Essential for anyone who thinks that rock, politics and humour can't occupy the same mental and aesthetic space - The Wire (UK)
|
|
Chiang Kai Shek The first Selfish production, a sordid tale of sex/drugs and Chinese politics. Included on vinyl compilation LP released, by UMYU, Barcelona. "The Americans blamed it on booze and drugs |
|
Selfish Works 12" Spanish Dictators / Australia / Rekjavic / He Knows / The Crush |
|
|
Meet Bing Selfish & the Ideals Durutti / Old Bucharest / Long March / Dissidents / Drink & Drugs Party / Anthony Burgess / Cult of the Personality / Lament of the Soviet Youth / Tower Blok Rok / Hasis / Pissed and Drunk by the Banks of the Thames / Sofia / Yours Narkotically They said he was mad to give away his estate, his stables and his offshore interests to pluck four talented (if slovenly) musicians from a South London Job Centre and put the whole lot into this one LP. But every tune, every note, every vibration of air surrounding this album says Yes, it was the right thing to do. This album takes the traditions of singing, playing instruments and dancing to their logical conclusion, stops off to see the sights there, and then forges on into the unknown. "Like a firework crossed with a caress. I bought three." - Jorge Luis Borges. |
|
|
Ego Tripper/Goverment of Love Ego Tripper / Selfish World / Government of Love / Venus in Plastic (Part 1) Ego Tripper somehow manages to cram the all musical punch of Bing's musical of the same name into a 15 minute head trip, which made surviving members of the Beatles hang their heads in shame that they had never thought to do it, and is rumoured to have straightened out Brian Wilson's head when he happened to hear it on an underground US radio station. Government of Love brought down the regime of Margaret Thatcher on its release. With a wider radio play in the UK, it could have changed British political life forever. |
|
|
Binging It All Back Home Everybody's Right Wing These Days / The Ideal / Bela Kun / Kuala Lumpur / Indolino / 100 Flowers / Mondrian / Oil Traders / Godless / Kyoto Kids / Lost In Space / Hotline to a Hothead / Pissed and Drunk by the Banks of the Thames / Party Faithful A true classic. Features Kazuko Hohki of Frank Chickens on The Ideal and Kyoto Kids. On its release, Bob Dylan finally admitted Bing's great influence on him, and the public reconciliation on live TV was heartfelt, if a little showbiz for my liking... |
|
|
Space College & the Theory of Everything Space Hopping / Relativity / I Love You / Chaos Theory / Zen Krazy / Super String / Anti-Matter / Space-Out They said he was mad to leave The Ideals back at that Peckham job centre, but what could he do? They had dissed him once too often, and had to be reminded of where they had come from. Enlisting the aid of the mysterious Xentos Bentos, Selfish stunned the carping critics, not only with his retractable police issue truncheon, but also with the wild mind trip which these songs can barely contain... |
|
|
Dizzy With Success Diaghalev Said / Anarchists in Love / Modern History / The Right Side of My Brain / Loneliness / Electric Car / Trip to Andromeda / Sechuan / Incapability Brown / Mescaline / Never Grow Old / Sun Yat Sen There are works of art which to attempt to describe would be futile and indeed laughable, but possibly entertaining. In this fabulous treasure chest of songs Mr Selfish and his Ideals take us from the unspeakably beautiful edge of the galaxies to the lonely rooms of our lives. This is a set unusual in contemporary music in that it makes you want to find out more about the world outside your normal preoccupations and cares of what kind of strings the rhythm guitarist is using (though that's quite an innaresting story...). You can't describe it. But you can love and laugh and lethargise along...
|
|
|
The Art of Selfishness My Coup D'Etat / Laudanum / The NEP / The Acorns of Your Misunderstanding / England's Burning / World in E7 / Financial Advisor / Secret Underground Police Detective / The Fall and Rise and Fall of Jeffrey Archer / Be an Accountant / What an Alcoholic Day / Andre Breton (It would be useless to speak of the Truth if one hadn't spat in its face so much) To level a charge of Bitterness against Bing Selfish would be essentially to miss the life affirming point of the man's work, so filled is it with love and unadulterated joy. It would also be asking for a stream of bile to be directed against one of such a strength as to require an unexpectedly long stay at a Belgian sanatorium. So let's not go there. After bumping into Brian Wilson in a self-help bookshop, Bing was lifted from a trough of despond to new heights of Selfishness. Pondering the state of the Artist in this Overweight Society, Bing opened the Door to the Future in an almost Psycho-Cyberkinetic kind of way and now everyone can freely share in the Art of Selfishness. See mail order page for prices. |
|
|
The Legendary Conway Hall Concert (and Other Live Gems)
Where have you been for the last 20 years? Well, OK, everyone wants to forget the 80's but even those dirt laden years held within them jewels which could inoculate you against as many nostalgia tours as number the hairs on an archbishop's arse. From the opening set in the Conway Hall, a triumphant fiesta over the corpse of the Thatcher years we are taken back and forth in time (mostly - look out for the bassist) to the eye of many a storm created by Bing and the Ideals. If you can't have been there, be here! |
|
|
Calling All Dionysians Baudelaire / The Bloomsbury Set / Existential Angst / Genevieve / Ulan Bator / Diplomat / Nihilists / Dial M For Emma / Strike While the Irony is Hot / Calling All Dionysians They thought they had lost him to the world of film-making and radio serialisation. But just when you thought it was safe to sign up to that accountancy course or take that job as a phone-tapper's assistant, Selfish blasts back with the voice of conscience that makes you drop your prejudices, your inhibitions, and possibly your knickers, run out of the soulless supermarket and out into the Sun, the Sun, the Sun! With harp, shakuhachi, the sonic stylings of Barry Krishna and the most delicate vocal harmonies yet on a Selfish record, this is the record of a summer that must never end! Bing berates, he lambasts, he excoriates. But on the turn of a sixpence, he soothes, he succours, he gives hope to your needy masses. Because Bing wants us to LIVE, and he's Calling All Dionysians!!!! |
|
|
Self-Knowledge Self-Knowledge / Production Manager You no longer need to get hold of or study the Tibetan Book of The Dead. You can learn much more by grabbing this single. Also useful for production managers. |
|
|
Lonesome Andi Haller and Bing Selfish: No Puedo Dejar De Pensar En Ti / Vidas Pasadas No Puedo Dejar De Pensar En Ti / Vidas Pasadas / No Puedo Dejar De Pensar En Ti (Remix) / Vidas Pasadas (Remix) Like a leaf from a page found in the ruins of the Library at Alexandria, here is the document indicating a portion of the might of Hacen Vapor and their trek across the Tyrol. Found in a pawn shop in New Cross. |
|
|
Last of The Bohemians No Way / Now This is What I Call Entertainment / Evil Flowers / Anything But (Modern Times) / Cannabis Sativa / Bohemian Symphonietta / Hemingwhy / Boabdil's Blues / Beach People / Self Indulgence / A Case of Mistaken Identity / Last of The Bohemians Recorded in a state of spiritual retreat yet corporeal attack, this is an album at once lush and cold, savage and gentle, yin and yang, little and large, meat and potatoes. Bing decides against the planned album of the carefully recorded crushing of a variety of vol-au-vants in different key signatures, and gifts us all with the kind of advice they should be giving out in careers offices up and down the land. Deceptively accessible guitar the only accompaniment, you will find yourself finding layer after layer to intrigue and inspire. Aurally, the equivalent of telling your egomaniac boss to stuff it. |
|
|
Space College and The Theory of Everything Space College and The Theory of Everything / Space Hopping / The Uncertainty Principle / Robot Language / Why The Y Chromosome, Man, Why? / Relativity / Space-Out / Zen Krazy / Anti-Matter / Space Station Blues / Super-String / The Space Age After the release of the cassette-only Space College and The Theory of Everything, they said music was over. Well, it didn't turn out that way, so Bing has (mind) expanded the original release, a few cuts here, a few additions there, and here is Space College and The Theory of Everything in its full CD glory. If this doesn't finally see music off, nothing will. Produced by Bing and the mysterious Xentos Bentos, and engineered and arranged by the even more mysterious Xentos "Fray" Bentos, this magnum opus, years in the making, will turn your brains inside out, roll them in a spicy blend of science and philosophy and then stuff them back into your head. The head and brain is then placed into the oven of Truth for 45 minutes and you come out the other end wiser, mellower, richer and more beautiful. Ten quid. |
|
|
The Bing Selfish Radio Show First Series Double CD:
The Selfish Hymn (Version 2) / Now This is What I Call Entertainment (Part 2) / Amerika / Middle Aged/Middle Class / Selfish City Will Not Fall / Mad Family (featuring SuNray Jahchild) / I'm in Power / Stay Away / What's So Wrong With War? / L.B. / Drunkenness / The Selfish Guard Barracks Room Song (featuring SuNray Jahchild) / Rainy Day in Tblisi They said it was a myth. They said it didn't exist. They said it would never happen. They said a lot of things, all of which were recorded, later used in evidence in absolutely fair and open trials and now haunt their every waking moment with thoughts of what could have been... A distillation of songsmithery from the mammoth work that is The Bing Selfish Radio Show First Series (see below). A concoction of fine ditties, desperate invocations, sly imprecations and downright groovy allusions. Join in with the bunker classic, Selfish City Will Not Fall, surrender to the dizzying effects of personal might with I'm in Power, cha cha cha down the boulevards of L.B. The presence of SuNray Jahchild gives a patina of respectability to the whole affair. |
|
|
CD2: The Bing Selfish Radio Show First Series Imagine an empire, imagine an empire that encompasses the entire world with the exception of Australia and Patagonia. Imagine that empire is ruled by a has-been one hit wonder pop star with a chip on his shoulder and a deep hatred of pizza, couscous and cold mushrooms. Imagine no more. The Bing Selfish radio show tells the amazing, harrowing and touching story of the Selfish Empire. It's a musical, a drama, a satire and much more... Thrill to the heresies of DJ Ozzie Oz, gasp at the aerial agility or not of the Zeppelin on which you can't smoke tabs, look deep into the mists of the past to see the origins of young Selfish, just hang out in the Acid Suite and merrily chortle at the antics of Jeff Barker and Greg Canker, the secret police equivalents of Abbot and Costello. Though they're both really more like Abbot. Featuring the voice-based talent of Mr Bing Selfish, Lonesome Andi Haller, SuNray Jahchild, Jordi Hanley, La Riera, Thoth del Dobbin, thousands of minions and not a few clones, and many many more! A wild, magical, musical waltz through centuries of cruelty and laughter. An irresistible story of intrigues, plots and deadly satire, interspersed by heart-stopping songs and melodies. This might just be the Radio Show...of a Lifetime. Just whose lifetime is still being hotly debated in the re-re-education camps. |
|
|
Picnic En El Garraf (2004) |
|
|
|
Drytown (2005) (as part of Libre Albedrio) http://www.xterkyu.net/drytown.htm Gangsterism, aliens...and plane-spotting. Out on DVD - see Mail Order page     |
|
|
|
Antoni! Antoni! Antoni! (2007) (as part of Libre Albedrio)
Featuring Selfish, Straka, Haller, Hanley, Hanley, El Rolf and several, several more. Available on DVD - see Mail Order page |
|
Selfish Works (lyrics & illustrations)
|
Ego Tripper (1996, musical -performed at Operadix Festival) See Legendary Conway Hall Concert CD above for extracts |
|
|
Yoko & Hugh: a 2 man musical (with Lonesome Andi Haller) (2002, Barcelona, Vienna) |
|
Offside By A Mile - Radio Script
|
|
HACEN VAPORFab 2 man combo, Lonesome Andi Haller and Bing Selfish, who so far have only performed in cities beginning with B - Barcelona, Berlin. These guys have a thousand songs...'The beach people, ''Business school, ''Making It,''Audi A4', 'Vidas Pasadas', 'No puedo dejar de pensar en ti','In my car'... |
|
|
Editor:"El Frenzy" Magazine (editor, contributor) Throughout the 80's as the majority of the population and media lay cowered and impotent, the satirical/political comic "El Frenzy" led a lonely crusade against the tyranny of Thatcherism and consumerism. The magazine hurled a constant tirade of imagination, wit and cruel satire at the walls of the establishment. The editor, a shadowy figure known as "Xanfise Koke" has been linked with Selfish himself, there being a significant gap in his musical output during the period in which El Frenzy was published. Selfish claims he was living as a Tibetan monk in an isolated Himalayan monastery learning advanced inspiration/respiration techniques. (Recent evidence has casts doubts on his assertions). As a farewell to a pretty patchy thousand years, El Frenzy 99 points the way to a new Age of peace, love and the possibility of passing the Catalan Level C exam. Features El Forastero - an existential tale, Las Dudas de Xhangise, Filth 666, Que Bien se esta Tumbada and many more. Contact El Frenzy Productions to find out how to get hold of one of the little beauties. |
