| Gorilla | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 1967 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 35:25 | |||
| Label | Liberty BGO Records (Reissue) | |||
| Producer | Gerry Bron, Lyn Birkbeck | |||
| Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band chronology | ||||
| ||||
| British reissue | ||||
 Sunset SLS 50160 | ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| Rolling Stone | Positive [2] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [3] |
Gorilla is the debut album by Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, originally released by Liberty Records, LBL 83056, in 1967. In 2007, EMI reissued the album on CD with seven bonus tracks.
The album includes "Jazz, (Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold)" which savagely parodied their early "trad" jazz roots and featured some of the most deliberately inept jazz playing ever recorded—the record company only allowed two hours of studio time per track, so it was completed in a single take to allow for the far more complex "The Intro and the Outro". The band deliberately swapped instruments to increase the degree of incompetence. [4]
In "The Intro and the Outro" every member of the band was introduced and played a solo, starting with genuine band members, [5] before including such improbable members as John Wayne on xylophone, Adolf Hitler on vibes, and J. Arthur Rank on gong. Other 'band members' included Val Doonican, Horace Batchelor and Lord Snooty and His Pals.
The versatility of the band is shown in the wide variety of styles parodied on the album: as well as trad jazz noted above, there is 1920s-style music ("Jollity Farm", "I'm Bored"), Beatles music of the "Penny Lane" era ("The Equestrian Statue"), lounge music ("San Francisco"), calypso ("Look Out There's a Monster Coming"), Elvis Presley ("Death-cab for Cutie"), Disney ("Mickey's Son and Daughter"), film noir ("Big Shot"), Wurlitzer ("Music for the Head Ballet"), and bubblegum ("Piggy Bank Love").
The album was recorded on a four-track tape recorder, as was typical for the UK in 1967. Due to the limited number of tracks, most of the non-band "personnel" on "The Intro and the Outro" are simply faded in and out, and few notice they are absent in the later stages of the track.
"Dedicated to Kong who must have been a great bloke."
The album was issued in the US on Imperial as LP-9370 (mono) and LP-12370 (stereo), but minus the track "Big Shot". The original issue of the album had the same booklet issued with the UK album.
Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for acting as Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.
Neil James Innes was an English writer, comedian and musician. He first came to prominence in the pioneering comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later became a frequent collaborator with the Monty Python troupe on their BBC television series and films, and is often called the "seventh Python" along with performer Carol Cleveland. He co-created the Rutles, a Beatles parody/pastiche project, with Python Eric Idle, and wrote the band's songs. He also wrote and voiced the 1980s ITV children's cartoon adventures of The Raggy Dolls.
GRIMMS were an English pop rock, comedy, and poetry group, originally formed as a merger of The Scaffold with two members of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and the Liverpool Scene for two concerts in 1971 at the suggestion of John Gorman.
Rodney Desborough Slater is a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, playing saxophones and other musical instruments.
Roger Ruskin Spear is an English sculptor, multimedia artist and multi-instrumentalist who was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Spear is the son of the satirical artist and lecturer Ruskin Spear.
"Death Cab for Cutie" is a song composed by Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes and performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. It was included on their 1967 album Gorilla.
The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse is the second album by the British comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. In the United States, it was released as Urban Spaceman and added their U.K. hit single "I'm the Urban Spaceman" to the track listing.
Tadpoles is the third album by the Bonzo Dog Band. It is largely a compilation of their work from the television show Do Not Adjust Your Set, on which they were the house band. The US version of the album had a track list slightly different from that of the UK version: the US version removed "I'm the Urban Spaceman" and added "Readymades" the B-side of their follow-up single "Mr. Apollo".
Keynsham is the fourth album by the Bonzo Dog Band. It was released in 1969 on Liberty Records.
Let's Make Up And Be Friendly is the fifth studio album by the Bonzo Dog Band and their last album until 2007. The group had already disbanded when United Artists Records informed band members that the group owed the label one more album. This 1972 farewell album was the result, recorded at The Manor Studio in November 1971, while the building itself was still in the process of being converted to accommodate the recording studio that was being built.
Beast of the Bonzos is the US version of the UK album The Best of the Bonzos. This American best of album differs from the British in having different cover art, an extra flap with an article about the Bonzos by John Mendelsohn, and about half different songs.
Cornology is a 1992 compilation box set, issued by EMI Records, of the complete recorded output of The Bonzo Dog Band, previously issued on the Parlophone, Liberty and United Artists labels.
David Catlin-Birch is a British musician. He was a guitarist for pop/alternative rock band World Party, and was the original "Paul" for the March 1980 launch of The Beatles tribute band, The Bootleg Beatles.
Larry Smith, often known as "Legs" Larry Smith is an English drummer of the satirical comedy jazz group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, released in 1978, is a largely spoken-word, solo comedy recording by British musician Vivian Stanshall, formerly of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. It originated in his Rawlinson End sessions for the John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1 beginning in 1975, and a similarly-named track on the Bonzo Dog Band's 1972 album Let's Make Up and Be Friendly.
Pour l'Amour Des Chiens is the first all new studio album by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in 35 years, and their sixth album overall. It was released on 12 December 2007, produced by Mickey Simmonds and Neil Innes, by Storming Music Company.
"I'm the Urban Spaceman" was the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's most successful single, released in 1968. It reached #5 in the UK charts. The song was written by Neil Innes—who won an Ivor Novello Award in 1968 for the song—and produced by Paul McCartney under the pseudonym "Apollo C. Vermouth". The B-side was written by Vivian Stanshall. A well-known staging of the song involves Innes performing solo while a female tap dancer performs an enthusiastic but apparently under-rehearsed routine around him. This skit originally appeared in a 1975 edition of Rutland Weekend Television, with Lyn Ashley as the dancer, and was more famously revived in the 1982 film Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl with Carol Cleveland taking over the role.
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was created by a group of British art-school students in the 1960s. Combining elements of music hall, trad jazz and psychedelia with surreal humour and avant-garde art, the Bonzos came to public attention through appearances in the Beatles' 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour and the 1968 ITV comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set.
"The Intro and The Outro" is a recording by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. It appears on their debut album, Gorilla (1967). It is not so much a song as a comic monologue in which the speaker introduces the musicians who ostensibly appear on the recording. The recording fades out before the emcee completes the introductions and without the "orchestra" being able to play anything more than a vamp. The piece was written by Bonzo member Vivian Stanshall, who also provides the vocal. Stanshall first introduces the seven members of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who are credited with their actual instruments, over a vamp that resembles Duke Ellington’s "C Jam Blues".
Unpeeled is a 1995 compilation of sessions recorded by The Bonzo Dog Band for the John Peel show on the BBC during the late sixties.
George Harrison and Eric Clapton both admired Formby and Clapton played the ukulele in The Intro and the Outro, a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
