Record Collector no. 183 article by Danny Barbour
November 1994

Short Takes

NEIL INNES

In the wake of EMI's "Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues" retrospective, Danny Barbour Reviews Neil's thirty-year career

Incredibly, it's almost 30 years since Neil Innes first took to the stage as a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Since then, he's remained in the public eye via a bafflingly diverse collection of projects, from Beatles imitations to children's TV to a book on economics.

But even if he wins the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2012, it's his Bonzos connection that people will remember. They reigned as the clown princes of pop between 1966 and 1970, issuing four albums, and then reunited briefly for one more LP in 1972 (see RC 100). The laws of supply and demand have helped extend these five records into 23 albums of reissues and compilations in Britain alone.

After the demise of the Bonzos, Innes formed the modestly titles The World in 1970, with Dennis Cowan (bass), Roger McKew (guitar) and Ian Wallace (drums). They released one single, "Angelina", and an album of what Neil describes as "honest demos" called "Lucky Planet". "It was pathetically serious," he says today, "and, like an adolescent love affair on the rebound, it was much too soon after the Bonzos. I didn't really know what I was doing, and maybe I should have owned up and become a politician - but anyway, at the time it seemed perfectly reasonable to split up before the album was due to come out."

The World went their separate ways, leaving Neil to team up with fellow ex-Bonzo Vivian Stanshall, touring as Viv Stanshall & Friends. Both men then returned to the studios for the Bonzos' reunion album, "Let's Make Up And Be Friendly." It was more of a contractual obligation than a labour of love, and it took a phone call from Eric Idle to point Neil's career in a more positive direction.

"The Bonzos worked with Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam on 'Do Not Adjust You Set' in the 60s," Neil recalls, "and over the 26 programmes we became good friends. Eric rang me up out of the blue when they were doing the Python shows at the Beeb and said, 'Our warm-up man can't make it, do you fancy it?' I said, 'I don't do warm-ups.' He said, "It's twenty-five quid', and I said, 'All right, I do warm-ups'. It was nice to see them all again and I was asked to do some music for their albums. Things seemed to take off from there. We toured Britain, Canada and America: it was crazy but good fun. I have had a long association with the Pythons. I always used to joke that every time I worked with them, I set my own solo career back a few years."

But it was as a soloist that Neil went back on the road in early 1973 as Neil Innes & Friends. When he ended up sharing a bill with the Scaffold, the two acts decided to amalgamate and become Grimms.

"Grimms stands for Gorman, Roberts, Innes, McGough, McGear and Stanshall," explains Neil. "Others joined us as well, like Brian Patten, Adrian Henri, Zoot Money, Mike Kelly, John Halsey, Dave Richards, Gerry Conway and the late but ever wonderful Ollie Halsall. It was basically a collection of musicians, poets and humorists. It's nice for people who write on their own to get together with others who do the same, so we would all put aside a couple of months of the year to tour together. We would write down a running order for the shows on a piece of paper, and while somebody was performing the rest of us would sit at a long table with a pint of beer watching them until it was our turn. It had a sort of informality that worked."

Touring with Grimms in 1973 led to the release of two albums, "Grimms" and "Rockin' Duck". Both these Island LPs illustrate the varied approach of their live shows. There was also a Grimms book published, which was a collections of doodles, poems and photographs, paving the way for later books by Monty Python and the Goodies.

Meanwhile, Neil returned to United Artists in 1973 in the hope of continuing his solo career: "United Artists had been very kind to me, and Martin Davis signed me up to write, produce and record all sorts of things in the early 70s. In my own way, I wanted to prepay them - by making a bunch of silly singles at a time when the music industry still seemed to have a sense of humour. Wrong again."

Neil's album, "How Sweet To Be An Idiot", was followed over the next two years by those "silly singles", most of which have recently been compiled by EMI on the "Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues" CD.

It was Neil's association with Monty Python that led to him and Eric Idle working on two series of a 30 minute comedy programme called "Rutland Weekend Television' (RWT). The shows went out in 1975 and 1976, and prompted the release of a tie-in book and album.

Neil recalls: "Eric had this idea of doing "Rutland Weekend Television', which would be a tiny TV station having to do everything on the cheap. He would go off and write a load of skits, and I would write a lot of songs. Then I had the freedom to decide which skit went with which song, and we'd fit things together, rewrite and cement the programmes into a whole. It was a very satisfactory way to work, as it have me the chance to put pictures with songs. I really enjoyed that."

1976 also saw the release of the third Grimms album, "Sleepers" (this time on DJM) and the single "The Womble Bashers Of Walthamstow". Thinking that he was now free to pursue his solo career, Neil signed to Arista, and in 1977 released the album "Taking Off", along with two non-LP singles. But his past work with RWT wouldn't let go of him that easily.

"One of the songs for 'Rutland Weekend Television' was a Beatles sounding number," Neil explains, "and we decided on a "Hard Day's Night' style clip to go with it, because it was cheap to film. You know - black and white, running about, stop frames, laugh-a-minute Benny Hill credits stuff. It was quite popular.

"Soon afterwards, Eric hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live'. It was the period when someone was offering three million dollars for the Beatles to reform, and Eric played along with this by saying that he could the Beatles for just three thousand dollars. Eventually, the producer came on the air and said that he didn't have the Beatles, but he had got the Rutles - and then he showed the clip. It got terrific mail, as they say over there, and NBC said, 'Here's the money, do the whole show' (see RC 148). I suddenly found myself being asked to write about eighteen more songs. Probably more than anything else, that's given me the label of being a parodist, but I've never thought of myself that way."

RUTLEMANIA

After Rutlemania had died down, Neil was once again given the chance to put pictures with songs, when he compiled 'The Innes Book Of Records' - eighteen 30 minute shows which broadcast 90 Innes compositions to millions of viewers across the country. Two albums were released from the series, "Innes Book Of Records" in 1979 and the double-album "Off The Record" in 1982.

Although Neil has only released two singles since 1982, it's worth noting that he has written or taken part in more than 200 children's TV shows, worked on numerous TV and radio commercials, written the economics book 'Gloom, Doom And Very Funny Money', played countless venues throughout the world with his own-man- shows, and still found time to attend the recent Rutles, Bonzos and Monty Python evenings at the National Film Theater.

It doesn't end there. Neil is currently working on new album, "Urban Spaceman II (This Time It's Personal), along with a Rutles look at the music industry called "Rutlemania: A Nasty Business". He is also taking a healthy interest in the release of his back catalogue on CD and the possibility of a Bonzos video. This is one dog who is not ready to lie down.

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