This is the first in a series of snippets of what rock and pop stars did before they were famous. If you know what your favourite rock star did before they made the big time feel free to give me a shout. You will definitely get a name check. First up is the voice of Slade, Noddy Holder. Apparently one of Neville’s first jobs was as a milkman. Among the customers on his route was Ozzy Osbourne’s dad. Although my research suggests that this tale might not be true. Can you enlighten us Mr. Holder? One story about Noddy’s early career which I found in a few places was that he was a roadie for Robert Plant’s band, the Tennessee Teens, in the 60s. He also used his father’s window-cleaning van to drive Percy Plant and the band to gigs.
The photos and videos were all found online. If they are yours and you would like a credit or for me to take them down please let me know.
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I thought I would share some of my Spotify listening habits. Apparently I listened to Spotify for more than 12 days last year, I wish I knew how much time I listened to vinyl, CDs, MP3s, radio and other on line sources too. I discovered 577 new artists, wow! My most listened to song was David Bowie’s version of “Wild Is The Wind” and unsurprisingly Bowie was my most listened to artist once again (996 minutes, nearly 6% of my total Spotify listening time) I was also in the top 0.5% of Bowie listeners. The other artists in my top 5 were Biffy Clyro, the Streets, Ella Fitzgerald and Woke Up Dead. I listened to 1,286 artists. My top decade was the 1970s, again no surprise there. Top genres were Rock, Soul and Dance Rock. Rather fascinatingly my music is more obscure than 80% of UK users, what on earth does that mean? I also found a few rather amusing, to me anyway, graphs and charts to accompany this post!
Since starting on this post I have also discovered a few sites on which you can regularly update your Spotify statistics split between artists and tracks and then last 4 weeks/ current, Last six months and all time within that. My favourites among these sites so far are Favourite Music Guru, Obscurify Music and Stats For Spotify. Have you used any of these or can you recommend others?
In case you’re interested in my warped eclectic taste these are my top artists on Spotify (Current, Medium Term and all time) The top songs follow those lists. Incidentally the Kunts and Jarvis Cocker feaure strongly on the tracks lists simply because I did my bit to get them to be the Christmas number one in the UK these last two years!
Top Artists — Short Term (4 weeks)
The Beatles
Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Eagles
London Symphony Orchestra
Evie Sands
Rumer
Jackson Browne
David Bowie
Bobbie Gentry
Harry Styles
Top Artists — Medium Term (6 months)
David Bowie
Biffy Clyro
Gregory Porter
The Avalanches
John Lennon
Eminem
Stevie Wonder
Stephen EvEns
Ella Fitzgerald
The Beatles
Top Artists — Long Term (years)
David Bowie
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Biffy Clyro
Frank Turner
Bruce Springsteen
Four Tops
Eminem
Johnny Nash
Elton John
The Streets
Top Tracks — Short Term (4 weeks)
Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
Billy the Kid, Ballet Suite: I. The Open Prairie — Aaron Copland, London Symphony Orchestra
True Faith ’94 — New Order
Jamaica Say You Will — Jackson Browne
Everybody Used to Love You — Silverjet
Raison D’Être — Stolen Dead Music
Wear A Mask — Sing Sing Rabbit
Three Points on a Compass — Martin Rossiter
Drag Me to the Light — Miles and the Chain Gang
Alfred – Intro — Eminem
Top Tracks — Medium Term (6 months)
Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
Taking It Slow — Heartsink
Concorde — Gregory Porter
Freakin’ At the Freaker’s Ball — Dr. Hook
Pepper — Butthole Surfers
Career Criminal — Stephen EvEns
Close — The Islas
Belladonna — Spunsugar
Make Us Eat — The Shining Tongues
Smiling — Alanis Morissette
Top Tracks — Long Term (years)
Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
Running the World — Jarvis Cocker
Star Treatment — Arctic Monkeys
(red, white, and blue) Cheerfulness — Perry Farrell
Balance, Not Symmetry — Biffy Clyro
Future Legend – 2016 Remaster — David Bowie
Deep Sea Dreaming — Ocean Flaws
Loser of the Year — Woke Up Dead
Three Points on a Compass — Martin Rossiter
Wild Is the Wind – 2016 Remaster — David Bowie
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Personally I find lists of top ten albums, singles etc. for a given year quite subjective so I have decided not to do that for 2020. But I thought that you might be interested in what has been happening on the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem blog page in 2020. The site had more than 30,000 views for the year for the first time since 2016. December hits were 6,449 which is the highest monthly total since May 2015. There were views from 148 different countries. More than 300 people follow us directly from WordPress, the Facebook Page now has 818 followers and we are close to 1,400 followers on Twitter. A total of 2,523. Thank you to each and every one of you. Stick with us in 2021 and beyond, share all our links (you will find them below) and tell all your friends to come and say hi!
We made a total of 164 posts, and wrote 66,693 words that is more than 400 words per post. The most popular post published in 2020 was written by one of our newer contributors Tom Ray and related to Jeffrey Lewis, click here to read it. The most popular post from previous years was viewed a lot this year and it was “We Make Out In Your Mustang To Radiohead” from 2011, click here to read that one.
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This is the sixth song in the Play It Again Mayhem series which began earlier this year. Check out the earlier posts by clicking here (Betty Wright), here (Elton John), here (Roxy Music) here (The O’Jays) and here (John Miles). This one is another from the 70s, and it is from Steely Dan. This was the third single released from the band’s 1976 album ‘The Royal Scam’. It never appeared on the US charts but reached number 17 in the UK. The song is “Haitian Divorce” which takes it’s title and much of the story told in the lyrics from the easy divorces available in Haiti to foreigners, particularly Americans. It was so simple that it only needed one partner to be there and the divorce could be finalised in a matter of hours.
The song tells the story of a woman who goes to Haiti to get a divorce, she has a brief fling with a Haitian man, fails to get the divorce and nine months later gives birth to a half Haitian baby. The mention of Papa in the lyrics is interpreted in two ways. Firstly as her father telling her to go back and get the divorce, and secondly as the voice of Haitian ruler at the time, Papa Doc Duvalier, who encouraged divorce tourism. The song was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. It was Becker who used a Talk Box on the song over Dean Park’s guitar. Perhaps the most famous proponent of the Talk Box was Peter Frampton on ‘Frampton Comes Alive’. Enjoy the song, I love the jazzy, laid back reggae feel of the track, Why not sing along too? The lyrics are copied below. Please not that the second video is by a rather good Steely Dan tribute band, Steely Damned II
Lyrics Babs and Clean Willie were in love they said So in love the preacher’s face turned red Soon everybody knew the thing was dead He shouts, she bites, they wrangle through the night She go crazy Got to make a getaway Papa say Oh – no hesitation No tears and no hearts breakin’ No remorse Oh – congratulations This is your Haitian Divorce She takes the taxi to the good hotel Bon marche as far as she can tell She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell She feels alright, she get it on tonight Mister driver Take me where the music play Papa say Oh – no hesitation No tears and no hearts breakin’ No remorse Oh – congratulations This is your Haitian Divorce At the Grotto In the greasy chair Sits the Charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair When she smiled, she said it all The band was hot so They danced the famous Merengue Now we dolly back Now we fade to black Tearful reunion in the USA Day by day those memories fade away Some babies grow in a peculiar way It changed, it grew, and everybody knew Semi-mojo Who’s this kinky so-and-so? Papa go Oh – no hesitation No tears and no hearts breakin’ No remorse Oh – congratulations This is your Haitian Divorce
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One of our ace writers Tom also has his own blog, Scruffy Theory, and recently he has posted some great investigative stuff about a gig that Pink Floyd allegedly played at the Folk Hall in New Earswick in York back in 1967. It has been difficult to find much evidence about the gig online, but Tom has found his inner bloodhound and donned his deerstalker hat to discover more. Is it true or not? Read Tom’s rather interesting posts (in sequence) to find out! If you know anything about this gig feel free to get in touch.
There was I just randomly searching for stuff as part of researching a different blog post and up pops this. A great cover of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid Of Americans” by Dweezil Zappa. While Dweezil doesn’t take it too far from Bowie’s original it is still a pretty good cover of one of the Dame’s best later-period songs. Bowie released it as a single with plenty of remixes (from Photek and Nine Inch Nails) and it was included on the 1997 album ‘Earthling’. Although it did make an appearance on the ‘Showgirls’ soundtrack a little earlier than that. What do you think of Dweezil’s take on the song?
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Today, had he been alive the Dame a.k.a David Bowie would have been 73. Incidentally he had the same birthday as Elvis Presley. The King would have been 85 today. So as a little celebration of Bowie’s birthday how about we kick off with a song that he allegedly wanted Elvis to record; “Golden Years”.
Enjoy the videos and if you’re attending Absolute Bowie at the Crescent in York on 17th January, I’ll see you there! Let me also tantalise and tease you with another Bowie event that I am planning, it will be in York in the next few months. All will be revealed soon! Love on ya xxx
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Francis Rossi off of Status Quo has a new memoir out called ‘I Talk Too Much’. I haven’t read it yet but I am definitely tempted after a ’10 Things We’ve Learned About Status Quo’ in a recent article in Planet Rock magazine. I won’t list all ten, I will leave you to discover most of them yourselves. But one particular point really appealed to me and my warped sense of humour. Before they chose Status Quo as the name of their band the boys considered calling themselves The Muhammad Ali’s, simply so that they could use the slogan; “They’re The Greatest!”
I hate to say it, but I do think Status Quo was a better choice. What do you think?
My beautiful wife Catherine a.k.a Catwoman is far more active than I am, so much so that she subscribes to Country Walking magazine and I subscribe to the sedentary Q and Mojo! Anyway which of those threw up the best and perhaps most musically related fact recently? You guessed it, none other than the December 2018 issue of Country Walking. So last weekend our American friends across the pond slipped their clocks back an hour, well most states did, Then in a couple of weeks the UK clocks go back an hour to hit British summertime. Why did we do that? Was it Farmers? Was it the postal service? Was it World War 1? Was it School Children? Actually it was none of those. In reality it was the brainchild of William Willett. His steadfast belief was that money was wasted by not changing; less productivity in the darker mornings and power for lighting in the evening. He also enjoyed playing golf in the evening so his campaign which hit pay-dirt in 1916, the year after his death was somewhat selfish.
Chris Martin
I can almost hear you asking what the hell has this got to do with music? Well that William Willett bloke is none other than the great-great- grandfather of Chris Martin off of Coldplay. Of course and so appropriately Coldplay had a hit with a song called “Clocks”, which made the UK top 10 for the band in 2003.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem’s birthday celebrations are nearly over. Today is day 10 and it is February 9th which is the official 10th birthday…. WOO HOO, here’s to ten more years! Today you get two top tens in two separate posts this one is my top ten favourite singles and part 10a features my top 10 albums.
Regular readers will know that so far I have shared with you top ten most viewed posts on the blog since it began back in February 2009, the top ten countries that have given With Just A Hint Of Mayhem the most views, rock/ music related books, biographies and autobiographies, my top 10 Bowie songs, my 10 favourite bands of all time, my top ten favourite male artists, the ten greatest gigs that I have been to, my ten favourite music related films and yesterday my top ten favourite female artists. (Click here,here, here,here,here,here,here, here and here to view those again). So this is it for the 10th birthday celebrations but there is, I hope, much more to come from With Just A Hint Of Mayhem in the coming months and years, watch this space!
So here are my top ten favourite singles of all time, ask me next week and the list may change, although almost certainly not the number 1. I did deliberately ignore David Bowie for this list otherwise he might have occupied three or four places. If you are interested my favourite Bowie single at the moment is “Where Are We Now?”
1. No Woman No Cry (Live) – Bob Marley and the Wailers – In my opinion the greatest song and the greatest version. This will be my funeral song, unless of course I turn out to be immortal!
2. Strawberry Letter 23 – Brothers Johnson – The great Shuggie Otis wrote this but the Brothers Johnson made it their own.
3. I Want You Back – Jackson 5 – This is possibly one of the finest pop songs ever committed to vinyl. That opening piano flourish is magical.
4. White Man In The Hammersmith Palais – The Clash – For me this was the Clash’s finest hour both musically and lyrically.
5. Don’t Let Me Down – Beatles Amazing to think that this was just a B Side. It is my go to song to sing at volume when I am very drunk.
6. Do Anything You Wanna Do – Eddie And The Hot Rods – A truly inspirational song which still inspires me even in my advanced years!
7. God Save The Queen- Sex Pistols – Fear and conspiracy kept this from the number one spot in the Queens Silver Jubilee week in 1977. For me this should be the true UK national anthem.
8. Theme From A Summer Place – Percy Faith Orchestra – You might say that this is one of my guilty pleasures, well maybe, but it is a beautiful piece of music. It was also used to great effect in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Rose Red’.
9. Mack The Knife – Bobby Darin – I love story songs and this is easily one of the best. The law says that you have to tap your feet and click your fingers to this, right?
10. Into My Arms – Nick Cave – As love songs go this might be quite strange but it is undoubtedly beautiful too. This was also the first dance at my wedding to my wonderful wife Catwoman a.k.a Catherine.
