King Goon
‘Three Cheers for the Fat Italian’

Single released 23.05.20

Dripping down an Uplands gutter one of those nights, the kind of night where you’re stuck at zero, looking out of those heavy heavy eyes when you see an acquaintance across the road (but not someone you want to talk to, no kind of hero) so you cross over that dirty street, covered in rain and wet leaves and maybe you see a promise of sodden celebration through a square of orange light, could be the Brunswick or the Tav.

 

Tapping the glass on your phone screen, but nobody answering. As you get closer, you become aware of an ungodly racket emanating from the establishment, shaking the window and alarming passing seagulls and stray cats. Squawks of sax and spikes of ska. The best cure for a cold, lonesome night. The band are a motley crew, a many-legged beast, flailing around in a corner that can only be charitably described as a stage, and the room is full of people; staggering, drinking, skanking & romancing.

‘Who’s the band’? you ask the barman. ‘King Goon - a bunch of reprobates and scoundrels if you ask me’. You count the cash in your pockets and order the cheapest pint you can, then take a mighty draught of the fine amber liquid and look around the room, observing the drunken wildlife of a Swansea night. The song finishes and they tear into the next with glee, the off-beats tumbling like dice under a frantic guitar. There’s a melancholic feeling to the tune despite its energy, though, and it makes you remember certain people you once knew - dissolute, charlatan characters, maybe - hustlers, dealers, stealers, but they were their own role models and had a certain bravery. Ah but that was bloody years ago, it’s all so ordinary now.

Where are they all these days?

Realising the song is reaching its final chorus, you join the dancefloor and dispel all those memories in a burst of crazed drunken energy.

King Goon’s single ‘Three Cheers for the Fat Italian’ is out now, backed by three bonus tracks. It’s a great song, finding poetry and bleak comedy in the ‘joyfully profane life of a true hustler.’

It will be followed by their long-awaited album ‘ADMIT NOTHING! DENY EVERYTHING! LIE LIE LIE!’

Keep an eye to the ground and an ear to the air - it’ll be worth your time.

https://kinggoon.bandcamp.com/

Tom Emlyn