With the controversy continuing over the decision to levy 20% VAT on pies, pasties and other food served above ambient temperature, The Phantom Band convened in their Glasgow studio this morning to record songs for a pasty tax protest album.
Like many itinerant musicians, the genre-defying Proto-Robofolk sextet are connoisseurs of baked goods, stocking up with hot macaroni pies from Clarks of Dundee or the famous Beef Growlers served at Tebay Services in Westmoreland on their way to and from concerts south of the border.
“It’s not often I find myself agreeing with sentiments published in ‘The Sun’, but the Coalition government are *******, ****-bag ****s who are so ******* out of touch with the rest of society that it’s laughable,” said Phantom Band keyboard player Andy Wake.
“Like many pies, we are not ambient. But this issue touches us in a very personal way. When we get into the studio, we’ll be cooking up some red-hot biscuits to burn the government’s conscience.”
Like the famous Rolling Stones tune ‘We Love You’, recorded as a protest after their drug arrest, or the more altruistic Band Aid single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’, The Phantom Band plan to use their music as a rallying point for political change.
Subject to post-production work and copyright clearance, the as yet unnamed album will feature ‘Pieland’, an adaptation the eight-minute ballad from The Phantom Band’s first album ‘Checkmate Savage’, plus ‘Pies Over Cairo’, a tune from Django Django’s first CD. Other songs rumoured to be in the running include:
- Another One Bites The Crust
- Quiche Of My Heart
- Dancing With Tears In My Pies
- Crust My Imagination (Runnin’ Away With Me)
- O Per Cent VAT