With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

“I don’t need it don’t need your blah blah” July 11, 2012


It seems that the new leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, has his own song. He doesn’t sing it, but it’s lyrics seem to draw from one of his speeches around the time he became leader. The song is called “Onwards Towards The Final Victory” and as you might expect it is getting significant airplay on the countries radio and TV networks. His father Kim Jong-Il also had a song, his was called “There Is No Motherland Without You“.

The only way is Up!

Personally I find all this a little strange, I mean I know our own British national anthem, which incidentally is far less rousing than Kim Jong-Un’s little tune, is an awful ode to the power of the monarchy, but imagine if all of our Prime Ministers had their own song! So obviously I thought how about finding some possibly appropriate songs for our head public servants. I know that they see themselves as leaders, but actually they are really servants aren’t they?

David Cameron “Running The World” – Jarvis Cocker (Although I’m sure that ‘Call Me Dave’ would prefer “Eton Rifles

Gordon Brown “Jilted John” – Jilted John (Mostly for the ‘Gordon Is A Moron’ line)

Tony Blair – “Liar” – Sex Pistols

John Major – “Fade To Grey” – Visage

Margaret Thatcher – “Bitch” – Rolling Stones

And finally special mention to Nick Clegg “I’m A Winker (Misprint)” – Ivor Biggun and the Red Nosed Burglars

So there you have my selections, how about yours?

 

“What Happened To The Fambly Cat?” July 2, 2012


Our little cat Betty, or to give her full name, Mrs Betty Slocombe has gone missing. She is also affectionately known as Betty Boo. She is just over a year old and blind in one eye. She has a very sweet nature and has never been gone for more than a couple of hours before. We last saw her on Saturday morning, 30th June. We miss her terribly and can’t help thinking how scared she must be.

We have put leaflets through the doors of about 70 houses, notices on local notice boards and in local shops. we have searched empty properties and walked up and down the riverbank a few times. we have given her details to the RSPCA and Cats Protection and a number of local veterinary practices. She is also the subject of a missing cat advert on gumtree.co.uk (click here to read it) and now has a Facebook group (click here to see that) But as yet we still don’t have her back.

We live in Huntington in York in the UK. If you have any friends in the area please pass this post on to them. People have been incredibly supportive with possible sightings and happy ending stories of their own cats going missing. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has responded so far.

I will certainly keep you updated on progress and will post again when she comes home. I know that this is almost certainly nothing like the pain of having a child go missing, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt. I keep thinking that maybe I didn’t look after her well enough, however stupid that sounds that is how it feels sometimes. I feel like I have let Betty down. Both Catwoman (aka my beautiful wife Catherine) and I are very worried about her and can’t help thinking how scared she probably is. Even her older brother Benny seems out of sorts since she disappeared too. We hope that maybe she has been trapped in an outhouse or shed or something and that it will be opened soon so that she can make her escape.

I have said on many occasions that this is a music blog, so to stick with that I couldn’t really think of anything more appropriate than this excellent piece from Grandaddy; “What Happened ………..?” (Incidentally and sadly Betty is not one of the cats in the video). Betty is one of our Fambly Cats and all of us would like to know where she is and have her come home very soon.

 

“We’ll fight until the whistle goes” June 24, 2012


It may have passed some of you by but we are in the middle of the European Football Championships, better known as Euro 2012. Against the majority of expectations my national team, England have not only progressed beyond the group stage they actually won their group as well. Putting France into second place and eliminating one of the host nations, Ukraine.

Later today England play Italy for a semi final place where the winners of todays game will play Germany. I believe that England can win today. However recent history says that if we do and then go on to play Germany in the semi final the game will go to extra time and Germany will win the penalty shoot out. Just like at the Italia ’90 World Cup and on our home turf in Euro ’96. Obviously I would love for ‘football to come home’ and for us to beat the Italians, the Germans and whoever awaits us in the final. But it’s now 46 years since we won a major tournament. Is this our time? Well my fingers are crossed and so far the team have been light years better than their disastrous showing at the South Africa World Cup back in 2010 so who knows.

How many of you can actually remember this? I can, but I was only 7 at the time

So let’s cheer the team on with the first hit England song, the most heartfelt England song and in my opinion the best England song. All three of which went to number one in the UK charts. ENGERLAND, ENGERLAND, ENGERLAND….. repeat until you lose your voice!

 

“The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget” June 3, 2012


I couldn’t let the 40th anniversary of the release of Bowie‘s classic 1972 album ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars‘ go unmentioned could I? It will be 40 years old on June 6th and of course being the Bowie fanatic that I am the vinyl reissue which comes with a DVD including some unreleased mixes is winging its way to me as I type. Bowie has said in the early 70s that the Ziggy album was a concept album, personally I don’t really see that, but that doesn’t make it any less of an album.

How many of you own at least one version of Bowie’s Ziggy album? lots of you I hope and if you don’t own it what’s keeping you, go out and buy it, download it, borrow it or steal it now! The album took just no more than 10 days to record, which by todays standards is faster than the speed of sound and light, or perhaps sound and vision, (get it?) combined.

So, as I’m sure you have heard the album many times I thought I’d present it in a slightly different way, by giving you all the tracks in their original order but performed by different artists. Some whom you may have heard of and others you may not have. But just to make sure you don’t miss out on the Dame himself I have tagged on two cover versions that might have made it onto the album but didn’t. The covers track listing is shown below. PLAY LOUD and Enjoy!

“Five Years” – Polyphonic Spree

Soul Love” – Tim Kasher

Moonage Daydream” – Killers

“Starman” – Culture Club

“It Ain’t Easy” -Raconteurs

Lady Stardust” – Seu Jorge

“Star” – System Noise

“Hang On To Yourself” – Charles De Goal

“Ziggy Stardust” – Balzac

Suffragette City” – Turbonegro

Rock n Roll Suicide” – Black Box Recorder

Now it’s time for Dave does Chuck and Jacques or Bowie does Berry and Brel!

Bowie has a message for MC Hammer about big trousers……”U can’t touch these!”

 

“I’m like the B-19, loaded with Benzedrine” May 20, 2012


Hands up who thought that heavy drug references in music arrived in the 60s and the ‘straights’ just didn’t get it? Well if that’s you, you’re very, very wrong. Fred Astaire was singing about Benzedrine in a song back in 1942. The song was “On The Beam” written by Johnny Mercer and Jerome Kern. Astaire sang it in the film ‘You Were Never Lovelier‘ (Thank you to the rather excellent Word magazine for bringing this to my attention)

However much he took, Fred could never get as high as Audrey Hepburn

It’s certainly not the earliest drug reference in song either. Cole Porter wrote “I Get A Kick Out Of You” for the Broadway musicalAnything Goes‘ in the early thirties and the song has the lines  ‘Some get a kick from cocaineI’m sure that if I took even one sniff That would bore me terrifically, too’ I love that I have been able to talk about lines and cocaine in the same sentence there!

Feel free to contribute with your own favourite drug reference in songs, especially if it’s earlier than these two!

 

 

“Strangled by the wishes of pater, hoping for the arm of mater” May 9, 2012


A few of you will know that I am part of what can probably only be described as a jokes syndicate. I receive tons of jokes from friends via text/ SMS and send them on to a select group of 18 people. I presume these 18 send them on to their buddies too. Perhaps this is what the real six degrees of separation is all about!

I occasionally receive a music related joke as I did earlier this week. If you are easily offended I suggest you stop reading now because I am going to publish said joke in this post. You have been warned! I would be interested to know if any of you have already seen this via an SMS/ text message, who knows, we may have mutual acquaintances.

Mick Hucknall of Simply Red has been arrested for shagging a rabbit. Apparently he was holding back the ears and singing bunnies too tight to mention!

And finally to show that I have ill feeling toward Mr Hucknall, it is only a joke after all, here are three Simply Red classics fo you to enjoy

It definitely looks like he has been holding back the ears!

 

“And when they stink, the people blink and blame it on the drains”

Filed under: Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 7:39 pm
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According to a recent article in the Australian Geographic magazine it seems that global warming in the Mesozoic era may have been caused by windy dinosaurs. Scientist have calculated that all the herbivore sauropods produced around 470 million tonnes of methane, that compares with up to 90 million tonnes produced by modern ruminant animals, which includes cows, pigs and giraffes. I suspect that Catwoman (my good lady wife to those of you who aren’t regular readers of this blog) would say that I contribute another 50 million tonnes at least!

Current global emission of methane including natural and man-made (and me) is in the region of 470 tonnes and plays a big part in the warming of the planet. I would like to thank Simon Mayo‘s show on Radio 2 yesterday for bringing this wonderful story to my attention. Come on anything that is fart related has to be funny right? They used this story as the theme for a number of tracks yesterday, my favourite of those was probably “Whodunit” by Tavares. But the one that they didn’t play is the one I will use to bring this flatulent dinosaur story back to music. It is the rather beautiful sonnet, “I’ve Parted (Misprint)” by Ivor Biggun and the Red Nosed Burglars. Did you know that Ivor Biggun is in fact Doc Cox who used to appear on Esther Rantzen‘s ‘That’s Life‘ programme?

Enjoy the song, which in my opinion is a brilliant earworm and I’m confident it will be in your head for days! Click here to read the article on the Australian Geographic site.

 

“Princess Leia, where are you tonight and who’s laying there by your side?” May 3, 2012


Today is May 3rd which must mean that tomorrow is Star Wars Day right? Of course it is; May the 4th be with you! I thought I’d celebrate this with a couple of Star Wars related tracks. Notably Ash, they did a cover of Cantina Band as a B Side to their classic single “Girl From Mars“. They also opened their album ‘1977’ with the sound of a TIE Fighter, whilst their label was called Deathstar.

Then there is Blink 182’s “A New Hope” from their ‘Dude Ranch‘ album which I believe is about Princess Leia. Then there is the classic Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip 70s hit “I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper” which mentions Darth Vader in the lyric. And finally you’ll hear “Chewbacca (What A Wookie)” by Supernova a song that was featured on the Clerks soundtrack.

 

“Who put fifty tons of shit on the Foreign Office roof?”

Filed under: Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 3:51 pm
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Do you ever get the feeling that some days are just going to be crap days? I don’t get that feeling much at all, however yesterday was one of them. I parked my car the usual 5 minute walk from the office and started walking. It was a typical British spring day in that it was bloody cold. So I had my raincoat on with the collar up. Why did I have the collar up? Actually it was to keep the wind off me, although I don’t mind rocking that FBI agent look occasionally. Anyway it turns out I was lucky to have my collar up, for halfway to the office I heard and felt an almighty splash on my shoulder and the back of my neck.

Yes I had been shat on from a great height and judging from the volume of shit it was either a really large bird or a flock that had practised synchronised defecation. But because my collar was up every last drop stayed on my raincoat, otherwise it would have been right down the back of my shirt collar. It was quite obvious that I had been used as a bird toilet (or bird bathroom for my US readers) but still two people stopped me and said “Do you know you’ve got bird shit on you?”

The footnote is that when I arrived back at the car to go home it had been bombed with two of the largest dollops of bird shit I have ever seen. Still I suppose we should be thankful that elephants can’t fly, well apart from Dumbo anyway. Incidentally whilst it was a moderately crappy day for me, it was nowhere near as bad as the birds had perhaps tried to indicate.

So as I have said many times before, so how can I bring this post back to music I hear you ask. relatively easy really, take some time out, especially if you’ve had a shitty day, to enjoy “Pigeons” by Genesis

So yes, let’s be thankful that elephants can’t fly!

 

“All the ants in God’s garden they can’t get along” March 21, 2012


Earlier today we visited the magnificent Eden Project in Cornwall. If you’ve never been you really should give it a shot. In among the glorious Biomes there are a few fabulous sculptures and works of art. One of these is a giant bee and it was near this that we couldn’t resist a photo opportunity.

I suspect you may be thinking ‘this is a music blog, what the bloody hell is this idiot going on about?’ So bear with me, there is a point, a sting in the tail if you will! I see the picture above as a still from a long-lost unbroadcast episode of the 60s classic TV seriesLand Of The Giants‘ which clearly featured my beautiful wife Catherine (a.k.a Catwoman) trying her best to protect herself from a bee fart.

So how can I relate that back to music? Arguably some of you may say that this isn’t music anyway. So here goes, for your delectation here is a great track from none other than Don Van Vliet a.k.a Captain Beefheart! (Geddit? It is kind of bee related too)