the Soft Boys Invisible Hits Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole Have a Heart, Betty (I'm not Fireproof) The Asking Tree Muriel's Hoof / The Rout of the Clones Let Me Put It Next To You When I Was A Kid Rock'N'Roll Toilet Love Poisoning Empty Girl Blues in the Dark He's A Reptile Have a Heart, Betty (I'm not Fireproof) Rock'N'Roll Toilet When I Was A Kid (Original Mix) Love Poisoning (Original Mix) Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole (Live) "Not a pretty sight, eh?" "No sir," replied Detective Sergeant Nolan, gazing blankly over his superior's shoulder at the ravaged scene beneath the dusty skylight. The April sun fought the dreary sacking, cobwebs and old newspaper and won a partial victory in illuminating the back of Inspector Pobjoy as he stooped enquiringly over the gruesome object on the adjustable settee. "Well, Nolan," said the Inspector, twisting his head to face his subordinate over his still bent shoulder, "what do you make of it?" Nolan instinctively pursed his lips as he shifted the wine-gum he was sucking to the middle of his tongue. Then he coughed and tried to swallow the wine-gum at the same time, but he succeeded only in arousing the Inspector's suspicions with a choking gurgle of embarassment. "Well, what is it?" snapped Pobjoy, head twisted fully round like a browsing dinosaur's. "Spit it out man!" Nolan blushed and spat the shiny green wine-gum across the room and into the corpse's upturned hand. Pobjoy sighed and straightened himself. (He love straightening himself; sometime he wished he had been born bent so he could have spent more time ironing out the kinks.) "For God's sake, Nolan," he groaned; "This is a homicide case, not a classroom. Don't be so paranoid about your sweetie fetish. Sucking is a primary human function." "Thank you, sir." "Any theories, then?" "Looks like a machete and hammer job to me, sir," volunteered Nolan, rocking brightly on his heels with his hands behind his back. "This is the Barbican, Nolan," replied the Inspector, raising an eyebrow quizzically. "Just a thought, sir" "All the same," he mused, eyes focussed unseeingly on the enormous pile of record albums in the corner of the garret, "it fits the bill. Hack'em into pieces and then mash'em into a pulp... but the door was locked from the inside... and there's no sign of any footprints..." He broke off his reverie. "Nolan, check the skylight." "Sir!" replied Nolan smartly returning a would-be snack to his copious raincoat pocket. But the dingy square of window yielded no clues. It was rusted shut. "There's several years' growth here sir," said the Sergeant, brushing through the cobwebs. "A poetic thought, Nolan." "Thank you, sir." For a while there was silence as the two men shuffled about the room, prodding, squeezing and fumbling though the dead man's belongings in search of some enlightenment as to the nature of his life and the reason for his death. From beneath the wardrobe a mouse watched their unrelenting boots take off and land like shiny black spacecraft in a sea of dust. Then, disturbed by a subtle shifting of pressure from above, the mouse scuttled noiselessly back into the rafters. "Do you think it might have been... well... self-inflicted, sir?" "Unlikely, Nolan," countered the Inspector. "People who are weary of life may cut their wrists, or jump off cliffs; they seldom reduce themselves to the consistency of mashed swede." "I know what it reminds me of, "continued Nolan, undaunted, "when we used to go to the Isle of Wight for our holidays." "Really? They must have been delightful, then." "We used to tie old lumps of meat to a line and dangle them in the water for crabs. After about five minutes you'd pull in your line and the meat would be crawling with'em, sir. Hack it up something vicious they would, too, sir. My brother Cyril used to..." "Quite so, Nolan. So, in your opinion, this" he motioned toward the mangled pulp on the divan, "is the work of one or several crabs. Thank you, Nolan. I find your powers of deductive analysis most intriguing." "Oh it's nothing really, sir," muttered Nolan, staring modestly at his boots. "Just a hunch." Several hours later the policemen had completed their search. Pobjoy stood by the victim shaking his head whilst two ambulance men attempted to scrape the remains of what had been a human being on to a stretcher. An eyeball fell on the floor and rolled unnoticed under the wardrobe. Nolan was leafing through the record collection in a connoisseur's trance. "Oho!... That Pistols bootleg! I was looking high and low for that. Must be worth a few bob... Taz Der Youth! Bloody Hell!... Hello, 'ello, 'ello, what's this?.... The Soft Boys!? I used to see them down the Nashville. Now, there was a band." "Really?" muttered the Inspector drily. "I was a Hawkwind man myself. Come on, Nolan, there's work to be done. I think we've learned all we can here. Let's get back down the station and see if Mrs. Jarvis has got any canneloni left." "Right-oh, sir." As they strapped on their seatbelts, the two men saw the ambulance drive slowly away. Nolan started the car and Inspector Pobjoy inhaled a relaxing lungful of Old Shag through his briar pipe. "Incidentally, Nolan -- who was he?" "Oh, no one of any importance, sir. Just a journalist." "Oh." They relapsed into silence. It wasn't until they had nearly reached the station that Nolan remembered that he had left his sunglasses on the table up in the garret. Inside the wardrobe, something stirred. THE SOFT BOYS Robyn Hitchcock: Guitar; Lead Vocals; Harmonica on "Muriel's Hoof" Andy Metcalfe: Bass; Vocals; Drums on "Rock'N'Roll Toilet" (7) Morris Windsor: Drums; Vocals; Guitar on "Rock'N'Roll Toilet" (7) Kimberly Rew: Guitar; Vocals; Bass on "Rock'N'Roll Toilet" (7) Jim Melton: Percussion; Harmonica; Vocals on "Rock'N'Roll Toilet" (7) Matthew Seligman: Bass on tracks 1, 9, 11-13 All tracks recorded at Spaceward between October 1978 and June 1979 except the live "Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole", which was recorded at Lady Mitchell Hall, November 1978. Engineered by Mike Kemp. Thank you to Tim Jellies for housing and Howie Gilbert for transport. Photography: Rosalind Kunath Glass Fish Moist 7 CD (c) 1990 Glass Fish Records England: PO Box 333, Bushey, Watford, WD2 3UN. Deutschland: Marktgasse 17,7400 Tubingen. France: BP 6, 95740 Frepillon. Nederland: Bergse Linker Rottekade 319, 3056 LL Rotterdam.