Bonzo Dog Band - Lucky Planet (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Not the First Time
2. Labio-Dental Fricative
3. Witchi Tai To
4. Sail Away
5. Blind Date
6. 9-5 Pollution Blues
7. Suspicion

Side B:
8. Lead Us
9. Paper Round
10. Jam
11. Things I Could've Said
12. Cyborg Signal
13. Come Out Into the Open II

When I was younger, I asked myself the question "What if the Bonzo Dog Band never broke up?" This was inspired by discussions I saw online speculating about "What if The Beatles never broke up?" or "What if Syd Barrett never left Pink Floyd?" I never saw the Bonzos talked about as much but looking at it again, their careers were so sporadic that being able to make albums only seems possible for certain years. Also a lot of the songs would later be used for an imagined Rutles discography I found online since Neil Innes was in both, but I feel like it takes away from the other Bonzos' solo music like Vivian Stanshall and Roger Ruskin Spear. 

The year 1970 seems the most possible to make an album out of though. The Bonzos broke up in January 1970 and played their last show in March. Afterwards Neil formed the band The World with Dennis Cowan, Ian Wallace, and Roger McKew, and Vivian formed the band Big Grunt with Dennis Cowan and Roger Ruskin Spear, most of whom were former Bonzo members. The World released one album called Lucky Planet and Big Grunt recorded one John Peel session which was later released as an EP in 2016. 

By the end of the year both bands had broken up and in 1971 they were informed by their label that the Bonzos owed them one more album which was released in 1972 as Let's Make Up and Be Friendly. The album uses 6 tracks from the Lucky Planet album excluding a 10 minute jam track and various tracks released by Vivian Stanshall as singles at the time. Edit: I'm including one single by "Legs" Larry Smith released under the name Topo D. Bil.