The group first surfaced in Oostend, Belgium in the spring of 1946. The four original members were on route from Moscow to an international conference/expo for Cossacks (Cossack’46) when they stopped over in the quaint Belgian town. There they met two skunk salesmen from Brugge. They spoke with French accents and impressed the hell out of the Cossacks with their impersonations of goats and their ribald stories of Luxembourg. That night, they vowed to enter entertainment. By day they ran a tobacconist store; by night, they rocked the local the Spittoon Club with their urban beats and risque, high energy hijinks.

At this point they enlisted the services of the first of many managers. The first was a local music identity, “Captain” Nonkers. The six foot three dwarf was a strict disciplinarian but stored his own urine for religious reasons. The seven piece trio released a cover of Al Jolson’s “Smack Ma Bitch Up” in 1948. It was a Belgian top ten as well as a surprise number two on the Indie charts in Persia and Kurdistan. The follow up single, “Once, twice, three times a Slim Shady” did equally well. They soon became known as “the hottest gig in Damascus”. The fact they were playing in Belgium didn’t matter.

Captain Nonkers moved on to running a bordello for midgets. The new manager was a Slovak beaver merchant and nightclub chanteuse simply known as “Widdler”. Considered eccentric by most of the police who frequently arrested him for smelling the gussets of the Oostend municipal council , Widdler nevertheless was able to push the band as a live act. The vibe was growing and every A’n'R hustler worth his salt was on their tail. Eventually, in Brugge, they signed to Belgium’s respected label, Record Records under the name The Pudding Ticklers. The label promptly distributed their first album, The Pong, in Albania. It was promptly banned by the socialist government for being “too Norwegian sounding with too few references to cabbage”.

Touring with Syrian metal rockers Cumberbundy And Coke, and a third act, Cod Piece And Chips (later known as Caboose, then International Caboose, then Spaceship Caboose), they began to garner serious support through word of mouth in and around Belgium in the mid 50s. Jordanian Blues man Yassa Arafat Boy Slim described them in 1954 as “A set of balanced three-phase voltages consisting of identical amplitudes and frequency” yet they had support among their peers. “Squirrel” was very popular with what was the earliest incarnation of The Mujahideen (the band, not the Islamic fighters). They took many of their cues from Dickie Donkers‘ stage presence and liking for yelling out vegetables, with the audience exhorted to reply with the given vegetable’s root extract.

Snonkers

In the confusion they accidentally released a third album in just nine days, the haughty “PlanetFlange”, a homage to Albania, with the single “May I fluff your pillows, Mr Goat face”. By the late fifties the band had stopped touring to move in a slightly different direction with the musical extravaganza “Denghi Fever”, an idea by original member Dickie Donkers Snr (his son Dickie Donkers Jnr was now also in the band).It was a show based around the story of a young, good looking Jehovah’s Witness who dreams of being a dancer, with his dancing giving expression to his real self and working as a release from the daily pressures of a boring job and his suffocating family.

It was met with instant critical approval and as such was followed up by another rock musical, “Sewage”. Sewage spawned the biggest selling single in Uganda in 1966 prior to Joe Dolce’s early 80s hit “Shaddup You Face”, the gimmicky “I got caught up (in the excrement of it all”). Uganda was to prove a fertile ground for the band’s aesthetic. While in Kampala the group hit upon the idea of a TV sitcom based around Iddy Amin. Titled “Dick Brick’s Thick Stick Show!” it was a lighthearted, and at times bawdy, look at the dictator’s regime through the eyes of a kooky bunch of slightly camp secret service hit men with speech impediments and big hair. It proved very popular on UTV1, with the catch cry“Arrest that Sausage” and “Iddy Amin: Iddy I’m Out” becoming a regular gag around the water coolers, not unlike Kath and Kim’s “Look at moiye”.

Following an offer from the now ailing Shah of Persia, Professor Goblin P. Beaver, the band took themselves away from Ugandan sitcoms in 1969 to get back to their roots: a live band tour of Albania to support a best of package titled “Who said grouting was dull?” (later repackaged as part of a deluxe greatest hits that also included B-sides and live tracks, called “You may break my spirit, but you’ll never break my wind”.) Supported by Tirana’s up and coming six piece trio The Jovial Witnesses, they toured the country to rapturous houses, however official ticket sales amounting to seven put a crimp in the tour’s bottom line. As a result, their longtime tour promoter Coinpurse Snatchman was redeployed within the organisation to “special projects”. They picked up Piddler’s ‘ tour promoter instead, the quixotic Cookie Applets. (Applets dressed like Sherlock Holmes and would refer to most people as “my good man”. He however was sacked after the tour and replaced by “Bumcrack” Nobby Fluffman from popular Scottish rockers Whooper.

By the early 7Os, the band, which had now had seen 65 members, went back to musicals with stunning success. “Lieutenant Custard” was a huge success in Belgium, prompting them to return to Albania to tour the musical, and release an album from the show, with the single “Lieutenant Custard (Ooops I shat meself again)”. But this wasn’t enough to sate the band’s peptic creative juices. Shortly after, the band reinvented themselves as Art Museum proprietors. They opened the Perenium Museum in Amsterdam in 1978. Even though it was slammed by the mainstream Dutch press (one said “if I wanted to see bacon rinds, I’d go to my local deli”) It soon toured Sweden and Denmark, where it received a warm welcome. There is now a Perineum Museum in every major city in Scandinavia.

By the early 80s the band had moved back to the studio to release their ninth album, “Lobster Bib”. They released the single “The hairy arse theory” only in Guam. It was a flop despite high rotation on radio. To promote the album further they produced a show for Syrian TV called Carry on Islam. A disgracefully bawdy romp that again produced some memorable lines that were discussed endlessly in the mosques (“Ooh Mufti, what’s under that kaftan?” and “Allah wank bah”).

Not the full squid

Now, after a 20 year hiatus hernia, the band has reformed with new members to produce 4 Dimensional Space Time, their most ambitious work to date. You can download the tracks FREE by clicking on the Download link above.