Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

Not that our spirits were down, really. Back together and playing again, we had sort of picked up where we left off. And although we all thought that we’d given up music for good, deep down in those rock ’n’ roll hearts of ours I feel certain that we’d all been secretly hoping that we might get the chance to climb back up on a stage again. In front of a genuine and appreciative audience this time, and hopefully composed of teenage girls.

And this time we were really ready.

We’d grown into ourselves, as it were. We were no longer foolish boys who would probably, in truth, have gone all to pieces on the road. No, we were older and more sophisticated and mature and better able to cope.

So this was our time. And we meant to make the most of it. Take it to the limit and beyond.

So, Rapscallion drove us off to The Flange Collective, which was presently camped upon Ealing Common. And we had the windows of the limo wound down so we could shout out at the girls.

And I think it was Neil who first coined that immortal hailing-of-the-female call, ‘Yo, bitches.’ Or it might have been Rob, although I think he was mostly calling, ‘You cheeses.’

But I cannot be altogether sure, so please don’t quote me on it.

What I can be sure of is that I was most impressed when, having stepped from Mr Ishmael’s limo, I was greeted by The Flange, who presented to us a most unique appearance. He was wearing the robes of a wizard of myth, all stars and moons and sigils. And he carried a staff of the Gandalf persuasion and wore a mighty wig that reached down almost to his knees.

‘This fellow,’ I said to myself, ‘is a character.’

And The Flange shook me warmly by the hand. ‘You,’ said he, ‘are a character, sir. Dressed up as a billiard table.’

‘It’s Glam Rock,’ I informed The Flange. ‘We invented it. But it has yet to come into its own.’

‘Well, welcome, friend, to The Flange Collective, the place where dreams come true.’

‘I often dream of cheese,’ said Rob. ‘Do you have any cheese in The Flange Collective?’

‘More cheese than you can shake a stick at, should you so choose.’ And now The Flange admired Neil’s baldy head. Because Neil, having had his head shaved, had decided to stick with that look.

‘Superb,’ said The Flange. ‘Might I stroke it a little?’

But Neil wasn’t keen and said, ‘No.’

‘Never mind, never mind – welcome all.’ And The Flange shook Andy’s hand and made admiring glances at his mullet, asked why he was dressed up as a postman but did not receive a coherent answer, and led us all into the tent.

A big top, it was, one of those jolly candy-striped affairs with seating all racked up around a central ring. And this ring was covered in sawdust, just as a ring should be. I admired that big top very much, for I was fond of the circus. There was a circus on Ealing Common for one week each year. It would appear as if magically from nowhere, set up and perform and then in a week be gone, leaving nothing but a circle of flattened grass.

I recall, years later, seeing photographs of crop circles and reading the ludicrous theories put forward to explain their existence. I shook my head rather sadly, I also recall, knowing that the mundane but obvious explanation – that of ‘travelling circuses’ – didn’t seem to be making any headlines.

I’ve seen crop circles myself and there is no doubt in my mind that they are the result of travelling circuses. Travelling fairy circuses, I might add.

‘Why is this not called The Flange Circus?’ I asked The Flange.

‘Because it is not a circus. It has elements of circus, but it is more a shared experience, an interactive human be-in.’

The Flange had a freak or two in that show. And I’d never encountered a real freak before this time. Certainly there were sufficient human oddities living in the Ealing area during the nineteen-sixties to have overstocked P. T. Barnum’s American Museum, had he chosen to return from the dead and set up shop once more, but you didn’t see them much in the streets. My mother told me that there were conjoined triplets living at number twenty-seven. But other than the family of dwarves who lived at number thirty-two and the Human Blancmange who lived at number forty-two, you just didn’t see them around. So I must confess to a certain amount of fascination, be this either, ‘morbid’ or simply ‘justifiable’, when I was first introduced to The Flange Collective’s Human Menagerie. But I must say, as many others have before me, that inside they were just like normal people. Adding that, during the long years of my life, I have yet to have it accurately defined for me what exactly normal is supposed to mean. I have met many many folk, but none I regarded as normal.

First I was introduced to Peg, The Flange Collective’s resident fat lady. Today, of course, fat ladies are two-a-penny (so to speak) but back in the sixties, they were a rarity. In England there was Peg and in America there was Mama Cass (who did not die choking on a pork sandwich!).

Whether there were any other fat women in the world, I couldn’t say. But if there were, I never saw them.

Mind you, it’s strange, that, isn’t it? Because, again as far as I know, there were only two fat men in the sixties. In England we had Robert Morley and in America there was Alfred Hitchcock. How times change, eh?

The Flange then introduced me to Mr Shrugger, the World-Famous Shrugging Man. And he was a real shrugging man, not just some skilful actor mocking-up the shrugging. Mr Shrugger gave a free demonstration of shrugging to me. And, even though I have since met men who walked upon the Moon, Hollywood actors and an entire pantheon of gods, [15]I do have to say that I would number Mr Shrugger right up there in the list of the Five Most Remarkable Men that I have ever met.

The Slouch I didn’t think too much of. He was just a little too laid back for me. And as for Fumbling Fernando, the Bird-Brained Butter-Fingers, well, I could do that myself and I honestly think that the only reason he rose to prominence, and he was a big star at The Flange Collective, was because of his Spanish origins. Who back then could resist a Spaniard? Especially one who fumbled?

We might sneer at those times now, but remember, all the very best music came from then, and The Sumerian Kynges were the best of the best.

Let me tell you all about our first tour.

I have mentioned how all grown-up myself and the other guys in the band had become. How responsible and professional. And so, when it came to our first rock ’n’ roll tour, we realised our responsibilities. And we were determined to do the job properly and be remembered for so doing.

And so it became the original ‘Bad Behaviour’ tour. The tour that set the low standards of behaviour by which later rock tours, such as those of Led Zep, would be judged.

We did it first, I tell you, and the original is still the greatest. And when it came to sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll it was a case of been there, done that.

Especially when it came to the drugs.

Well, one drug in particular.

It changed my life for evermore.

Let me tell you all about it.

Apparently Mr Ishmael and The Flange had put their heads together and planned the tour of The Sumerian Kynges with The Flange Collective very carefully. It was designed to make an impact, the idea being that we would arrive in town, blow as many minds as we could possibly blow, then move on, leaving a legend behind.

At this time we didn’t have a record to market. No forty-five single, nor indeed album. We were spreading the word, as it were. Putting ourselves before the public and so on and so forth and suchlike.

It was an interesting tour.