BING SELFISH

"Pop music for the cynical present -- bright, breezy, sardonic, witty, a work of dazzling luminosity that confirms Phil Ochs's contention that 'In such an ugly time, the true protest is beauty.'"

"Essential for anyone who thinks that rock, politics and humour can't occupy the same mental and aesthetic space" - The Wire (UK)

Included in The Wire magazine's list of "60 singers and songs that broke the mould" (May 2004) for his personal anthem 'The Ideal' ; Bing Selfish is the dapper crooning Dean Martin of the disaffected and disenfranchised. A South London myth whose songs of intrigue / betrayal / lust / science and imagination scan the 20th century and beyond...holding a hand out in a lyrical gesture of hope Bing Selfish & The Ideals -to those living under the yolk of the Fab Me generation.

In 1965 Bobbie Dylan was laying his ear on the highway of chaos, creativity and confusion and Bringing it all back home, now and Selfish is doing the same only better, he's Binging it all back home.

Bing Selfish is a suave, debonair, sophisticated, well travelled, articulate, politically hip, witty, sharp, free-thinking, modest individual. An elusive creature, a chameleon on the street of reality, for as he himself says "Life is change, change is life".

According to his still unpublished autobiography, Bing Selfish was born in the small village of Dzhebel in Southern Bulgaria in the year 1900. Unlikely as this might seem he refuses to accept any other version of events and indeed has been seen to get most upset when commentators observe that his behaviour and attitude seem more reflective of some anglo-irish parvenu born in the late fifties/early sixties and raised in the South of England than a romantic continental-style bohemian.

The story continues to this day...

"A phemonenon in the galaxy of songsters today" - Chris Cutler

"I imagine his character as a self pitying drunk, a self loathing homosexual, a bitter poli-sci professor, or all of the above" - Options USA

DISCOGRAPHY

with Murphy Federation

Folk In Hell Cassette (Fuck Off Records, UK) 1980
Fed Up Skank 12" (Madras, UK) 1980
12 Minutes at the Hot Club Murphy LP (No Label, UK) 1982??

with Hostiapaths, Milk From Cheltenham, Amos & Superslick

Domestic Sampler LP (UMYU, Spain) 1982 *

solo

Selfish Works 12" (El Frenzy, UK) 1991
Ego Tripper Cassette (El Frenzy, UK) 1995
Space College & The Theory Of Everything Cassette (El Frenzy, UK) 1996
The Art Of Selfishness CD (El Frenzy, Spain) 2004
Boutique Aux Chansons CD (HEP, Belgium) 2005 *
Last Of The Bohemians CD (El Frenzy, Spain) 2007

with The Ideals

RéR Quarterly LP (Recommended, UK) 1990 *
Meet Bing Selfish & The Ideals LP (ODD, Switzerland) 1992
Binging It All Back Home CD (ODD, Switzerland) 1994
Dizzy With Success CD (Alcohol, UK) 2001
Legendary Conway Hall Concert & Other Live Gems CD (El Frenzy, Spain) 2004
Calling All Dionysians (El Frenzy, Spain) 2005

*compilation appearance

FILMOGRAPHY

'Drytown' by Libre Albedrío (Mauro Devoto, Bing Selfish, Lonesome Andi Haller, Ramon Prat) (40'00", DVD, Spain)
Role : Director, writer, actor, music

'The Way Out, A Portrait Of Xentos Jones' by Luke Fowler & Kosten Koper (32'00", DVD, UK)
Role : Actor (the Theatre critic)

RADIO

'The Bing Selfish Radio Show'

Ongoing series of radio plays since 2004. Episodes 1-6 broadcast on Resonance FM.

"All Australians must now walk backwards! Failure to do so will result in re-education!” proclaims the Selfish overlord’s prolefeed.The Bing Selfish Radio Show is a six part radio comedy set in the world of tomorrow, which is amost not quite as dystopian as today. A cult (of personality) comedy, replete with acid cynicism, barbed sketches, pithy musical vignettes and the crazed newspeak dictat of a perverse demigogue."

WEB

Bing Selfish on MySpace.
Official Bing Selfish site with mail order.
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