Major Discography

 Major Discography

The Awkward Angles: A History in 10 Albums

1991      Never Mind the Pillocks (The Gavyn Greenhow Trio)

1991      Lavender is my Spirit Animal (Mandy & the Monkey)

1993      Big Guns & Small Arms (Spittin’ Jack)

1994      Bags for Life (Mandy & the Monkey)

1994      If the Cap Fits (Turkeyneck)

1995      Rock Paper Schisms (Mandy & the Monkey)

2001      Take Me, Jebus, And Please Bless My Kite (G-Force)

2003      Mrs Martin’s Cockatiel (Turkeyneck)

2004      Live in Angle (The Awkward Angles)

2006      Angleterre (The Awkward Angles)

 

Chart-Topping Singles*

1992      Hi Dudgeon! (Spittin’ Jack)

1993      Boys Boys Boys (Spittin Jack and the choir boys of the 1^st Squadron Thunderbirds)

1994      Oof! (Spittin’ Jack)

1994      A Thermos Full of Dreams (Mandy & the Monkey)

1995      Bunty & Jackie were lovers!” (Turkeyneck)

2000      Tinseltwot (Mandy Mitchell and the cast of Eastenders)

*including chats in the Solomon Islands and West Burundi

History 

 

With the death of former pop impresario Fat Fingers McGill, the newspapers have been raking through the sordid details of his life. This has brought a resurgence of interest in his most closely related stars but what was life like for Mandy, Gavyn, Dickie and, of course, the renegade songster Spittin’ Jack.

Mandy & the Monkey were an English vocal and instrumental duo consisting of romantic partners Mandy and Gavyn. They produced a distinct grating musical style, combining Mandy's contralto vocals with Gavyn's re-arranging and decomposition skills. Gavyn took piano lessons as a child, progressing to Mrs Dingley-Jones’ Academy of Music & Nemobics, Old Sodbury, Gloucestershire, while Mandy learned the bass kazoo and left-handed banjolele.

During their 4-year career (1991-1995), Mandy & the Monkey recorded three albums, along with numerous singles and a misjudged television special for Babe Station. They first performed together as a duo in early 1991 and in April toured as the punk-oriented Gavin Greenhow Trio with Gavyn’s father Spittin’ Jack on spitting and sandwiches. Jack’s drug-fuelled rants on stage drew too much attention away from the duo’s vocals and inevitably he went his own solo way after just one album, “Never Mind the Pillocks” (1991).

No copies of Jack’s first chart single remain, a rarity entitled “Hi Dudgeon!” (1992). He recorded a charity album while on a Comic Relief tour of Ghana where he had been stationed during World War II as a comfort girl (second class). “Big Guns & Small Arms” (1993) contained his only chart single, which climbed to Number 3 after a hi-energy mix made it a gay anthem. “Oof!” (1994) with backing vocals from Les Dennis, Sid Little and Judi Dench.

At an old pals reunion, he teamed up with other veterans of the 1^st Squadron Thunderbirds, a crack commando unit who was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they did commit… the single entitled “Boys Boys Boys” (1993). This four-song platter featured songs from WWII reimagined as drum and bass and purported to raise money to provide hip replacements for residents of Mrs Gladys Benson’s Rest Home, Nether Wallop, a charitable home for genteel streetwalkers. The money disappeared and these men promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the London underground where they used their Older Persons Freedom Passes to evade capture.  

Today, still wanted by Transport for London, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem... if no one else can help... and if you can find them... maybe you can hire... The OAP-Team.

In fact, the band’s manager Fat Fingers McGill had syphoned the money to fund his drug habit. He died only recently in the bedroom of a guesthouse in Budleigh Salterton. He’d been on a 48-hour binge of his favourite drug cocktail, a Sidmouth Speedball (2 parts Viakal, 1 part Vimto, shaken not stirred) which was allegedly spiked with Viagra.

________________________________________________________________________________

Signing as Mandy & the Monkey to B&Q Records in late 1991, the original duo achieved major success at Christmas with the hit album “Lavender is my Spirit Animal” (1991).

After a gruelling tour they went into the studios with producer Hampton Lovett to make their follow up offering “Bags4Life” (1994). It has a green ecology theme and was printed on green vinyl. To keep in with the bleeding heart, Save the World brigade, who heralded the LP as having a very important political message, the record company chose to only print 200 copies.

Splits were forming musically and lunch-wise. The duo finally stopped performing after Mandy sued for damages when she said she had been force-fed a pork and piccalilli pastie against her will and made to stay up past her bedtime rehearsing their last single “A Thermos Full of Dreams” (1994).  The subsequent album was not a cohesive offering with Gavyn’s experimental prog-rock and Mandy’s baleful polkas. “Rock - Paper - Schism” (1994) summed up the end of the affair.

Meanwhile, as Gavyn recuperated in an Ashram just outside Kidderminster, to detoxify from his Greggs Addiction, his brother Dickie used his studio manshed to develop an album of electronic music inspired by comic books characters. “If the Cap Fits” (1994) included his biggest selling hit being “Bunty & Jackie were lovers!” (1995).

To make ends meet, Mandy took a small role as a pub singer and apprentice mechanic in Eastenders and was romantically linked with a number of cast members. She was asked to front the BBC’S Christmas Single “Tinseltown” During the ill-fated proofreaders and typesetters strike. The resultant single shocked Radio One DJ’s who immediately banned Auntie’s own product. “Tinseltwot” (2000) subsequently rocketed to Number One only to be pipped in Christmas Week by Lord Longford’s “Last Gasp”.

Gavyn had found God. He was a Mr Rashwood who shared a room on the psychiatric ward. Gavyn’s newfound faith inspired a double anthem with a 47-minute track consisting of just the crackle of a nylon kite flapping in a high wind: “Peter Powell Loves Me”. Released under the pseudonym G-Force, “Take Me, Jebus, and Please Bless My Kite” (2001) also featured soft rock-gospel reimaginings of popular hits with the backing vocals of Tenby & District League of Plain Ladies.

He and Mandy got back together for the BBC series “Stars in their Bras” beating Dollar and the Pet Shop Boys in the final three-legged push up balcony fastening competition but were accused of cheating as Gavyn has stuffed his brassiere with old tights. They went on retreat to Angle, in West Wales with Gavyn’s Brother Dickie who was recording his second Turkeyneck album: “Mrs Martin’s Cockatiel” (2003).

This reignited their love of music and the three formed a new group the Awkward Angles releasing the “Live in Angle” album in 2004.

The follow up album “Angleterre” (2006) was their last due to Gavyn being put on a right big project at work and Mandy taking a job as Helen Mirren’s stunt double for the Queen. Dickie also lost interest when the musical manshed, the group’s spiritual home, was burned down in an insurance job traced back to Spittin’ Jack and his ever present henchman Fat Fingers McGill.