The Great Imperial Yoyo emerged from an aubergine in Southsea, England in 1991.
There were just three of them at first. Rat (out of The Vaccilators), Goose (out of Zzing Bong Wang) and the Spbm (out of Crunt) made up some parts of songs together, and played the very first Yoyo gig at the RIP club in Portsmouth, supporting Local and related thrashers Tarrasque. Everybody liked it very much and even said so.
Rat’s hugely amusing and versatile guitar style, which flows from intricate and unfocussed to swirling and unfocussed, was underpinned and overwrought by Spbm’s spaceless, spacey and incessant bassing. The foundation to this melodious cacophony was never provided by Goose, who drummed to the sound of a different drummer, sometimes to another song, but always with passion, feel, and no t-shirt. Nobody couldn’t dance to such sweet pleasure.
Later that year, Ming the Saxiphong began to join the band on stage and soon became an integral and unmistakeable pointy beard. He also had a bag containing all sorts of other tube-like instruments, all of which he could play. The fundamental frequency of his breath can be heard all over the subsequent recordings.
Nik Cushion came round to the house one day with a sample of Smiff saying ‘Guttering causes problems’. The rest of the band liked it until it got boring, but they let Nik join the band anyway.
This was the line-up for Blink! the Yoyo’s first album, recorded live in front of a live Watershed Studio. Mr Perret was patient and perfect (for all of the three albums).
The band then continued to make stuff up on the spot, and pinged all over England, laden with vegetables, playing to bemused, smiling audiences. (One memorable set list in Whitstable consisted entirely of a single song: Onion, albeit a 90-minute version.) The band met some really fantastic people on the way - far too many to mention them all, but here’s a few for now; The Mighty Frog, The Ohm Sound System (Jim and Clive Womble), Mad Mike from Margate, Alex Wildcard, The Twiddly Wizzards, The Leccy ‘Eads, Kava Kava Kava Kava Kava Khameeeeeeleon, Mungo from the Elephant and Castle, Ship of Fools, Roman Hawkmoon, his Lady (Mrs J. Edwards) and his red lorry, Andre, Marc Mushroom and whassisname… the list goes on and on and on.
For the second album, the not-eponymously-titled Toe, new faces were heard:
Dave T Horn, a lovely big fellow with soft, cow-eyes and a steel bolt through his nez, beat all them so-called sixties beat poets at their own game with an entirely improvised ‘pig’ rant on ‘Playing at being God’ during the recording of which he chased the rest of the band round the studio hefting a big stick, just to get into character.
Lorna, a lovely girl with soft, cow-eyes, and a magnetically inert schozz (thankfully), set ears zizzing with the most amazing and dreamy abstract vocal performance on ‘Piddock Light’. Man, you should’ve been there. Actually maybe there wouldn’t have been enough room for you all.
Wozzer, a lovely medium-sized fellow, set the carpet alight with the bassest of drones for the coda of ‘You are an alien’ using a didgeridoo he had made out of a coathanger.
These effortless humans would appear on stage in random combinations along with the Yoyo core, often depending on how many seats were spare in Smiff’s van.
A triumphant tour of Belgium and Holland, organised by Crohinga Well editor and champion tricyclist Andre van Bosbeke, was to be the last time Spbm played live with the band. He had sustained a nasty injury to the id, and was confined to his shed. Spbm was replaced on bass (but, strangely, not on kazzoo) by Mik, a lovely small human. Mik was a very talented musician, but they let him stay anyway.
‘Chicken Island’ was to be the culmination, swan-call and curtain-song of the band, having decided that they just couldn’t continue without the Spbm (or so they told him - just so he would stop crying).
By the time of the recording of Chicken Island, Paul Do-lung-hat-mad-new-toungue-man, who’s Dad was an ex-bishop baker, had become a regular member of the bund, and rolled on the floor a lot. He was also a talented musician, but they told him not to tell anybody.
Spbm was recalled, despite a dented soul, to play the bass on a couple of tracks, and generally muck about in the studio.
The great Chicken Island was recorded, and released back into the wild by the extremely friendly Bongheads Record label.
The Great Imperial Yoyo all held hands and watched it gallop away over the sunset horizon with a tear in their eye, and when they were sure it had safely made its way, they turned to each other, said ’spot on’ in close harmony, looked to the sky and popped out of existence.
The following morning, a Southsea milkman was suprised to find a single aubergine lying purple and shiny in the morning sun. That evening he tucked in to the best Moussaka he’d ever tasted.