I mentioned last weekend that I’d watched and enjoyed the documentary on The Nightingales, King Rocker, which aired on the Sky Arts channel last weekend.
I can’t pretend that I was particularly familiar with their musical output before watching the doc, and must admit I was drawn to watch it because of the involvement of comedian Stewart Lee. In fact, the only record I knew of by The Nightingales was their involvement in this, the rather wonderful collaboration with label-mates We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It and Ted Chippington under the name The Vindaloo Summer Special, and even then they were the one act of the three I knew nothing about.
Here’s the trailer for the documentary:
Now, I can’t pretend I came away from watching with a sudden burning desire to buy all of The Nightingales records – as you’ll have seen from that clip, they’re not to everyone’s taste – but I would recommend that you check out the documentary: it’s very detailed, passionate, and inspiring, and more often than that, it’s very very funny.
There is one song from the doc which I’ve dug out, this one from their 2015 release Mind Over Matter, which appears at the end of the film:
…which ironically, works a lot better when you see it with the accompanying film shot, I believe, exclusively for the documentary:
Props to Samira Ahmed for her faultless lip-syncing.
King Rocker is currently airing on the Sky Arts channel and will doubtless make it’s way onto the NOWTV streaming platform shortly. Check it out.
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste 