The Konkoma Maximum LoveGarden Orchestra

(BRIGHTON – BIRMINGHAM – EDINBURGH – DEN HAAG – MACC)

There are usually six people in the band ; 1 drummer, 1 bass player, 2 guitarists, 1 trumpet player, 1 saxaphone player. If there are any more they get to do percussion. They play their instruments in time and in tune in order to entertain those who attend establishments at night in the pursuit of a pleasant audio-visual diversion or to dance. Sometimes people visit these institutions at other times of the day, for example lunchtime, and the band can also perform then. The style of the music is rhythmic, happy and its origins lay in West Africa, Latin America and North West England.

The drummer is Sexy Beast, the bass player Fatz, Fat One or Fatty. However, sometimes, through gritted teeth and with a degree of menace, the saxophone player shouts ‘Davies!’ The guitarist who is good is known as Pheasant, although the bass player sometimes addresses him as Ralph, the guitarist who’s not as good goes by the name of Pops although Young Pup (or Puppy, the trumpet player) quite often refers to him as Badly-Drawn, and Charles Arthur Edward LoveGarden The Third has another name but it is not printable for fear of libel as it came about as a result of an unfortunate teenage incident involving a friend’s household pet.

Here are some quotes concerning The Macclesfield Psalter, an old document regarding 14th century life in East Anglia, but easily and equally attributable to the spectacle that is The Konkomas:

• ‘…it is as a fragment of the mental world…’
• ‘…its lovely raw peasant quality, its tough visual vernacular, its hilarious obscenity…’
• ‘The imagination of an entire society channelled through the conventions of craft.’
• ‘…a masterpiece of marginalia, abundant in the bizarre and grotesque monsters, the comic incident and everyday scenes that medieval artists loved.’
• ‘You see details of leaves, grazing herds, hogs and birds, a ploughman and the unlikely friendship between rabbit and hound…’
• ‘But what confused devotion, in which even a terrifying personification of death is juxtaposed with a man falling off his horse, while a nude pisses into a bowl held by a character whose head is connected to his arse.’
• ‘Here…is the birth of a distinctly British creativity.’

The Konkoma Maximum LoveGarden Orchestra - Unlimited By Styal

The institution at Styal – originally an orphanage dating from around 1890 and presently housing a selection of young offenders and women miscreants - has little or nothing to do with the band, save for the fact that it’s in the same geographical milieu, south of Manchester. Also irrelevant is the fact that an un-scheduled capital ‘G’ appears in the word ‘lovegarden’. Or the fact that ‘konkoma’ in Dutch means ‘cucumber’. The positioning of the word - mis-spelled as it is – ‘coma’ in the aforesaid Dutch word for cucumber is simply a co-incidence and has no real association with the trance-like qualities of the good grooves produced by this band of talented, peerless individuals. What really set this exasperating dialogue in motion was the misunderstanding taking place in Macclesfield’s Millstone Inn a couple of years back. It was a Friday night, clock having just turned 9.30, the ale flowing and the band moving steadily up through the gears, Professor Billy Foster and a pupil of his, Baggy, stood at the back of the pub:

Baggy: ‘Styal? Yeah, I can see it pal, but they’ve a new unit in there now, it’s set up to deal with complex mental health needs.’
Prof Billy F: ‘Styal? You talkin’ about Styal prison? Yer blinkin’ numpty, it’s style I said, s-t-y-l-e! Fuck me…’
Baggy: ‘Oh, I thought you was referring to the help available for this lot?’
Prof Billy F: ‘No, no, I was sayin’, dead good aren’t they, unlimited by style. Styles like, types of music, know what I mean? They can do anything, Latin, African, Reggae, Funk, Foxtrot, Bossa Nova, Cowtrot, Sheeptrot and Foot-rot, there’s nowt’s beyond ‘em.’
Baggy: ‘Ah, I see your point of view.’
Prof Billy F: Yeah, underpinned as they are by the metronomic qualities of rhythm god Sexy Beast, it gives full rein to the bass complexities of Fatty which in turn frees up the middle of the park for playmaker guitarist Pheasant to roam and dictate the pace of play while from a position just behind the front two sits Badly Behaved Roy picking dexterously from his armoury of McGonagall-esque melodies to prompt Young Pup and Dr Dannreuther into suitable to and fro motionings with the trumpet and saxaphone respectively.’
Baggy: Are you sure you’re not Frank Gallagher?’
Prof Billy F: Pal, I am The Resurrection.’
Baggy: Oh…and what’s Foot-Rot?’