king biscuit time - i walk the earth (mp3)

i won't bore you with long introductions, suffice to say the wolf man and the schoolmaster have graciously asked (stupidly allowed) me to prattle on about my uncool music collection here thus ruining any good reputation they've built up. i don't know anything about genre titles, own far more cds than vinyl and most of what i have you can't dance to. don't say i didn't warn you.

i think every man and his dog knows i'm a bit of a beta band fan and so was a touch perturbed when they called it a day the year before last (and there wasn't even a hint of a help-line). band members new and old have however all carried on making music under one guise or another, including reluctant former front-man steve mason's king biscuit time.

but mr mason was releasing his own stuff as king biscuit time a good while before weird in-band politics and their £1 million record company debt disbanded the betas, at around the same time in fact that they were pronouncing their yet to be released first album as "the worst record made" that year.

there was 1999's 'king biscuit time "sings" nelly foggit's blues in "me and the pharaohs"' ep (nope, I've no idea but 'eye o' the dug' is awesome) and then the following year's 'no style' ep which opens with 'i walk the earth'.

yes it sounds like the beta band, but there's nary a hint of sillyness for sillyness' sake or of disappearing off on a tangent just as things are getting good: this is a distinctly leaner, more direct beta band sound. yes it's got some funny noises, it even has some synth trumpets but these never get in the way of the song's simple, incessant beat and bass line and an effortlessly floating vocal (this is probably how ian brown thinks he sounds in his head).

the nme probably called it "21st century pop music".