Take the risk and Listen now to the Titanic wash hoose Band click on the ipod to get the full awfulness:
This was an MP3 recording taken direct from their PA system. Boom boom boom scratch scratch:
It Takes a
Worried Man.
Ok if you clicked the link and you are still reading this, you must be tone deaf or otherwise disadvantaged. So the remainder of the website is written to take this into account.
The Biggest Name in
Scottish Skiffle Music
The Titanic Wash Hoose Band are currently appearing before puzzled audiences around Scotland. Music is scattered everywhere as they wreak their unique havoc through everything from genuine skiffle numbers to rock, ballads, Scottish music, Country music and comedy. Their unbelievable instrumental line-up includes guitars, banjo, mandolin, washboard, washtub bass, Bagpipes, a lagerphone , bodhran, electric kazoo and concertina. Sometimes they chuck all that stuff aside and play Archipelago (should that not be Acapulco? ED... Naw!! Archimedes They‘re bound to screw it up...) where their harmonies have been likened to the sweet but seldom heard sound of Scotland football supporters wending their delirious but drunken way home after a famous victory. Oh Flowerr o Sco-o-o-ttlannnd.
The band (ha! ha!) has been strutting their stuff around Scotland now for some years playing the occasional gig. They're much too lazy to play all the time. Sometimes they wake up from their stupour and play before bemused audiences. Here are some audience pictures:
It's always great when the audience don't attack!! We're always worried they get through the chicken wire.
Thought we'd put up
some photos of the instruments we cart around with us, along with the culprits'
mugshots so that you know who to blame for which part of the din. It has been
said we look like a flitting and sound like a piano falling down a flight of
stairs. Judge for yourself, but in our defence, we'd say we are slightly more
musical than any flitting we've attended.
This is Mervyn, the washboard wonder of the
Titanic Wash Hoose Band. He's a wonder to the rest of the band. They wonder how
his lips move in time to the songs but not a sound comes out. They wonder why
they bought him a microphone. A cult figure in a cult band. Some audiences have
been known to chant "Washboard solo! Washboard solo!" This may be a
ploy to get the rest of the band to stop making a noise. He built his own
washboard, with a stainless steel rubby bit. Ordinary boards don't last through
one gig in the hands of this man. He's got a cowbell on it as well as scrapy
bits and hooty bits. Sometimes he gets fed up and plays the bodhran instead.
Has one speaking part in the show where he assumes the persona of a
bus conductress. And very fetching he looks too!
Mervyn's
washboard. It was all his own work. Made of stainless steel and pine with
fitted cowbell, hooter, sugar bowl, and a wee brass thing. A contact pick up
has been very professionally and skilfully fitted using 2.7 yards of
Gaffa tape. As well as the washboard's fitted extras, Merv has various other
hooters, horns and rattles he uses. He goes scrape scrape honk scrapity
scrapity ding, scrapy scrapity hoot. Get the idea?
Scott, AKA "the Baldy
Lum" is the bass man. Bom Bom Ba Ba BoBom Bom! Some real bass players have
been truly amazed at the sounds he gets from his instrument which is a zinc
bath, a pole and a rope. In fact they've come up to him and said "We're
truly amazed at the sounds you get from your instrument." He is so proud
of it, he had an artist decorate it with a painting of a certain big boat. Of
course the painting is worth more than the bass, but how can he get it
off? What about the rubber chicken! Scott sings on a few
songs. The ones he knows the words to. He's also been known to play electronic
bagpipes. Sometimes he even tells the rest of the band before he does it. Other
than that on some songs he plays Kazoo, Bodhran, and the fool (though not
usually all at once) .
The bass
is a zinc bath and inside there is an arrangement 
with a piece of steel tube and a guitar pickup so it can
plug straight in to the amplifier. This has proved to be much better than the
previous version which involved putting a microphone inside. The pole has
flashing leds up its length just to add to the effect. A Mark 2 version is on
the way, which will also dispense pints of Deuchars beer.
The
rubber chicken is there to dampen any third order harmonics which travel up the
pole, which would be detrimental to the pure Bass sound you get from this
instrument. (boing)….. More people remember the band for the chicken than
anything else. It's a great performer, and becoming a star in its own right.
Some fans have been getting rubber chickens and putting them on a stick. If you
try it, please make sure it's a rubber chicken you get. Otherwise it could be
quite messy
Davy is the guitar player in the
band. Doesn't usually venture up the dusty end of the fingerboard. Except to
play his solo. He's getting better at playing his solo, which is a pity really,
because he's getting flung oot the band as soon as he learns to play it
properly. He sings a couple of the songs. Only one in the band who doesn't
attempt the bodhran. He says "It's too hard trying to get a tune out of
that big drum thing." Mind you, that doesn't seem to bother him too much
when he plays guitar. Along with Stuart, one of the founder members of the
band. They both did something similar previously with the late unlamented Wee
Eck's Bogie, but they're old enough now to know better……
Stuart plays banjo and mandolin, as well as guitar, (which isn't
saying much). He sings most of the songs as well as doing the
introductions. Or as the others put it "blethering a load of
rubbish." Along with Davy, been with the band from the beginning, though
it seems longer than that. Got a bit embarrassed about playing a
shop-bought guitar along with the home made instruments. So he made one out of
a few dauds of wood from B&Q. If you are extremely good we'll ask him to
put in a picture and a wee description . It's a bit like Bo Diddley's
square guitar. It just shows what happens when you eat lots of cheese before
you go to bed!! He looks after the 
electronic bits for the band, and all the flashing lights
in the instruments are his fault. You daren't leave your instrument in his
house, or he'll make it flash coloured lights at you when you get it back. He's
got a strobe and a sound/light inside his banjo. For goodness
sake!!
Stuart
made this guitar for some reason. Here
are some of the details : The sides are made of pine and front and back
are plywood. Inside,there's a block of American red oak running the full length
of the body. The neck is bolted on. Here's what all the knobs and switches are
for: The ones on the side are volume, one for each pick up, two humbuckers and
a piezo which is good for adding "acoustic" sounds along with the
other pickups. The switches just above the knobs switch the pickups off and on,
except the one which turns on the tremelo. The two knobs below the neck
adjust trem depth and rate. The last three knobs are for volume, treble and
bass. Of course the guitar has onboard electronics, i.e. Pickup preamps, a
mixer, tremelo, and tone circuit. The whole lot is powered by a rechargeable
lead acid battery which can be connected to the charger through its own socket.
Which probably leaves you wondering WHY?
His banjo has a sound-to-light and a strobe built inside it.
There's also a magnetic guitar pick up under the skin as well as a
piezo one. With built in preamplifiers and a mixer of course. He can control
them with two little knobs on the side. He says he's working on a way to get a diesel
generator in there as well.
Wee Happenings and
Occurrences
Maybe we should have chosen another name. Maybe Titanic was
tempting fate just a bit.
Well it started out in Fife, but it ended up in tears. A gig
in Crossgates: Boxing Day at Sammy Tams. Great gig and the band were quite
happy sailing off into the sunset, Davy at the helm. Anyway 70mph on the
motorway and a rear wheel passed us wi aw the oily bits and the brakey bits
still attached - never to be seen again. Last seen heading for Rosyth picking
up speed. Anyway Davy hove to and tied her up on the hard shoulder. Polis and
breakdown services in attendance! Actually the polis caught us singing through
our repertoire under the flyover at 4 a.m.
Lucky escape, but Davy's now demoted to Navigator. Anyway, a few nights
later on Hogmanay, we were strutting our stuff for Kevin at the Riverview in
Bo'ness when the fire brigade arrived, and the place had to be evacuated. That
was the last of the band's smoke machine . It seems it set off the smoke
detectors. Tried to get a photie forthe website wi the firemen in front of the
fire engine but they didn't seem all that keen......
Poseurs? Nous???
They
are regulars at Clachaig Inn, Glencoe That's where the picture above was taken! Every time
they play there is just a wee bit special for them. There's always such a great
atmosphere at the Clachaig anyway, but The Titanics manage to capture the mood.
Live music is featured every Saturday night throughout the year and often
midweek during the summer months. So get up there even if the TWHB aren't
playing that night!
A
long drive for one gig but well well worth it!
P.S.
If Jimmy's working when you go, tell him
you saw him on the Weakest Link. Ask him who sung "In the Midnight Hour". You'd think
an old rocker would have got that????? Nawwwww Jimmy thinks it was Otis
Redding. But he'll be chuffed if you recognise him.
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run by BRAAS (Bo'ness
Real Ale Appreciation Society). Titanics
gravitate towards beer, which is perhaps why they get to play beer
festivals. Just after they got the gear set up to play, they began to
hear the rumour going round. Just whispers at first, then finally , the
organisers confirmed. Nae Deuchars ! Nae Deuchars? Oh No!! This
band is powered by Deuchars. Still with 15 different beers on tap, it was
great fun trying to find a substitute power source. After trying them all,
they thought Schiehallion might work, but they weren't sure so they had to try
them all again . Lovely lovely stuff. Nae Deuchars though. |
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Note the Clachaig T-Shirt! (Especially Donny at the
Clachaig!!!!) |
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A Wash Hoose |
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A wash hoose in Scotland was where your granny did
the washing. This was in the days before the Bendix. Usually it was a
building separate from the house and had a big copper tub where she could
boil all the clothes while she swirled them around with a great big stick
called a spurcle. She'd fling in some White Windsor Soap and out they'd come
whiter than white. Then she'd go and hing them oot on the drying green, using
one of the ancient incantations: It's a guid drying day. or They're
getting a guid blaw! Sorry if you know all this but this part is
intended for our international readers who might never have come across such
a thing. Anyway, that's a wash hoose, and The band were called
after a wash hoose. It was a great big huge wash hoose, so that was it: The
Great Big Huge Wash Hoose Band. Then they looked up Great Big Huge in the
Dictionary and it said Titanic. So they thought that sounded
better. So that was it. The Titanic Wash Hoose Band. Then yon big boat went
and sunk but they weren't in it and then the film came out, and they
weren't in that either......... |
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------> Links ------> |
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Railroad Bill Skiffle Group The Clachaig Inn Platform 3 linlithgow The Riverview Bo'ness Bo'ness Real Ale
Appreciation Carole Noakes Music Chas McDevitt
Just a few links
you may find interrrrresting.... Railroad Bill Skiffle group, and the legendary
Chas McDevitt...still skiffling. Lonnie Donegan, unfortunately long long gone.
Of course the legendary (also) Clachaig
Inn in Glencoe, which we've featured on the site this time. Carole Noakes
music...a really great site for great instruments. Last time we looked, there
was a selection!! of washboards. Anyway, we exchanged web links with Carole, as
we did with Platform 3 in Linlithgow, surely the wee-est pub we've ever played
at, and one of the best. Very friendly welcome and Deuchars on tap....great!
Apologies to both Carole and The Platform for the delay in updating the site,
due to unforeseen personal circumstances and Deuchars. The Bo'ness Real Ale
Appreciation Society, as you'll see on the site have their annual festival, and
they've been unfortunate enough to have the TWHB play for the last few years,
Great guys and great beer. Nae Deuchars though. The Riverview is the local
watering hole for some of the band. Deuchars on tap and usually another 2 real
ales. And Kevin. Finally a link to the National Skiffle Society.
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THE GREAT TITANIC WASH HOOSE
BAND |
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Contact InformationE-mail
address titanics@TITANICblueyonder.co.uk.
!!!! Remove the capitalised word "TITANIC" from the address, or the
link won't work. !!!! Sorry about the bother, but we are absoutely plagued with
spam, spam, spam spam. Anyway we heard
they automatically scan web sites for email addresses. So hopefully this'll
make it more difficult for them? Titanic.Wash.Hoose.Band.ontheinter.net |
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Titanic Wash Hoose Band Hope you like our new updated web
page. We've kept some of the old stuff and changed it about a bit. We left
some stuff out like the newsletter because it's a bit difficult to keep
up to date. Especially since Scott's always away to South Africa or somewhere
cracking safes. Well you don't think we make any money out of this do
you?? Thanks for reading this and hope to see you at a gig soon!!! |