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General Melchett · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:12 am Post subject: BARRIBALL!!!!!

Now, we can't have an RM Band Forum without some classic Richard Barriball dits. He is Scotland Bands and FOSNI's "mascot" and is a walking purveyor of destruction and ill thought through one liners. The Band Services answer to McAuslan!
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General Melchett · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:43 am Post subject:

I'll do the first one then.............

Painted Hall Greenwich 1992, Fleet Bands weekly dinner gig. A smally orch led by Pete Best and a nine piece. Richy "B" on keyboards.
The orch set up in the normal upstairs position. Everything starts badly, during Roast Beef the keyboard X stand not being secured properly collapses, sending the keyboard across the deck with an almighty crash. Diners look around, Pete Best bites tongue.... Barriball told to put it all back, this time checking it is secure..... Luckily everything seems to be ok. The gig carries on, Ov. to a Costume Comedy, sleepy lagoon all your favourites. During Gold & Silver Richy "B" is seen playing with one hand and "fanning" the vent at the top of the keyboard and gently blowing away smoke. A slight glowing is seen eminating from the vent. Horrified string players now look around as flames come from the keyboard, Richy, little trouper that he is plays on continuing to waft away the smoke until Pete Best finally gives in and literally pulls the plug and an extinguisher is used to douse the flames.... This was Richys first gig in Fleet! Here endeth the first lesson....
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MrJpig · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:50 am Post subject:

I have never met this guy. I think I have heard of him before though. Is there a dit about him playing a bottle rack??
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General Melchett · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:56 am Post subject:

Ex Caribbean Fury '98. HMS OCEAN's first operational deployment. Scotland Band were deployed for 3 months for what should have been a great trip, but in reality ended with disaster relief in Honduras / Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch. The wardroom wanted a smally Orch for a dinner, to which the quartet and Richy B were duly dispatched. Everything went smootly during diner. I t was on putting the kit back in our store that disaster struck once more. Bearing in mind we were at sea (I was duty Cpl) Richy stood the piano up on its end (not in its case!!) whilst he opened the door to the store. Strangely enough the ship lurched and the keyboard came crashing down just as the rest of the quartet were coming down the passageway. I got one on and told him in no uncertain terms that this was negligence and he'd better get it fixed or stand by! The next day we were due in Miami so I told him to find a place and get it repaired. This he duly did God bless him! He took the keyboard (sans case AGAIN!!) and a bike and cycled through Miami's busy streets from the docks to the centre. Now for those of you who have been to Miami this is quite a treck alon the motorway / highway. To do it on a bike, with a keyboard under your arm is suicidal. He got knocked over by a bus after cycling down the left lane wondering what the traffic was doing coming towards him! Sufice to say we were now down 1x keyboard and 1x pianist. Luckily he was ok, the keyboard broke his fall!
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Co-admin · Site Admin Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 1810

In training the CGRM (Commandant General Royal Marines) made a visit to Deal. He went to the School of Music and did the usual route by starting at the furthest building from the gate... the piano block! Richie B, newly passed out from basic, was one of the first people he visited.

CGRM: "So, how long have you been in?"
Richie: "I just passed out of basics before leave"
CGRM: " And what have you found the most difficulg thing so far?"
Richie: "Remembering rank Corporal" :smt046

CGRM and his followers made a hasty exit and some were seen to be smiling whilst other were laughing. DOM(T) was slightly red

You couldn't write it could you!!
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General Melchett · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject:

Cheers for that Andy, I'd forgotten about the "bottle-a-phone!"

FOSNI Band 1994, Barry Mills was DOM. Richy was seen busily scribbling away on the bus, and singing odd little tunes. Which, even by his standards was fairly odd.
Next morning our questions were answered, Down we sat at five to nine, quick tune and ready to go. A new piece was sitting on our stands in Richy B's own fair scrawl. A "mega mix" of Roll out the Barrel, There's a tavern in the town etc..... In front of us was Richy, with a large clothes rail upon which was draped on bits of wire 24 green bottles(?) arranged chromatically Ala piano keyboard, plus for good measure some sugar glass bottles.
off we played, and Richy hit along with us on the bottles. It finished, we laughed and thought, well that's him and the Boss humoured, now back to music.... How wrong we were, the Boss took a shine to the piece and we decided to premiere it at the good old Carnegie Concert!
We played it, the chimpanzee fellow(Richy) hit along. The whole thing reaches an "hilarious"climax with an ascending chromatic run finishing on the sugar bottles being roundly and soundly broken. Obviously, our sides are aching by this stage through the sheer comedy genius of it all....!
However, give the boy his due, the old crones in the audience seemed to be rather taken by the whole spectacle, the band however were not! The piece re-appeared with alarming frequency in our gigs, and so a stand was made.......
"Somebody" changed the bottles around and replaced the sugar bottles with real ones. The gig started, the bottle-a-phone commenced and Richy was hitting the thing like a chimp on smack. However, due to the new arrangement of bottles, it was not entirely diatonic in performance, instead resembling new music of the kind Radio 3 would shy away from. When it came to the climax and the sugar bottles, Richy, now carried away in the ecstasy of live performance was hitting the substituted real bottles instead of the sugar ones, spraying the front row of the audience with glass. Now, the little fella is nothing but persistent and had to be physically dragged off the thing to avoid injuring the audience......
The bottle-a-phone was not seen of for another decade.
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General Melchett · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:08 pm Post subject:

Another quick one while I'm on Richy's case.....
Horseguards 1999(?) It was one of those baking Pompey afternoons. All the southern Bands are there, brown as berries. Scotland Band by comparison are glowing like lobsters unaccustomed to the heat and sun. It was one of those rehearsals in the second week, just before everything goes right. 3 o'clock, everyone is tired, forgetting the changes from quick to slow and the dressing is bad. John O'Connell is CDM. He is hacked off and shouting, we go into a stand easy not happy. Richy B, never one for a dull moment sidles up to Jon O'C and Says...
"Drum Major, I have an Idea" Baldrick-esque in it simplicity......
"Barrriball **** off" comes the hacked off CDM's reply
"I have an idea for dressing" comes the retort from the monkey-like fellow
"If we tie a piece of string to the Bugler at each end and keep it taught, during a wheel this will ensure a good wheel....."
John O'C: "*********************************!!!"
2 x Buglers arrive at the scene to eperate the two. Calm down J O'C and remove Richy B before murder is committed.
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eastney hooker · Trained Rank Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 81 Location: Fife

The bottle rack incident was at sheffield i think. Richie was quite happily playing away when disaster struck. The backside fell out of one of the bottles. Did richie stop? No. Like a real trooper he carried on and continued to hit the broken bottle showering some poor lady in the front row with shards of green glass. Well done rich!
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Co-admin · Site Admin Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 1810

I've got a couple but I'll hang fire on them... I'll give peeps a chance to get over the shock of the posts above before we carry on.
You couldn't write this stuff unless it was real. It doesn't get much worse, but there is more of it!
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General Melchett · Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:10 pm Post subject:

I do have to say that no malice is intended by these posts. Richy is pure Band Service folklore and my life would be immeasurably duller without him. These stories do, however need to be told! Over to you Deli...... and Eastney Hooker, he did used to be your section mucker!
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Gaz · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:52 pm Post subject:

Further to Richy B's antics - when making the frame to hold all the bottles to play his masterpiece, he used string and wire coat hangers. Not having anything to cut the coathangers, he decided to use the guillotine in the band library, only problem with this, this bit of kit was designed to cut paper, not wire coathangers!!!!

Result: a sha**ed guillotine.

A truly Baribald moment!!

General Melchett · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:50 am Post subject:

Gaz,

An insider? I was Libs at the time and was spitting bullets when he did that! Any other BeBop dits...?
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Gaz · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:04 am Post subject:

General Melchett · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:05 am Post subject:

Gaz..... thinks..(Trombone?)...From near Liverpool? Did we pass your school on the way to Sealand, or have I gone and added 2 + 2 and made 5 again....
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Gaz · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:07 am Post subject:

Spot on General, went to Rochdale for Love