Hogwash, by Malcolm

Hogwash, by Malcolm.

Pyglings began by rooting around under the trees and hedgerows of the Devon countryside. The first things that they found were a load of drums, some good ideas and a lot of friends. One or two of them had even seen an instrument before. A couple of them had dangerous songs in their heads.

Pyglings came and went. Ian, Fred, Ali and Vanessa pyglets gave their all. They drummed, they chanted, they sang, and sometimes they played together. Occasionally they throbbed. Out of Devon mud and straw, in barns and fields, they began to evolve the cob and roccocco construction methods that were to culminate in Pyg.

Gradually they realised that drums sometimes came with strings, and these were called guitars. Though they still sounded like drums a lot of the time, due to limitations of the basic trotter technique. From deep in the collective porcine unconscious there began to be felt ancestral rhythms. Pyglings eat anything, and the musical diet of this lot was voracious and eclectic. For some pyglings the reels and jigs and songs of the ancestral Pyg were never far away. While the Living Dead took over the folk clubs, pyglings were rooting around in orchards and stys, seeking the joyous rowdiness, the Dionysian dancing discord they felt must have been lost round here somewhere. Occasionally they found a bit of it. And it was always the music of necessity. No training, no poses, just the most ancient of drives (apart from some more basic pyggy drives obviously, like drinking): to make music.

Steve pygling could draw smoke from a fiddle on a good night, Martin and Malcolm pyglings were pyglings obsessed. Out of the rhythms of need began to grow more and more songs of purpose. They were developing an intention. They intended to become the band that they always wanted to go and see, but never did. A woodworker, an artist and an art therapist, as they appeared when trying to conceal curly tails in the human world. Grunts with things to say.

Things came together and things fell apart. In lives, in music, in songs. Dozens of them.

Eventually Pyg became almost functional. They traded under many names. They played some atrocious gigs. They were occasionally inspired. They, and everyone else, not only survived, but actually had quite a good time. Sometimes they had a very good time.

When enough things had fallen apart, the surviving, in other words the most obdurate, bloody minded and obsessed pyglings fell in with some MUSICIANS. You know, ones who’d learnt properly and played in loads of bands and that. Tony pygling just seemed to grow there somehow. And he could play drums. Appearing from Prague on a magic carpet came George pygling. And he could play practically anything, the swine. But mostly he played bass. Finally, amidst the roar of motorcycle engines came the unmistakable and melodious squeals of Kez pygling and her electric fiddle.

The collision happened in the course of a residency at the Red Cow. While the regulars cowered in the other bar, to an audience of one or two fantastically drunk people a force of nature was unleashed. The pub went broke and closed within months, but it was too late. PYG was born. Things could never be the same. It was a sound like no other…

ML 1999