The Beagles

The name’s Shep and I’m a collie from Ireland. You may have heard of me.

When I was young pup, me and my mates Jessie, Rosco, Paws and Piddles, would all hang around my back yard waiting for the highlight of our day, the arrival of the postman. This went on for some considerable time. Then one day I asked myself ’surely there must be more to life than this’

Like I mean, don’t get me wrong, chasing cats and biting car tyres do have their place and aren’t to be sniffed at, but there must be more to it than that. The bigger picture beckoned. You still with me bro? You know what I’m digging at? Anyroads, the very next day I started my first band - Shep and the Hounds, made up of oneself, Paws, Geezer and our drummer Dingo.

We changed our name over time and became the Beagles. You may have heard of us. This was the early 60s and we were all taken by this new rock and roll thing. Myself and Paws wrote most of the hits. Bitches were coming from kennels across the country to watch us play live. We had a tight band and the hits kept on a’comin’.

THE BEAGLES GREATEST BITES (& SOME THAT GOT AWAY)

How can anyone ever forget these timeless classics.

• Yelp!
• Fleas Please Me
• Happiness is a Warm Boner
• Digging a Hole
• Thank You Bitch
• Watching the Tyres
• I Want To Hold Your Paw
• Tell Me Where You Pee
• You’ve Got to Hide Your Bone Away
• I’m a Poser My Bird Can’t Sing (it’s snuffed it)
• I’ve Just Seen a Vet
• Rabies, You’re a Bitch Man
• Martha My Dearest
• Dig It
• I’ve Got a Feline
• Why Don’t I Do It On The Road
• Get Blackie

To be frightfully honest, I was smitten when I saw Martha. I said to myself, how can I manage to meet that bitch? Well I made me way across to the posh cats and tall lamp posts of London in 1969. The word on the street was that the bitch was attending some photo-shoot with four geezers down by the harbour……I saw me chance. Sure enough Martha was there and we got on famously. Me Irish accent had her swooning.

With the early demise of the Beagles manager Brayin’ Pupstein (run over by the mailman), the group fell apart. When I heard the news, I was shocked, stunned and a bit hungry. The now infamous incident where I supposedly (on the day of the bad news) told the newshounds that ‘it’s a fag’ was grossly misreported. What I actually had said was ‘gissa fag’. I had smoked my last one that morning and was caught short. Still, the bloodhounds never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Of course, there is also the infamous misreporting of me claiming we were bigger than Lassie.

The Later Years

Well, over the years, Paws went veggie - he won’t look at a cat these days - and as for cows, he calls them ‘Mad Things’ and has actually a nice demo based on that notion….but that’s another story. Geezer, after those heady days of Beaglemania, is very spiritual these days. Personally, I reckon he did too much grass in those days. Dog gone it, there was some heavy weed about then - dockins, thistles, nettles, etc - and it was very accessable. Dingo has been happily married to Barbarella now for as long as I can recall. He sorta keeps us all in touch. We’ll often spend a happy hour or two round at his deluxe kennel reminiscing about old times. Me? Well I just watch the car wheels these days. I’m not as young as I used to be. Sure, there has been talk of a reunion, but like it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Paws and me fell out in the late 60s and it’s never been the same.

I officially retired from the music business with the release of ‘Mongrel Fantasy’. The singles ‘Barking Over’ and ‘Chasing The Wheels’ only made the top ten in the charts. The third single ‘Bitch’ was me final number one. I thought that with Barking Over that I had sorta came full circle and was starting to just go through old burrows again.

BEAGLES FANS REMEMBER

Anonymous Beagles Roadie “Shep was doing a lot of grass in those days. He’d take so much of it, even first thing in the morning, that he’d more often than not, throw up. I think that was kinda his intention. He moved onto heavier weed in the later years….thistles, nettles etc.”

Bob, a Beagles Fanatic in the USA “The Beagles always despised the way their American affiliate label ‘Dogeatdog’ carved up their early catalog. Like I mean, American mutts never even heard Chains (kennel blues) til years after their official UK releases. Another song, “Bad Dog” came out in the US (on _Beagles Sic’ Em!_) almost a year and a half _before_ it was released in the UK on ‘A Collection of Beagles Dog-Gonners (But Golden Retrievers).”

Marty Strabbo in Canada “My favorite, of Shep’s solo tunes, just has to be “Bitch Is The Mutt Of The World”. Controversial at the time, but a great song!” Paws (THE statement that effectively signalled the end of the Beagles) “Have you ever heard her howl? Ugh. I was put off after their first collaboration, Two Virgins In Heat.”

Rover in Alabama “The Beagles record sales fell sharply after Shep’s statement that ‘the Beagles are bigger than Lassie’. Shep was blissfully unaware that there were a lot of Lassie followers in the southern states who didn’t take to kindly to his controversial statement.”

Mailman Sam “Shep can burn in hell as far as I am concerned. He was always a pain in the ass, literally.”