Irking the Purists Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Fall

American garage rockers The Mooney Suzuki were named after two of Can's members: Kenji 'Damo' Suzuki, the band's Japanese singer, and Malcolm Mooney, an American and Can's original vocalist, who joined after he moved to Germany and met multi-instrumentalist Holger Czukay and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt. Mooney was the one who came up with the name 'The Can', which was shortened to 'Can'. Egebamyasi, a Scottish electronic group founded by James 'Mr Egg' McDonald, got their name from 'Ege Bamyasi', Can's fourth album. American indie rockers Spoon are named after a single from 'Ege Bamyasi', which was also used as a theme tune for the German TV series 'Das Messer'. British shoegazers Moonshake were also named after a Can song, from their fifth album 'Future Days'.

The Fall are named after a novel by Albert Camus. They did, however, pay homage to Can in the song 'I Am Damo Suzuki'.

Answer: Television

'Marquee Moon' was Television's debut album, released in 1977. Tom Verlaine, the band's lead singer, was heavily influenced by jazz; he took up the saxophone as a child after hearing an album by Stan Getz. He was also a big fan of Miles Davis. Verlaine founded the Neon Boys with bassist Richard Hell and drummer Billy Ficca, and the group went on to become Television. Richard Hell later left to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

Their first press review was written by Patti Smith, who had seen them at CBGBs and went on to become famous in her own right.

Answer: True

Michael Ball did in fact represent the UK in 1992, with 'One Step Out of Time'. He came second, with 139 points; the winner was Ireland's Linda Martin with 'Why Me?' Ball isn't the first musical star to have represented the UK either; Frances Ruffelle, who played Eponine in 'Les Miserables' and won a Tony Award for her performance in 1987, was the UK's entrant for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.

She fared less well, coming 10th with 'Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)'.

Answer: Daryl and John

Daryl Hall and John Oates are one of the best-selling musical duos of all time. Hall generally performs lead vocals, while Oates plays guitar and contributes backing vocals. Their hits include 'Maneater', 'I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)' and 'She's Gone'. They met at a battle of the bands contest in Philadelphia, where they were playing with their own respective bands, and bonded after running to the same lift to escape from gunfire. They got their name from the postbox of the flat they shared.

As for the others, 'George and Andrew' are Messrs Michael and Ridgeley of Wham! fame, 'Paul and Art' are better known as Simon and Garfunkel, and Kix and Ronnie are the first names of country duo Brooks & Dunn.

Answer: KT Tunstall

Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was a long-time friend and collaborator of Patti Smith, and she wrote about their relationship in 'Just Kids'. He took the cover photo for 'Horses', Smith's debut album, in his partner's Greenwich Village flat. Many musicians, PJ Harvey, Courtney Love and Viv Albertine of the Slits among them, have cited 'Horses' as a major influence on their music, and KT Tunstall wrote 'Suddenly I See' about the photograph.

The cover of Tunstall's debut album 'Eye to the Telescope' is also a Smith homage.

Answer: Neil Gaiman

'Where's Neil when you need him?' sings Tori Amos in 'Space Dog', and a tribute album based on Gaiman's works was named after said line, including a song by Amos called 'Sister Named Desire', after the character from 'The Sandman'. The song 'Carbon' on 'Scarlet's Walk' also mentions Gaiman's short story 'Snow, Glass, Apples'. Gaiman based a talking tree in 'Stardust' on Amos (hence the line in 'Horses' on 'Boys for Pele', 'will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?')

As for the other Neils: Neil Peart is the drummer from Canadian prog-rockers Rush (also mentioned in 'Irk the Purists'). Neil Harris (not to be confused with Neil Patrick Harris!) is a former footballer, who played for Millwall and later went on to manage them. Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon.

Answer: A board game

Hüsker Dü were an American alternative rock/hardcore band whose principle members were singer/guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton and drummer Grant Hart, who died in 2017. They got their name from a memory game called Hūsker Dū?, which came from the Danish and Norwegian words for 'do you remember?' and featured a dial with pictures on it. As you can see, the original game name doesn't have the umlauts; the band added gratuitous 'heavy metal umlauts', a practice also carried out by the likes of Blue Öyster Cult and Mötley Crüe (which caused some confusion when the latter played Germany).

In 'Irk the Purists', Half Man Half Biscuit sing the name of Hüsker Dü to the tune of 'Agadoo' by Black Lace.

Answer: Frank Zappa

Captain Beefheart, aka Don Vliet, enjoyed a friendship with fellow avant-garde musician Frank Zappa which was described by biographer Kurt Loder as 'mutually useful but volatile'. Zappa produced 'Trout Mask Replica', often regarded as Captain Beefheart's finest work, and provided additional vocals. Zappa was also the brains behind Captain Beefheart's stage name (many stories have been suggested as to the reason behind it, some of which are far too rude for this website).

The making of the album was a traumatic experience for many of the band members, who were restricted from leaving the house, survived on a meagre diet and had to resort to shoplifting, and were often allegedly reduced to tears by Beefheart.

Answer: A Spaceman Came Travelling

'A Spaceman Came Travelling' was originally on Chris de Burgh's second album, 'Spanish Train and Other Stories', and was inspired by the work of Irish poet William Butler Yeats (specifically, 'The Second Coming'). De Burgh came up with the concept of the star of Bethlehem being a spaceship.

When the song was first released in 1976, it failed to chart, but was re-released in remixed form as a Christmas single in 1986, following the success of 'Lady in Red'. A download-only version of the song was also released in 2010, with different instrumentation.

Answer: Don't Come Home Too Soon

What a depressing name for a football song! Scottish rockers Del Amitri received plenty of criticism when they released the pessimistically-titled 'Don't Come Home Too Soon' as Scotland's 1998 World Cup anthem, although it did get to Number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, and even topped the Scottish Singles Chart for a week. Sadly, Scotland didn't make it out of the group stage, and finished bottom of their group with just one point.

Incidentally, I wondered how the band got their name, and the story is that 'Del Amitri' is a corruption of the name 'Dimitri', which singer Justin Currie saw in the credits for a film.