{"id":738601,"date":"2026-08-15T07:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/738601\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T07:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:24:11","slug":"stackridges-the-man-in-the-bowler-hat-a-monty-python-like-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/738601\/","title":{"rendered":"Stackridge\u2019s The Man In The Bowler Hat: A Monty Python-like story"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1973, with their music already labelled as \u2018what The Beatles<\/a> might have done if they hadn\u2019t split up,\u2019 cheeky Bristol prog band Stackridge<\/a> found themselves in a studio with their production hero George Martin<\/a>. In 2024 we asked: were they about to lose their heads for The Man In The Bowler Hat<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Rising from the ashes of the Goon Show-inspired Griptyte Thynne and morphing from Stackridge Lemon to just Stackridge, by 1973 the knockabout Bristol pop-proggers had racked up some serious milestones in four years of existence.<\/p>\n

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Initially comprised of Andrew Cresswell-Davis (sometimes credited as Andy Davis) on guitar, keyboards and vocals; James Warren on guitar and vocals; James \u2018Crun\u2019 Walter on bass (Crun was also a Goons name); Michael \u2018Mutter\u2019 Slater on flute and vocals; Mike Evans on violin; and Billy \u2018Sparkle\u2019 Bent on drums, the band members had met in the clubs and bars of Bristol, such as Acker Bilk\u2019s Old Granary and The Dug Out.<\/p>\n

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The players\u2019 chemistry went from performing pop and blues covers to original songs infused with a Bonzo Dog Band<\/a> playfulness and eclecticism, taking in classical music, tea dance and music hall, rock, pop, folk and anything else that took their fancy culturally, created with humour and heart. They soon positioned themselves as a slapstick alternative to the popular rock du jour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe drew from every imaginable source,\u201d James Warren tells Prog. \u201cIt was a weird mixture of Beatles, Frank Zappa<\/a> and The Incredible String Band, and a healthy doze of musical theatre and humour.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe were determined to not be denim-clad like Free<\/a>, Status Quo<\/a> or Black Sabbath<\/a>,\u201d Mutter Slater says. \u201cWe wore waistcoats, grey flannels and braces. James wore slippers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stackridge opened and closed the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970, recorded two well-received albums on MCA (1971\u2019s Stackridge and 1972\u2019s Friendliness), toured with Wishbone Ash<\/a> and Renaissance<\/a>, appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test, and recorded a Radio 1 session for John Peel. After playing more than 300 shows, they\u2019d garnered a battalion of enthusiastic and rather nutty fans, known for bringing props to gigs to join in with numbers that required participation, such as Marzo Plod with its rhubarb-thrashing, or dustbin lids for Four Poster Bed (Let There Be Lids).<\/p>\n

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Following the Cockney-Edwardiana dance-craze single Do The Stanley, a UK tour saw them supported by Camel<\/a>, and their next big achievement was just over the hump. As avid Beatles and Goon Show fans, it was almost too much for the fluctuating five-, six- or seven-piece: the recording of album number three, The Man In The Bowler Hat, would be with The Goons\u2019 label manager and fifth Beatle himself, George Martin.<\/p>\n

Being the huge Beatles fans that we were, it just didn\u2019t seem possible that we\u2019d somehow join that sort of world<\/p>\n

James Warren<\/p>\n

Stackridge\u2019s creative life was almost \u2018easy\u2019 by today\u2019s standards: most band members and their roadie Pete Donovan shared a flat in Clifton, Bristol, living on a shoestring (and the dole). Later, as they got more popular, three nights a week they had digs in Bayswater, London, secured by their dedicated agent-turned-manager Mike Tobin. Each day was filled with writing, playing gigs and recording the means to their modest ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think back and wonder how the hell we ever managed to stay under the same roof for a year or two because we were incredibly different people, but we had a fun Monty Python-ish sort of time,\u201d says Warren.<\/p>\n

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Promoting Friendliness, the band were frequently in the capital, or playing nearby towns. George Martin\u2019s sons Greg and Alexis were often in the audience. \u201cThey loved us,\u201d says Warren. \u201cWe\u2019d see them at gigs and get chatting, and around the same time our manager Mike was offered a job with George Martin\u2019s AIR Enterprises, a band agency and producers\u2019 agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tobin was an effective businessman with a good ear and had been successful at Bristol\u2019s Plastic Dog agency and London\u2019s John Sherry Enterprises. He didn\u2019t directly deal with Martin, but he was in the perfect location to approach him with an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause George was coming into the office regularly, Mike got friendly with him,\u201d Warren says. \u201cOne day he had the temerity to say, \u2018Greg and Alexis have been coming to my band\u2019s gigs and they absolutely love them. Would you be interested in listening to some demos they\u2019ve done for their next album?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge agreed, and he obviously much liked what he heard, because \u2013 to our utter astonishment and amazement \u2013 he agreed to record and produce an album. It was a total dream. Being the huge Beatles fans that we were, it just didn\u2019t seem possible that we\u2019d somehow join that sort of world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In preparation for the sessions, Stackridge were invited to Martin\u2019s place in Paddington, and most of the band \u2013 Warren, Slater, Walter and Evans, but not Cresswell-Davis, who had married \u2013 were relocated to Stansfield Road, Stockwell (the street where David Bowie was born). \u201cAnd two girls from the Bayswater flat moved in, too,\u201d laughs Warren.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent about a week or two going to George\u2019s. We had to plan all the tracks that we were interested in recording. George would cogitate a bit, going, \u2018We could do this or that and that would work quite nicely,\u2019 and so on. He was earmarking songs that he could do some orchestral arrangements for, and then a big production number on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the music we thought the lyric should have a dark underbelly. But we always tried to not be too literal<\/p>\n

James Warren<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a bit starstruck and didn\u2019t know how meeting George would go,\u201d says Slater, \u201cbut he\u2019s an avuncular man and one of his gifts was putting you at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a title inspired by Magritte\u2019s surrealist painting \u2013 a man in a bowler hat isn\u2019t on the cover, but there\u2019s a young woman in some sort of titfer, wearing an apron \u2013 the album tracks were as wide-ranging in style as in the past two records. Each member was encouraged to come up with musical ideas, and much lyric writing was done by a partnership of Warren, Jim Walter and Mutter Slater, which would occur \u201clate at night, after coming back from gigs, over copious cups of tea and bowls of muesli,\u201d says Warren \u2013 or \u201cthe burning of the midnight cornflakes,\u201d as Slater puts it.<\/p>\n

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These compositions would be credited to the charmingly named \u2018Smegmakovitch,\u2019 while whole group co-writes went under \u2018Wabadaw Sleeve,\u2019 an anagram of letters from the members\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

The band had 10 days for recording and two for mixing at AIR Studios, which was then right in the centre of the West End, in Oxford Circus. \u201cGeorge was away quite a lot as he was working with Mahavishnu Orchestra <\/a>or Jeff Beck<\/a>, and he\u2019d be flying to New York for meetings,\u201d says Warren. \u201cWe had Geoff Emerick and Bill Price engineering the album, and these extra musicians that George brought in for the orchestral parts of the album, and that was really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opener Fundamentally Yours has Martin on keys and was \u201ca lovely tune by Andy Davis,\u201d says Warren. It\u2019s followed by the nostalgic paean to village life Pinafore Days, written by Slater, who was now composing on piano as well as flute. Pinafore Days was also the title of the North American version of the album.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Stackridge I just did flute parts,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I really liked what everyone else was doing and knew I had to up my game to have a song accepted. By the third album I was one of the major contributors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The power-poptastic The Last Plimsoll is a standout, with gangsterish lyrics. \u201cBecause of the music we thought the lyric should have a dark underbelly,\u201d says Warren. \u201cBut we always tried to not be too literal and wanted to introduce strange, stream-of-consciousness phrases into the songs, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

To The Sun And Moon was written by Slater using a poem by his friend Deno, from his hometown of Yeovil. Abbey Road-esque, Martin\u2019s orchestral hand is strong here, and the track finishes with Spanish guitar that leads into a Latin-flavoured, violin-powered The Road To Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Watching George Martin work with a group of string players… the mutual respect was tangible<\/p>\n

Mutter Slater<\/p>\n

Slater recalls Martin\u2019s aid in the studio with his track The Galloping Gaucho. \u201cWe started on the first chord and bashed our way through! George said, \u2018I think we can make this more interesting. Let\u2019s have a Hammond organ and a triangle on the intro; we\u2019ll build it from there.\u2019 He taught us about dynamics and properly using the range of instruments in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren\u2019s ideas surfaced in the gentle \u201cecological plea\u201d Humiliation and the McCartney-esque Dangerous Bacon. \u201cDangerous Bacon was a Smegmakovitch tour-de-force, named by Jim who would say that meat-eating wasn\u2019t just bad for animals but for the eater, too.\u201d It featured Andy Mackay on sax as Roxy Music<\/a> were playing in AIR at the same time. \u201cGeorge or Geoff set that up \u2013 we didn\u2019t get to know them,\u201d says Warren.<\/p>\n

Cresswell-Davis and his friend Graham Smith \u2013 from his time playing in bands in Weston-super-Mare \u2013 came up with folky hymn The Indifferent Hedgehog, with Martin on piano. Then comes the Slater-led group finale, God Speed The Plough. Mutter had noticed the phrase while leafing through a magazine in a hotel in Shropshire; it belonged to some verse next to an illustration of a mug of cider. \u201cGeorge obviously thought, \u2018Here\u2019s something I can get my teeth into,\u2019 and came up with this fabulous orchestration,\u201d says Warren.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was there for that overdub!\u201d laughs Slater. \u201cWatching George work with a group of string players… the mutual respect was tangible. It was done in two, three takes. Very impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

We learned the possibilities of what the studio can offer. You can create magic there, but you have to pay attention to details<\/p>\n

James Warren<\/p>\n

With the recording finished, a political situation threw a bin lid in the works: the OPEC oil crisis \u2013 where the resources for manufacturing vinyl quadrupled in price and export was prohibited to some territories \u2013 meant the western record industry ground to a halt. The release of The Man In The Bowler Hat was delayed until February 1974, by which point the personality differences meant a different Stackridge line-up would tour the record; and to some members its release came as a bit of a shock. \u201cWe had a new manager and factions emerged,\u201d says Warren.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got fed up and went back to Yeovil and got a job as a petrol pump attendant,\u201d says Slater. Each week he got the Melody Maker, reading it from cover to cover. \u201cOne day I\u2019m sat in the station with my feet up \u2019cos there\u2019s not much to do, and I see The Man In The Bowler Hat is at No.23 in the chart! I was living at my parents, with no phone. The last I\u2019d heard of it was at a playback in AIR studio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the studio experience had been exceptional and his childhood dream of being in a band had been realised with Stackridge, Slater was disillusioned. The band would dissolve after 1976\u2019s Mr Mick, reviving briefly for 1999\u2019s very creditable Something For The Weekend.<\/p>\n

However, Stackridge did reunite from 2006 to 2015, and their catalogue is beloved by many. The Rhubarb Thrashers Club lives on \u2013 on Facebook and certain forums \u2013 with some of our favourite acts \u2013 Big Big Train<\/a>, Schnauser, Steve Hogarth<\/a> \u2013 being Stackridge devotees.<\/p>\n

For Warren, the record lived up to his expectations and presented new opportunities. \u201cWe learned the possibilities of what the studio can offer. You can create magic there, but you have to pay attention to details,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took that on board with the first self-titled album by The Korgis, formed by myself and Andy Davis in 1979. We thought, \u2018Let\u2019s follow Buggles<\/a>\u2019 example and be a really good studio band, and not tour.\u2019 Part of that came from The Man In The Bowler Hat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1973, with their music already labelled as \u2018what The Beatles might have done if they hadn\u2019t split…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-738601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}