…5 stories about bridging punk, theatre and a radio show
I am sure that if you have ever tuned in to Resonance FM on a Friday evening and you are not new to radio shows (or Resonance’s shows for that matter) you will know that BAD PUNK is not your typical broadcast. I have personally never come across a show where the time between the songs is equally important as the songs themselves. It is a logic similar to that of those painters who are equally interested in the colored area of the canvas as well as the space around them and the ‘dialogue’ between them. Every Friday night at 10pm the Band of Holy Joy, offer an hour where music is interjected by spoken word.It can either be a word, a verse or just a poetic way of presenting a song. The music that follows, enhances or stretches further the meaning of the words that precede it or is in direct contrast to them. In the end, you will probably conclude that all this does not matter, because the purpose is for us to be immersed to the atmosphere that Johny Brown is creating, so that after the show we can channel this energy into something else.
From 20-24 March 2017 the team of BAD PUNK and Johny Brown, are preparing something quite unique, five adaptations of Tenzing Scott Brown‘s a.k.a Bill Drummond (ex. Big In Japan, Zoo Records, The KLF) plays for radio bringing together established artists and 5 bands. Bill Drummond is a multifarious artist, producer, writer who has been involved in the production of the first Echo&The Bunnymen
and The Teardrop Explodes albums and is rather famous for his punk and uncompromising attitude towards life in general, fame, money, awards and everything elitist (i.e. K Foundation, Penkiln Burn projects,No Music Day, Open Manifesto, The17). Often dubbed provocative he is, indeed, an enfant terrible and because of that, a truly authentic and sincere artist.The role of Bill Drummond in all the plays will be 
played by Tam Dean Burn, a well known director, musician, actor of the National Theatre of Scotland and BBC Radio Scotland broadcaster who has been actively involved in presenting plays and writings not only in theatre but also on the radio (i.e. The Complete Poems of William Blake read on Resonance FM), with live music accompaniment or while doing a cycling marathon (i.e. Marathon Storytelling Cycle Challenge). Tam explains that the five plays that will be presented by BAD PUNK, “…are autobiographical as are all of Bill’s plays so in this sense they are not what you would call ‘normal’ plays…”. The stories are about the life experiences and observations that Bill has accumulated 
“…in Liverpool in the late 70s and 80s and I can relate to that because i was in a similar situation in Edinburgh at the time all the cultural revolution that was taking place…” . The cumulative effects of these plays entitled ‘Bill Drummond Is Dead‘, ‘Theatre And Me‘, ‘Between Heaven and Helsinki‘, ‘To The Shores of Lake Placid‘ and ‘Repossessed‘, “…get deeper as the week goes on…” and the music/sound part of the project, will all be improvisational and spontaneous.
“…I have always loved Bill’s writings and pamphlets and I have worked with John(Brown)and Bill in the past for Cruel Brittannia so i really enjoyed doing this…” (Tam Dean Burn)
Despite his involvement in music in the past (lead vocalist of the punk band Dirty Reds in the 1980s) and now (he is the vocalist of The Bum-Clocks), Tam would only have contributed to the musical aspect of this project at Resonance FM “…if Bill had stuck a song or two in his plays…”. The Bum-Clocks (“…which is a Scottish word for a beetle, we are the Scottish Beatles…” as they have introduced themselves in the past) is a Robert Burns tribute band that plays in the style of Iggy and The Stooges and it would be a shame to miss them when they have their next gig!
Moreover, as Johny Brown explains, “Bill’s actual involvement stopped when he gave the scripts to me and asked if i thought they could be staged and would I like to do something with them…”. Judging by the body of work Johny Brown
has offered both through The Band of Holy Joy and in the theatre, the Tenzing Scott Brown play adaptations will be nothing less than unique productions. Johny and Tam will be joined by Sukie Smith (actress and vocalist in the band Madam, will play Kristina Bruuk on ‘Between Heaven and Helsinki’), 
Richard Strange (actor, musician in Doctors of Madness,Cabaret Futura And The Phenomenal Rise, Richard Strange and The Engine Room and writer who will play in ‘Theatre and Me’), 
Kirsty Allison (on ‘Between Heaven and Helsinki’), Louis Brooke ( on ‘To The Shores of Lake Placid‘), Joe Cushley (on ‘Between Heaven and Helsinki‘ and ‘Repossessed‘) and Inga Tillere
(on ‘Between Heaven and Helsinki’). In the adaptations for the show, the text will be complementary to and must be perceived in correlation with, the music/sound played by Farmer Glitch (Hacker Farm) Psychological Strategy Board, Rothko, Ghost Mind and James Stephen Finn.
This is the official press release for the 5 shows:
“BAD PUNK are taking over the https://www.resonancefm.
March to present a quartet of Bill Drummond plays, THE CHERRY BLOSSOM QUARTET written as Bill’s alter ego Tenzing Scott Brown and adapted for radio by Johny Brown.The plays themselves are impassioned ruminations on art and music, life and death as seen through the eyes of the playwright Tenzing Scott, the sound artists we have chosen will play off the different texts and provide interpretation, sometimes sympathetic sometimes provocative. 
These live soundscapes will be sometimes improv in nature, sometimes drone / loop / dream. The actor and cultural activist Tam Dean Burn takes the part of Bill Drummond. The visual artist Inga Tillere will be documenting each night, first to go up instantly on a tumblr feeds https://
BAD PUNK run a weekly Friday night show of sound and text which goes out at 10pm on Resonance and can be found at http://www.bandofholyjoy.
The evenings of this week are promising to be much more interesting than the usual routine evenings, so i do not think it is a good idea to miss these shows !
Blaue Rosen 