Following the success of Josh Homme’s rendition of Julia Donaldson’s Zog on the CBeebies channel, the BBC have booked a succession of other desert rockers to read bedtime stories.
However, the ambitious scheme has already run into various setbacks as it turns out that most desert rockers do not possess the same level of professionalism as the hardworking and charismatic singer from Queens Of The Stone Age.
For example, Homme’s ex-bandmate Nick Oliveri was forced to cancel his intended recital of Where The Wild Things Are after proving wilder than any of the wild characters from Maurice Sendak’s classic tale by driving naked down the Pacific Coast highway with a kidnapped radio promoter in his car boot while firing an unlicensed assault rifle at the sky.
The starkers bassist’s intended replacement, Scott Wino of Saint Vitus, informed BBC staff that he was venturing into the Californian desert to research his performance of an extract from Louis Sachar’s Holes but was last spotted in a confused haze, circling around and around the same cactus while muttering prayers to Helios God of the Sun.
Perhaps the most farcical booking to date comes in the form of the stoner trio Sleep who, having being asked to narrate a picture book together, are thought to have confused what is meant by a “joint” reading. An inside source said that the band has been holed up in the same BBC broom cupboard for the last 18 months with marijuana smoke seeping constantly out of the crack under the door. “Having said that,” added the source, “it’s nothing compared to the scenes of degradation that defined the Andi Peters era.”
At the time of writing, Sleep’s story is still intended for broadcast although producers have voiced concern that the band’s hour-long meditation on Each Peach Pear Plum is never going to squeeze into its proposed 10-minute broadcast slot.
