Saturday, January 31, 2009

Small Faces and Stanley Unwin: You're Talkin' Gobbledygook!



Pictured above is British comic Professor Stanley Unwin, aka Codlington Corthusite, aka the Chancellor of Vulgaria, inventor of his own language of gobbledygook "Unwinese." Imagine James Joyce's opening rap in Portrait of the Artist crossed with some sort of strange, Midlands jive. BBC Radio announcer once a polly tito, Unwin also narrated the tale that runs through the Small Faces rather twee Ogden's Nut Flake LP, their foray down the dodgy mews of British rock opera. What the hell, I like the song "Lazy Sunday" well enough. Here it is from a German television appearance from '67.



The brief clip of Unwin, his epilogue to the tale on ONF, comes from a British television broadcast of the Small Faces performing the entire album live, circa 1968. As he says, "Stay cool, man. Stay cool."

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