Here we go with part 2/ day 2 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 10th birthday celebrations. Regular readers will know that yesterday I gave you the top ten most viewed posts on the blog since it began back in February 2009 (Click here to view that again). Today I bring you the top ten countries that have given With Just A Hint Of Mayhem the most views. Don’t worry there will be plenty of music in the coming days including things like my top ten favourite singles, albums, bands and more stuff too! Don’t forget that you can also find us on Twitter and FaceBook .
So on with the countries who have visited the site most often
USA 173,833
UK 116,030
Chile 27,682
Germany 26,344
France 22,616
Canada 19,208
Mexico 15,273
Spain 14,654
Australia 11,828
Brazil 8,475
Incidentally there are a handful of countries that have never visited With Just A Hint Of Mayhem, well at least not yet. If you can make it happen for Svalbard, Western Sahara, Bujumbura, Chad, Turkmenistan, Kosovo, Djibouti and unsurprisingly, North Korea. There are also thirteen countries with only one view each in 10 years.
So to celebrate how about a few world related songs? Don’t mind if I do 🙂
Cast your memory way, way back through the mists of time to February 9th 2009, are you there now? Well that is the day that this blog was born and now it is nearly ten years old. I would like to thank Nick Horslen for planting the idea of blogging into my head and my long-suffering wife for putting up with me and my blog (especially the stats) all that time. As of now the blog has 1,698 followers, this post will be the 1,266th, there have been 885 comments and incredibly, more than 1.6 million views! I have big plans for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem in 2019, keep your eyes and ears peeled for what happens next. In the meantime and in the run up to the blogs official birthday I thought I would delight you with ten top tens. Kicking off with the ten most popular posts so far (nine of which are from that kick off year of 2009 and all ten of them have combined views of nearly 175,000);
As far as iconic band names go Queen must be right up near the top right? Well I think so, however they did consider other names, Brian May was apparently particularly keen on Grand Dance while Roger Taylor submitted Rich Kids. I wonder if Glen Matlock, Midge Ure and their gang knew about Taylor’s choice? Maybe the Rich Kids 1978 hit was all about Roger Taylor’s idea for a name. Who knows?
Just over twenty years ago in December 1980 the now sadly departed Prince played a gig in Buffalo, New York State which was a part of his Dirty Mind Tour. His manager told him that there was no way he would allow him to wear spandex trousers with no underwear. Prince replied “alright mate, I won’t” (well to be fair he may not have used those exact words.) Anyway his response was to take the stage in a long trench coat, leggings, black high-heel boots and bikini briefs!
As a part of my birthday jaunt to NYC my wonderful wife Catwoman (a.k.a Catherine) booked a rather intriguing East Village Punk ,n, Rock walking tour of New York’s East Village from Rock Junket. Our host and Rock Junket Head Honcho was Bobby Pinn (not his real name) and it was a pure delight to spend a couple of hours in his company. I pride myself on knowing an awful lot about rock music, but I bow to the vast encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr Pinn. I learnt so much on this tour.
We saw the apartment block where Joey Ramone (a.k.a. Jeffrey Ross Hyman and also a.k.a Jeff Starship!) lived. Not far from there is the spot where the iconic photo of the Bruddas that adorns the cover of their first album was taken. Take another look at that picture, in particular the subtle way in which Joey is bending his knee and Dee Dee is standing on tip toes just so that the vast gap between the pair of them does not appear so vast.
Whilst I didn’t try one until later in the week we learnt what an Egg Cream drink was. The drink is immortalised in song by Lou Reed and apparently one of the best spots to buy one is the Gem Spa, a one time haunt of the New York Dolls. Strangely enough the Egg Cream beverage contains neither egg nor cream! Go figure!
I already knew a lot about Bill Graham’s venue the Fillmore/ Fillmore West in San Francisco, but I knew next to nothing about the Fillmore East in New York. Many great acts took to the stage there from the Allman Brothers to Frank Zappa. The most appearances by any artist or band was by the Grateful Dead.
Apartments that were once home to a young Madonna and tortured jazz giant Charlie Parker were encountered. Charlie Parker even has a street named in his honour. Now that is not bad for a suicidal junkie who died aged just 34. But that was just a part of his story and it is impossible not to recognise the towering influential, pioneering genius of Mr Parker. Also who knew that Madonna’s early live appearances were as a drummer for her then boyfriend’s band? I certainly didn’t!
I I hadn’t been on this tour with Bobby Pinn I am certain that I would have walked right past the building that features on the front cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 double album ‘Physical Graffiti’. The building was the home of Jimmy Page’s drug supplier who lived on the fourth floor. That floor is conspicuously missing from the album cover after a real cut and paste job by artist Peter Corriston. The very same tenement block was used in the video for the Rolling Stones 1981 single “Waiting On A Friend”.
The tour ended at the site of the now defunct CBGB’s; the iconic 1970s New York punk venue. I took the obligatory pictures outside and even ventured into the ridiculously expensive and rather disappointing shop that is now on the site. That said, the Captain Fantastic pinball table was stunning!
In this post I have tried to give you a flavour of this magnificent tour of some classic rock landmarks in the East Village. I didn’t want to add much more and therefore spoilmyour enjoyment when you take it. Make sure that you go walking around New York with Bobby Pinn next time you are in the Big Apple. You will not regret it. Click here to check out the Rock Junket site and to book your tour.
Apart from the Rock Junket header all pictures were taken by yours truly, apart from those that feature me which were taken by the most wonderful person that I know, Catherine Adamson. If you were wondering which landmark birthday I was celebrating it was 18 with 42 years of experience. 😉
I have always had a sneaky bit of respect for All Saints cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under The Bridge”. It was an inspired choice which Nicole, Natalie, Mel and Shaznay took to it number one in the UK in 1998. It was the second of their five UK number one singles. As I said, sneaky respect is what I have for this cover version, but that respect is multiplied immensely now that I know who provided the rather nifty guitar on the track. It was none other than Richard Hawley! How did I not know that until now?
Mr Hawley does his best to try and save a few seats for All Saints!
Do you remember the video for Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon”? You know the one, where the thief experiences karma after being found out and made to walk the plank? Well I thought that it was filmed on the Mississippi in the USA given the costumes and the paddle steamer. But it wasn’t, It was actually filmed on and around the man-made Desborough Island on the River Thames near Sunbury in Surrey in dear old Blighty! Apparently the shoot was anything but smooth sailing. The weather was generally overcast, some of the extras got lost, the paddle steamer broke down and the actor who played the pickpocket had lied on his application. It was only discovered that he couldn’t swim after he was made to walk the plank! Still the song did give Culture Club one of their biggest and most remembered hits, so it wasn’t all bad! If you were one of the extras on that shoot, especially the pickpocket I would love to interview you for this blog!
As regular readers will know I am a huge fan of David Bowie, although I am not keen on a lot of his output in the 80s. But even in that period there were some gems. One of those is for me the single “Absolute Beginners” a LangerWinstanley production from 1986. I also pride myself in knowing a lot of trivia about the Dame. But I recently read some trivia about “Absolute Beginners” that I never knew before. Kevin Armstrong was Bowie’s guitarist at that time and had been since he put together a band to back him at the previous years Live Aid concert. Armstrong says that when they were recording the song Bowie said that he wanted a backing/ co-vocalist who “sounded like a shop girl”. Kevin said “my sister works in a shop” and from that history was made! The previously unrecorded, untested and I believe 22 years old Janet Armstrong recorded a counterpoint vocal that is definitely comparable to many professional singers! Janet if by any chance you are reading this may I say thank you and I would love to offer you the chance to be interviewed by this blog. 🙂
In 1985 Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” the theme song from the third film in the Mad Max movie franchise, ‘Mad Max: Beyond The Thunderdome’, reached the top five in at least nine countries. The song was written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle off of Gallagher and Lyle. The song also featured a children’s choir from the King’s House School in Richmond, Surrey. One of the members of the choir went on to much greater fame as the captain of England’s Rugby Union team. It was none other than Lawrence Dallaglio!
Swedish pop giants Abba scored their second UK number 1 in 1975 with “Mamma Mia”. The song was taken from the self titled ‘ABBA’ released the same year. It also hit the top spot in Australia, Ireland and Germany. Many of you will be familiar with it as it provided the title to the mega successful film musicals; ‘Mamma Mia: The Movie’ and ‘Mamma: Mia: Here We Go Again’. But did you know that the song was never intended to be a single and more importantly Abba had originally not planned to record it at all. The song was offered to the UK’s Brotherhood Of Man who won the Eurovision Song Contest two years after Abba. But Brotherhood Of Man turned it down, I wonder if they regret that? I also wonder what the stage musical and film musicals based around Abba’s music might have been called if Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid had not recorded it. The opening of the song features an African version of the xylophone known as a Marimba, an instrument used extensively by Earth, Wind and Fire in the 70s.
Talking of 70s soul and funk, Abba were apparently massive Stevie Wonder fans and they utilised and slightly reworked the bass line from Wonder’s “I Wish” on their sixth UK number one “The Name Of The Game”. In 1997 the Fugees sampled that Abba bass part on “Rumble In The Jungle”, a top 3 UK hit, which was the first time Abba had ever allowed one of their songs to be sampled.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 