With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

“I gave you the finger, you took me to dinner” November 12, 2013


Geri meets 3 of the 393 people that bought her new single

Geri meets 3 of the 393 people that bought her new single

Once upon a time she was one fifth of the pop world conquering Spice Girls who sold their songs by the Starship load. Nowadays Geri Halliwell a.k.a. Ginger Spice is selling barely enough CDs (ok I recognise that many are probably downloads these days) for one person to carry. Geri’s new single in Australia, “Half Of Me” sold just 393 copies in its first week. To be fair that is probably 392 more than perhaps a new Victoria Beckham single would sell.

Geri celbrates after the first six copies of her new single had been sold

Geri celebrates after the first six copies of her new single had been sold

Anyway it seems that Geri is taking it reasonably well. She decided not to perform the song on the Australia’s Got Talent Final TV show. Instead she performed a version of the Spice Girls first hit “Wannabe”. She admitted that deep down she was gutted. In contrast the Australian number one single, “Alive” by Aussie X Factor winner Dami Im sold 44,000 in the same period. Click here to read the story on the BBC.

Geri spends all the profits from the sales of her new single on a cab ride across the road

Geri spends all the profits from the sales of her new single on a cab ride across the road

It’s clearly a long way from those heady days of her early solo career where she achieved four UK number ones; “Mi Chico Latino“, “Lift Me Up”, “Bag It Up” and an atrocious cover version (in my opinion) of the Weather Girls disco classic “It’s Raining Men“. The latter was also number one in Belgium, France, Ireland and Italy. She has never had an Australian number one solo single though and with “Half Of Me” only making it to number 281 that seems unlikely to change.  Her biggest solo hit in the land down under was her first  single “Look At Me” which made it to number 3 in 1999. Should we start a campaign to have “Half Of Me” adopted as the anti X Factor Christmas number 1 in the UK this year? No I didn’t think you’d go for that either!

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“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”


happiness-john-lennon-life-school-Favim.com-410383Some rather interesting artefacts from John Lennon‘s school days have recently been uncovered. A collection of his detention sheets from his time at the Quarry Bank High School for Boys in the 1950s. Lennon’s misdemeanours include fighting in class, nuisance, shoving, sabotage and just showing no interest whatsoever. That last one was probably on one of my detention sheets! One of the earlyLennon bands took their name from the school and were known as the Quarrymen. It was this band that Lennon was playing with at a fete when he met Paul McCartney for the first time. The rest ast they say is Beatles history!

article-2498855-0613FA46000005DC-682_306x423The sheets were discovered in the late 70s by a teacher at the school who was asked to clear out and burn some old documents. He saw the name Lennon on some and decided to take them as a keepsake. He has given some away over the years but those that remain are up for auction on November 22nd. The documents have been verified by one of John’s best friends from his schooldays, Pete Shotton. I’m glad I’m not famous, I don’t think I’d want my school reports making it into the public domain! Click here to read the story on the BBC.

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Lennon's school report

Lennon’s school report

John lennon at Dovedale Primary School

John lennon at Dovedale Primary School

 

“I Think I’ll Hide Behind My Tofu” November 11, 2013


tumblr_mntsbznriB1qdsmyio1_500The wonderfully talented Colour Me Wednesday have just released an excellent video on YouTube which for me has the potential to become a YouTube Awards nominee for 2014. So to all my regular readers let’s make it viral and share the hell out of it. We’re relying on you and just remember that I know where you live!

tumblr_mlaq1pg9941qdsmyio2_1280The video is in support of their new single “(I’m Not Coming To Your) BBQ” which is taken from their brilliant début album ‘I Thought It Was Morning’. If you haven’t bought it yet then you jolly well ought to. It’s easy to do, just click here. The video was made by Harriet from the band and I love it! But even without the video it’s a great song too. Festival organisers if you’re reading this please can you get this band on your 2014 line up? You will not regret it!

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“Maybe I need a straight jacket, face facts I am nuts for real, but I’m okay with that”


EminemI’m a bit late with this but I thought the 2013 YouTube awards deserved a mention. (Thanks for the reminder Mr H). The highest profile awards went to Eminem who was artist of the year and Girl’s Generation a South Korean K-Pop group won the video of the year for their song “I Got A Boy”. Other winners were;

Response of the Year: Lindsey Stirling & Pentatonix, “Radioactive”

YouTube Phenomenon: “I Knew You Were Trouble”

YouTube Breakthrough: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Innovation of the Year: DeStorm, “See Me Standing”

images-girlsgeneration-Girls_Generation_Creed_9_Gates_by_DarsephtanI felt that it was a nice surprise that Lady Gaga, who played a new song “Dope” at the awards show, won no awards. Eminem has also been in the news a lot recently. His recent UK number one single “The Monster” featuring Rihanna was the seventh consecutive year that Rihanna has had a UK number one. Only Elvis Presley and the Beatles have managed that before. In a two sevens clash numerical coincidence Eminem’s new album ‘The Marshall Mathers LP 2″ became his seventh consecutive UK number one album. He is the first US artist to acheive this feat.

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“But to lose all my senses, that is just so typically me” October 31, 2013


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I’m sure that you couldn’t make this up could you? Anyway the Merchant Navy are using Britney Spears’ music to deter Somali sea Pirates. If the pirates fail to heed the warnings from security on board merchant ships off the African coast and continue to head towards them then Plan B is invoked. Or perhaps that should be Plan Britney. They pump out Britney’s biggest hits at full volume and miraculously the pirates usually turn away.

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The pirates supposedly hate western culture and music so the music of Britney is perfect. I suppose that using Bieber, Cheryl Cole or One Direction would be like using the nuclear option on the pirates. How stupid are these half-witted Jack Sparrows though? I mean have they never heard of ear plugs? Or maybe they could counter attack with the Barney the Dinosaur, Teletubbies or Mr Blobby themes. Click here to read the story on the Guardian’s web pages.

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“I watched it for a little while I love to watch things on TV” October 27, 2013


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I am sure that many of you have now heard of the sad passing of music icon Lou Reed aged 71. The Associated Press have said that he died of a ‘liver related ailment’ following a liver transplant earlier this year. Two of my favourite albums of all time are Lou Reed related. Firstly ‘The Velvet Underground And Nico‘ and the classic solo album ‘Transformer‘ from 1972.

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Being a Bowie fan I came across Lou Reed after Mr Bowie mentioned him often in interviews and then went on to produce ‘Transformer’ along with Mick Ronson. Lou has always in my opinion been very much his own man and often refused to play the music industry game. Personally I think he should be commended for that.

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Brian Eno once said ‘The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band’ to try to describe the wide influence that Lou Reed had on many fellow musicians. My thoughts go to Lou’s wife Laurie Anderson, his family, friends and fans. RIP Lou Reed you will be greatly missed.

 

“He knows so much about these things, He knows so much about these things, He knows so much about these things” October 23, 2013


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So finally after a few false starts Stephen Morrissey has published his autobiography wich is either very cleverly or very lazily (depending on your opinion) titled ‘Autobiography’. Most of the reviews have been reasonably good, perhaps driven by the reviewer thinking they might get a scathing review of their own critical talent from Mozzer. Anyway I haven’t read the book yet which rather interestingly is published by Penguin Classics.

tumblr_mre460SMyn1seji43o1_500So if I haven’t read the book what is the purpose of this post? Well simply to publicise something  that has been published on Tumblr under the title ‘This Charming Charlie’. It is a collection of Charles Schultz‘s Peanuts cartoon strips with their original dialogue replaced by Morrissey lyrics. Click here to check it out, but do it quickly because someone (I wonder who, because it certainly doesn’t seem to be Mozzer) is taking a copyright action against Lauren LoPrete’s site.

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“I think it went oh, oh, oh, I think it went yeah, yeah, yeah” September 9, 2013


1D bridesmaids

I don’t often issue public health warnings on this blog, in fact this may be the first one that I have ever done. I need to make you aware that something which could severely damage your ears and your hearing will be happening in November. Those with little taste will be most susceptible to damage and there will be millions who are already beyond help. It is with great regret that I announce the release date of the new Wand Erection album. It will be called ‘Midnight Memories’; if only the band were just memories. It will be followed with a stadium tour in 2014 including 5 dates in the UK.

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In other 1D news Aston Villa and England’s Gabby Agbonlahor has received death threats via Twitter from a number of One Direction fans. What dastardly deed did Gabby undertake? He tackled 1D’s Louis Tomlinson in a charity football match and injured the poor little lamb. It shouldn’t have surprised Tomlinson too much, he is after all actually on the books of a UK football club. He is a development player allocated squad number 28 for Doncaster Rovers in the 2013/ 14 season.

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Given that some pathetic internet trolls have previously targeted members of the band with vile and abusive posts I find it somewhat unsavoury and sadly ironic that many of One Direction’s less intelligent fans are resorting to exactly the same bullying kind of language. My advice to those poor deluded souls is to chill out and laugh it off. Gabby has already apologised for upsetting poor little Louis. There are far, far worse things going on in the world. I wish no harm to the members of Wand Erection, although as a music fan I do hope that their career doesn’t last too much longer. Oops…… maybe I just made myself a target! :-0

Of course don’t forget that the One Direction film is now showing at cinemas. It’s called ‘This Is Us’, which is an anagram of ‘Us Is Shit’!

 

“Fairy tales of yesterday, will grow but never die, I can fly, my friends” July 31, 2013


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That well-known badger supporter Brian May has unearthed some recordings made by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson at Jacko’s home in 1983. He has worked on them with fellow Queen member Roger Taylor and William Orbit. I guess the issue will be whether or not the three songs will live up to the expectations. was it quality control that kept them from release until now? Another big name duet for Jacko was Mick Jagger who joined the Jacksons on the single “State Of Shock” from the brothers ‘Victory’ album in 1984. Personally I was and still remain underwhelmed by that song. Other elements of posthumous twiddling may have fared well but for me the quality was lacking with the Beatles “Free As A Bird” which was based around a very basic John Lennon demo recording.But let’s keep fingers crossed that this stuff is actually good.

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Paul Gambaccini has suggested that the songs were dubbed the Llama recordings given that Jacko allegedly brought his Llama into the studio when Freddie was there. A cautionary note was sounded by the Guardian’s Laura Barton who said “It feels like we’re sucking the artists’ bones dry… sometimes it would be nice to leave them with a little bit of dignity.” I think I can agree with her sentiments there. But I obviously won’t pass judgement until I have heard the songs. The release seems likely to be later this year. So while you wait take a listen to some classic Jacko and classic Queen and a couple of Jacko versus Queen mash-ups!

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“I live for the way that you cheer and scream for me” July 29, 2013

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 4:19 pm
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Pierrot has let himself go a bit hasn't he?

Pierrot has let himself go a bit hasn’t he?

It seems like American goofball supreme Lady Gaga is doing her best to court controversy once again. Her new album ‘ARTPOP‘ is released later this year and it will be released in a several formats, notably an app. A Gaga spokesperson  apparently says “the app itself is a musical and visual engineering system that combines music, art, fashion and technology with a new interactive world-wide community”. They then go on to say “The album ‘ARTPOP’ musically mirrors Gaga’s creative process as she passes through the mediums of each artist she collaborates with, scoring a blueprint of her journey. The result, a “rage” of electronic passion and fury, defining each artistic process from beginning to end, ‘ARTPOP’ could mean anything. But for her, this is a celebration of obsession.” Could this woman be any further up herself?

So far up herself she probably left the snorkel somewhere up her backside

So far up herself she probably left the snorkel somewhere up her backside

If there was a prize for someone with the ability to endlessly talk bollocks and that bullshit was an art form then she would win every award available. Do people believe this shite? Anyway the album as an app type experience has been done before when Bjork released her last album ‘Biophilia‘ as an inventive collection of apps. I’m not saying that Gaga’s album will be bad, in fact I am a fan of her music. What I am saying is do we really have to put up with the pretentious crap that she promotes herself with.

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Anyway how controversial is she on this occasion? Well she has released a picture of herself with no clothes on sitting on a chair made of discarded microchips and wearing a pair of eye test glasses. Oh shock horror that will offend everyone won’t it? The new single is released on 19th August and is called “Applause”. I’m happy to applaud her musical output to date but not her image and all the drivel and nonsense she spouts! Oh and finally the single isn’t too bad, perhaps a little bit Madonna-ish in places though.

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Is Bjork more tasteful than Gaga? I'll leave you to decide!

Is Bjork more tasteful than Gaga? I’ll leave you to decide!