I finally got around to posting and interview that I did with the obscenely talented Carol Hodge last month. She talks about her latest album ‘Savage Purge’, her new tune ‘A Song For You’, musical influences, and her favourite confectionery items. Click the link below take a listen and feel free to comment.
Tommyrot are another fine young band from York who were formed, last October, from the ashes of Azera. I saw Azera back in January 2019 and they were pretty bloody good. The big changes in becoming Tommyrot are that they no longer have a singing drummer, Rhys has moved from bass to drums, Greg from lead guitar to bass while Felix and Kieran are the new vocalists and stayed as joint axemen. The boys met at Access Creative College in York and have played four gigs so far. Hopefully, there will be many more post-COVID-19 lockdown.
They have their first single, “Drugs” out now (click here to check it out on Spotify). It is a funk and grunge blend that has been overlaid with the best elements of slacker rock. Imagine the Red Hot Chilli Peppers take on the Ohio Players, Nirvana’s quieter moments, and Pavement at their peak. If you like any of that combination you will probably love “Drugs”. The lyrics describe coming down from a particularly bad trip. The opening line “That’s a fat banana, why’re you whipping it out?” is not an outtake from a Carry On script, nor does it describe a huge spliff (which was my first thought). It is about the benefits of bananas making a comedown less extreme, according to Kieran. There is some truth in that though. Serotonin is the chemical in the human body that helps with feelings of wellbeing and happiness and Tryptophan is the amino acid that gets converted to 5-HTP, which eventually gets converted to serotonin in your brain. The key Tryptophan heavy foods are tuna, eggs, and bananas.
Use drugs sensibly people and maybe avoid a tuna, egg and banana smoothie to aid your comedown! But whether drugs are your thing or not make sure that “Drugs” by Tommyrot is your thing!
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
West Yorkshire Super Heroes PERCY have just released a rather splendid video for my favourite song from their current album ‘ Seaside Donkeys’. The song is “Will Of The People” and the video is an incredibly angry and pertinent animation which shows Boris Johnson in the light he really deserves, i.e. a bad light!
Check out my review of the album here and click here to order it.
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
Recently I had the honour and pleasure of being interviewed by Graeme Smith of the York Calling blog and podcast. It is out now as episode 1 of series 2. Give it a listen, give it a like and let me Graeme and me know what you think.
Here’s another new Spotify Playlist this time the focus is on Brit Pop and other related great hits. Give it a spin, but it is designed for shuffle play! I should warn you that there are eleven hours of tunes here 🙂 It is called ‘With Just a Hint Of Mayhem does Britpop and other 90s greats. Click here (or just below) to roll with it in your country house! Let me know if you think I have missed your favourite. playlist (see below)
So put on your best dancing pants and get mad for it!
Here are all my other playlists. Feel free to share them!
If you want to suggest any tracks to be added then let me know!
Billy’s Barbecue Belters – this started as a nice backdrop to a summer barbecue that has, thanks to some musical brain farts, grown to a whopping 461 songs that helped shape my life in some way!
FACK TRUMP! – largely political and mostly protest songs
SASH Gig 3rd January 2020 – this was the music played before and between all the bands at the first gig, I ever promoted back in January. Big thanks once again to Lost Trends, My Wonderful Daze, and the Receivers – all of whom feature on this playlist. Probably more of a brain dump from me is this one!
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
We are almost caught up with singles reviews during this COVID-19 lockdown. So here is our fourth 2020 singles round-up.
These four tracks feature another eclectic mix of bands and singers from as far afield as Portland, Oregon (USA), Wales, and London. All of them apart from Dying Habit are new to With Just A Hint Of MayhemEnjoy!
Portland, Oregon singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has produced a wonderfully simple, yet profound slice of electronic pop with “If You Want Me To”. It has a hook that latches onto your brain like the best earworm. It is supported by a stunning video set in the desert with multiple Caroline Masons. The film was produced by Christal Angelique who has achieved a retro sci-fi feel which took me back to the 60s. A great song from a multi-talented musician!
Nia Wynn’s new single is a fine modern R & B tune that maintains a feel of old skool R & B and a hip hop vibe. Vocally she reminds me of Amy Winehouse, but Nia is very much out on her own as a great vocalist. I can imagine listening to this song while drinking a large Jack Daniels at the end of the day. Great lyrics and a late-night, smoky feel. Check out her other stuff too, this is a singer who can and hopefully will reach great heights. I am really keen to see her play live now, obviously on the other side of this lockdown!
This piece bodes very well for the Quest Ensemble album due on 5th June. This London based trio take their influences from many places: modern classical a la Philip Glass, Radiohead, Jazz, and the more ethereal elements of Mogwai. It is sometimes hard to get too much emotion from an instrumental piece but Preetha Narayanan (violin), Tara Franks (cello), and Filipe Sousa (piano) manage it with ease, skill, and sass.
For me this is a song that captures the mood of our current times with a melancholy, soul searching feel. While there is an undercurrent of happiness there is an intricate view of our own mortality in the lyrics. “You always believe you’ll have the time, You can’t press rewind” is a great example. I absolutely love this tune and definitely want more of Dying Habit.
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
I have created a new Spotify Playlist this time the focus is on early 70s glam rock. But I have expanded it to include many big pop hits from 1970 through 1974 that just so happened to coincide with glam. It would be fair to say that there are some guilty pleasures in there and even a few songs that I don’t particularly like. Give it a spin, but it is designed for shuffle play! I should warn you that there are ten hours of tunes here 🙂 It is called ‘Billy Does Glam & other early 70s pop. Click here to feel the noize and get ballroom blitzed! let me know if you think I have missed your favourite. The 70s soul, funk and disco was deliberately left out as that is included in another playlist (see below)
So put on your best dancing pants and go for it!
Here are all my other playlists. Feel free to share them!
If you want to suggest ant tracks to be added then let me know!
Billy’s Barbecue Belters – this started as a nice backdrop to a summer barbecue that has, thanks to some musical brain farts, grown to a whopping 461 songs that helped shape my life in some way!
FACK TRUMP! – largely political and mostly protest songs
SASH Gig 3rd January 2020 – this was the music played before and between all the bands at the first gig, I ever promoted back in January. Big thanks once again to Lost Trends, My Wonderful Daze, and the Receivers – all of whom feature on this playlist. Probably more of a brain dump from me is this one!
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
We are still catching up with reviews during this COVID-19 lockdown. So here is our third 2020 singles round-up.
These five tracks feature another eclectic mix of bands from as far afield as Melbourne, (Australia), Raleigh (USA), Berlin (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden) and of course the UK. All of these acts, apart from EYEBALL, are new to With Just A Hint Of Mayhem too. Enjoy!
This is a tuneful slab pop-punk perfection that hits you right in the face from the off, but in a good way. The snarly, surly vocals from Joel Griffith are how I imagine the devil in Brandon Flowers to sing. It is a song where the drums are mixed nice and loud with thundering bass and some rifftacular guitar from Ben Woodmason. Mid City have the sass and swagger, and obviously, the talent, to go much further!
A dreamy psychedelic workout from the wonderfully weird and sonically superb Eyeball from North Carolina. This wonderful tune haunts your mind long after the final note. Another shoegaze, slacker masterpiece from this lot, with some Giorgio Moroder film score elements in the synths! Check them out, you will not regret it! Out now coupled with “Delerium” on ‘Spectromania’.
A warped garage rock workout designed for the dance floor like something that Liam Gallagher and Death In Vegas or Noel Gallagher and the Chemical Brothers didn’t have the balls to release. This a hard, stabbing piece of rock with some dark dance influences. I bloody love it! I can picture myself at a Deepshade gig sitting in the corner and floating into another dimension on the strength of their music!
“Wrong” – Larwood & Koh
Rap for me is either brilliant or awful, this is beyond brilliant and it is also British. Larwood really knows how to cipher and his speed and clarity are outstanding. Then there is the amazing video to accompany “Wrong”. My only advice is, do not watch it after imbibing copious amounts of alcohol (other stimulants are available!) because it will fuck up your dreams! But now I have a real need for more Larwood & Koh.
This track is cinematic in scope and sits perfectly as a perfectly constructed prog-rock piece. It oozes feelings of menace, hope, and confusion it is a masterful and immensely beautiful drone that after a couple of listens relaxes my mind and placates my soul. Possibly the most beautiful instrumental track I have encountered in years! Check out some older stuff from them here.
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
Hot on the heels of his epic 17-minute dissection of the J.F.K. assassination and the last 60 years of popular culture (and also his first Billboard number one), “Murder Most Foul”, Bob Dylan returns with yet another incredible new single.
“I Contain Multitudes” seems to be a more personal work than “Murder Most Foul”. Musically it is just as sparse and minimalistic as its predecessor. The arrangement seems to consist of just gently strummed guitar chords, deep and mournful cello, steel slide guitar and voice. There is no percussion. This creates a very intimate atmosphere that is both similar and radically different to “Murder Most Foul”. Where “Murder Most Foul” felt like Dylan giving a quasi-religious sermon, “I Contain Multitudes” feels warm and conversational.
Structurally however it’s a little more familiar to long term Dylan fans. It follows similar “mathematic” song structures to his earlier works. Each verse contains four lines with a simple AABB rhyming scheme followed by two lines which end in the title of the song. This type of songwriting is Dylan’s bread and butter. A quick look back at some of his most loved songs, such a “Desolation Row”, “Visions of Johanna”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Like a Rolling Stone” etc. reveals this same pattern repeated in a multitude (heh) of different ways.
Lyrically, obviously, is where “I Contain Multitudes” gets really interesting. Like “Murder Most Foul”, it draws from the world of literature but where the former song looked to Shakespear, “I Contain Multitudes” takes its title from a line in ‘Song of Myself, 51’, a poem by Walt Whitman, a writer Dylan has regularly signalled his admiration for in the past. Like the Poem, the song seems to be taking a long, hard look at the artist with a nostalgic and rose-tinted view of his past. Also, like “Murder Most Foul”, it is packed with references to various cultural touchstones which are as disparate as they are iconic. Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Frank, Indiana Jones, “them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones”, William Blake, Beethoven and Chopin all find themselves in the lyrical maze. These lyrics simultaneously paint the writer as both a slightly boring everyman and an exciting and roguish outlaw. He lives on the “boulevard of crime” and carries “four pistols and two knives” but he also paints landscapes and nudes. There is also an undercurrent of awareness of mortality which is only natural, I suppose, for a man in his late seventies. As such a lot of the lyrics read as a more literate “My Way”. Lyrics like “I sleep with life and death in the same bed” certainly cut deep in this regard.
This is another strong Dylan single and we look forward to more. At this rate, we might have to set up a Bob Dylan Desk here at With Just a Hint of Mayhem!
Written by Tom Ray
“I Contain Multitudes” is available now to stream or buy from all good digital retailers and streaming services.
“I Contain Multitudes” – Lyrics
Today, and tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin’ like all things do
Follow me close, I’m going to Bally-na-Lee
I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me
I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes
Got a tell-tale heart like Mr. Poe
Got skeletons in the walls of people you know
I’ll drink to the truth and the things we said
I’ll drink to the man that shares your bed
I paint landscapes, and I paint nudes
I contain multitudes
A red Cadillac and a black mustache
Rings on my fingers that sparkle and flash
Tell me, what’s next? What shall we do?
Half my soul, baby, belongs to you
I rollick and I frolic with all the young dudes
I contain multitudes
I’m just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones
And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones
I go right to the edge, I go right to the end
I go right where all things lost are made good again
I sing the songs of experience like William Blake
I have no apologies to make
Everything’s flowing all at the same time
I live on a boulevard of crime
I drive fast cars, and I eat fast foods
I contain multitudes
Pink pedal-pushers, red blue jeans
All the pretty maids, and all the old queens
All the old queens from all my past lives
I carry four pistols and two large knives
I’m a man of contradictions, I’m a man of many moods
I contain multitudes
You greedy old wolf, I’ll show you my heart
But not all of it, only the hateful part
I’ll sell you down the river, I’ll put a price on your head
What more can I tell you? I sleep with life and death in the same bed
Get lost, madame, get up off my knee
Keep your mouth away from me
I’ll keep the path open, the path in my mind
I’ll see to it that there’s no love left behind
I’ll play Beethoven’s sonatas, and Chopin’s preludes
I contain multitudes
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
Sex Cells are a London duo producing fascinating angular and paranoid synth-based music. Matt Kilda and Willow Vincent seem to have turned financial disaster into musical triumph having been ripped off in a housing rental scam. With every track on this impressive debut album, they demonstrate their mastery of their chosen genre. They started out as promoters, influenced by the likes of Wendy Carlos and Suicide, and their music pulsates with menace and melancholy.
‘That’s Life’ opens with the pulsating title track which features Willow’s punky vocal over Matt’s lower vocal line. The track drifts to a spacy conclusion. The second track “Deranged” is carried along on a great rhythm and hits the mark but it is on the third track “We Are Still Breathing” that Sex Cells show what they are truly capable of. This track gives us that early Ultravox meets the Psychedelic Furs feel with a great melody. It even has the audacity to quote Lou Reed (“Satellite of Love”). A slower, less frenetic pace showcases the band’s vocal abilities at their strongest.
Next track “Human Costume” takes us back to that frenetic, pumping feel which is clearly a speciality of this group. A very effective track to which the next track “Cruel Design” acts as a coda, this is as close to an instrumental as the band gets. “Fortress” is a return to the slower more melodic feel of “We Are Still Breathing”. A strong song with a beautiful melodic duet that shows the band’s songwriting strengths at their best. Final track “Hang the Flowers” is a fitting semi- instrumental close to this strong debut. This is an excellent debut album and I look forward to hearing and seeing more from this innovative and exciting duo.
Written by Paul Bamlett.
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 