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Whilst the ignition key had already been turned on the monkey motor during the raves of ’96, the throttle was pulled for the gigs of ’97, then the accelarator was well and truly floored for this their debut on Storm FM. Whilst we still dream of the recording resurfacing on an old C90, we do have Dogger’s original track listing – with an enigmatic crayon scrawl in the margins which simply says ‘broken’ – Prophesy? An early cry for help? Or just one of the Blue Pedro kids running amok again – who cares!

Programme

ShyTalk Theme
Everything I Touch Turns to Peanuts
Lamb – Gorecki
56 is the new 23
u-Ziq – Hasty Boom Alert
The seagulls attempt to coup
Lord Sitar – I Can See For Miles
Another Summer Saturday with Meat and Old Men
Nitin Sawhney – Voices
No. 10 (waving not) Drowning Street
The Advent – City Limits
Wet Nurse Gymkhana
Massive Attack – Teardrop
ShyTalk Theme
Content Warning

Only the first half of this episode exists (many thanks to m.smith@storm for providing this). Legend has it that the full DAT of the latter half was ‘accidently’ destroyed whilst in a police evidence locker. The master tapes were being held as part of an ongoing defamation lawsuit. Even today, legal injunctions prevent us fully disclosing the contents of that show (If you have a copy please contact jamie_queensman@leperguru.com to arrange purchase).

Programme

Content Warning
ShyTalk Theme
Slippery Pete Talks to God
Sneaker Pimps – Six Underground
Your Complaints
Superfly TNT – Stargate
Hitchcock – Let the Listener Decide
Bomb The Bass – Braindead (feat. Justin Warfield)

Thought to include the only recording of ‘Crazy Cousin’ Al, sometimes referred to as ShyTalk’s Pete Best, present through all the early gigs and then, some say cruelly, dropped like a half-eaten kebab, just before ShyTalk’s breakthrough signing to Storm FM.

Let’s face it, no-one likes David Wilkie. Whilst none us are really sure what inspired this early example of a UK ‘diss feud’, things fizzled out into simmering discontent when Wilkie’s own legal team refused to continue representing him.

Jim recollects “Amie lived two doors down from the ShyHouse and would happily let us record her five year old son, Dale, saying any old weird shit we wanted – as long as we bought her some duty free tobacco and a six pack of Umbongo – no-one questioned this at the time”. He added “She was probably also sleeping with Stu”.

When approached last year, Amie donated this snippet of tape which Dogger had given her for a memory box, which was a good shout – as when interviewed she would look into a heavily medicated distance and dreamily repeat ‘Yeah, I probably was sleeping with Stu’.

We tracked Dale down with the help of our own Private Investigation unit (to be fair, this is Sandie one of our fact checkers, but she has completed a City & Guilds level 3 investigative journalism course). When found, he appeared focused and in rude health – but, not unsuprisingly, only agreed to the interview if it could be conducted in the back of a refrigerated truck (who knows the true impact of such early exposure to ShyTalk mania). This is his statement:

We can all agree that our own individual ShyTalk recollections will always spice-up dinner party conversation, but the big question raised here is who was the original ‘original Blue Pedro kid’ if it wasn’t Dale? The #1 membership card has now been added to growing canon of sought after Shy-phemera.

The first fully nude performance episode – with every sketch and song appropriately given an anal touch [citation needed].

True story.

A whole episode dedicated to the seminal and legendary character – allegedly based on sometime friend Pete Cowburn, when we approached him for comment, he stated ‘off the record, it was all a long time ago and I’ve never even visited Hereford’

The Front foot forward episode was a perhaps failed attempt to combine ShyTalk and sport. It did however (perhaps pejoritavely) unite Barry the Bastard (boxing promoter) and Barry the Barnacle (ex-wrestler) to put on a hybrid sporting event which many ShyFans claim, wrongly, to be the birth of the mixed maritial arts explosion.

ShyTalk hanger on, and self-professed ShyGroupie Jenny Blow – readily admits she stole this from Stu’s jotter, stating ‘It all seemed so significant at the time…fuck it, you can use my real name, what they gonna do about it now…I didn’t even get the full set!’

One of two known recordings in existence of a complete episode. Thanks again to @jockllewelyn for providing us with their copy.

Programme

Content Warning
ShyTalk Theme
Kicking the Maes Gs
Somatic – No. 9 (First Rate Scratch Mix)
Opening The Curtains
Coldcut & Silent Poets – Border
Baby Farming (the Fun Solution to the Population Crisis)
Arrest
Williams Traffic – Soho Blue
Sweet Platform Memories of Spanking Clare
Wagon Christ – Lovely
County Council Pets Department (Toxic Box mix)
The Wiseguys – Au Pair Girls
Little Bobby Arsehole
Doris – You Never Come Closer
Slippery Pete: Going with the Flow
ShyTalk Theme

A bold statement – though undeniably true.

A true statement – though undeniably bold.

There is talk of ‘the party in Paris’, the one where everything shifted. Happy go lucky became devil may care, self-possessed switched to self-absorbed and debauchery turned into depravity. The party lasted days, Tinkerton turned up at its tail-end, and unwittingly recorded (in his typical vainglorious manner) how the impact lasted years.
Was it the beginning of the end? perhaps the end of the beginning? or maybe, just maybe the inevitable bit that happens in the middle when initial success pivots on the precipice of maturation or meltdown.

It’s difficult to find a truly accurate account of exactly how the Minidisc of this episode was smuggled through customs, but general consensus is that it was secreted in a body cavity. Despite many of the entourage smuggling as a job or a hobby, one hanger-on claims ‘It wasn’t any of us, Stu had us all fully loaded with product, I couldn’t have squeezed in another gram – and believe me, I tried!’.

Submitted in person by a fan follower, wearing a Leper Guru T-shirt, they refused to speak and maintained their anonymity by refusing to remove their Shy-clava headwear (we did of course offer to purchase this beautifully preserved piece of ephemera for our Shy-seum). They declined our ruse and we are no wiser who they are, how exactly how this minidisc came into their possession or indeed the country. In typical ShyTalk manner, the mystery remains and the mind still boggles.

Programme

ShyTalk Theme
Whose turn is it to Clean the Microwave ?
DJ Vadim – Ponmelo Duro
Learning Dutch
Rheinallt H Rowlands – Merch O Gaerdydd
Papicide is Never Funny
Bomb The Bass – Bug Powder Dust (La Funk Mob remix)
Market Trader
East Flatbush Project – Tried By Twelve (Squarepusher remix)
Dear John
Catatonia – Bulimic Beats
Friday Night Recipe
Serge Gainsbourg – Requiem Pour Un Con
It Tasted a Bit Like Whiskey
J Girls – Yellow World
Farmyard Implement
Dr Octagon – Earth People
Slippery Pete: Logging Country
Telepopmusik – Da Hoola
ShyTalk Theme

What a fan favourite – minds and egos fully expanded after the phenominely sucessful European tour. The set opens with an undeniable classic, ask any ShyTalk Radio fan to name a sketch and nine out of ten will reply DJ Pigeon vs the Easy Tiger. Also containing Donald is Dead from the Kidnapping Estate Agents series and Another Soapy Chip Wank – it is easy to see why this missing episode is one of the most lamented.

What could have easily ended up as another David Wilkie fiasco, Big Geoff shut down with two simple, iconic words. Fair play Geoff.

Jim once claimed in an interview that this advert was printed on the back of his favourite ever piece of hedge porn. Efforts to trace this significant piece of ephemera have so far proved unsucessful.

Another wordplay episode, how many differant variations of the word ‘account’ did they use – we are unlikely to discover now – all the while whilst having a dig at, Sebastian Trelawney (erstwhile ShyTalk manager with the briefest of tenures).

Having heard this episode, Barry the Bastard reclaimed a favour from ShyTalk Radio and ‘requested’ a copy of Horse Play as a “bit of fun” to play at his clandestine shebeen casino night. Lucky for us, bookie Ron Jones liked it so much, he asked for a copy too. Thanks to Ron’s copy supplied by his son (thanks Roo), it means we have another snippet of ShyTalk gold, despite the episode remaining lost.

The brain child of Noz, this was to be his rock-opera. ‘I see it as a sexual crime fighting duo, framed as an Arthurian Dempsy and Makepeace meets Tommy meets Sgt Pepper – on rollerskates, or better still pogo sticks … to be released alongside a tie-in franchise, film, novel, Manga series, collectable frisbee set and breakfast cereal’.

All this occured too late in the ShyTalk creative arc, finally realising itself as three-and-a-half fondly remembered sketches on this fan favourite episode.

Said to, if listened to carefully enough, contain the refrain ‘I’m going to break Dogger’ – unless this episode resurfaces though, I guess we will never know for sure whether it was said or by who (although this should be obvious to any dedicated Shy-ficionado).

This after show party was described by music exec. Raynor Shine as ‘the last party, the last night of unity, or even laughter experienced on the ShyRig’.

On this never aired, private recording by, Noz’s on and off girlfriend, Ribena Cooke (apparently permanently off before the end of the week). The ambient noises of the raging storm seem the perfect backdrop for Stu’s recital – capturing his typical sexually surreal ShyTalk wordplay (still obviously consumed with the dark thoughts of his European adventures) and of course showcasing Stu’s greatest talent – hogging the limelight. Noz’s jazz appreciation can be heard near the end of the clip.

Many regard this show as the last fully coherant episode ever broadcast.

A very rare clip of the last minute of the broadcast before it had to be abandoned mid-show due to artistic differences.

By this point in ShyTalk’s broadcast history, most of their fans had been driven away due to the increasingly avant-garde output, which typically involved little more than screaming, manic laughter, and the sounds of someone slapping raw meat.

The clip has only just resurfaced after being held by the studio engineer for many years. It was used as evidence in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to sue the creators of ShyTalk for allegations of workplace abuse and kidnapping.

Many fans cite the sound of Noz crying plaintively, simply asking for his socks to be returned, as the reason they stopped tuning in. Friends reported, that for weeks afterwards, he would repeatedly utter ‘it wasn’t too much to ask’ or ‘it was my own personal Hereford’ whilst attempting to solve crossword puzzles behind his back or masturbate under tables.

There has been fan disagreement over the artistic merit of the final episode of the official canon – whilst Andy Parker editor of the Shy-Zine Nude – Musical – Expressive described it as ‘the embodiment of sonic expressionism’, others have pointed towards ghost episode 056 (see below) as indicative of it’s ‘musical’ content. Whilst some have recalled fond memories of the sketch ‘Strangling the Cheese Whistler’, others point to the absurdist nonsense of ‘Forgotten Moments in the Deep Freeze’ as typical of the show’s tone. Yet, It has been said by many that ‘Why Can’t we Get on Like we Used to’ whilst lacking the brilliance of early material was a beautiful sentimental Abbey Road lament back to happier times.

So, who is responsible? Some point to Noz and his well recorded breakdown, others, Jim’s foray into the naturist protest movement, many question the ‘coincidence’ of the broadccast occurring during Stu’s disappearance. I prefer the theory that it was Dogger, feeling unempowered during the whole ShyTalk arc he finally had the opportunity to find his ‘voice’. No-one would disagree that despite being nearly unlistenable, it is superbly constructed. Avant-garde critics point to its distinctive sonic flair – which, I would suggest, has Dogger’s grubby little mouse hand mitts all over it.

Over 2 years since the last official transmission, buoyed by the appearance of the 9/11 ghost show, a few listeners still tuned into the familiar frequency for the regular 2am slot. Normally, met by static, they would turn the volume down to minimal and listen to old episodes shared via a CB radio disc jockey going by the handle of ShyRetro.

There is sadly no full recording of the broadcast, but fans believe that it was a 56-minute broadcast of an expanding phrased 56 second loop cycle. Our clip conveniently caught by Charlene Bennett of Cavendish village, who quick thinkingly recorded over her sister’s tape of Jagged Little Pill (unfortunately she didn’t consider turning the tape over to continue the recording).

Music or noise, the Shy-ster community was just glad to hear from their heroes in any form. Or was it?

Whilst the voices of ShyTalk characters can be made out and the morse code clearly spells out ShyTalk it is unclear whether these voices are contemporary, or as I suspect gleaned from outtakes (another indication of Doggers involvement? He was famed for hoarding old tape). The main question remains, what was their purpose?

The Shyster community is just as divided today as it was then.

For a short period it was believed to be the work of American counterculture physician, philosopher and psychonaut fillanderer – Cunningham Lilly in an attempt to communicate encoded messages to whales and dolphins. Many accepted this, until it was noted Lilly had died the previous year – this though, was not necessarily a barrier to Lilly’s typical methodology.
Other theories include the military using ShyTalk for covert experimental sub-aquatic audio weapons testing – predictably this was denied by any government who bothered responding to such allegations.
Alternatively, digital anarchists in possession of newly developed software claimed to be participating in a sophisticated phone phreaking exercise. A rival group of digitalis anarchists countered that they were exploring the art of phone fracking. Both groups vanished from the public eye after a small media flurry.

Do you now feel any wiser to the origins and meaning of the ghost shows? I know I don’t, and that’s the way I like it! Typical ShyTalk, mystifying and mythologising – even if Jim, Noz, Stu or even Dogger were responsible, ShyTalk Radio is still provoking thought a quarter of a century on – epitomising Jim’s words ‘just think for yourselves, you bunch of fucking idiots.’