Gulliver's Island | The 3 flying O'Shannassys | Inner Sleeve #1

Martin Suess

The 3 flying O'Shannassys Biography (Part 2)

It took two years until the first real performance of The 3 flying O'Shannassys (as they called themselves now). They only played at home for girlfriends, ex-girlfriends and relatives. And they were famous for showing up in the pubs of their quarter to sing some twelve-note compositions a capella until somebody buys them a drink.

The first official concert was on March 10th 1993 in the Royal Albert Hall: It happened that the three brothers had saved the puppy dog of a famous russian guest conductor. He invited them to do a 20 minutes appearance upfront his Rachmaninov evening. Some members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra were so impressed by the strange brothers playing 20 different instruments (including the Theremin) that they joined the performance as background singers. The audience and the press were less impressed.

Two weeks later the band was history: John, fan of Arsenal, and James, fan of Chelsea, started to fight in the kitchen, using pans and knives. Caspar, a fan of the Glasgow Rangers, tried to calm things down, which led to his left hand broken. The brothers stopped to talk to each other, which is somehow difficult if you share bathroom and kitchen. Caspar suffered the most: not only he feared to be limited to the Autoharp in the future, the silence between the brothers deeply depressed him.
Some weeks later his foster mom, Mrs House, couldn't stand his pain any more and moved into the brother's apartment, promising not to leave the kitchen until the brothers start to talk again. After two weeks of Haggis and Tea and good advices the brothers gave up, settled their fight and started to make music again.


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