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If you are located outside the U. A punishing schedule of tours and television followed, including work with the future Monty Python team. The following year, broke and burned out, the Bonzos split up, leaving behind a loyal cult following. Vivian launched into myriad solo projects in music, film and theatre, giving himself several nervous breakdowns in the process. In person, he was just as multi-faceted, by turns the erudite artist and the truculent Teddy Boy, breathtakingly rude. A powerful figure, tall, red-haired and never less than extravagant in his fashion, Vivian Stanshall was a hell-raiser of legendary reputation — ably assisted through much of the s by Who drummer Keith Moon.
I agree with those here who say this is a man of real genius awaiting his real biographer. Ginger Geezer is a pop bio, not much more. It has its moments, but someone so astonishing as Vivian Stanshall so obviously was, needs a biographer of deep sensitivity and insightful intelligence. This book doesn't even come close, but it's better than nothing.
Dec 26, Mikael Matthis rated it it was ok. This man was a honest to badness genius. His real bio awaits his real biographer. This is your basic pop bio imposed on someone who deserves so much better it's painful. Apr 23, Robert Simpson rated it really liked it. Ginger Geezer frames the late Vivian Stanshall as a tortured genius - a brilliant creative fraught with self-doubt, insecurity and addiction. While it serves to provide a fair summary of Stanshall's creative output, this is also the sad, tragic tale of alcholism and the effects it has not just on the individual but the wider circle of friends, relatives and professional contacts.
I've come away with a craving to explore the work that has previously passed me by, but also a frustration and an ange Ginger Geezer frames the late Vivian Stanshall as a tortured genius - a brilliant creative fraught with self-doubt, insecurity and addiction. I've come away with a craving to explore the work that has previously passed me by, but also a frustration and an anger at the individual.
I read it in a few days and enjoyed it but agree that another biography needs to be written on him by maybe his second wife who it would seem has written a few novels. Jan 28, One Point rated it it was ok. There's not many I'd use the word genius to describe. Vivian is one of the few. He painted, composed, performed, sculpted, played multiple musical instruments, sang, did voice-overs - whatever he set his hand to was stamped with that thing that makes the rest of us scratch our heads in wonder. Some don't understand or like it, but no one can say it's boring or "just like so and so.
Who would notice him now There's not many I'd use the word genius to describe. Who would notice him now in these years of bad art, no art, crap? Simon Cowell would smirk him off the stage.
This book is all we have - yet. It's so far from good enough, I weep. A simplistic pop bio for a man of Stanshall's stature? It can't be - but it is. I gave it two stars because it's there at all. Because the two guys who wrote it at least wanted to write about Vivian. Where's his real biographer? Where's the one person who could capture, or make a damn good attempt at even understanding, this rara avis? I wish it were me. Wherever you are, I hope you never have to read this book. Jul 19, Roderick rated it it was amazing Shelves: Their Bonzo Dog Band attitude merged my interests of music, satire and Mad magazine into a way of looking at the world as an art form.
A true tortured genius!!
Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall Paperback – November 18, The extraordinary story of Vivian Stanshall, lead singer of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, true British eccentric. Charismatic and flamboyant, Vivian Stanshall was a natural frontman for The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah. Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall Paperback – 4 Oct The extraordinary story of Vivian Stanshall, lead singer of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, true British eccentric. Charismatic and flamboyant, Vivian Stanshall was a natural frontman for The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
To quote British writer Stephen Fry, "One of the most talented, profligate, bizarre, absurd, infuriating,, unfathomable and magnificent Englishmen ever to have drawn breath. Because fall apart he did. And Stanshall's story, from the latter days of the Bonzos onwards, frequently follows a tragic trajectory. Under pressure from a hectic tour schedule, the terminally undisciplined singer and band started to collapse during a series of gigs in America. Doctors at the time doled out Valium like Smarties.
Thus Viv's lifetime addiction to tranquilisers began, fatally combined with a growing dependence on booze. It could really only have one end. However, between the demise of the Bonzos and his own drunken death in a house fire in , Viv's erratic career produced several enduring gems — stage shows, radio broadcasts, solo and band performances and recordings, lyric writing for Steve Winwood, paintings and woodcarvings, one or two brief TV films and an unexpected but lucrative late career in advertising. True, as the authors say, he rarely produced such a coherent body of work as when he had the framework of a band to corral his chaotic genius.
But his greatest creation, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, was yet to come.
Despite hair-tearing exasperation, John Peel's producer at Radio 1, John Walters was one of the few people able to control Stanshall enough to enable him to produce this series of comic gems, first broadcast on Peel's show in , and culminating in a feature film starring Trevor Howard. Sadly, untrammelled by the creative discipline of a group or a producer, Stanshall's life, like his rusty hulk of a Thames houseboat, often struggled to stay afloat. Despite the ministrations of an amazingly loyal group of friends, and munificent support from the s rock royalty who indulged Stanshall as a kind of court jester , his addiction to drink and pills landed him in hospital on many occasions.
His second marriage to the hippyish American Writer Pamela also known as Ki Longfellow, briefly set him back on the rails. The restoration of a boat, moored in Bristol docks and christened the Old Profanity Showboat, provided a focus and a venue for Viv and Ki to collaborate on the successful musical Stinkfoot.