Craig Stephen’s route to Biscuits fandom wasn’t through the seminal debut album, Back in The DHSS (which Craig reviews here), but through its bastard sequel which was released after the band had split up due to “musical similarities” …
Back Again in the DHSS is a compilation of sorts … in
the sense that it contains mostly new songs and some previously released
singles tracks.
The unreleased tracks are all taken from three
sessions for the John Peel Radio One show recorded and aired between November
1985 and September 1986. Peel was a huge fan and gave the band an audience that
could never be attained through droll mainstream daytime radio. It was crucial
that these tracks were given a release as every one of them is a gem.
Singer Nigel Blackwell manages to also incorporate Jacques
Laffite, The Wrekin, Helen Keller and the birch in one song. Again, and as ever
with the Biscuits, Google is your friend here.
From that same Peel Session recorded in the British
autumn of 1986 came ‘I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’, to which my naïve
friend asked at the time what was a teenage armchair honved, as if it was some
sort of new appliance or sexual position only tried by S&M “enthusiasts”.
The answer was rather mundane, as Honved were a Hungarian football team.
Eastern European football was also acknowledged on ‘All
I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit’. This is a particular
favourite for its references to Scalextric and the issues setting it up: “But it always took about 15 billion hours to set the
track up/ And even when you did/ The thing never seemed to work”, and
table-top football game Subbuteo.
Surely, this is greatest song about sport toys ever.
Another reference to European football of the 1970s is a magnificent merger of
the longest song title ever, and the most ridiculous club name: “Supercalifragilisticborussiamönchengladbach”.
The Biscuits were never a singles band per se, but ‘Dickie
Davies Eyes’, released in 1986 and almost a chart hit, of all things, was an
exception, and is included as are its two B-sides – ‘The Bastard Son of Dean
Friedman’ and … ‘Dukla Prague’.
The A-side is a play on Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis Eyes’,
and is a familiar trick of the band – ‘Reasons to be Miserable (part 10)’ is a
tweak on Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3)’, while ‘Arthur’s
Farm’ is a play on George Orwell’s Animal Farm novel.
As well as referencing football - strictly a no-no at
the time - ‘I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’ excels primarily for the segue
into a section ruminating on where the song should go: “Is this the bit where we're supposed to make guitars collide, and / Is
this the bit where we release all that raw energy, and / Is this the bit where
we go crashing through those barriers / Like what they do in music mags?!”
Elsewhere we have references to
Siamese cats, a kitchen appliance manufacturer, spa towns, a disbanded English
football trophy, double glazing adverts, Turkish Delight, Roger Dean posters, Arthur
Askey and dozens more.
Back Again in the DHSS, like all HMHB
albums, mimics those institutions almost sacred to the English: B-list
television stars and their gimmicky shows, small-town life, sport outside the
top leagues, life in cul-de-sacs, and working-class eccentricities.
And to think that these songs were
hidden away on Peel Sessions, played late at night, with only insomniacs and
students listening in. Releasing it in 1987 as I reached out to the Jesus and
Mary Chain and Echo & The Bunnymen was perfect timing.
Most of this album was released two
years later with a host of live tracks as ACD.
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