Music Arcades: Bonzo Dog Band: The Bestiality of the Bonzo Dog Band

When Tim and I saw Yo La Tengo in 2000, Neil Innes was playing with them, and did a short set of his own songs, including what he introduced as "a medley of my greatest hit", I'm the Urban Spaceman. It is at least a song, which is more than you can say about The Intro and the Outro, which is just a comedy skit — fine in itself, but it doesn't bear frequent, repeated listening like a song does.

I'm a little underwhelmed by the Bonzos, to tell you the truth. I know their fans (some of whom became collaborators on their recent reunion) include many of the guardians and high priests of the Alternative Establishment, from Peter Gabriel to Stephen Fry via Phill Jupitus and Ade Edmondson.

I suspect the fans may have their perspective distorted by harking back, a little misty-eyed, to the days when Bonzos albums were passed round their boarding school dormitories. Myself, I first heard them when someone at my boarding school pushed one of their compilations at me with a conspiratorial wink. But the wistful nostalgia failed to stick to that memory.

Obviously I wanted to like the album when I bought it (four years ago, for a Fiver from fopp), but I couldn't stick to it. As The Colorblind James Experience provide novelty records for indie fans, the Bonzos feel like novelty records for effete Little Englanders. Somehow I imagine Viv Stanshall would have voted for the UK Independence Party.