Don't read any further! The previous Blog post aroused some interest. (Collector's item!). The lyric in " Sleep Town" mentions "Asthma Sunrise," who by dint of getting a song credit, became an alter ego and part of the BPS folk lore. "The Exploding Sheep" actually got a credit in 1978. Our vinyl album " Roll It Up And Eat It," claims to "feature" them! But they existed only in our minds!
I think it might have been Garsi who coined the actual name "Black Parrot Seaside"-but I'm not sure. We were mucking about with "good names for Bands" one day-way before we actually had a real one-and it was in a long shortlist. When we were youngsters we used to design imaginary Posters for these mythical bands and artistes. When we finally came to form a group-and whenever we felt perhaps the BPS brand needed revisiting-out would come the list. So we could have been any of these:
Asthma Sunrise The Sad Tree
Steel Sam Rabbit Basil
The Evening Rosebud Gravy
The Rose Tower The Magic Dog
Roneo Cheats Argohorse
Electric Friend Dry Riser Inlet
Big Wickerwork Penny The Thirsty Toy Dragon
The McClean Piece Kleefy's Metal Tent
Duckbuster Captain Reindeers Blues Band
Mustang Sponchy's Yellow Refrigerator
Brass Cottage Ernie Tree's Plastic Ranch
Mob Rule Lizardry
Helligan Ferry The Giraffe's Green Watch
Nightfighter Skybone
Ron Computer Bill Swarfega & The Zeniths
We Applaud Smoke The Wag of Shop 14
White Mathematics Brutus
The Lupin Who Became a Policeman
Mercifully, we weren't ever called any of those, although we were called a lot worse at one or two gigs! History shows however, that " The Wag of Shop 14" and "Brutus" eventually became songs on our set list. Orville Cosmo, Ted Explosion and Morce McCame also got some album credits.
Arnold was in Satin Pig and Milestones before he joined The Parrot. We have also actually appeared at various venues as "Buzzard's Luck" and "The Grit Tray." The Blog of course refers to another BPS Song-"The Bold Pirate," and if we ever had a Tour it might be "Mac Awe on Tour."
A few years back, along with a friend, we got very close to launching a new monthly Folk and Acoustic venue in Coventry. We had the room booked,in a big complex on a major bus route. We had a shortlist of artistes to be featured. The Residency and M.C. duties were sorted. Our own P.A. Great room, with its own separate bar, dispensing Real Ale. Lovely furnishings, Dance floor. We'd even done Sound checks. Excellent (free) parking. The venue were very excited about it-they still talk rather wistfully about how close it all got to actually happening. Trouble was...we couldn't agree on a name, and the whole project went Base Over Apex. ....Hang on...let me just write that down somewhere....
