History

If it wasn’t for Sir Clive Sinclair, any of this would not have happened, that must be the excuse for so many twisted collaborations. When we weren’t in our own bedrooms typing-

10 PRINT "FUCK OFF";
20 INK RND*9: BORDER RND*9: PAPER RND*9
30 BEEP .1,RND*255
40 GO TO 10

-we was in our mate’s bedrooms trying to assemble pages of hexadecimal code, only to find that we had made a mistake somewhere during the process. Bored with that, we just resorted to glasses of strawberry ‘Milkmate’ and ‘Grizzly’ bars.

After discovering Lager at the age of 14 and the famously trippy 'POKE 23692,255' our minds had been expanded enough to go on to the next stage of self-induced cultism.

Three friends brought together in an idyllic West Yorkshire village, mixed backgrounds, but our personalities rebounded off each other (sometimes) like Velcro made from Blu-Tac. (Eh?)

Foggy (to me) was the posh lad down the road with the BBC MODEL B, but spent most of his time in those days playing with his BIG TRAK and his VCS 2600 with a SUPERCHARGER, listening to Toyah Wilcox and watching Bruce Lee films. What first impressed me about Foggy was his Les Dawsonesque piano rendition of the theme from ‘Hawaii-Five-O’ and the rumours that he had fingered some girl in a caravan.

Clemmy, was the seemingly flippant cerebral Duran Duran fan and avid Darkstar aficionado with an air of bloodline sophistication. I’ll never forget the day I was leaving his place to go home for my Sunday dinner when he opened the door and said "It’s pissing down!" in front of his mum… He had a coin collection and a Telescope but most of all, this guy could swear in front of his mum! Now that was cool.

Then me, Hodgie (spelt with ‘ie’ instead of a ‘y’ because virtually every other northern kids nickname ended with a ‘y’) another ZX Spectrum hack, ventured in to BASIC programming and wrote a few things. Heavily nurtured by frequent after school beatings by my brothers, I found solace in moorland walks, Cricket and computerised anarchy which really means that I was a moody loner / half Sport Billy looking for any sort of outlet for my harmless, twisted humour and latent sense of talent.

This mixture of minds was in no way concentrated specifically to create the Giblets and Cheese phenomenon, it just happened one day in Clemmy’s house after one boring evening walking the streets of Slaithwaite, avoiding the hopeless seductions of ugly, spotty girls.

We all took turns in front of the analogue cassette recorder spouting rubbish and other top-of-the-head, angst ridden plop in to the mic and at the time, it was funny. From then on, these noises proliferated over the valley and quite a following began. The outlet had been discovered and soon after, Giblets and Cheese became affectionately know as Gibs, a word that still rattles around the hearts and minds of many to this day.

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Contributors

Gibs, like many of the Colne Valley doss bands of that time were like a loose family. The main contributors being Foggy and I, but Clem was there from the start and occasionally came back in to the madness with classic songs like "Basket Case" and "Rock Up Bong Jr". Clem holds the crown for singing the first ever Gibs track "Dogs in the Study".

In the embryonic phase, Gibs established a signature style consisting of the tempo of the keyboard being thrown as high as it would go at the best opportunity. The most notable song during this stage has to be ‘16 Beat Trip’. This became a fundamental attribute to the Gibs sound which helped them gain the level of success they attained amongst their friends, their friends and their friends, even their friend’s friends, some of which made guest appearances on occasions.

Friends of Gibs who contributed to the mayhem:

Tony Chapman - Bacon Sandwich (insert) / Jack your Grandma (song).
Ben Smith - Linos (song).
Ben Phillips - Lime Jelly (insert) / Call My Bluff (sketch).
The Late Nina the Dog - Barks.
Jim Lockwood - Instrumental / Video editing.
Jason (Have I Fuck) Weaver - Zarch on’t Archimedes (insert).
John Kipling - Equipment and comic inspiration / Pagans - Make life (sample)
Karl Hodge - Strong Bobby (song, Strong Bobby Mix).
Dr. Derek Phillips - Answering machine (sample)
Justin Thompson - Wake Up (song)

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Influences

It can’t go without saying that Giblets and Cheese were not without their forefathers of chaos. Other doss bands started the trend with perhaps a more structured approach to their sound. Bands like The Bricks, Pagans, GWF (Genital Wart Factor), ETR (Extra Terrestrial Runnerbeans) to name a few, all had their contribution albeit indirectly. You could say that Gibs carried the baton momentarily but the culture and the political mood of that era offered us no one to hand it on to. Or perhaps we handed the baton back.