April 13, 1999

Gene : Fill her up

...a Russian [a]Chumbawamba[/a] D trumpets, polka and the "HEY! HEY!" chants of walrus-moustached Ukrainians enjoying a well-earned yard of vodka after a hard day's queueing.

They drink a Babycham drink, they drink a Bacardi Breezer drink. They're dead hard essentially, the Gene mob, with their skinheads, their big muscles, tattoos, moustaches and Rottweilers - hell, Martin Rossiter is rapidly becoming the Lennox Lewis of rock. And like most real working-class geezahs, Gene are partial to the sauce. However, Pop Law 147, Subsection (d) clearly states that only shandy-guzzling ponces write songs about drinking, particularly if that song resembles a Russian Chumbawamba - trumpets, polka and the "HEY! HEY!" chants of walrus-moustached Ukrainians enjoying a well-earned yard of vodka after a hard day's queueing. Yet, somehow, this is great, all goose-stepping vigour
and
down-in-one Bolshevik bravado. They get knocked down, on an hourly basis, but they will get up again. And ours, inevitably, will be a pint.

Stevie Chick