God bless Petrol Hoers. After stepping out of the shadow of being an outrageous tribute act of an outrageous originals act, you can argue that they’ve become more ‘successful’ than their own inspiration. Being the only horse musician in the world to get airplay by the BBC is no mean feat whatsoever. You could also just stop that sentence at being the only horse musician in the world, which is impressive in its own right. Yet three years later, the pioneer of digital horsecore is back with another collection of songs, less about the semantics of masturbating horses, and more about the feasibility of S&M in space, and the personal struggles of mental health, and alcohol dependency.
Band of Horses, Horse The Band, Sparklehorse, Crazy Horse, Pulled Apart By Horses… This actually isn’t a renaissance monologue of someone succumbing to horse-based foul play, just a fraction of the famous horses in music. The only difference is that Petrol Hoers for all intensive purposes, is nearly 100% more equine than any of those so-called horses that picked up an instrument and played music. Sort of. The anointed half-man, half-horse, and half-biscuit has been within the same school of mischief making as Petrol Bastard and Kurt Dirt for almost a decade, but in 2017 truly broke out with his star-making debut album, Oh I Don’t Know, Just Horse Stuff I Guess, with an infamous rotation on radio airplay. The performances over the decade were no less outrageous to boot. I got the chance to sit down with the brainchild of the project, Dan Buckley, and find out just what lays beneath the (horse) mask of Petrol Hoers.
To be dubbed as the Tesco Value Prodigy is perhaps a moniker of dubious flattery, yet the fearsome duo of Jon Tetsuo and Ben Atomgrinder manage it with such reckless abandon, their near-decade of debauchery truly suits it. What began life as a scuzzy electro-punk sideshow, has quietly amassed quite the rabid cult following across the UK. In what serves as their return to the stage in pandemic-era Britain, the pair agree to sit and chat with me in the beer garden of The Holly Tree in Addlestone, hours before unleashing their outrageous performance on the locals. By their own admission, they have no idea where Addlestone even is, despite driving to the northern Surrey town, a stone’s throw away from London. Our conversation not only peers underneath the veneer of their raucous act, but arguably serves as their most honest interview to date.
In the final instalment about this year’s sadly doomed and cancelled Eurovision, and to give every artist equal antagonism, as the home nation song and the Big 5 avoided scrutiny as the only songs not in the two semi-finals (which you can read about here and here for a more in depth roasting), the 2020 trilogy will end with The Soundshark running through and ranking every Eurovision entry this year, in order from least favorable, to the crème de la crème. Let this serve as a statement on ultimately who I thought should’ve won this year.
In continuation of a fantasy booking scenario, where the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest survived the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the hope of providing some light entertainment in these troubling times, The Soundshark presents the second semi-final of the already pre-planned brackets (while also abiding by an improvised and hybrid set of drinking rules), to fulfil the scenario of a potential grand final. Remember, this is all purely personal opinions and light humour, so nothing is meant to offend. Just think of me as a less funny Graham Norton or Sir Terry Wogan. Or just less funny. With fun in mind, this is how the second semi-final played out, quickly going over the drinking rules again, in case you wish to play along or had forgotten them.
On the 18th March, the world lost one of its landmark calendar moments of unity through music, when for the first time in its 64-year tenure, the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eurovision has now scheduled something in place of the original contest, honouring those who were originally supposed to be participating. But there is still part, well, of myself, that yearns for the original broadcast and format to play out in a fantasy scenario, that admittedly got out of hand. In the means of providing some light entertainment in these troubling times, The Soundshark sat through both semi-finals of the already pre-planned brackets (while also abiding by an improvised and hybrid set of drinking rules) and chose a set of 10 finalists from each, to fulfil the scenario of a potential grand final. This is all purely personal opinions and light humour, so nothing is meant to offend. This is all meant to be in the name of fun, so I always tend to go into this blind, with almost zero prior knowledge of what I’m about to hear. Just think of me as a less funny Graham Norton or Sir Terry Wogan. With fun in mind, here’s how Semi Final 1 played out, first explaining the drinking rules, in case you wish to play along and endure as well.
I feel like I go through the motions every year, repeating the same diatribe, but this time, there is a minor change of circumstances, and even a little bit of excitement. After all, who knows what can happen next in this crazy time we live in? As the site, and ourselves by extension, enter a new decade, one that hopefully that leads to plenty of promise, and one that can only dismay us from the gradual doomsday scenario that the planet seems to be sliding into of late, we glance back one final time into the 2010s (the tenties?) and upon the last year’s worth of music. Compiling this list was somewhat difficult this time around, as I appear to have forgotten more incredible albums than I remember listening to. Even then, to get to the point of narrowing down a contendership of just ten albums, the list was very much disputed the entire time. Alas, the list was finally cemented, and here’s what delights 2019 provided my, and now potentially your, earholes.
I will never ever forget the day I first encountered Keith Flint. It was a memory so vivid, so powerful at such a young age, that it will stay with me forever. I was around four, maybe five years old, when my mum had MTV on, and the music video for Breathe came on. She’d bought Fat of the Land around this time, and encouraged me to watch it, or at least listen. Being at that age where so much is impressionable on a young boy, that image of a demonic looking, and sounding Keith Flint, with the purple and green spikes adorned either side of his head, was absolutely terrifying. The video was played so regularly, it wouldn’t let me erase it from my mind. And like the best kind of hypnosis, after enough exposure, I started to like it. Instead of quivering in fear or leaving the room when it came on, I started to embrace it, and that state of alarm soon turned to joy every time it came back into rotation, the volume edging that bit louder every single time that beginning hook grumbled in.
God knows how many times I must’ve watched that music video, trying to analyse and break down all the imagery contained inside that dilapidated apartment. It’s truly a fascinating watch, not least because of Keith Flint’s flailing, and warped punk snarl, ensuring it became an everlasting memory, but it’s what became my gateway into The Prodigy.
Firestarter, of course, also left an impression on me too, that unmistakable nihilistic energy being translated by the innocence of a five year old child, who had no conceivable idea what anything Keith said meant, and the transformation of the chorus from arson into UFOs, sometimes flatulence, being one of my mum’s fondest memories of me as a child. Fat of The Land was always massively influential on me, even if I wasn’t really all that into music at the time. But for every new Prodigy song I discovered in that time, past and present, I always saw the music video for, and I’d always tried to copy how Keith danced, how they all danced for that matter, so if anything I’ll always owe him an indirect debt for any coherent ability I have for moving my body to a high-tempo rhythm. Out of Space and No Good especially. That was mostly in my infancy. A decade or so on, that connection got more personal.
Largely ignoring everything that happened with Always Outnumbered…, though not without its own merits, to date the only Prodigy album I actually own (although likely to change in the future) is Invaders Must Die. This album was on heavy rotation on my stereo after it came out, and came about a time when there was a lot of transitions in my life, namely finishing up high school and beginning to change things about my appearance, like hair colour, Keith being the very first person I ever saw with abnormal hair colour. Front to back this album was full of gems, and something always struck me about Run With The Wolves, not just because it’s solely Keith on vocal duty, and the drums recorded by Dave Grohl who may be my favourite human being ever, but there was this degree of authenticity amongst the anarchy. Keith’s sneer compliments the abrasive modular synths perfectly, the thunderous yet technical live drums propelling it far beyond album filler, and I fully believe this slice of electro-punk madness, no matter how iconic Firestarter and Breathe are, is his finest moment and the song he was meant to sing.
Going back to Breathe again for a moment, I was fortunate enough to see The Prodigy on two occasions. Their esteemed Warrior’s Dance Festival show at Milton Keynes Bowl in 2010, and at Sonisphere in 2014. For Warrior’s Dance Festival, my hair was dyed completely blue, in a bright UV yellow t-shirt, in a crowd of 65,000 people and I still managed to stand out. But in that moment of the opening notes of Breathe playing out into a sold-out ram packed amphitheatre, the rapture of being surrounded by tens of thousands bellowing out that chorus is unlike many experiences I’ve ever had before. It’s certainly the loudest I remember. I watched footage back of that moment recently and it gave me goosebumps. Hearing Keith’s snarls in the flesh resonates as strongly and vividly, as it did well over a decade ago on MTV. The Sonisphere performance is a lot more hazy in my recollection, but the MK Bowl show is without doubt one of my favourite live shows I have ever attended.
Since then, the new Prodigy releases always piqued my interest, and I lifted the songs I enjoyed from the two new albums since Invaders Must Die, some became songs I played in DJ sets, but I can’t deny I wasn’t as invested in them as heavily. I still haven’t worked out why to this day.
The day Keith Flint died, I was distraught. I cried a lot. I cried even more when his death was ruled a suicide. It didn’t make sense to me because I’ve always associated the music of The Prodigy to periods of elation in my life, and this year is already becoming one of my better years after the last 18 months of non-stop turbulence and uncertainties. The fact his irreplaceable voice, and larger than life stage persona no longer exists on this planet, nor will make any more appearances is a pill I’m struggling to swallow. Not to cast shadows on any other recent tragedies, but an illustration to give you an idea of how crushing an effect this has had on me; Chester Bennington’s death was like losing a best friend at one of the most difficult points of my life. The death of Keith Flint is like losing a close family member, someone whose presence has been felt consistently throughout my life, that their musical contributions have been so ingrained into who I was, and who I’ve become, from a very young age. This news hurt, it still hurts, and it feels like an important part of my soul was extinguished on that dreadful day.
Almost since day one, The Prodigy has had a profound impact on my life, and to be in the knowledge that its heart will never beat again, leaves me in perpetual sorrow.
Thank you Keith.
Rest in peace.
It’s OK to ask for help. If you want someone to talk to, or someone to listen, please call Samaritans, or seek your local mental health charity. There is always someone willing to hear you out. Never suffer in silence.
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