Bomb Culture

THe Alberts 2Jeff Nuttall Bomb Culture London, Paladin 1970:

The Alberts, far wilder than the Temps, with disturbing elements of genuine lunacy in their make-up, consisted of the Grey Brothers and Bruce Lacey. The Grey Brothers owned an extensive collection of Edwardian clothes and redundant wind instruments, all of which Dougie and Tony could play with disarming skill. They appeared on all anti-bomb demonstrations and most Communist rallies, Dougie in Norfolk jacket and plus-fours, or white ducks and yachting cap, his cornet and his lecherous greyhound both on golden chains. When they performed at Colyer's, ravers staggered back from the blinding explosives flashing from the bells of the instruments and the sight od Dougie's magnificet genitals hanging in splendour as he sat in kilt and tam-o'-shanter with pheasant plume, blowing the guts out of 'Dollie Grey', while Professor Lacey accompanied on the amplified penn-farthing bicycle. Before their legendary San Francisco engagement (where they flopped miserably ... and escorted a stuffed camel back through the lost motels of the Western Desert) they performed their riotous 'Evening of British Rubbish' in London and sank a boat on which they were being interviewed by the BBC, or so the story goes. Bruce Lacey made his magnificent hominoids, sick, urinating, stuttering machines constructed of the debris of the century, always with pointed socialist/pacifist overtones, but with a profound sense of anger, disgust and gaiety that goes beyond and simple political standpoint. The hominoids, radio-controlled, began to appear in the act. (p. 117)

© Ian Hughes 2015