I took a bite out of an apple as if it were an onion, but that was the least of my problems. Worse still, there were hundreds of bats nested in my hair. It was OK though. I had a brand-new Porticullis Grundy t shirt - my favourite band. Porty Grund, as we fans call them, really hit their stride with their third album "Get Your Chickeny Elbows Off My Grunting Kneecaps, Plebian", a grungey affair, featuring the best percussive map-globe solo ever committed to record. Nevertheless, Porty Grund's innate talent and potential was clear to all who heard their first EP, "I Am The Mayo In Your Bagel".
Lead singer and songwriter Cassie Grundflap has a soothing yet feral voice, sounding simultaneously like a cool ocean breeze, and the noise a bald eagle makes when a cat threatens her young.
The first Porticullis Grundy song familiar to most members of the public would, of course, be "Fetch Me Away From That Agonising Stink". Its sublime lyrics, depicting an unfathomably terrible smell which wipes out 80% of the earth's population, are rumoured to be about the feud between singer Grundflap and drummer Josiah Krungfeld, which developed when Krungfeld refused to wash his socks for a year. "You could smell them from space," says Cassie Grundflap in the lyrics. "And all around lay devastation, soiled bodies sprawled across the earth. And some tried noseplugs to get away, but none could truly escape. It smelled so badly that you felt the skin around your face starting to melt away. Fetch me away! Fetch me away! Fetch me away from that agonising stink!"
Pretty good lyrics, right? And although it never mentions socks directly, or Josiah Krungfeld by name, it's pretty clear to everyone what that song is about.
"Fetch Me Away..." was the lead single from Porty Grund's second album, a fiesta of political satire titled "George W Bush Loves Mooses, Meeses & Polices". Please note that the final word of the title is not "policies" but "polices", an (intentionally?) incorrect plural of "police". Another killer track on that LP is opener "The Gunge In Me Sees The Divine Gunge In You, But What It Mostly Sees Is The Rest Of The Gunge In Me", a 23-minute psychedelic freakout played entirely on kitchen utensils - spoons, gas oven burners, tea kettles, and the most vital of kitchen utensils, the human voice. And who could forget track 7, "My Other Florida Is A Snowy Hellscape"? The first four minutes are pretty good - a cruel, funky jam the likes of which you can't even imagine - but it really kicks into gear with the final three minutes, where all five members of the band audibly throw their instruments on the floor of the studio and howl wordlessly into the void - and the microphones. But mainly the void. That's some premium-quality howling. Please note this is the only track in Porty Grund's extensive discography where band cat Dr Strangemeow contributes vocals, although he's contributed additional percussive claw-scratching to almost all of their other songs.
Now, I, like most Grundites, have a complicated relationship with Porticullis Grundy's debut album. That is, of course, "The Rot You Thought Forgot". That blistering first track, "The Cot You Thought Remembered", takes me back to my final year of high school, a time when everything seemed dreadful and full of dreadfuller potential. I loved that song, though. Although it's not the band's most technically successful offering - some would say "out of tune to the point of hostile unpleasantness" (the NME), "simply unlistenable" (Pitchfork), or "awful, absolutely awful" (New York Times) - it holds a special place in my heart. Not least because the hormones coursing through my body at the time made me especially susceptible to the emotionally-charged strains of three-minute anthem "Hormones Are Coursing Through Your Body".
Anyway, as previously mentioned, their second album "George W Bush..." was a huge improvement, and by the time they made it to "Get Your Chickeny Elbows Off My Grunting Kneecaps, Plebian", Porty Grund were truly in their prime. Track after solid-gold track, with a couple of diamonds in there for good measure. "Sunsets Are Sunrises For Appealing People", "Peel Me An Orange Or Else", "When In Whales, Do As The Krill Well Might", "No Way, Buddy", and "Grundflap Goes To Goshington" all have killer riffs and extraordinary lyrics to boot. Bass player Monty Sasquatch really kills it on this record, laying down a solid foundation for Cassie Grundflap's solid rhythmic chunks of guitar riff, Dr Strangemeow's syncopated claw-scratching, Jemima Cassawary's excellent post-jazz drum noodling and Helgen Furryelbow's twiddly treble-hectic guitar lines up top. And, of course, Grundflap's croons, squawks and howls are front and centre in the mix, as she spills her unconventional wisdom to the unsuspecting listener, in lyric form. Sample line: "Never, ever, ever wash your hair! I wanna be best friend to every bear!"
Probably the best song on "Chickeny Elbows" is the incredible "You, Knee, Corn", a 14-minute prog-rock epic which lyrically explains - with an alarming degree of scientific accuracy - instructions on how to build an actual unicorn. "In actual fact, it's mostly horse," croons Cassie, while Dr Strangemeow scratches bark in the background, as if in agreement. "You take a corn on the cob and you mash it into pulp. (Mash it with your knees!) You eat all of the greenleaf stem in a single gulp. (Use a napkin please!) You mould the pulp into the shape of a mighty horn. You leave it overnight in the freezer and you're on! Two, three, four! You knee corn. We're gonna build a unicorn. It's gonna have a unique horn. You're gonna treat your friends with scorn forevermore cos they won't have what you have in your barn. A unicorn! You're gonna treat your friends with scorn forevermore cos they won't have what you have in your barn. A unicorn…”