Al Al Who (2007)

"Inventive gravel throated punk with a top sense of humour, fantastic sampling and brilliant song titles including "You Can Stick the War Of Terror Up Your Arse", "Bog Wash", "All Psychiatrists are Bastards" and "Puerto Rican Sex Chant". A spirited punky racket that will make you smile and which wears its idiosyncrasies on its sleeve".

"This band is like Muhammad Ali on a skateboard".

"The genius of Ceramic Hobs. I don’t use the word lightly either . . . they are as utterly uncompromising as ever, regaling us from the off with the collage of Midas Case – a Northern drone-athon supreme with samples smeared over the basic, erm droning . . . Suddenly we have Cup Cakes, a ridiculously catchy paean to cup cakes and other forms of savoury products. It’s classic Ceramic Hobs and we are hooked. Puerto Rican Sex Chant is the usual angry amalgam of samples and monolithic pounding. As if this wasn’t enough we have Explosion in A Dustbin Factory which doggedly pursues the most luddite beat it can muster up and grinds it into our brains with no respite. These three tracks are like sitting next to the angry drunk in a bar in Burnley, who constantly tries to tell you about Newton’s Laws; yes he’s an MA but he’s 6 foot four and has egg stains on his nose which makes you wonder why you were talking to him in the first place . . .
Friend of a Friend is a hapless story of a relationship; akin to a sixties car chase theme whereas Bogwash is a fabulously dreadful racket with a comedy Country-style interlude. Whistling From Above effectively takes the piss out of all Post Punk newbies with a track of utter wantonness. “The caring professions can burn in hell” is also one of the more outré lyrics of the year too . . . and it just doesn’t let up. Wir Kinder is about as basic as you can get; it really does sound like a family row. Following that, Latent Subtext is a suspiciously groovy, but fantastically ramshackle skank-pop song that morphs into Hawkwind with no notice. It’s this ability to keep you guessing right from the word go, that truly shows the Hobs at their best.
This is a long LP, 21 tracks in total, and to try to attempt to describe every track would be exhausting. For brevity’s sake I’m going to pick a few tracks; All Psychiatrists are Bastards, is a fabulous Fall-style rant chronicling the attempt to murder Beatle George . . . whereas Molodynski’s Medical Holocaust is another Luddite stomp that the Hobs excel at.
By far my favourite rant on here is Stick the War on Terror Up Your Arse, which I will certainly be playing at my next disco booking. Flower, by total contrast is a brilliant slab of C86 indie pop. Incredible. Whereas Horrible Old Trout is a classic anti-Thatcher rant. It really could be 1986 again . . . Things come to a suitable conclusion with Six Degrees of Dissociation, a seven minute odyssey of sounds and screams, and samples. It’s tremendous if confusing.
What can I say? I’m worn out".

20 Golden Deathtrips / Golden Hour of the Ceramic Hobs / Celebrating 20 Years of Mental Illness (2005)

"All the singles that the ageing Hobs fan wore out & needs a compilation of, all in one place. What more need be said?"

Shergar Is Home Safe And Well (2004)

The Ceramic Hobs are a unique musical act.
 Existing since 1985 in one form or another, they are notorious for having a line-up largely made up of current or ex-psychiatric service users. They are also maverick in that they are a truly independent band – independent not only of the music business, but also of any recognisable genre.
Their previous albums Psychiatric Underground and Straight Outta Rampton gained praise from magazines such as Bizarre, Q, Mojo, Record Collector, Blender and Mixmag, as well as the worldwide underground network.
The Ceramic Hobs are happy to live a long way from any city, are not post-modern, do not own mobile telephones, do not take cocaine, assert no intellectual property rights and have no wish to compromise their post-ironic entartete kunst to reach a bigger audience of halfwits.
This third album, with a cover painting by Peter Coonan, takes as its predominant theme alternate dimensions and the subversion of linear time. Over thirty persons were involved in the recordings; some songs were honed during nationwide gigging throughout 2003 (including a memorable London Mad Pride show) and ritual magic was also employed.
The Ceramic Hobs hope you enjoy listening to this, their strangest recording to date.
War is over if you want it.

"New punk stains of various sounds filter strange fabric flying saucer wisdom
Bogus girders and pylon strings bring tears to my eyes
Judas Lover is like wandering in & out of each other between a stoner & a ghost lady like a 60’s art commune wooden void with scissor snips about the Hobs
Some perfect delirium – the impression that they grow their own fish
First transgression brown sample fuckin’ gouranga spangly jackets flashin’ eyes & all sorts 4-eyed gits sonic fabric head blue meanies
Somewhere off the map – Freudian beauty behind Bovril boy mentality
Sounds like it belongs with playground other
The thing that got Caligula ringing
A bad trip and a Freudian slip
Vomit me across 7 skeletons itself"

Of the Tin City (2002)

"A ‘Psychiatric Punk Explosion’ . . . Headlining for the first time in the capitol in front of 150 rabid fans (literally) the Hobs rip through 16 of their tip top pop platters and even have time to chuck in bewildering versions of . . . ‘Eve of Destruction’ and . . . ‘Jet Boy Jet Girl’ . . . the sound quality is a bit rough . . . but what the fuck we’re not here for Dolby like production values. We’re here to feel what it was like sat at the front row of a Hobs gig with 150 loonies . . . That it succeeds in doing that is a testament to how damned good the Hobs are live. Chaotic, shambolic but always entertaining."

Ultramont! (2002)

"With a whiplash bass line weaving all over the road like a drunk driver at five in the morning, the Ceramic Hobs career into view with another molasses thick stab of Lancashire lunacy . . . A world without the Hobs would be like a world without . . . without . . . lost coins down the back of your sofa . . . the rips in the tops of your milk bottles caused by hungry blue tits . . . First new five [tracks] are like a drive in open top car, the world going by picking up the debris of reworked radio samples and lost voices to the background of that chugging bass and ethereal vocals; ‘Altamont - Birkenau - Masada (Never Surrender)’ takes you on the longest journey, a fifteen and a half minute drive from Lancaster to the old eastern bloc with the never ending mantra of ‘Never Surrender’ that waspy bass line nagging all the way . . . Neil Young gets the old nostalgia treatment on Country Home . . . Hang around for the hidden Lancashire inventors and you have the best CD this year. I fuck you not."

"Straight Outta Rampton comes screaming into the house with a full colour sleeve, full bomb making instructions and pictures of bendy bananas. This will become a stone cold killer classic. It cannot fail. Eighteen tracks of never ending sample madness chopped up and stir-fried into the best CD this year. I've played this to death since I got it. It's to be hoped that the Hobs never recover from what it is they suffer from. The rest of the world look out, the Hobs are coming and they're rather potty."

"Ceramic Hobs are unique in the rock 'n' roll field by being completely up-front about their status as users, and their lyrics somehow continually have the shadow of the nearest psychiatric hospital in the background, regardless of what themes they tackle . . . any radio-friendliness is deliberately undermined by abrasive production techniques. There's much humour on this album, but Ceramic Hobs are angry as hell . . . simultaneously one of the funniest, but also most furious rock bands imaginable. Redemption for Ceramic Hobs lies in the act of rebellion, and in extremely dark humour."

Psychiatric Underground (1998)

"The music throws itself around from gnarled, distortion-packed & chaotic punk rock to implosive clatter & strum pieces that make room for narrative and suchlike. Delirious and often coming across like a chimp's tea party held in a recording studio, there's a serious screwball aesthetic afoot that's rarely found these days . . . sometimes, the unstoppable blend of bared-teeth psychosis, screaming, noise and dizzy tape snatches make way for songs that, between them sound like Throbbing Gristle . . . or an eco-warrior's campfire protest piece. Altogether, an eclectic dip into the pool where those voices in your head also happen to reside."

"The Ceramic Hobs strap you into a dentist's chair and probe your subconscious with a helium-powered Bosch drill. Plundered, noised, fuctup nonsense a-go-go, not always pleasant but then not much is."

Bring on the Coincidancing Horses

Orange Sunshine (1996)

A recording project between Simon & Syd of the original (1985-88) Ceramic Hobs.

"The whimsy that drew me into the Hobs world. Back on the plate currently (2006) with the advent of Hobs semi-acoustic sets. Balding men set the pace (but not here, like)."

The ultimate collection of rave anthems - direct from Ibiza

"The birth of the modern Hobs, with The Gay Skinhead shining out in its first, tentative incarnation. Many are the folk who have thought it was conceived by sometime-Radio One DJ Mikee B & his Top Buzz outfit & were all ready to break out the Vaporub before I schooled them. Possible Love Da Capo influence in the album's balance of tracks?"

Nihilistik Subkultures shall Thrive upon these Deathly Visions (1993)

(release pseudonym: Salty Grouse Castration Squad)

"Having escaped the Blackpool nuthouse . . . finds an atomic clock and finds he can't handle his beer even in his own shaven haven . . .unspeakable pleasure turns to unspeakable pain . . . this is what happens when you spend too much time with people with Sid Vicious tattoos. 'Tie your grandmother to the bed and force her to listen to this'."

You don’t need a Pickaxe to collect Ghoul Soil (1995)

(release pseudonym: Blood Klat (in Spume Bummer))

"The best of the really loose Hobs sets? Well worth any measly amount pStan is likely to ask for it."

"A dense post-bedroom-punk piece with lots of echoing sounds building up to transform it into a far more experimental piece. Indeed, the various usage of echo gives this fantasy a wide range of sounds & shapes. Distortion is used, as are shouted voices and way-out guitar which is played so ineptly midway through that it actually sounds quite wonderful. It's built on a single riff which keeps the variously dense piece in necessary restraint."