Dave Dearden & The Lonely Parsnips

Dave Dearden and The Lonely Parsnips

‘Build A House In Bricky Brick Bricks’  c/w ‘Cowslips & Hare Lips’

FOLLICLE RECORDS  FICLE 4050

Dave Dearden (Vocals, Harmonica), Martyn ‘Hand Of The’ Ripper (Guitar, slippers), Tom Kerridge (Sitar), John Goodison (Harmonium, Fiddle, Parsnip Pipes), Amish Beard (Coconuts).

“I won’t miss a tricky-trick-trick

When I build you a house in bricky-brick-bricks

Down by the banks of the Wicky-wick-wick”

Rising from the ashes of Polyp, this progressive folk band scored a surprise hit with the jaunty ‘Build A House In Bricky Brick Bricks’. Featuring the catchy off-key battery powered Cumbrian parsnip pipes of John Goodison and the phased rhythmic coconuts of Amish Beard, Dave Dearden’s merry singalong helped the tune to the upper reaches of the lower sixties in 1974.

Unfortunately, the song contravened local Scottish government building regulations at the time and, as a result, was arrested. Building inspector Gordon McHavatie was quoted as saying: “The Wick River is the second largest salmon fishing river in Caithness. There are long stretches of sluggish water. This slow water makes for difficult fly fishing and so is often fished with worm, very much the exception on the northern rivers. Despite the slow nature of the river, it can produce in the order of 400 salmon in a season, most being caught in the summer months. We can’t have some faux folk band building a house on it”.

Distraught at the possibility of his song being sent to jail, and therefore not accruing any royalties, Dearden offered to rewrite it. “I was prepared to change the lyrics for the sake of cash”, remembers Dearden. “But they said it was too late, as the offices closed at 4.30 in the winter time”.

Consequently the song was sentenced to one year in prison, with parole granted after six months for good behaviour and the fact that the song was a musical composition and not a physical human being.

By then the band had morphed into glam rockers Glitz Pepper who spent much of the mid-Seventies ensuring all their songs fell within established British local government guidelines.