Album Notes

GRUMPY AND LUMPY are:
Lumpy - Front-and centre barking.
Grumpy - Whatever.

What can you say about The Grump? Where did he come from? No-one knows. Some say Austria. What does he do? No-one knows. Some say nothing. Why is he Grumpy? No-one knows. He never talks about it. No-one asks. Why was he in that Chicago Blues Bar? No-one knows for sure. But there he was, sat in back, nursing a Scotch Rocks with his face covered in psychedelic duck shit, listening to the band.

Lump was the band. What can you say about The Lump? You could mention the smell. Most people do. You could mention the clothes, such as they are. You could mention the singing. People all the way down the block mention the singing. You could mention the shades. "Blind Lumpy Warthog," he was billed as. He looked like a drunken bum, he sounded like a drunken bum and he smelt like... never mind.

But Grump saw something. He looked past the filthy clothes and the alcohol fumes and the people passing out at the front row of tables, and he saw to the core of the man. And he knew the truth. Outward appearances can deceive. Beneath the most unpleasant exterior can lie a soul of pure unalloyed gold.

But not in this case. Lump was a drunken bum through and through. Grump saw that and acted. After the final bottle had been thrown, he slid through the curtain and went backstage. They spoke. No-one knows what was said. Some agreement was reached. They went back to Grumps hotel. There was much talk, much drinking, and many baths and an unbelievable quantity of laundry.

The next night, Grumpy and Lumpy played the Blues Bar. Lump wasn't blind any more. He'd taken his shades off, and found that he never had been. He was clean, he had new clothes, and he looked cool. He still smelt like a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap, but soap and water can only do so much. Lump strode up the mike, and sang like you wouldn't believe. Grump hung around in back, and did... something. No-one knows. But it made all the difference. They brought the house down. And as soon as it had been rebuilt, they played there again.

Some say that all this dog stuff is nonsense, and that Grumpy and Lumpy are just Milo Black and Duane Tate playing loud straight-ahead rock'n'roll on their days off from being a deadly serious po-faced prog-rocker (in Milo's case) or a deadly-serious acoustic bluegrass singer-songwriter (in Duane's). But we know different. Right? Right. So buy this record, NOW, or we'll dig up your front lawn.