Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

But not, perhaps, at this moment.

Because at this moment, and for quite a few moments to come, we were rather busy with rehearsals. Andy and I wondered whether we should employ a couple of private eyes to fill in for us whilst we rehearsed, because we wanted to keep the agency open.

And we were just on the point of hiring two when the Cease and Desist Order arrived from Brentford County Court.

It transpired that P. P. Penrose, the author of the Lazlo Woodbine novels, had finally caught word, as it were, that his fictional hero had opened a detective agency within a mile of that eminent author’s house. We were served with an order to Cease and Desist using the licensed name of Woodbine. Licences again!

And so we closed the agency and we had to let Lola go.

Which was a shame, because I had grown very fond of her and was on the point of asking her to marry me.

But this was nineteen sixty-seven. And if I was going to be in a Supergroup, I would, of course, have my pick of Supergroupies. So it was probably for the best that I simply forgot about Lola.

Which would, on the face of it, appear to be very simple and uncomplicated. But which was, in fact, anything but.

Toby’s rehearsal studio turned out to be a very large industrial complex on Old Brentford Docks. At one time, big business had flourished here, but by the sixties it was a wasteland.

By the eighties it became a very expensive estate of executive homes. And Toby made quite a killing selling up. But that, too, is for the future.

But for the present, which was our present then, there it was: a great big isolated building. Which did, at least, boast to significant security. Which was certainly needed, as it happens, because when the equipment arrived, it turned out that there was a great deal of it – all that other equipment that wasn’t ours, but had been hidden away in Count Otto Black’s mausoleum. And what a lot there was. Sufficient indeed to amplify any band that wanted to play a huge stadium, or a vast festival gig, or whatever.

Gigs of a nature that had not existed in the time when the gear was originally stolen. But now? When such gigs were all the rage?

Well, how handy was that, eh? It was almost as if it had somehow been planned. That this equipment had been stored away just waiting for its moment to come.

And its moment had come.

And its moment was now.

And so we began our rehearsals. Rehearsing what? Rehearsing Andy’s songs, of course. There were a dozen of them. Sufficient for a gig. Sufficient for an album. And although I, as were the other Sumerian Kynges, was prepared to hate Andy’s songs, it turned out that they really weren’t bad at all. You will, of course, know them all by now, most probably by heart, because each has become a Rock Anthem, covered by many bands, sung at many a karaoke night, considered modern classics.

I think my favourite (and probably yours also) would have to be ‘The Land of the Western God’.

And so I print the lyrics below, so that you can enjoy them once more.

The king sends me his linen to wash.

Whatever is right, is right whatever.

Life on life downstricken goes

To the Land of the Western God.

A wolf in his belly and a fire in the hearth,

Attacking the windmills as we go,

A word to the wise should be sufficient

In the Land of the Western God.

You never must shout till you’re out of the woods

For the lion doesn’t roar until he’s eaten

A brain of feathers and a heart of gold

In the Land of the Western God.

His face is his fortune, that’s understood,

Two faces hidden beneath one hood

As good as gold and as golden as good

In the Land of the Western God.

All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye -

They’d skin a flea for his hide and tallow.

An ounce of discretion’s worth a pound of wit

In the Land of the Western God.

There’s the Devil to pay,

Every dog has his day

And an old dog learns no tricks, they say.

And the dead men tell their tales today

In the Land of the Western God.

Here’s an eye for the past and one for the present.

The future is dark as a new-dug grave.

Will our children sing any songs tomorrow

In praise of the Western God?

So uplifting! Pure joy!

You don’t get quality lyrics like that any more. And the new Sumerian Kynges are, in my opinion, little more than a pale shadow of their original counterparts. But still right there at the top of the pops, you notice. So some of our class rubbed off on them, and class, as we know, never dates.

And so, without any further words needed, let us get it on, as they say. And for the first time ever, as no biographies of the band have ever been published (for I now knew how to employ a Cease and Desist Order), let me take you on a cosmic journey into the world of the twentieth century’s ultimate band. The raunchy rock ’n’ roll World that was The Sumerian Kynges.

Let’s Rock.

The Sumerian Kynges did plenty of rehearsing in Toby’s big rehearsal room, and when we had half an hour’s worth of material ready, we knew that we were ready. Now, I know what you are thinking: half an hour’s worth of material? That’s not very much. But these were the nineteen-sixties, so you do have to allow for the adding in of the guitar solos. Those long and inspired twiddly-widdly guitar solos that were so loved back then, and so missed now by folk who so loved them back then.

So we had ten three-minute songs rehearsed. But if you added in the obligatory twenty-minute guitar solo at the rate of one per song, well – you had a decent performance.

And when we were done with our rehearsals, we took to the road with The Flange Collective.

The Flange Collective was the catch-all title, the banner, as it were, beneath which danced the colourful ladies and dandified gents. Where the jugglers, stilt-walkers, fire-eaters, tumblers, clowns, madmen and fools followed their crafts. Where freaks and freaksters mingled. Where strange music played. Where strange drugs were imbibed. Where the weird and the wonderful were the ways of the everyday. And in the midst of what might be mayhem one moment and revolutionary genius the next, stood a single figure. A grey eminence. A puppet master supreme. What Warhol was to the Factory, The Flange was to The Flange Collective.

There is much that could be said regarding The Flange, all of it fascinating in its own way and books and books could be written about him, but to give you an idea, I’ll tell you about a pet theory of The Flange’s that he spent the last few years of his life trying to prove. The Flange believed in the Universal Axiom that things are where they should be because they should be where they are. The Flange’s deepest desire was to facilitate the Second Coming of the Lord, and in his retirement, he worked long and hard to create something that he called The Lounge of the Lord – the perfect sitting room for God. He believed that when the room was completed, correct to the tiniest degree, completely and utterly correct down to the sub-atomic level, then following the Universal Truth that states that things are where they should be because they should be where they are, Jesus would come and have a good sit down in that sitting room, and that the Second Coming would come to pass.

Weird and wonderful were the ways of The Flange, and I am truly glad I met him. For had I not, things would have turned out very differently…

But I digress, and I will stop that now. Honest.

On the day that we were to begin our tour with The Flange Collective, Mr Ishmael sent a furniture van to pick up all our equipment, then had his own chauffeur (Rapscallion, his name was) come over and pick us up in the limo. Which was pretty fab and raised our spirits no end.