The third and final disc in EMI's repackaging of the Bonzo Dog Band's catalog (after Intro and Outro) packages their 1972 reunion album Let's Make Up and Be Friendly with a selection of early singles, B-sides, and post-Bonzo work. It would be nice to say there's some hidden gems here, but there really isn't. Whereas straight pop groups put their weirdest, most-uncommercial tracks on B-sides, for the Bonzos those tracks were album centerpieces. "My Brother Makes the Noises for the Talkies" and "I'm Going to Bring a Watermelon to My Girl Tonight," both sides of their first single in 1966, are similar to the oldies they would cover on their debut album. "Alley Oop" is a cover of the Hollywood Argyles single. Let's Make Up and be Friendly is a disappointment all round, save for Vivian Stanshall's first installment of the surreal soap opera "Rawlinson End," which would spin off into a radio drama, an album, and a film. Otherwise, the music and arrangements contain none of the spark or wit from five years earlier, resorting to post-Beatles rock jams or genre parodies with moderately funny lyrics on top. Unlike Keynsham, which tried to play it straight occasionally, Let's Make Up doesn't know when to stop the (very thin) joke. Of the post-Bonzo selections, "Labio-Dental Fricative" by the Vivian Stanshall Sean Head Show Band (from 1970) is light, cheeky, and features a star guitar turn by Eric Clapton. Completists will want to own this, but it's better to think that Keysham was the Bonzo's swan song.
© Ted Mills /TiVo