Le Terrible Lendemain...
So you've heard the rumours, and you want to know, specifically: "What is this raffish, sleazy, handsome art-rock movement playing round with genres across the length and breadth of Europe...?"
The Drunken Gents is the brainchild of Jacques Miami and Nicky Roubles - two misfits clinging to a dying culture, adrift in the sarcasm and vulgarity of the 21st Century. Some say the origins of the band can be traced to Shanghai in 1912. Some scholars point to 1930s Weimer Berlin. Some say they were created in Cardiff in the early 1990s. Some even say they were created in London in the year 1999 - when, dismayed with the indie band they were in at the time, reacted violently by dreaming up horrific paeons to depraved characters, and penning the sleaziest sex songs. Soon the idea became a reality - they had created a monster. The impossibly immaculate Quincy Stix volunteered to hit the skins repeatedly, while the two rabble-rousers kicked up a stink. Any rumours that Stix works, or ever has worked for a governmental intelligence service are firmly and zealously refuted. He is not nor has he ever been involved in espionage for the Russian Federation. Most recently, the international master-criminal Andy Mambo completes the line-up. His autobiography, a wanton pack of lies if ever I saw one, reads thus:
"Mambo ran away from the Cirque du Soleil and joined La Poste to fulfil a life long ambition to handle French letters. Believing that philately can get you anywhere, he soon stamped his unique brand of delivery on the unsuspecting French public.Fast forward ten years and Mambo is penniless and destitute, wandering the streets of Cheltenham turning tricks for tips (pulling pigeons from his sleeve for useful advice on soft furnishings). It is at this point, at his lowest ebb, whilst reading the scraps that Waterstones discards (a coffee stained and torn page from What Ho Jeeves) Mambo met Roubles..."
The world of a Drunken Gentlemen is not one of love or tenderness - it is a cruel yet honest one. The only approximation of tenderness that creeps into these songs is better described as a nostalgia for the vivacious passion that created the art and literature of the 20th Century; or a pang in a solitary moment when the grip is hard to sustain - when the motivation is lost - that cold pang of ennui.
Mostly, however, these songs are a celebration of a way of life that the corporate bodies of the new century thought they had destroyed.
Destroyed?
Far from it. It is returning, with a vengeance. It seems Bill Gates and his Soft Micronies stand corrected. We are anything but dead, and the ghosts of our heroes drink and applaud as the Drunken Gentlemen piss over effigies of Simon Trousers-Cowell, the Minogue, the writing committee of Dan Brown Inc, and any other populist icon of minimal merit. Together, we spit on the Young Professionals and Executive Salesman that now litter the pavements of these once great cities. And like the Zazous of wartime Paris, we ridicule both presidents and terrorists that are responsible for these bleak times, and we dance while they implode.
- Hastie Mariette , Barcelona, 2006
FUN QUOTES to entertain and AMAZE your friends:
"Had a listen to the song that says 'F*ck me'...yes, I like, gritty and low slung like a bloody Bicycle chain... "
- Anthony Reynolds (YES - THE!), Jack, Jacques etc
"These guys are so far up their own arseholes they can't see daylight."
- Andrew Jones, The Daps
"There's always a down-side to a pair of trousers."
- Ancient Soho saying
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the original Drunken Gentleman by Carra EXCUSE ME SIR That's right: YOU! Care to cock a snook at the
old one? Trust us, it'll be worth your while!
UPDATE: The old one's been pumped up a little, and now contains hidden gems for your delectation!
Curious?...about this apparent competition between the Gents and the Daps? Revel in memories (if you were there) and indulge in their legendary first band The Aarons