vivian stanshall ADDENDUM

here's some of what happened after i lost the thread:

in 1974, viv released a solo album, men opening umbrellas ahead, filled with songs that fairly dripped with self-loathing over his years of rockstar excesses and a couple about, um, his penis. for some reason, warner bros. decided not to release it in the u.s., and only pressed 5000 for the u.k. in spite of the presence on it of big rock musos from the band traffic. there's a petition to have rhino reish it, but perhaps realizing how well those things work, some enterprising soul has the whole alb streaming online in mp3 form.

p'rhaps the apex of viv's manic comedic genius was sir henry at rawlinson end, which started as a series of sketches viv produced for john peel's bbc radio show about the adventures of a family of eccentric aristocrats that went through incarnations as an album, a book, and a sepia-tone film starring trevor howard (who said it was his favorite film performance) as sir henry.