Attila - Ten and a Half Hour Sponsored Gig - Keep the Albion Alive and Kicking
Sunday, 28 November 2004
12 noon - 10.30pm
Evening Star, Surrey Street, Brighton
http://www.eveningstarbrighton.co.uk

Most of you will know that I am the Poet in Residence, PA announcer and DJ at Brighton & Hove Albion FC, the football club I have supported all my life. Many of you, I know, enjoy my stuff despite the football, not because of it. But here I'm asking for everyone's support, as friends of popular culture, whether or not you like football. And it will be a laugh! Here's what's happening. (If you don't know the story of our battle to save the Albion already and want to know what you're supporting, read the bit at the end of this page.) Firstly: I am doing a marathon non-stop SPONSORED GIG in aid of Brighton & Hove Albion FC's ' Keep the Albion Alive & Kicking Fund' on Sunday November 28th at my local, the Evening Star in Surrey Street, Brighton, 2 minutes' walk from Brighton Station.

I'll be doing all the material I have ever done, 24 years' worth, and it will be great to see you at any time. It's the first time I have ever done this....

Secondly: on January 3rd 'Seagulls Ska' are releasing a new version of the Piranhas' classic ska football hit 'Tom Hark' with new lyrics penned and sung by yours truly, in an Otway style attempt to take our campaign for our new stadium at Falmer into the Top 10. It will be marketed by our main club sponsor, Skint Records. More below.

THE SPONSORED GIG

Sun 28 November, Evening Star, Surrey Street, Brighton
http://www.eveningstarbrighton.co.uk
Starts: 12 noon ­ opening time.
Ends: 10.30pm ­ closing time.
It's free to get in, but there will be a very large sponsorship bucket in attendance!

If you feel like sponsoring me, you can do so by the hour or for the whole gig, either by contacting me (attila@solutionsinc.co.uk) or by turning up on the day. Sponsorship forms are also in the Albion Club Shop and the Evening Star. If you're coming and you're a fan of another club, how about wearing your team colours?

The Dark Star Brewery, based at the Evening Star, have brewed a special 'Attila's 10 1/2 Hours' beer and are donating a large barrel of it so your beer money will go to the Albion too! (thanks Rob!)

In addition to hours of my stuff, from 1980 to 2004, there will be some special bits.

3-4 pm will be Albion Hour: all my Albion poems and songs, finishing of course with 'Goldstone Ghosts' (for the past) and 'Tom Hark' (for the future, see below)

4-5 pm will be REQUESTS. Anything considered, however unspeakable, as long as the Albion are well rewarded. Sliding scale. The worse the song, the more the pledge has to be. Currently leading in this section are Paul Samrah, who has put up £50 for me to do 'The Logical Song' by Supertramp, Richard Hebbard, Chief Security Officer at the Albion, £50 to do 'Mistletoe and Wine' by Cliff Richard, and £30 from Alan Wares to do ³Hopelessly Devoted To You' from 'Grease' (all of which I'll be doing accompanied by my wife Robina on piano.!)

7-8pm I'll be doing some songs with various members of my band Barnstormer (hampered by the silly 2 in a bar rule but we'll get round it) including our Renaissance/medieval material.

8-9pm Selections from the work of some of my favourite poets (Hilaire Belloc, Roger McGough, Adrian Mitchell, JCC) and some weird cover versions of classic songs!

And all the way through, of course, hours of my own stuff, old and new. Hope to see you there!

The Set List



Holiday in Albania
Burn It Down
Factory Gods
World War Three 
Fifth Column
Flappin' In The Wind
Spare A Thought
Midas The Grand
Amsterdam
Spencers Croft Cat
(Tribute to Peelie)
A Bang & a Wimpy
I Don't Talk To Pop Stars
Pap Music For Wreck People
Foyer Bar
Gentlemen of the Wrist
Nigel Wants to Go To C&A's
Every Time I Eat Vegetables
Contributory Negligence
Nigel wants to go and see Simple Minds
My Wardrobe
The Night I Slept With Seething Wells
Steven
Nigel Wants to Join The SAS
The Oracle
Video Nazis
A Letter From Nigel's Mum
Andy is a Corporatist
Cocktails
Nigel's Revenge
Sawdust and Empire
Recession
I'm So Miserable............
40 Years
Ayatollah Wallah
The Diggers' Song
The Liggers' Song
Bogies from His Nose
The Ace Of Spades (as done by Jean Paul Sartre)
Radio Rap
Awayday
The Perils Of Stealing Half A Bottle Of Wine
They Must Be Russians
Russians in the DHSS
Russians in McDonald's
Albanian Football
A Very Silly East European Propaganda Station
Russians at the Henley Regatta
Russians on the Centre Court
Russians versus the Tetley Bittermen
Death In Bromley
A Day In The Life
Livingstone Rap
Xenophobia
Doggy On A String
Worthing Beach
Australian Decomposition

ALBION HOUR 

The Albion Centenary Poem
A Symptom Of Modern Society (for Wrexham)
We Want Our Game Back
Abramovich's Donkey Sanctuary
To the Good People of Mellor
Archer Out Rap!
Archer's Shame 
Bellotti -  Passed Over, Sadly Not Passed On
Retrospective Abortion
Reinelt, 62
The Worm & The Archer
The Wombles of Withdean
Five Wins In A Row
Flashbacks From 'Nam
Fishy
A Hull In My Heart (for Fatboy Slim)
Leagues Apart
Sounds of the Seventies (Ninian Park)
Cheaterfield!
Another Football Obscenity (for Northwich Vics)
The Shots Are Shut
Making History (Aldershot, FA Cup)
An Empty Seat (for Karen)
The Board's Prayer
Green with a Blue Rinse
Decision Time
Falmer Pond
Pierless
Shooting Star (for Bobby Zamora)
Poem for a Cheat (for Andy Rammell)
N-n-n-nine nil (Selhurst Park remix of 'N-n-nineteen)
Roll Up For The Donkey Derby
Poetry in Promotion
Old Brighton Blue
Goldstone Rap
And Smith Must Score....(Gary Bailey's Legs)
Tom Hark
Sussex By The Sea
Goldstone Ghosts

REQUESTS

Hopelessly Devoted To You
Mistletoe & Wine
Logical Song
Now Or Never
D.I.S.C.O.
Son Of My Father
Haider!
Between The Wars
All Tomorrow's Parties
My  Nightmare (Andy's poem)
Beer Gardening
My Poetic License
Asylum Seeking Daleks
Supermodel
New World Order Rap
The Social Surrealist Weapons Inspectors' Report
Letter to Saddam
Crime Writer
Shed Fire
Southwick
Don't Dis The Hood
Slough
To Slough & Sanity
Belgium
Worthing
Harrogate
Stornoway
Canada
Braintree
Iron Men Of Rap
Trainspotter Rap
A Solitary Tune
Rappin' Mole
Tell Sid...
Joseph Porter's Sleepinge Bagge
The Final Ablution
The Quaggish Quilt
Shirley Porter's Sleepinge Bagge
Punk Night at the Duck's Nuts
Frogspawn Man versus the Boy Racers
Carriage H
The Bible According to Rupert Murdoch
A Sugared Dish
Language Barrier
Zen Stalinist Manifesto
Valentine's Day
Ces Gens La
Bruxelles
This Is Free Europe
The Pen & The Sword
Hey Celebrity
Sawdust & Empire
The Ballad of Comrade Enver
Designated Areas
Comic in a Basket
The Mandelson Violin Concerto
The British Bullfrog
The Rat Tailed Maggot
The Maggot
The Crayfish
The Lugworm 
The Slug
The Axolotl
The Lemming
The Don't Care Bear
The Marxist Tomato Grower
This Means Waugh
Rogered!
Glastonbury Toilet Poem
Welcome to Cyberia
Europe
Use of English
Effineff

WITH BARNSTORMER

Worms
The Torchbearer
March of the Levellers/Diggers/WTUD
Market Sektor One
The One That Got Away
Cheering the Plough
The Siege of Shoreham
Comandante Joe
Baghdad Ska
Tyler Smiles
Death of a Salesman
Blandford Forum
Scumball Pinochet
Guy Fawkes' Table
Game Boy/Rude Boy
Song For The Defeated
The Ghost Road
Another Country
Old Teenagers
I Won't Run Away

THE COVERS

Jim (Hilaire Belloc)
Matilda (Hilaire Belloc)
Henry King (Hilaire Belloc)
Jabberwocky
I Married A Monster From Outer Space (JCC)
Clash Medley
T.Rex Medley
Streets of Forbes (Weddings Parties Anything)
The Colours (Men They Couldn't Hang)
Island In The Rain (Men They Couldn't Hang)
The Newshound (TV Smith)
The Suit (TV Smith)
The Green Fields of France (Eric Bogle)
California Uber Alles (Dead Kennedys)
All the Madmen (David Bowie)
North Korea Mourns Comrade Mickey Finn of T.Rex
Dialectical Materialism, T.Rex & the Chinese
Reposessed By The Devil
Victoria Road
April Fool In September
The Bard of All England
20 Years
Sarajevo
Mohammed The Kabul Red
What's The Difference?
Blood for Oil/Oil Power
Bunter's Revolution
Camelot By Numbers
A Nasal Appraisal
Hole Poem
Libyan Students From Hell!
Just One Life

NO ENCORE!

THE SINGLE

The plan is simple. In the first week of January, right after the Xmas holiday, very few singles are released by the major companies and you need to sell relatively few to get in the Top 20. So we aim to get Brighton's campaign for our new stadium into the charts and onto Top Of The Pops with the backing of our club sponsor Skint Records, thousands of Albion fans, and loads of other people from all over the country! Hopefully you! To keep down distribution costs, the single will be available at 10 designated shops in Sussex and ONLINE via HMV Online and Amazon.com. Presales will start early in December and we aim to get as many presales as possible ­ the more the presales, the bigger the impact. When presales are ready to start, I'll let everyone know where you can order it if you want to.

Here are the sleeve notes which explain it all:

1. TOM HARK (We Want Falmer!) (Bopeape/Baine/Grover)
2. SUSSEX BY THE SEA (Singalong Version) (Traditional)
3. SUSSEX BY THE SEA (Instrumental Version) (Traditional)
4. ROLL UP FOR THE DONKEY DERBY.... (Baine)

A few weeks ago we had the idea of reclaiming the Piranhas' national football ska hit 'Tom Hark' for Brighton with new lyrics in support of our stadium, with the dual aim of raising money for the Albion's Alive & Kicking Fund and trying to get the Falmer For All Campaign into the Top 20! The Piranhas were Brighton through and through, in the forefront of the local punk scene in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Many of us have very fond memories of their gigs at legendary Brighton venues like the Vault and the Alhambra and it has always seemed quite ironic to me to hear their song blasting out from other clubs' PA systems and chanted by opposing fans.

So as part of the campaign for our new stadium at Falmer our new version of 'Tom Hark' will be released on January 3rd along with a seriously ska version of our beloved anthem 'Sussex By The Sea' - and the alternative 1990 Cup Final song for our rivals 'Crystal' Palace!

THE EXPLANATION

In 1997 Brighton's Goldstone Ground was sold by an opportunistic moneyman called Archer, who gained control of the majority shareholding in a cynical asset stripping operation. We played our last game there on April 26 of that year. I, and many others, battled hard and long to get rid of Archer and his cronies and install a board who loved the club. We eventually succeeded, with Dick Knight, who is a true fan and a great chairman, taking the helm, but our ground had gone.

For 2 years we played 'home' matches at Gillingham, 70 miles away: it was at that point that I became PA announcer and DJ, to try and bring a sense of 'home' to the dedicated fans who would travel 140 miles to watch a very poor side, with no money, at the bottom of the whole League. Huge pressure from thousands of fans forced the local council to find us a temporary home in Brighton, at an athletics stadium, Withdean, in the leafy suburbs of our city. It has a capacity of 7,000. We've been there for the last 5 years. It's nowhere near big enough. Every week, the club loses money. Years ago we made a planning application for a new stadium near Brighton University at Falmer, the only feasible place in this crowded area ­ bounded, remember, by the sea and the Downs ­ with overwhelming support from the local community, 66% supporting us in a referendum on the issue. But pressure from local residents meant it was called in for a public enquiry and the planning process has dragged on, and on, and on, costing the club over £2 million while we struggle on in a ridiculously small stadium, losing money every week. We suspect that the local NIMBYs are just trying to delay things until the club goes bust. Desperate for funds, we have launched the 'Keep the Albion Alive & Kicking Campaign' where fans donate/raise money to keep the club afloat. The final part of the planning enquiry starts in February, after which there must be a decision ­ that's why we are putting out the single in January, to gain maximum publicity.

Please support us, thanks!