MOJO
October 2006
by Kieron Tyler

ONE HIT WONDER

The Screaming Blue Messiahs
I Wanna Be A Flintstone
DATE: January 16 1988
CHART POSITION: 28 (UK)
AVAILABLE: Currently unavailable

The Screaming Blue Messiahs were unlikely chart contenders. Looking like hard nuts, their tough blend of Howlin' Wolf's blues, Hank Williams' country and Captain Beefheart's howl was uncompromising and visceral. Live, singer-guitarist Bill Carter seemed permanently ready to burst a blood vessel.

Rising from the ashes of Motor Boys Motor, the Screaming Blue Messiahs weren't formed with hits in mind. "We just though we'd see what we could do as a three-piece," explains bassist Chris Thompson. "There was no conscious direction, it was organic. Bill wasn't that keen on being a frontman at first, but he became brilliant."

Always delivering raging live shows, The SBMs issued the Good And Gone EP on ACE in 1984, which was followed by their signing with Warner Bros after a show at the Woolwich Tramshed.

Another EP and the Gun-Shy album followed. Although dates in the States helped The SMBs pick up a loyal American following, their primal fury wasn't going to translate easily into chart success. Then Bikini Red, their second album, was issued in 1987. One track was called I Wanna Be A Flintstone. "For us, it was a bit of a filler," recalls Thompson. "In our heads it wasn't obvious as a single – we thought of it as much darker. But the label pushed the Flintstone song."

The record label was proved right. I Wanna Be A Flintstone charted, and the trio were propelled onto the nation's TV screens. "We were never pretty," laughs Thompson. "Really grizzled looking. We'd be on a kids' programme with cardboard boulders on the set. Top Of The Pops was most odd. We just thought, What was all that about? Elton John did it at the same time. He said, 'Don't worry about it. I had to go through that with Crocodile Rock.'"

A follow-up hit never came and the band split in 1990. There's new music from Bill Carter on his Myspace page, at www.myspace.com/screamingbillcarter, and nowadays Thompson plays with The Killer B's. Looking back on his moment in the charts, he muses, "We were pretty embarrassed about it on the whole. It wasn't really us."