The Blimp were a

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band formed in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1998. The group comprised

William Rogue Stewart William Allan (born 13 November 1973), more familiar by his stage name, William Rogue, is a Scottish musician and actor. He was the frontman, principal songwriter, and lead guitarist of rock band The Blimp from 1998 until their breakup ...

(

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

), Ray Alexander (

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

), George Berry (

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

), Gary Craig (

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

) and

JD Allan David John Allan (born 16 August 1972), or as he is more commonly known, JD Allan, is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter, animator, web developer and writer. Allan is the older brother of musician and actor, William Rogue, and a former membe ...

(

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

). The Blimp released two studio albums, one live album and three singles before disbanding in July 2007.

History

Formation

The original line up of the band that would become The Blimp came together for the first time in late 1998. Brothers

and

, who had been in several bands together since the early 1990s, first recruited keyboard player Ray Alexander. Alexander was an old school friend and had been in the brother's previous band, the Caffeine Cake Orchestra. Drummer Mark Brown, was next on board. Brown had attended college with Rogue and was a former member of the brother's first band, The Bodies. Bass player Gary Craig, joined at the invitation of Brown soon after. Finally,

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

Carol McBay, completed the line up. Taking their name from a

Captain Beefheart Don Van Vliet (; born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as Th ...

song, The Blimp performed their first gig at Strawberry Fields in

on 18 January 1999. In the spring of 2000, Mark Brown left the band to join the

Cosmic Rough Riders The Cosmic Rough Riders are an alternative rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. They were originally formed in 1998 by Daniel Wylie and Stephen Fleming, and later they were joined by Mark Brown, James Clifford, Gary Cuthbert and Paul Docherty. To ...

. Shortly after, George Berry, a former bandmate of Craig, was brought in to replace Brown on drums. At the beginning of 2001, Carol McBay relocated to London and left the band.

Controversy

In the spring of 2001, now with a settled line up, The Blimp began working with engineer and producer Duncan Cameron. Pleased with the result of the initial recording sessions, the band released their first single, ''Bad Bitch Dog Don’t Bite'' on

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based

independent label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

Stuntman Recordings later that summer. Despite positive press, including

The Big Issue ''The Big Issue'' is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or indivi ...

(London edition) Single of the Week, the record was banned from radio airplay across the capital. The reason stated was the repeated use of the word 'bitch' in the lyrics. In early 2002, The Blimp released their debut album, ''Square Go'', after further sessions with Cameron.

Further controversy

Disillusioned with the perceived commercialism of Scotland's biggest summer music festival,

T in the Park T in the Park festival was a major Scottish music festival that was held annually from 1994 to 2016. It was named after its main sponsor, Tennents. The event was held at Strathclyde Park, Lanarkshire, until 1996. It then moved to the disused ...

, The Blimp hosted a counter event in Glasgow, ''J in the Dark'', on 13 July 2002. The band were criticised, for the apparent reference to drug use that the event's title implied. In the summer of 2007, the band released what would be their last album, ''Easy Listening with the High Commissioner''. The album's closing track, "Plastic Fuck Machine", was denied airplay by most of

Scotland's Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

local and national radio stations. The song's duration (over eight minutes) and content (an extended drum solo), rather than its title, were cited as the reason for lack of airplay.

Break-up

On 14 July 2007, The Blimp made their final live appearance at Nice N Sleazy in

. The decision to break-up had been made several months previous after Rogue had decided to relocate to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Style

The Blimp have much been likened to compatriots

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band The Sensational Alex Harvey Band were a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1972. Fronted by Alex Harvey accompanied by Zal Cleminson on guitar, bassist Chris Glen, keyboard player Hugh McKenna (1949–2019) and drummer Ted McKenna, their ...

. The comparison, however, has more to do with Rogue's use of

Glaswegian The Glasgow dialect, popularly known as the Glasgow patter or Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegia ...

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

and

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

than any similarity in musical style. The group's sound is primarily informed by

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

.Whitelaw, Paul (2001-07-24). Metro (Associated Metro Limited).

Timeline

ImageSize = width:1000 height:250 PlotArea = left:100 bottom:80 top:10 right:10 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1998 till:01/01/2007 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Colors = id:guitar value:green legend:Guitar,_vocals id:bass value:blue legend:Bass id:drums value:orange legend:Drums,_vocals id:keyboards value:purple legend:Keyboards id:saxophone value:yellow legend:Saxophone Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:1 ScaleMajor = increment:2 start:1998 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1998 BarData = bar:Guitarist1 text:William Rogue bar:Guitarist2 text:JD Allan bar:Bassist text:Gary Craig bar:Drummer2 text:Mark Brown bar:Drummer1 text:George Berry bar:Keyboardist text:Ray Alexander bar:Saxophonist text:Carol McBay PlotData= width:11 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:Guitarist1 from:start till:end color:guitar bar:Guitarist2 from:start till:end color:guitar bar:Bassist from:start till:end color:bass bar:Drummer1 from:01/01/2000 till:end color:drums bar:Drummer2 from:start till:01/01/2000 color:drums bar:Keyboardist from:start till:end color:keyboards bar:Saxophonist from:start till:01/01/2001 color:saxophone

Discography

Albums

*''Square Go'' – (2002) *''The Core Session'' – (2004) *''Easy Listening with the High Commissioner'' – (2007) *''Play It Louder'' – (Anthology) (2017)

Singles

*"Bad Bitch Dog Don’t Bite" – (2001) *"A Thousand Bares Between Us" – (2001) *"Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place" – (2006)

References

External links

The Blimp’s official siteWilliam Rogue’s official siteJD Allan’s official siteRay Alexander's official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blimp, The Scottish rock music groups Musical groups established in 1998 1998 establishments in Scotland