My Strange And Terrible Days With The Outlaw Gaye Motorcycle Gand
by Jon Langford
February 18, 1989

Only one man was mad enough to accept the challenge of producing the next Gaye Bykers On Acid album, Stewed To The Gills. He's rm cartoonist and Three Johns member Jon Langford, and here he reveals the awesome tale of how it was done. Read on if you've got a strong stomach.

THE PHONE rings. It is my beautiful son Mary. I love him because he has no valve or filter between his brain and his gob. If any thought comes into his perfectly formed mind it instantly shoots out of his cakehole (usually at the threshold of aural pain).

Will I produce the forthcoming Gaye Bykres' LP? For Virgin? "Yup, for Virgin." Gold American Express cards, babbling rivers of lager and ice cream cones stuffed with bangers and mash flash before my eyes. Suddenly my earlobes turn crimson...But they hate me...AND my family and everything I stand up in! "No, no Dad, it's all changed since your day...TRUST ME."

The Bykres are my favorite rock'n'roll band in the world, just the knowledge of their existence keeps my pecker up in these dark Thatchistic days. So why aren't they playing Enormodomes every night and riding home in formation on four gold-plated Harleys clad from head to toe in pink ostrich skin cowboy suites? ‘Cause last year's debut LP, Drill Your Own Hole, was duff, that's why.

There were some good songs, sure enough, but they had the life sucked out of ‘em by a bunch of deaf lads who should be mixing cement, not metal. So, in September 1988, we went to Terminal 24 Studios in picturesque Elephant & Castle with overnight bags full of garish surfin' pants and a few scores to settle. We were gonna do it fast and keep it raw.

Now I don't know much about electrical knobs, but I know what I like. So I need a techinical wizard at my side to translate my Utopian visions of voodoo garage thrash into them little grooves in the records. Most recording engineers would crawl naked for 15 miles across broken glass to capture Sting farting into a treacle tin. My man Ian "Capability" Caple prefers to fester by my side in the foul-smelling, dung cake cupboards where I generally make my alternative pop recordings.

Any ways, things have changed, and Me, Ian and the Bykers are in a posh studio with windows, where a cleaning person comes daily to fumigate our surroundings. We make ourselves at home at Virgin's expense and Tony and Heidi set about decorating the walls with homemade posters showing the heir to the throne discussing the subtle connections between hallucinogenics and bestial sex with his lovely spouse.

AROUND NINE on the fourth evening, a particulary disciplined and sexually excitable batch of backing tracks have been completed, so I, the producer decide to reward the band with a trip to the pub. I must be determined to do this. One pint each and the dirty toilet-lickers can't play a note in time for a week. Normal drinking is not resumed ‘til the mixdown (as you will see). Just say NO to buckets of Pils!

For those of you who are just slightly interested in how we actually made this LP, please read the next sentence, ‘cause I'm gonna tell you all the studio trickery and secret details. They played thier songs live with their own hands and throats and feet, and when they got tired I held the buggers down and kicked their plonkers in. This is a real rock'n'roll LP because it was done for real. There is much humor here but it is not a joke. OK, so they wore leather mini-skirts and sat on my lap during some of the more politically astute guitar overdubs. So what if Mary likes to ride a dayglo skateboard nude while singing his Spinal Tap inspired homage to Goth's Dark Angel, Spiggy Eldritch? Sometimes it felt like I was back in the Boy Scouts...yes, it was THAT GOOD. (I love to watch videos of grown men squatting and pooing like dogs when I eat Lancashire Hot Pot.) Just say YO to transvetism and granduitous nudity.

AS THE Bykers are a major lable act, we can get beer on accoutn at several very posh West London recording studios. We can hob-nob with stars. We can pee next to Van Morrison or have breakfast within gobbing range of Paul Weller. Before I go on, I would like to say that I have nothing against the Bard of Woking or his fabulous Ramjam band. Neither do the Bykers, as far as I can tell. So the events of October 26, 1988 are a mystery to all of us.

Once in a TV interview he said my band, the Three Johns, weren't really awfully good, but that's as maybe. Why Robber attacked his recording session that night, single-handed but for a well primed fire extinguisher, can only be understood if you understand Robber.

Poor twisted Robber. He is the gentlest but the most fearsome Byker, and I hold my hands in the air and say, Paul, if you're reading this, I don't know why and I'm sorry. We'd finished mixing, Heidi was staring into the speakers like an ape from 2001 A Space Odyssey, Ian was mixing himself a stiff brown one and my duties were fulfilled. My job was over. Mary lay uncouncious in the Townhouse reception area with a wedge-tipped magic marker clenched between his teeth as I bent to kiss his brow. I stepped over his broken little form, into a Taxi and off into the night.

When the Virgin press office told me the cost of the damage I just sighed. Is it any wonder rock'n'roll has a bad name when these vermin defecate in its most hallowed nooks and crannies? The horror, the horror...exterminate all the brutes. Great LP though.

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