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“Well, I'm building a highway back...”
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This is the first part of the We Are Ten Radio Show hosted by Murdoc. It was released on 28 November 2011 on SpotifyW.
Transcript[]
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (1)[]
("South Sea Island Magic" by Artie Shaw plays in the background)
(Sips drink) Ohh, mmm, fantastic. Piña Colada, lovely. Oh, its very strong. Ooo! And a little umbrella in it too. How marvelous, thank you darling. Now, run along and pop some clothes on, I gotta do my little radio show. Its time to update the fans on all things Gorillaz. We’re ten years old you know? I dont look a day over… nine. Do I? Gorillaz, ten years old! F- yeah! Awww, that’ll be bleeped right?
Remember this one? This is "5/4" and it goes like this.
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (2)[]
That was Gorillaz with "5/4". Mmmm, smells like a big greatest hit. So! Well-y well-y well, here we are once more. This is me, Murdoc Niccals, bass player, boss and mastermind of the world famous Gorillaz band, yeah. Back once again for your edification, entertainement and delight.
I’m hosting another one of my goregeous little radio shows, and celebrating the fact that we, Gorillaz, are ten years old! (Uncorking sound, applause)
Yep! Ten! I haven’t spoken to you, my beloved audience for, oh well, a long time. In fact the last time would’ve been back in… march. April-ish I guess, yeah. When we were talking about the Gorillaz album The Fall. That was a- that was the album that our singer 2-D did on his little iPad gadget thing. Took around The States on the Gorillaz Plastic Beach World Tour last year. What a thriller that was. And the guests we had on that tour, what a lineup! We had De La Soul, Reed, Snoop Dogg, Hypnotic Brass. Uh, Bobby Womack, Mick and Paul from The Clash, Little Dragon, Jacques Brel, Demi Roussos, Sacha Distel, Honoré de Balzac, Willie Rushton. We had everyone! Legendery gigs!
And what now? Well, as you know, I returned to Plastic Beach and we were bombarded by missiles and airborn pirates trying to kill me. Yeah! Uh, well, I then escaped certain death and terrible danger to return back to the airwaves and let YOU know, we’ve just released a bumper compendium of killer tracks, carved from each of our first three multi-million selling albums. All the singles from Gorillaz, Demon Days and Plastic Beach. (whistle) Hot stuff…
Ahh Gorillaz. They were a fantastic band weren’t they? Really groundbreaking. One of the best the world has ever seen! Really… iconic! So, I guess dear listeners, I’m gonna be telling you everything I’ve been up to, what’s been going on. All the lowdown of the ten last years of my incredible life with Gorillaz. But first! First, I’ve gotta go drop a couple kids off down in the pool yeah. Empty my bac, so to speak, mmm.
And while you wait, get your lugholes around this, this is Queens of the Stone Age and "Go With The Flow", and it sounds like this, (Murdoc sound).
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (3)[]
Ahhh, that’s better, so much lighter… Now, where were we? Gorillaz! Ten years old! You’re gonna wanna know what happened, how I got out from that hell hole. I mean, last time we spoke, Plastic Beach island, my Gorillaz-style hideout was under attack. Bullets flying left right and centre, planes crashing into the building. (glass breaking sound)
And I was broadcasting live from this bunker room of the Plastic Beach HQ and missiles and debris flying everywhere. In fact i was a goner there for a moment, you know? In fact I seem to recall the last radio show I did ending on a massive explosion, as a- a missile hurtled into us, smashing the place to smithereens with ME trapped in the booth!
How the hell did I get out of that one? Well, you know, maybe, MAYBE, I wasn’t there in the first place, eh? Maybe be I wasn’t in the bunker at all. Here’s The Who with "Substitute". Eh? See what I did there? "Substitute"? Mmm, nice link.
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (4)[]
Ah, it's lovely warm here now in paradise. So nice to be off that sodding Plastic Beach, that was horrible. It stunk, my dung lord did it honk. So, yeah, The Boogieman, remeber him? He’d, uh, tracked me down to the Plastic Beach island. All Hell, Fire, Damnation and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with him too. Death, Famine, Pestulence and Zeppo.
Boogieman, he’s been in all our videos. Killed the manatee we saw in the Melancholy Hill video. Horrible little bastard he was. So, the story was like this: The Boogieman, he'd come for my soul, my eternal soul. Horrible black cloaked entity with the gas mask for a face, he came with the shivers he did. He was sent from Beelzebub himself.
We did that deal a long time ago, what’s his face, Old Nick. It's what rocketed my band Gorillaz up the charts in the first place. I- I- I got that put in the fine print, written in blood I’d stolen off a leper. "I want Gorillaz to be the biggest band in the world, get it?" In return, he handed me my legendary bass "El Diablo" and it all worked. Only I, um, promised him my soul, theirs to keep and roast over the fires of Hell for all eternity. But bollocks to that, I didn't fancy that at all.
And anyway, after the Gorillaz Live Band stole my stage last year, I thought, to be honest, each short changed me. Handed the glory to all that bunch of giffers. "The Gorillaz Live Band" pff! (In german accent) Schweinherz!
So, when I heard The Boogieman was coming for me I thought "It's time to put together a little switcheroo." So I got some, uh, Murdoc Lookylikey to take my place, to make it look like I've been killed, but I got some other mug to sit in my place instead. I faked my death in that bunker! Gun to the head, cyanide pill, counterfeit mask, POW! All that jazz.
When The Boogieman found the body, with the disfigured face and all that, I guess he’d collected the wrong soul. (dry laugh) And then The Evangelist, that odd apparition that turned up around Christmas last year, whatever he was, came and wiped The Boogieman out. So, you know, I got off scot free. Great! No charge.
Uh, excuse me love, can I get top-up? Can you stick a bit more Malibu in it this time, yeah? I THINK I NEED A BIGGER DOSE! I Think I need a bigger dose... Ah, thanks darling. Anyway, I'm just rambling now so let's catch up after this. This is The Moontrekkers with "The Bogey Man", or is it "Night of the Vampire", I can't remember. Recorded by the infamous Joe Meek I believe. Oh, I got a really itchy aris today.
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (5)[]
(Latin Simone (Original Version) plays)
(Murdoc starts talking as the track finishes) That's Gorillaz there with "Latin Simone" from our G-Sides release. The version with, uh, 2-D singing, before I got the Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer in to do a proper turn. ANYWAY, this is me, Murdoc Niccals, hosting another Gorillaz-style radio show here for you tonight.
And also, I'm here to announce we've just released our Singles Collection. What a catch, eh kids? Kiddie-winkles? And what with Christmas coming up too, what better than to ask Santa to stick a copy of that rrrright inside your stocking. It's got a bunch of Gorillaz stuff on it. Spanning the first, the last and every decade of our existence so far. ALL HITS LOVE, ALLLLL THE HITS. Clint Eastwood, DARE, Rock The House, eh, Feel Good Inc., uh, (?), uh, the other one, uh, Doncamatic, loads of goodies! It's probably the best collection of songs all released on the single format. If you know anybody who still has a record shop, I'd rush out and get yourself a copy. Or get it off iTunes or something. Or just press start twice on your keypad now, whatever. (phone dial sounds)
Anyway, that's enough self promotion, (Record stop and glass shatter) Here's a lovely track. This is a singer called Lloyd Price with "Stagger Lee". It's a great song about an illegal gang of dice that went wrong somehow. And in it, Stagger Lee shot and then shot William Billy Lyre and dead with his 44 pistol with mucking about with the dice. Goes like this, hit it Lloyd.
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (6)[]
(Double Bass plays in the background)
(Murdoc pours himself a drink) So, I guess I need to let you know how we got off the Plastic Beach island. So after the island was blown up, myself and Noodle- the real Noodle, she turned out with Russel, god he was enormous then. He's always been a big chap but this was ridiculous. But, he’d shrunk back to normal size pretty soon. Noodle ended up destroying my Cyborg Noodle, the evil Noodle android I built myself. Remember her? The cyborg? She was a- a little Noodle robot replica I'd made out of the real Noodle's DNA that I'd scraped up from the El Mañana crash site. She was great for me for a while until she went all wonky and tried to kill me and everything else. And our singer, 2-D, him, he'd been with me on Plastic Beach the last couple of years. I gassed and kidnapped him back in 2009 and taken him over to the island to do the vocals on the Plastic Beach album. That was my masterpiece, my meisterwerk!
It's funny that, how all that worked out, isn't it? Gorillaz. I think it was 2-D who pointed out that each of the Gorillaz, Me, Russel, Noodle, and… the other one, we each kind of released our own albums in the end. The first Gorillaz album, our debut record, was mainly Russel's joint, man. Lots of hip-hop, funk, and Cuban and dub stars. Demon Days, right, came more from Noodle and her dark, doomy demos that she made and all her contemplations on the world in a place of night. Plastic Beach came out mainly from my own damaged head, and all of my filthy exploits and global collaborations and legendary mash-ups recorded on the Plastic Beach island in the middle of the ocean. All rum-suzzled and piratey. And then we got The Fall, 2D's little dinky tour diary opus we released online at the end of last year as a little xmas prezzie to you all. That was him just mucking about on an iPad really, trying out some stuff. Looking at America out the window and then tapping on the screen. Bit like Rain Man or something…
So, right, each album got all of us on it somewhere, but each time it's more of one of us than the others, in a funny kind of way. Ugh, I'm getting all nostalgic, my (?) must be wearing off. (Record stop, Double Bass stops) Right, time for another track. Here's the Buzzcocks from back when they were a band, not a TV show. This is from their own singles collection album, and this is "Love You More"
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (7)[]
(old jingle bells cover playing in the background)
This Christmas, why not treat the whole family to something really special? Forget the computer games and oranges and the bags of pink whizz. Why not gather your loved ones around a nice warm, cozy Gorillaz singles album? Something you got really crack nuts to. Gorillaz, rocking your Christmas bells since 2001. The singles, available from all good record stores now. Ho ho ho!
(Music stops) I think I may be getting ahead of myself now. I think maybe we should start way back, back at the beginning. So, Gorillaz are ten years old and what a decade it's been. Amazing! It's like staggering down memory lane this. Oh, the adventures I've had. So, uh, shall we have a look at our best bits, yeah? See if it sparks off any recollections in your own domes. Here's where it all started with Tomorrow Comes Today, and if you listen closely, I think you might just be able to hear the sound of a crow being sick in the background,fascinating stuff. Here's "Tomorrow Comes Today" by me, Gorillaz
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (8)[]
(Murdoc opens a can) That was our opening gambit there, back in 2001. Tomorrow Comes Today, our first single. You know, what we were saying is, you know, it was our calling card. Gorillaz were combining the urban imagery, the breakbeats, the low ominous moans with the Morricone melodica line and the Wild West whistling. You get something that sounds like a Wild West London soundtrack. Underneath all the concrete of West London is probably just a desert anyway. That's how I always felt about it all, anyhow. Just concrete and cowboys around that way.
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (9)[]
("Bird in Hand" by The Upsetters plays)
Aah, it’s great here. A living paradise, aww. So, where were we? Oh yeah, looking back over the fabulous career of Gorillaz, mmm. We followed that one, Tomorrow Comes Today, with a miniature-sized melody track called Clint Eastwood. And that was the big giant leap for us AND mankind wasn’t it. Turned everything around really. Its funny, we played Clint Eastwood live at The BRITs when we were nominated for six BRITs. NOMINATED FOR SIX BRITS AWARDS AND WE WON NONE OF THEM (sound of crashing, tumbling of boxes, glass breaking) NO! Still, six nominations, not bad. I knew we made it then.
Before then you know I was kinda thinking of jacking it all in becoming a music manager. In fact, I had an idea to put together a kind of virtual animated band and thought that’s an idea that can really fly. But then, Gorillaz kicked off and then I thought let's ride this out for a few years and see what happens, and the rest is history. Clint Eastwood, our breakthrough single, and that track still a monster, it’s actually like a big clean inky canvas that rappers of all sizes to come paint their rinkedy rhymes on to. That one’s had raps by Del Tha Ghost Rapper, Si and Life from Phi-Life Cypher, Tinie Tempah has had a crack at it, Snoop Dogg at Glastonbury, Bashy and Kano did a version and Eslam Jawaad threw his set in the mix most recently in Syria, in Demascus, in the show we did at the Citadel.
It’s a truly continental cut that Clint Eastwood song, a frequent flyer. Actually, uh, let me have a quick look in my bag. I might have a couple of copies of that version live from Syria. (bag rustles) Oh yeah, here it is. "Clint Eastwood" by me, Gorillaz, in Syria, very special. This is a live recording from our legendary concert we played over there last summer. Live at The Citadel in the ancient city of Demascus, good stuff little man. We’re the first big western band to play over there apparently, well I never. Here’s "Clint Eastwood", the song, not the actor.
Gorillaz Are Ten - Spotify Radio Show 1 (10)[]
(The beginning of M1 A1 plays in background)
Hang on. I- Is that the door? That’s some doorbell isn’t it... No one there, strange… Right, back to Gorillaz. Where were we, oh yeah! So, the singles were flying out of the shops. Clint Eastwood sold I think seven billion copies, we’re selling bucketloads! The world is drooling, literally going crazy for our sweet snazzy dubby sound, but, BUT, no one’s seen us live! We had to hit the stage to complete the deal you know. Get up close and personal, let them witness the sound of sixty thousand decibels of animated sound going straight into their lugholes, big stuff! So, our first live concert as a band was at the Scala Theatre in King’s Cross in London. Great gig, seismic! Actually, "sans-Mick" cause we didn’t have Mick Jones in the band then. (Annoyed groan) Anyway, anyway, we open with this one. I held back for a verse right, and I just kinda stared the audience down. My eyes glinting light and then pulled the rip chord, revved up my bass, took the foot off the pedal and and let it rip. The sound was immense, immense! The first six rows, all their clothes flew off, it was that loud. first six rows completely naked! Some guy’s wig flew right out of the building, very dramatic! This is "M1 A1" by Gorillaz, my band!
(The rest of M1 A1 plays)
Uh if you don’t mind, I’ve told this so may times, this story. I’ll just do it in a German accent if that’s ok, makes me feel better. (Murdoc speaks in a German accent) So, uh, once I realized, as I suspected all along, just what a fantastic group we were, that we were live, I said "Alright, let's ship this Gorillaz-shaped concert over to New York (quietly laughs) and sell this band big stateside!" (laughs again) Our first US tour was around Febuary/March 2002, and we blew into New York like a big deadly hurricane! (Back to normal voice) Wow, I actually remember that. We just recorded this track with D12, right, previous year over at Kong Studios. It was just after the attacks, the attacks of the Twin Towers. All the airports were closed and no planes were leaving, so D12 got stuck in the UK and ended up at Kong Studios. That’s where we put up this track with Gorillaz, D12 and also Terry Hall, the head honcho of The Specials. So right now kids, I’ve got a very special treat for all you Gorillaz fans out there. This is Gorillaz, live in New York from 2002, with D12 and Terry, all blasting out our 9/11 track in Hammerstein ballroom New York City. Back in 2002. Here it is folks, check it out.