The Story Of Gorillaz

>Phase 1 The Beginning<

of Gorillaz begins on August 15th, 1997. Stu-Pot was a mentally deficient keyboard enthusiast and part-time employee at Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium. Satanist hoodlum Murdoc Niccals decided to ram-raid Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium to procure synthesizer equipment in order to establish a "chart topping" musical group. However, Murdoc ended up driving his Vauxhall Astra through the building and directly into Stu-Pot's head, permanently damaging ("fracturing") Stu-Pot's left eye and putting him into a catatonic state. Murdoc was sentenced to "30,000 hours of community service, plus 10 hours every week of caring for the vegetabilized Stu-Pot". Not long after, Murdoc again injured Stu-Pot in a car accident in Nottingham's Tesco parking lot when attempting a 360° in order to impress some women. During the initial rotation, he was thrown through the windshield and landed face first on a curb. This permanently damaged Stu-Pot's right eye, but revived him from his coma. Murdoc then recruited the newly recovered (albeit still mentally defective) Stu-Pot as the keyboardist and vocalist for his group, re-dubbing him 2-D for the matching pair of dents in his head from the accidents.

In September of 1998, Murdoc acquired the property of Kong Studios, a sprawling haunted studio with a rather shady history, situated atop a hill in the midst of a run-down cemetery and landfill in Districtshire, Essex.

Murdoc then found a drummer for the group in a Soho record store: African-American expatriate Russel Hobbs Russel was a middle-class New York native and was deeply troubled as a youth. He was expelled from an expensive private school for suffering from demonic possession. The trauma of said possession resulted in a four-year coma from which Russel was roused only by an elaborately executed exorcism. After his recovery, Russel began attending Brooklyn High School, where he quickly cultivated friendships with a group of rappers, DJs, MCs and street musicians. He has said that "hip-hop saved [his] soul."

This was a short-lived respite, however, as all of Russel's newfound friends were suddenly gunned-down one night in a drive-by shooting. Russel, the sole survivor, became the unwilling receptacle for the spirits of all of his slain compatriots, most notable of whom was the rhyme dropping blue phantom, Del. With their latent possession of his body, Russel gained incredible musical prowess in percussion, rap, and hip-hop as well as a disturbing side-effect: his eyes glowed an eerie white. With this new and violent turn of events, Russel's family shipped him off to England in hopes of helping him recover from his traumas quietly - not realizing they'd put him directly into the path of Murdoc's aspirations to superstardom, and the excesses that came along with it.

At that point, all the fledgling group needed was a guitarist. Their first guitarist was 2-D's girlfriend, Paula Cracker, but she was shortly fired from the band after Russel caught her and Murdoc making love in the studio toilets. Disgusted by this, Russel broke Murdoc's nose five more times. Like so many British bands before them, the trio placed an advertisement in NME. The very day the ad ran, a FedEx freight container from Japan was delivered to their doorstep and out jumped a mysterious amnesiac 8-year-old wielding a Gibson Les Paul. The tiny girl made an incomprehensible introduction in Japanese and tore into a "riff to end all riffs" which ended with an impressive karate kick to the air. She then spoke a single word in English to the stunned boys, which became her moniker: "Noodle". After the band was finally assembled, they changed their name to Gorillaz. Their first song was called "Ghost Train" and was recorded at Kong Studios. Murdoc posted a copy of the song, some photos of the band and a manifesto over to Mr. Whiffy Smithy at EMI.

November 5th, 1998, Gorillaz played their first show at the Camden Brownhouse which ended prematurely due to a riot during their song "Punk". EMI A&R man Whiffy Smiffy discharged several rounds from shotgun to disperse the crowd enough to make his way to the stage and quickly signed them to the label. Gorillaz released their first collection of music on the "Tomorrow Comes Today" EP in November 2000.

Their first full-length debut album, "Gorillaz" was released on March 26th, 2001. During its release, the album spawned four singles; "Clint Eastwood," "19-2000," "Rock the House" and "Tomorrow Comes Today".

During 2001, Gorillaz began touring through various countries including England, France, Ireland and Japan.

On February 20th, 2002, Gorillaz performed at the Brit Awards where they were nominated for 6 Brit Awards but won nothing.

Also in 2002, Gorillaz collaborated with rappers, D12 and Terry Hall to create the downloadable single, "911".

From February 23rd - March 11th, 2002, Gorillaz embarked on an 11-month tour of North America. At the end of the American Tour, of that year, the Gorillaz took a six-month break in L.A on March 13th. There they attempted to get a movie project off the ground. The band played their last gig together at the Isle of MTV Festival in Portugal on July 20th. Meanwhile, that Halloween, Kong Studios had been shut down tight in its owner's absence by local law enforcement after an unknown man was seen running, naked and in hysterics, in the marshes near the studio. The police proceeded to keep the area secured while they investigated the strange paranormal events surrounding Kong. The Gorillaz spent the interim period working on their movie while living in a large rented home in the Hollywood Hills.

Alas, the film was not meant to be, due in part to extensive over-partying, in-fighting, and disagreements with producers, directors, and a notable incident of Murdoc getting himself banned from the Playboy Mansion for stealing ashtrays. Gorillaz tried to create a movie, but everyone was too concentrated on doing drugs and hanging out with celebrities. Murdoc almost got a TV show, but they replaced him at the last minute. When Murdoc almost killed 2-D it became too much and they went their separate ways on a year and a half hiatus.

To Be Continued......