b-movie rock; roll
delivered with the energy and conviction of people whose lives depend on it.
And they wear good shoes and shirts.
Alright!
Tonkin Honkin Hank, Live from the Spirit World A spiritualist communion with Hank Williams featuring special guests Milovan Srdenovic (Smell & Quim) and Mike Flower (Vibracathedral
Orchestra) Self released CDR,2005
Exit Zero, Compilation
Dead Mind Records CD, 2004
Skullface and Doggin' live at Denton Res Split CDR with Fckn'Bstrds, Holland 2004
Creeping, Crawling, Screams of the Undertaker Live in Newcastle, also featuring Filthy Turd and Romance
Voltagestress*r CDR, 2004
Not easy to find the right words for 41 minutes of noise. Filthy Turd and Romance sounds like a nuclear storm or like a monster modem. So only noise...instruments? I don..t believe this. Bongoleeros play music without any rythm:-) and with not normal instruments. Live recorded in mum..s kitchen?:-) No but in Newcastle in England 2004.
Only for friends of disaster because this is too crazy for all other. Are you hard enough?
PS: for a better describe for this music go to the offical homepage of Voltagestress.
h.ORSEc.OCK-666.1: V/A: A HUNG LIKE A HORSE?! COMPILATION CDR VOL.1
W/ LUASA RAELON, POP CULTURE RAPE VICTIM, REALICIDE, BONGOLEEROS, KEYBOARD MASTERS, THE CHERRY POINT, TWODEADSLUTS ONEGOODFUCK, ESCAPIST, MAIM, 16 BITCH PILE UP, SIXES, 2673, KNIFE CITY, ROESING APE, AGIT8, JASON ZEH, OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN, YES COLLAPSE, ROXANNE JEAN POLISE, MIKE SHIFLET, GRAHAM MOORE, NKONDI, & WETHER
Remedial Ecstasy
featuring Phil Todd (Ashtray Navigations)
Self released CDR, 2004
It doesn't come as a surprise, then, that Remedial Ecstasy's twenty one tracks sound like damaged ethnological tapes of some future race's religious rites involving ten squealing pigs and an oscillation kit. That's a good thing -- while it's crusty, antagonistic and mean-spirited on first listen, the disc isn't a dry academic exercise or a struggle through incompetent jams, but a tinny collection of spirited noise-punches that lay on the experimentalism thick without losing any fervor in the process. "Demagnetise Your Brains" makes its stock-footage-meets-free-improv point in just under two minutes, mixing crowd sounds, cheap tape manipulations and who-knows-what-else in a stuttering free-for-all that sets the reckless pace and crooked atmosphere for the rest of the album. Both "Fighting Talk" and "Nerve Scales" turn in temporally unaltered jams that last just over a minute; the first is loose, electric, and punky, and the second wheezes along to out-of-tune pump organs and a thudding Kraut beat. At any other point on the album, the Bongoleeros can be heard kicking trash cans ("The Coconut Lady Sings"), howling deliriously ("Marked by the Stain of Bogo"), shredding their own sound with rudimentary tape manipulations ("Wrong Is Right") or heckling a live audience with "Bogo"-preaching anti-statements ("Greatest Balls of Fire"). But wherever they are, you can be sure they're not stiff or pretentious; in spirit, the Leeds, UK-based Bongoleeros reflect their free-folk brethren across the Atlantic in terms of laid-back passion. At the same time, none of the tracks on Remedial Ecstasy are alien to ideas of thick texture and complex execution -- enough is going on here to give fans of Wolf Eyes or early Komische a pretty decent headphone workout. Splendid
Ape of Junk
Self released CDR, 100 copies, 2001 featuring Phil Todd (Ashtray Navigations)
oTo tape 49
Fencing Flatworm Records, 2001
Cassette, 50 copies
