Prince Rogers Nelson

called The Percolator.

it's all about the music

i play piano..y'all know

... all of us had daft names.

We were The Villains;

I was the lead singer. The Meat Man.
Lead guitarist (real name Stuart) was Cosmic Stew
Bassist was Funkasaurus Rex
Drummer was Maniac.

You'd never guess that we never got further than one rehearsal. Or perhaps you would...

My ambition is to have an inconsequential bit of kit –such as a cymbal washer - named after me and then for this innocuous piece of equipment to be withdrawn from sale after it is found to be dangerous.

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“When I see new patients with malignant soft tissue tumours anywhere on the hand, the first thing that I ask them is whether they have ever played the guitar. If they answer in the affirmative then I follow up by asking if they have ever used backwards7 pickups. In a good 90% of cases they have.”

Dr John Penstone - a leading specialist in vocational cancers is describing a rise in cases of Hillier’s Syndrome – a disease common among guitarists.

“backwards7’s went into production in the USSR in the late 1960s. They first started appearing in the UK in the early 1970s. They were very popular with bands because of the echoic, choral tone they produced. At the time there was rumour that the pickups were manufactured using metal harvested from a meteorite, although strangely it was the folk artists rather than the space rock groups that embraced the sound.”

backwards7s were later found to contain dangerous quantities of radioactive elements.

“Their composition undoubtedly made for a good sound but picking up one of these guitars was a real crossroads moment. You paid a high price for it later on,” says Penstone who is currently part of a legal action against the former manufacturers of backwards7s. He won’t comment on specific cases but will speak in general terms about the devastating effects:

“I’ve had men break down in front of me when I tell them that they will lose their hands. Unfortunately there’s a high incidence of metastasis with these tumours.”

Neither will he be drawn on rumours that the pickups were deliberately introduced into the UK as part of a communist plot to undermine western music, which was regarded as a decadent cultural force.

Incredibly backwards7s are still in production today:

“There’s a factory churning them out quite blatantly in the Ukraine,” he says.

“I was watching footage from one of the summer festivals last year and I noticed one chap using them on his instrument. That’s someone I will be seeing a lot more of in a couple of years.”