The History of The Bastard Sons of Dennis

The Bastard Sons of Dennis band began their musical life using the name HorseMonkey, due to Chinese astrology. Their first composition was a piece of music that was jammed using guitar and the Silent Running Studios sequencer. As HorseMonkey was too long to be used as a filename, the piece was titled HorseMon, which sounded like somebody with a strong Jamaican accent saying ‘postman’.

On the poster that advertised their first show, they were billed directly under a band called Freeloaders, so it looked to all intents and purposes like “Freeloaders: HorseMonkey”. Despite this public admittance of greed and general slackness, there was no ludicrously generous rider that came as a reward or preparation for the show. In fact, HorseMonkey a.k.a. The Bastard Sons of Dennis played for free and even bought their own beer.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis were originally one half of Rough Terrain and formed out of the crumbling rubble that was Dark Company’s second incarnation. It lasted long enough to perform a couple of shows at the Cavern in Exeter and a few other places but not a great deal more. Q. Wim was on vocals and acoustic guitar, and so was Yuri.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis would often by found with fine bananas, rehearsing on Exmouth beach among the sand dunes during the summer of 1994. Live they performed a few of Q. Wim’s songs and a couple of Dark Company numbers. Their set also included covers of Sunspots by Julian Cope and Hearts and Thoughts by Pearl Jam.

After a rather long period of non-activity lasting from 1994 to 2009, the duo finally blew the dust off their guitars and started appearing at various open mic and live music venues in the Exeter area, performing an assortment of Blue Oyster Cult covers as well as some of their own songs, both new and from days gone by.

Their performances continue to excite and entertain and they plan to perform many more such shows and release their songs for fans to enjoy.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis have been described as: “Arguably among the finest acoustic Blue Oyster Cult cover duos in the EX4 area (excluding Pinhoe).”