I've been listening to a collection of avant-garde 'pieces' by Newcastle based early-80s weirdos, Metgumbnerbone. Eerie as anything. See archived news story below:

The goths and grave robbers
Nov 23 2005
By Ray Marshall, The Evening Chronicle


When police went to investigate reports of strange happenings at a Tyneside graveyard they made a macabre discovery.

The story, in the Evening Chronicle in November, 1984, showed grave robbers had plundered family crypts which had lain undisturbed for more than 130 years.

The story became even more gruesome when they traced the crime to a group of men calling themselves the Gentlemen Of The Club, otherwise known as a weird pop group called Metgumbnerbone, who specialised in Tibetan trumpet music.

These young men had used the bones they had taken from the crypts to make musical instruments by drilling small holes in them.

When police raided the home of one of the men in Northcote Street, Newcastle, they found a welcoming sign above the door - an imitation axe and the Metgumbnerbone emblem of a skull.

Inside the house they found several bones lying around the living room, thigh bones and skulls on the kitchen table and bags of skulls waiting for attention.

There were also books on sexual deviation and black magic, as well as other aspects of the occult.

Hanging on the living room wall was the black magic symbol of inverted triangles in a circle. A huge flag covered one wall with its gold on black emblem.

When the five men were arrested they admitted attacking three graves and removing skeletons. Altogether there were 10 bodies of men, women and children. The group also kept a manuscript of their dark deeds.

They told how on a midnight raid at the Westgate Hill Cemetery in Newcastle they smashed crypts and entered the vaults where complete families lay at rest, their bones incased and neatly stored.

Using shovels and torches they dug their way underground, risking becoming trapped under the ancient stone and marble.

A CID spokesman said the case was a sickening misuse of the sanctity of the dead.

From their inquiries detectives were left in no doubt that the club members had been indulging in ritualistic rights of the black arts.

The five musicians, Alan English, of Jesmond, John Smith, of Hartlepool, John Mylotte, of Newcastle, Sean Dower, of Benwell, and David Stewart, of Swalwell, were charged with robbing graves and causing damage in Newcastle's Westgate Hill Cemetery.

Mylotte admitted three counts of digging open graves and removing the contents. Stewart admitted two similar charges, as did English. Smith and Dover admitted a joint charge of opening a grave and Mylotte admitted stealing a brass grave plaque. And Mylotte, Stewart and English admitted damaging property belonging to Newcastle City Council.

Sentencing Mylotte, Stewart and English, Judge Myrella Cohen said was satisfied occult practices were behind their sinister activities.

Stewart and English were given 12 months' jail and Mylotte, described by Judge Cohen as the "lynch pin" behind the offences, 18 months.

Dower and Smith, both students, were said to be the least involved. Smith was given 160 hours' community service and Dower, who was at Newcastle University, 100 hours.

Target of a family crypt

The members of the Metgumbnerbone group, also calling themselves the Gentlemen Of The Club, documented their deeds in manuscripts, which read: "It was not a long walk to our goal. And once there we speculated as to where at first we should strike.

"On what piece of ground should we first lift the spade to the earth. Name, sir, which grave that man has made to incarcerate.

"Christian, in undisturbed rest, sent in tomb to lie in peace, inviolate, shall we in turn violate?

"Our destination, which you will perceive, was to the cemetery given into the parish of Elswick.

"Here we did find our first objective. A crypt belonging to a family.

"It had been much labour to shift the uppermost piece of brickwork upon which the grave slab rested.

"We charged Mylotte (John), being of slightest build, to take the honour of entering first ...

"They had lain unmolested for 130 years ..."

And so it went on.