The Loony Legacy of Neil Innes and the Gonzo Bonzo Dog Band

The Final Word, SF Northside, August 2008

Neil Innes in the brilliant talent behind the great 60s surrealist vaudeville act, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band … the songs for Monty Python and The Rutles. There’s a new documentary film about Innes, The Seventh Python. The Bonzos are on a 40th reunion tour that sadly does not include the elegant wildman, Vivian Stanshall, who died in 1995. His good friend was the Who’s Keith Moon, and you know that can’t be good for your health. “If I had all the money I spent on drink,” Viv observed, “then I’d spend it on drink.”
Neil Innes talks to my friend, Sharon Anderson, who writes for this paper. Sharon is also a very talented painter. She’s one of the few artists I know who actually sells her work.
Neil once recalled a time in 1966 when the Bonzos were recording their album, Gorilla, at Abbey Road Studios.
“We learned the Beatles were in the next studio, making Revolver,” Neil told Sharon. “And here we were, playing old ragtime numbers whose copyrights had expired because that saved us money.”
The moral of the story is no matter how good you think you are, there’s always going to be someone next door recording Revolver.
That notion can keep us humble – or it can render us demoralized.
Sharon says no matter how well she paints, Ed Ruscha is in the next studio painting gas stations on canvas. All we can do is to keep lumbering on, one foot in front of the other. Innes kept going and has now seen the enormous success, including his tunes in the Broadway smash hit, Spamalot.
He was zany enough to tempt fate with his first big song with the Bonzos: I’m the Urban Spaceman. He called up Paul McCartney and asked him to produce it. Paul said sure. Neil called United Artists and told them that McCartney would produce the single. The execs were ecstatic. Then Neil thought, as only an artist would think, “Why should I use McCartney’s name?” So he called McCartney back and said that his real name would not used. The producer credit would go to “Apollo C. Vermouth.” McCartney chuckled and agreed. United Artists sputtered and choked at the news but the song became a hit anyway.
Most of us would not have taken that risk. Neil had to go his own way, even when he was a kid.
Someone might be recording Revolver next door but we have to plunge ahead the best we can with all the foolish moxie we can muster. If we don’t, what’s to become of us?
As Vivian Stanshall said, “If you are normal, I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life.”


Bruce Bellingham writes pieces for the Marina Times and the Northside. He saw the original Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band perform live in 1968. Nothing was the same for Bruce or for anyone else after that.


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