Rock ‘n’ Rolling in the dosh.

The amazing corporate empire built by Britain greatest Rockers. 

By Felicity Le Travail de Coup

After the announcement by Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) last month that Destroya would be launching a range of books in time for Christmas, we take a look at the business ventures launched by the rock gods and asses the successes and the failures.

Whilst Destroya have launched numerous businesses both as a group and as individuals some have been ‘Apple’ and some have been a little bit more ‘Amstrad’.

The #1’s

‘Nicky Domefur’s Wonder Emporium………… of Mang’.  After noticing at the legendary Paris gig that Parisian Chestnut Vendors did not sell mang, Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation), quickly set upon a tie up with Quick Burger to make Mang available throughout France at every Quick Burger restaurant, meaning that the people of France could get their hands on Mang usually between the hours of 06.00 and 23.30. The tie was successful however the real money came through the $1 billion plagiarism law suit they won against the McDonalds Corporation who had launched a ‘McMang’ offering 6 months later.

‘Dismemberment Dance Off’ (on PS4, Wii and XBoxOne). The Game that kicked off the whole ‘Dance’ video game craze. Not only did the player have to buy the game, but to get the real Scud experience, they needed to buy a dance mat as well as virtual reality gloves and goggles.  This allowed the dancer to select which celebrity they could ‘dance’ with and see themselves, via the goggles, wearing the chosen celeb like a hat.  Critics will always point to the cost of the game and the extra hardware being too prohibitive. (£40 for the game plus £30 for the mat plus £1,237 for the virtual reality goggles and gloves). What those naysayers had not realised, but Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) had realised was that despite the cost, the opportunity to do totally inappropriate things to celebs, all be it virtually, would drive the game to the #1 spot in the game charts for 42 consecutive weeks.

early screen shot from the game.

Pooster Card.  Similar to an Oyster card, this brainchild of Ammo Dump was simple in in conception. Give the people quality dumping opportunities in cities and major towns, where they can go for a dump, read the paper, do some work, read a book, think about amusing anecdotes without the quite frankly disgusting surrounding of most public toilets. They swipe there Pooster card on the way in and out of the cubicle and get charged a flat rate no matter how long they were in there.  The Loo’s would be comfortable and offer streaming of Ammo’s favourite, but incredibly seasonal, television programmes.  Now for a flat fee you can go for a dump in Moscow, New York and Rio whilst watching Mary Berry nibbling on a cheese straw, Kate Humble milking a bullock, and Dr Who battling the Daleks (again).  As Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) tells us ‘there where teething problems. Mainly the phrase on the inside of the door which told customers to “Swipe the slot to exit”.  We had to put a disclaimer on the cards explain that swiping your own slot and covering your card in poo invalidates its warranty’.

Despite disasters with early prototypes the Pooster card was a success

‘Cha Cha Baby’.  This business really kicked off in 2010 after the band went Germany for possibly  there greatest concert.  Ruth  (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) explains that at the Hamburg gig we saw an opportunity as it seems that the German ladies love Soakie Vest, tea and nylon negligee’s.  Admittedly this business is only based in German speaking territories: Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  Those Teutonic ladies love their tea. We have tapped into the Wilhelmine feminist movement from the late 1800’s which gave German women the vote and more freedom.  It does mean more women are staying single and the divorce rate has shot up as women realise that all they need in their lives is a weekly tea delivery from Cha Cha Baby and a selection of Destroya based teas. The bestselling Destroya tea is ‘Jism Stick’ (with a hint of man fat).  Admittedly all our delivery drivers have to undergo reconstructive surgery to make them look like Soakie Vest.

In German Cha Cha means 'I want to nosh off Soakie Vest

Dr Love. Destroya certainly seem to have the female psych mapped out as huge source of revenue. The company umbrella name of Dr Love LLP includes divisions such as Dr Love video productions, Dr Love Erectile dysfunction tablets, Dildo King and Dr Love throat lozenges and Dr Love chaffing cream.  As Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) put it ‘I’m no Necrophiliac, but I prefer Dump. I can see however that Marc has a certain boyish Italian/Finish/English charm. We noticed how the ladies loved it when MVD serenaded them. So the entire Dr Love company and subsidiaries are based on sex but from a female point of view’.

Of course Destroya really struck it gold when Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) sold the company to Burger King who mistakenly thought that the ‘Double Pounder’ was a  burger and not an enormous double headed dildo.

Another delivery of Dildo's and chaffing cream

The ‘Did not chart’ companies.

Burgernomics. A new currency invited by Scud Crater to replace the Euro. Scud hadn’t realised that Angela Merkel is in fact a vegetarian and without the support of Europe’s biggest economy it was a nonstarter. Greece are currently looking at Halloumi and Humus as replacement currency if they get kicked out of the EuroZone.

Miss You Nights. A character assassination service dreamt up by MVD, where the Miss You Nights company would hound your selected target mercilessly until they fled from your life permanently. Ruth  (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) admits that she was partly to blame for the failure of this one. ‘I must admit that I took my eye off the ball as the new series of Great British Bake Off had started and I just let MVD get on with it without my help.  If I had seen the business plan we would never have launched it.  It was entirely based on destroying Cliff Richard. We have noticed the irony of the situation Mr Richard now finds himself in’.

Virtual Dildo's nemesis. 

Leather FM. (Not to be confused with the Dr Love subsidiary Leather For Him). A radio station that was the brain child of Soakie Vest. At first the listener figures where huge as the Destroya fan base thought that it would be nonstop Destroya tunes. But with Soakie in charge of the playlist, Destroya songs only accounted for 62.3% of the playlist with the 27.7% being supplied by bands like Air Supply, Saxon and Slayer.  In a fit of pique, despite good RAJAR figures and decent advertising sales, Soakie pulled the plug as he was just plain bored. He sold the station to Richard Branson for £1 who changed the name to Virgin Radio and claimed, like he always does, that it was his idea originally any way.

Leather FM mascot, Gepeto

Uncle Tim’s House of Fun. An idea of Ammo’s to create the kind of fun house for kids. The Uncle Tim’s House of Fun play centre was meant to be a chain or franchise operation with plans for 400 centres in the UK and then worldwide expansion.  Ruth (Head of Destroya PLC/Corporation) has a wistful look when I ask her about the failure. ‘I just popped into the garden to plant some bulbs and came back into the house to find Ammo had sub-let the ‘John Charles Stand’ at Elland Road and had already contracted Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen to design the interior. The kids would enter and go through what Ammo thought would be every ones idea of enchantment.  However not all 6 year olds want to play in Toilet Land, where the kids are meant to sit on toilet seats and quietly read the Guardian whilst listening to test match special. Also anecdote corner was not a hit with 4 year old girls, and no one was interested in the Zhou Xun area. No one cared that she once got into the Destroya A-Z of top totty as the only X submitted’. Uncle Tim’s House of Fun closed after 3 days.

The Dump room was a turn off for kids.

‘The’ Fest. A new music festival where Domefur used his pent up anger with Virtual Dildo’s nazi like obsession with the word ‘The’ to create a festival where all the bands would have a ‘The’ in the title.  Domefur had mistakenly thought he could get The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, The Jackson Five, The Kinks to headline the 12 day festival, with tickets would have been a nominal charge of £1437.50. In the end he put on a one day festival with bands such as The Dolphin Brothers, The Supremes, The Clangers and The The headlining. It was cancelled with sales of tickets being ‘disappointing’. It probably didn’t help that tickets where still going to be £1437.50.

The festival that never was.