8.30.2005
An Exploding Seagull Speaks!
Scott
Thanks so much for your appreciation of the seagulls record on crud crud - which I came upon by chance when I was trying to pin down when something happened and the only reference point was the release of that single. And you're right - the punkalectuals wouldn't let the Exploding Seagulls into their classroom - we were obscure, idiosyncratic, idiotic and we had quite a good time! I would point to sugarshack records website which describes the seagulls thusly - 'Berserk art-college kids from Southampton, they became Peel favourites before fragmenting in a welter of sexual and musical differences. The guitarist hooked up with a couple of Art Objects and became the Blue Aeroplanes.'
For my sins i was responsible for bringing 'Johnny' into the world, or rather, reviving him, for the first line, 'Johnny runs for Paregoric' was found by my sister in a Victorian book - all i did was mash it up with 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' and, as you point out - stuck tongue firmly in cheek.
The band, initially was me on bass and vocals, Julian Chadwick on keyboards and shopping trolley (doubled as keyboard stand and transport) and Nick Jacobs on guitar and vocals. the 'Tony Orrell' you see credited was indeed a stand in drummer as George Martin wasn't sure that Ringo would be up to it. We sort of ballooned later with girlfriends joining as singers... we went through a couple of drummers until we found one who could drum..
Fried Egg was the home of Bristol weirdscapes and Ken Wheeler the house engineer at Sound Conception studios in Bristol.
We played some memorable gigs, john peel played our record(s) ..... what more can you want. Nick peeled off to join the Blue Aeroplanes, Julian went to live in New Zealand, I got hacked off and divorced and suddenly the Seagulls had exploded...... although not necessarily in that order.
I've kept on playing music in a number of different milieu - from rock to theatre to writing an oratorio and am just kicking off with a new band called 'throne above the stars' which is an attempt to recapture the bright elusive butterfly of psychedelia, chloroform it and pin it to the backside of the grinning donkey of rock.....
Great website - I'm going to try to listen to the show via the magic of the internet.
Regards... and thanks again.
Richard (The Former Republic of Fred) Bolton
Auntie Susan to me of course.
Chela
A big hello to Fred, and to Auntie Susan xx
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