Welcome To The Monkey House
Just Monkeying Around.
As I have 'monkeyed' around and previously published a post relating to our simian chums a while ago on this site in: Everybody Knows The Monkey here are....
Animal Magnet, Welcome To The Monkey House at youtube.com
Catch the track at the link above.
The song interestingly shares the same name as a book written by Kurt Vonnegut author of 'Slaughterhouse-Five' the book 'Welcome To The Monkey House' was a collection of short stories written by him in 1968, the stories varied but were often intertwined and conveyed the same underlying messages on human nature. Maybe that is where the band got the name for the single, anyway...
Animal Magnet
The band were:
- Paul Animal (Paul Caplin) - Keyboards
- Kevin Byrd - Guitar
- Adrian Chilvers - Bass
- Joao Bosco De Oliviera - Percussion
- Richard Magnet (Richard Hubble) - Vocals
- Sean Lyons - Guitar
- Matthew Whambam (Matthew Wenban) - Drums
- Pickford Sykes - Keyboards
Their first single 'Tomorrow Will Do' was released in 1980 on the 'Be Flat Label', the release of 'Monkey House' in 1981 was on the major label EMI.
Club Hit
They supported Duran Duran on their first national tour in 1981. The song 'Monkey House' didn't even reach the top 40 in the UK, but became a bit of a club hit around the UK especially the Birmingham area. I seem to remember first hearing it a couple of years later (it was still doing the rounds!) at the Essex 'Alt' Nightclub 'The Pink Toothbrush'.
More information about the band and song at: stevomusicman.wordpress.com and also at duranduran.fandom.com
It's All Gone Haysi!
Evidently 'Monkey House' was co-written by Paul Caplin who left Animal Magnet and became the brains behind...
...Haysi Fantayzee, with their hit 'John Wayne is Big Leggy'.
They were fronted by Jeremy Healy and Kate Garner, the latter being the girlfriend of Paul Caplin at the time. They were pretty short-lived, but hit some Chart success releasing the above track as well as 'Holy Joe' and 'Shiny Shiny' between 1982-1983 before splitting.
Guess you can make up your own mind about the lyrical meaning of the song 'John Wayne...', lyrics and (anal)ysis here: songfacts.com and also thenewvinylvillain.com.
Anyhow, that being said it seemed to manage to dodge being banned by the BBC and it reached #11 in the UK Charts in 1982.
After they split in '83 Caplin went on to start his own record label 'The Love Organization' which had success with 'Marylin' and later he became an entrepreneur founding several technology firms including a Financial Technology company Caplin Systems Ltd which he sold in 2014.
Photo & Video Source Thanks To
Photo By David Clode@Unsplash
Info Sources & Photos: Discogs
Video Source John Wayne: [email protected]
Video Source Monkey House: [email protected]
Video Thanks [email protected]