The chances are, you probably haven't heard of these bands, who celebrate strangeness in all its glory. Some have achieved more success than others; some are much more musically proficient than others.
Call them what you will - just don't call them boring.
The Warlords of Pez
Not many bands deal with such diverse topics as love and horse vomit in the same song, as The Warlords of Pez do in, "‘What’s Love Got To Do With Swallowing Horse Vomit?"? And what kind of band lists "Grannies" and "Horses" as their influences, anyways?
The Warlords of Pez claims to hail from "deep galactic space," and describe themselves as a group of "Cybernetically Advanced Sonically Aggressive Space Pricks," who fuse "a combination of Deepspace Death Metal & Low-Light Sex Cabaret with a twist of New Age Electric Bongo Madness." Other songs include "Barney Schwarzenegger", "My Beard", ‘Total Sex’ and "Warlords Are Shit." The band have also be known to insist on getting a naked male accomplice to display their lyrics on a sandwich board at their shows. Juvenile? Sure. Fun? Absolutely.
Here they are singing about a sex position on a Irish children's TV program.
The Sultans of Ping FC
Not to be confused with the Dire Straits song, "Sultans of Swing," the Sultans of Ping are a legendary punk band from Co. Cork. And what’s there not to love about a band whose most famous song has the lines, “Dancing in the disco, bumper to bumper, Wait a minute, where's me jumper.”
This song also contain such lyrics as, "My brother knows Karl Marx / He met him eating mushrooms in the public park / He said: "What do you think of my manifesto?" / "I like your manifesto, put it to the testo."
Apparently, one of their albums, "Casual Sex in the Cineplex," was advertised by posters with the line, "Can a Sultan have Casual Sex?"
Fittingly, and for some bizarre reason, the band were actually very big stars in Japan. After taking a hiatus for a number of years, it now appears that they are now back together.
Here is the band with their classic, "Where me jumper."
The Frank and Walters
Another great band from County Cork, The Franks and Walters were one of the best indie Irish bands of the 1990s. (After Whipping Boy, that is.) Still touring as of 2008, their website says that their “mission was to spread cheers and optimism throughout the world via their music.”
This video from their terrific 1993 album, "Trains and Boats and Planes," gives you some idea of the band in their "wacky" ways.
Dr. Strangely Strange
Need we say more? Well, perhaps we should.
Dr Strangely Strange were a late 1960s psychedelic-folk band from Dublin, who released two albums, "Kip of the Serenes" and "Heavy Petting," before splitting up in the early 1970s. Actually, to be perfectly fair, the strangest thing about Dr Strangely Strange was always its name. Apart from that, it was a pretty normal band.
The Bastard Sons of Boris Karloff
Once again, this band deserves to be included on this list on the strength of their name alone. Named after the illegitimate male progeny of the English actor who played Frankenstein's monster in the 1930s movie (which doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "The Bastard Sons of Boris Karloff,") this Dublin punk band were originally a protest band.
They once vowed to get to Iraq right before the war to act as human shields. (Fortunately for them, this never worked out, as they were stopped at the border at Turkey.)
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