The band's name was inspired by "The Uncle Devil Show", a 10-minute episode that originally aired on U.S. television in 1985 as part of the 'The New Twilight Zone' TV series. The plot focused on a boy, whose parents, unaware the hallucinogenic video he is watching, conjures up bizarre magic tricks that transform them into lizards, and his dog into a four-eyed freak of nature. Langton Herring, Jason Barr and Terrence are more than just another bunch of trendsetters aiming their pop arrows at the sun. Even though all three are Scotch, they bring a universal message of intolerance and insularity which transcends all barriers.
Not everyone digs the way they wear their hair - but then not everyone unused to a life of dignified manual labour knows how to dig properly. THE UNCLE DEVIL SHOW does. These handsome rakes are the aces of spades. They're hoes who are seriously bitchin'. They're earthy sods, and this is sweet soil music. Mulch ado about something!
Aunt music's lost its taste, won't you try another flavour? Yes please! Stick the men from UNCLE on the record deck if you'd be so kind, deejay - but don't you dare spare the decibels.
LANGTON HERRING, six-string swinger and singer, was born among the prancing horses, garish clowns and plummeting trapeze artists of the circus, cueing a lifelong fear of sawdust. Langton was a "meals on wheels" driver for the elderly before he formed his first punk band, Shipmans Sweeties (which served as a primer until he moved on to The Uncle Devil Show).
Show business is nevertheless the lifeblood of Langton's blood, and an early trip to Las Vegas fuelled his muse when he stooped to retrieve a silver dollar which fell from Robert Goulet's pocket as the moustachioed maestro made to mop his brow with a kerchief after a strident rendition of the theme from Gay Purr-ee.
"I take it out and rub it whenever I want to write a new pops," explains Langton, "and the magic never fails to work."
A long successful career is 'in the pocket' for Langton and the boys, to 'coin' a phrase: Just ask the record-buyers of 3004, if you're still around then and the atom bomb hasn't got you.
It's always 'conviviality o'clock' round at the modish Mayfair batchelor cell owner-occupied by boho bass-ace JASON BARR - but one room is strictly out of bounds. "It's the room where I keep my house of cards," reveals Jason in a cloud of cheroot smoke. "I started constructing it on an otherwise nondescript Saturday afternoon in 1975 and it just ... grew ..."
Jasons' only other proper band was Oddfellows, a barber shop quartet.1995-99. These days, now that Jason is occupied at the sharp end of the disc parade with THE UNCLE DEVIL SHOW, he has very little time to add another storey to the mountainous edifice - but the sanctity of the construction so far is cunningly preserved.
"It's coated in a skin of Cossack hairspray and the room is sealed with yards of duct tape retrieved from the site of a hostage situation," notes Jason. "Furthermore, my guests are requested to remove their shoes and clothing and to slither across the parquet wearing oxygen rebreathers, so as to quash the likelihood of rogue vibrations."
Sounds rad, Jason. But what does the future hold for THE UNCLE DEVIL SHOW's most decadent daddy? "It's in the cards," comments Jason without even the merest hint of a smile.
TERRENCE plays the drum set - but the block-rockin' Tiki Lounge beats of THE UNCLE DEVIL SHOW are inspired by a rather unexpected source. "It's the sound of a Standard Class 5 4-6-0 steam train rattling over a set of points," sighs Terrence: "The most romantic, stirring, assonant confluence of polyrhythms known to man - if not woman, admittedly."
"In fact, prior to being pressed into service with THE UNCLE DEVIL SHOW I used to collect jars of steam - collecting engine numbers was far too prosaic for me - and then of course a moving picture called Trainspotting came out and it was absolutely chock-full of commode-mouthed vulgarians, which rather soiled the whole ethos for me."
Nevertheless, steam enthusiast Terrence is 'well-chuffed' with THE UNCLE DEVIL SHOW and welcomes the opportunity to 'express' his 'tender' side: "I wouldn't want our fans to think that an interest in locomotives negates the possibility of a meaningful relationship. It's not as though I can't sustain an erection without uncomfortable thrice-weekly injections of phentolamine into the base of the penis."
