About Me
•Sathya Sai Baba was born Sathyanarayana Raju to Peddavenkappa Raju and Easwaramma, a poor agrarian family in the remote village of Puttaparthi, located in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh. Since he was born after the Sri Sathyanarayana puja, he was named after the deity. It was said that instruments played on their own accord in his household when he was born.•Baba first met young guitarist Angus Guppy on a pilgrimage to the shrine at Bonkle, Lanarkshire Scotland in early 1974 and soon discovered a mutual passion for the more avant-garde side of rock music. Guppy was already an established figure in the Lanarkshire Prog Rock scene and (along with organist and life-long friend Leonard Spanker) performed as part of the seminal rock outfit Wiggy Pankhurst And The Bikers From Largs, playing extensively in venues such as Craigneuk Miners' Welfare Club and the Mongrel pub in Glasgows' Gorbals area. The original line-ups' rhythm section was to be completed by the addition of Dick Pelter on bass and Mrbongo on drums. Incidentally,the latter switched to percussion in 1975 and was replaced on drums byIchabod Hermon-Festus (otherwise known as Fidget) and at the same time the line-up was augmented by Barabas McNutt on lead guitar. With what would be considered the 'classic' line-up completed, Sai Baba moved permanently to Bonkle to concentrate on his musical carreer and assumed the identity of Clement Crispus.•By the end of 1974 the group had installed themselves at Leonard Spankers high-tech Twing-Twang Studio in Wishaw where they spent the next 18 months experimenting with psychoactive drugs and delay pedals. The results were somewhat bloated, derivative and protracted. At their debut performance in Sharkey's Bar the band were all but thrown off stage and were subject to heckles and threats such as "get tae fuck ya hippie basterts" and "You're gonae get fuckin' chibbed" It was time for a major re-think and the band turned to legendary producer Art Toady. Toadys' approach was simple;"...the music has tae be...well...shite. Aye, it has tae be mare shite..." and subsequently signed the band to his own label, Meat Pie Records.•Monkey Wrench Loading Bay released their first punk single, “Jobbies In The Grass Play Hide And Seek,†in 1976, a full year before the Sex Pistols’ UK release of “God Save the Queen.†There then followed a string of other singles including "Not All Hitlers Have Moustaches", and "Square Sausage Tricycle Boy, all of which appeared on their first album "A Kick In De Doodlesac". MOJO Magazine recently voted Monkey Wrench Loading Bays’ Jobbies In the Grass Play Hide And Seek as the 207th most important punk single in history. • The following three years saw a return to their more experimental roots as Leonard Spanker reintroduced the use of tape-loop recorders and effect pedals such as the completely uncontrollable Robert Cox Real-time Frequency Oscillator & Harmonics Generator. The band became imfamous for their epic live performances such as their rendition of "Doo Yoo Write?" live in Zurich 1979, which lasted over 6 hours, causing 2 roadies to spontaneously explode. After recording an entire album of songs that were 15 seconds long in 1980, entitled "Yolk Sack and the Albumen-Album-Men", the group purchased advertising spots on Lancashire’s most popular Top 40 radio station, Pendleton FM and had the entire album, all 160 songs, played by the station over a period of ten days. Trout Mask Replica Monthly Magazine wrote an editorial about it questioning whether it was advertising or art. • Monkey Wrench Loading Bay are "credited" with “inventing†the form of the music video. Five of their earliest videos are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Dreghorn, Ayreshire, Scotland ..In 1982 Monkey Wrench Loading Bay wrote a ten hour score for Channel 4s show Countdown. Needless to say Channel 4 decided not use the piece as Sai Baba refused to allow the shows producers to edit down the piece to the required 30 seconds for the programmes’ opening titles, even though this was the length stipulated on the contract for the commission.• By 1983 cracks in the band were begining to show. Frequent arguements arose concerning the musical direction of the band and about the increasingly bizarre behaviour of both Baba and Spanker. Baba argued that he couldn't perform alongside Dick Pelter as the frequencies of Pelters' bass were interfeing with his hair and insisted that Pelter perform in an upright freezer with the door closed. Around the same time Leonard Spanker was cautioned by police after he had been spotted at a music industry awards ceremony simulating sex with black polythene bin bags, behind Michael Jackson as he performed his new single. To make matters worse, at the same ceremony, Barabas McNutt tried to start a fist-fight with Kraftwerks Florian Schneider, claiming that "he was lookin' at me funny." Both Spanker and McNutt were barred from all subsequent awards ceremonies. By the end of the year Monkey Wrench Loading Bay split and all its members disappeared into obscurity.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
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0000000000• Fast-forward 22 years - top London DJ MC Tithead (real name Zeroink Beggs) recognises ex Monkey wrench loading bay guitarist Barabas McNutt busking in Tottenham Court Rd station: The two struck up a conversation and discovered a mutual passion for Fray Bentos pies. Soon enough the conversation lead on to music and within minutes Beggs resolved to find the other members and try to re-unite the band. McNutt claimed that he once heard the voice of Dick Pelter over the tannoy at the station announcing, "My name is Dick Pelter, I used to be somebody but now I just smell like Richard Stillgoe." so they decided to investigate. They inquired at the ticket desk and sure enough there, in the back of the office (ignoring the massive queue for tickets) eating a fish supper, was a dejected and over weight Dick pelter. "The other members were easy enough to track down, Fidget the drummer was a well known cheesemonger in Brixton and he put us in touch with his half-brother Mrbongo. Mrbongo was working as a cinema projectionist and part-time hairdresser in Greenwich and was only too happy to leave his job(s) and re-form the band" said Beggs, "..he told us that the last he heard of Angus Guppy, he was driving an icecream van back in Burnbank" - a quaint, redundant mining village in Hamilton. When they finally tracked down Guppy he was only too happy re-join the group and it turned out that he was still in regular contact with keyboard maestro Leonard Spanker. Before long, the raggle-taggle band of musos re-installed themselves at Twing-Twang studios and got down to the task of making fresh, new, unlistenable avante-garde beats. Rumours of the re-union spread as far as Puttaparthi and before long Sai Baba was booking his easy-jet flights to Wishaw International Airprt.• Monkey Wrench Loading Bay are currently working on a new album which includes the above track 'Lesson Giver Gusto Man'. Monkey wrench loading bay are also currently looking for gigs in the London area and are available for weddings, childrens' parties and barmitzvas. Please contact us for further information.
