Fat and Frantic was a delightfully quirky indie band from England, active from the mid-80s and into the early 90s. While the band was made up of Christians (at least one of whom later entered full-time ministry in the Church of England, and another who has a decorated career as a choir director), they managed to stay out of the ‘Christian ghetto’ and had lots of mainstream exposure, at least in their home country. When I lived in England, I would come across people who had no connection to the church but had fond memories of seeing Fat and Frantic live.
The band’s lyrics often reflected biblical stories, but they had such a unique way of presenting it, that kept them from being trite or cliche. Our SOTD selection today features a track that weaves together lamenting male-pattern baldness, biblical prophets, and the observation that several biblical prophets were also bald! The silliness is tied together through the story of the narrator’s wife “hoovering” (that’s UK English for vacuuming) the hair right off of his head!
The band played Greenbelt Festival a number of times and toured around the country before calling it quits sometime around 1994. They sometimes playfully referred to their music as “piffle”–a combination of punk and skiffle.