The Jester is Always the One Running the Show: The New Royal Family's Triple B-Side

I stumbled across London-based, self-proclaimed "crap novelty punk" band The New Royal Family through the incestuous web of MySpace - it could have been through the Luxembourg page or The Melting Ice Caps or...I can't completely remember. At any rate, I'm glad I found them because they are punk in all its provocative and fancy dress glory; they retain that original spirit of punk that was provocative for provocation's sake and too difficult for irony to pin down and flatten. Featuring a revolving line-up of former members of bands like Gay Dad, The Boyfriends, Linus and Luxembourg (not to mention someone who used to drum for The Monochrome Set), the New Royal Family is now releasing a triple b-side to follow up their sold-out limited edition 7" Anyone Fancy a Chocolate Digestive?, and it continues the line of raucous, ludicrous (ludiraucous?) songs. There's a bit of the Art Brut spirit about them, and their jesting veneer, like all jesting veneers, covers the cleverness beneath.

This triple b-side (or at least the disc I have - the discs come with different, random track orders) kicks off with Scotland The Brave, a song that borrows heavily from The Damned's New Rose and early Adam and the Ants while David Barnett's sneering vocals deliver a slew of nonsensical, vaguely Scottish-related lyrics, including the line "Bonny Scotland where's your kilts?." The next track, That Girl Has Got It, starts off deceptively gentle and slow before launching into an appropriately speedier frenzy while the innuendo escalates - "That girl has got it in her hand/What's she going to do now?" to "That girl has got it in her mouth/What's she going to do now?." The disc concludes with The New Royal Family Rules Okay, which bops about in a Ramonesesque fashion and is my favourite track of the three. The chorus says "Rules are unspoken/Rules are meant to be broken," a lyric that sums up The New Royal Family quite nicely.

You can download the triple-track single for free here, but only for a limited time. And if you want them as a VERY limited CD single in a random variety of sleeves and running orders along with a free badge, you can purchase one for just £2 - email
davidstrangetrousers@googlemail.com to find out how. Above all, The New Royal Family are fun and they do as they please. I'd pick them over Elizabeth and her glorified welfare family any day.

New Royal Family MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thenewroyalfamily

The New Royal Family Rules Okay - The New Royal Family

Anyone Fancy a Chocolate Digestive? - The New Royal Family