Half Man Half Biscuit - Jack's Been To The National {2025}

Описание: #alternative_music

Album/Single/EP : All Asimov And No Fresh Air

Half Man Half Biscuit, often abbreviated to "HMHB", are an indie rock band from Birkenhead, England, active sporadically since the 1984, known for its satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs. The group consists of Nigel Blackwell (lead vocals, guitar), Neil Crossley (bass), Ken Hancock (lead guitar), and Carl Henry (drums). Throughout their career they have been signed to Probe Plus records.

The band's first single, The Trumpton Riots, topped the British Independent Chart in 1986, and they went on to perform a set at the Glastonbury Festival, rapidly becoming tipped as the 'next big thing'. Their sound at the time was very much in the post-punk tradition, with similarities to Josef K or The Fall. After the first record, someone in the band learnt to tune a guitar, which some feel removed something of the particular character of the music. So, as their second single "Dickie Davies Eyes" entered the national top 40, lead singer Nigel Blackwell announced his retirement claiming that rock and roll success had led to him missing too much daytime television. 1986 saw the release of a compilation album and Nigel's return to the dole.

The band reformed in 1990, beginning to tour and give interviews. Their third album, McIntyre, Treadmore And Davitt, showed a move forwards in terms of musical technique, and a wider musical palette. Since then, the band have produced a new album every two or three years, and remain a much loved fixture on the British music scene.

Half Man Half Biscuit were long championed by DJ John Peel, for whom they recorded twelve sessions before Peel's death in 2004, and it was on his programme in 1990 that the band announced their return.

The band played live more and more infrequently, preferring one-off gigs to tours, driving home each night to sleep in their own beds and arranging concerts to coincide with Tranmere Rovers' away fixtures, a football team supported by Neil and Nigel. Half Man Half Biscuit famously turned down the chance to appear on seminal 80s rock show The Tube, as Tranmere were playing that night, even though Channel Four offered to fly them by helicopter to the game following their take in the studio.

The band's musical styles often parody popular genres, while their lyrics are dense with cultural allusions, usually to UK popular culture and geography (Blackwell often refers to North Wales, often in the context of hillwalking in Snowdonia; he also appears fond of Shropshire, East Anglia and Oxfordshire) or to the more obscure backwaters of the lower divisions of British or international football. Blackwell's enthusiasm does not only encompass popular culture; to give just a few examples, explicit references to Sylvia Plath, the works of Thomas Hardy, and the Bible are all to be found in his lyrics. In the context of HMHB's enthusiasm for football, Blackwell's close resemblance to footballer Jaap Stam has been frequently commented upon.