Hotblack Desiato is the guitar keyboard player of the rock group Disaster Area, claimed to be the loudest band in the universe, and in fact the loudest sound of any kind, anywhere. So loud is this band that the audience usually listens from the safe distance of thirty seven miles away in a well-built concrete bunker. Disaster Area's lavish performances went so far as to crash a space ship into the sun to create a solar flare. Pink Floyd's lavish stage shows were the inspiration for Disaster Area. At the time when the main characters meet him, in the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Hotblack is spending a year dead "for tax reasons". (In the book he is described as being connected to a "death support system" and communicates only by supernatural means). In 1978, two years prior to the publishing of the book, the members of the band Pink Floyd lived outside Great Britain for exactly one year for tax reasons.
The character is named after an estate agency based in Islington, with branches throughout North London. Adams said he was struggling to find a name for the character and, spotting a Hotblack Desiato sign, liked the name so much he "nearly crashed the car" and eventually telephoned to ask permission to use the firm's name for a character. Apparently, the firm's staff later received phone calls telling them they had a nerve naming their company after Adams's character.
The Disaster Area sub-plot was first heard in the LP album adaptations and later in the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It replaces the Haggunenon material from fit the sixth of the radio series. The character appears in episode 5 of the TV series, and his ship in episode 6 of the TV series. He does not have any lines (due to being technically dead), and is played by Barry Frank Warren.
The B-side of the 7-inch single of the Hitchhiker's Guide TV Series theme music featured a performance of a song entitled "Only The End Of The World Again", credited to 'Disaster Area'.
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