Strike one up for the funny guys. I think it’s an incontrovertible fact that most people prefer serious bands, bands like U2 and the Police and Nirvana and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Bands with a wild sense of humor? Most can’t take them seriously, and that’s the kiss of death.
So what are the odds that Minehead’s Getdown Services—the rock/disco/funk duo of Ben Sadler and Josh Law—are being called “Britain’s best band”? And not just by me. By fans, critics, fishmongers, and the pooch that gets played like an electric guitar on the video of “Doggy Dribble.”
Getdown Services have been described as “genre agnostic,” whatever that means. I suspect it means they’re all over the place—the duo has described their sound as “disco and eighties and like seventies infused groove-based music,” as well as classic rock.
One of my favorite Getdown Services moments is their cover of AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock,” which they recorded double time (with the Bug Club) for the Humm Sessions. You owe it to yourself to gape at the band’s rock and roll savvy.
Ben Sadler on Getdown Services: “You see blokes who seem to have absolutely no dignity or self-worth at all, chucking mushy peas at a load of kids? I think we touch a similar sort of thing.” Josh Law on Getdown Services: “When we started playing live early on, it became quite obvious that this was a thing about us trying to make each other laugh, really.”
The advantage of being a duo is that they generally share a sense of humor. It’s that, or they’re both insufferable twats, can’t stand one another, and are destined to break up following the next studio brawl.
Sadler and Law grew up in the coastal city of Minehead, a name that couldn’t be more dead-end appropriate. Sailing, windsurfing, and golf are popular there, which makes Minehead a town you want to flee. The town also celebrates “Bootie Night,” which is too frightening to get into. Throw in the fact that it has hosted Britain’s Strongest Man competition and its rugby club is called the Minehead Barbarians, and what you have is a place where you either have a sense of humor or die. Of course, you can always move to Bristol, which is what Getdown Services did.
Getdown Services has one LP out and another scheduled to drop soon, but I chose to review their 2024 EP “Your Medal’s in the Post” (one of four the band recorded in 2024 and 2025) for one simple reason: it has the fantastic “Dog Dribble” on it, which has otherwise only been released as a single. And five other top-notch songs as well, including a funky James Brown pastiche. And a song with lines like “I’m Caesar, the monkey” and the fuck-rich couplet “I fiddle with your vision like an overlooked stigmatism/Get a fucking spanner and fuck the fucking mechanism.”
Which is genius, really—if you’re going to be incoherent, be incoherent with a whole slew of obscenities.
Josh Law on Getdown Services: “It’s the music of our horrible personalities!” Me on Getdown Services: I have the sneaking suspicion that the whole “Britain’s best band” label came straight from the brains of Getdown Services.
But back to Your Medal’s in the Post and its songs. “Caesar” is a heavy-duty disco song with lyrics along the lines of:
“I don’t care if you’re working class, you’re a fucking twat
You don’t care about music, you just like trousers
What do you want, a fucking medal? (Get that).”
And “Talky talky bloke shit here’s a quid make it quick/Hitting Go Ape you can call me Mr Chimpfist.”
What to make of it all? Your guess is as good as mine. But that “you can call me Mr. Chimpfist” always makes me happy.
The very up-tempo disco/funk number “I’m Not Feeling It” features smoother vocals and the lines “I’m gonna be famous/I’m gonna be massive/Like Wreck-It Ralph/Just watch him clean it up.” (Wreck-It Ralph was the star of the 2012 animated film of the same name.) And closes with the lines “I dig a hole/Stick my head in it/Avoid thе topic like there’s shit stains on it.” But the highlight of the song is the way they repeat the title over and over. It builds and builds to the point of listener euphoria.
“Crabbers” is a here-and-gone folk-rocker, with lugubrious vocals repeating a short set of lyrics over a simple guitar riff and strings;
“I’m from Minehead
I’ve just been crabbing
But there’s nothing in my bucket
Ah
Minehead!”
At first, I felt it didn’t belong on the EP; some six listens later, I was singing along.
“Head Down for the Conversation” features an undeviating and repetitive song structure. The drums will kick you in the head; over an ecstatic synthesizer riff and what sounds like a bass guitar (but could be a just plain guitar), you get lines like, “This is not a conversation/It’s a chemical attack.” But the important thing is the way the title gets repeated over and over, building until it washes you into the sea off Minehead.
“Dog Dribble” is a buzzsaw guitar hip-hop track about run-amok gluttony that mentions the guitarist in the Fall’s “Big New Prinz” and includes a killer guitar solo. But mostly what you get are the guy swapping lines like:
“Having peace time, key lime pecan pie
After heaving down a sausage
And half a jar of brine.”
They also hijack the title of the humorous poem “Ken Dodd’s Dad’s Dog’s Dead,” toss off the line “Korn in the oven Limp Biscuit in my brew,” and bemoan their lack of restraint when it comes to food:
“We’ve got the orders
We’re in the living quarters with a load of hot dogs
And a heap of fucking burgers
Where’s my resolve?”
But the best part of the song is the end, where the lads repeat the words “Dog dribbling” followed by all kinds of nonsense (“Death on the telly,” “About five head spins”). (And no, Ken Dodd’s dad’s dog didn’t die on television. In fact, I’ve been unable to determine whether Ken Dodd’s dad had a dog at all. And believe me, I’ve researched the issue exhaustively.)
“Both our Dads Like James Brown” is a killer Brown pastiche—they bring the funk, and the guitar wins out whether it’s filling space or soloing. The title is the lyrics, and it gets repeated throughout the song, first as a chant and later as a kind of speed rap. You find yourself hoping their dads REALLY DO LIKE the hardest working man in show biz, because if so, it’s a wonderful tribute to both their dads and their impeccable good taste.
I don’t see a slew of funny bands taking over the world anytime soon, if only because I have trouble thinking of any. Sweden’s Viagra Boys get my vote for funniest and most absurd band in the world, and like Getdown Services, they have the musical chops and great songs to keep them well away from long-time novelty acts like They Might Be Giants, The Dead Milkmen, Alice Donut, and Pearl Jam.
No, the obnoxiously serious will always come out on top, because let’s face it, most human beings are repulsively earnest and severely humor-impaired. I would say that 90 percent of humans fall into this bracket. As for the rest of us, we’re the only people keeping the planet from being sucked into an emo black hole.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
