I am a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins but I do feel that Billy Corgan can be a bit of an arse sometimes. My name is William, but as a boy I was knowns a little Billy, as a teenager just Billy and today people know me as Bill. So I believe that this enables me to comment on some recent views expressed by Mr Corgan. Apparently during a gig in Lima, Peru Billy Corgan told the crowd that he wants to be known more formally these days. He said “My name is not Billy. My name is William”. Listen to me Willy Corgan, you may have great musical talent, just sometimes you’re a bit of a pretentious twat ok? Having said that at least it’s not Will.i.am is it?
Last night the delightful Catwoman and me went to a gig at the magnificent De Grey Rooms in York. What a stunning place to put on a show this place is and all by candlelight as well. Obviously there was power too otherwise the stage equipment wouldn’t have worked so well would it? In fact one of the acts hardly used the power though, more of that later.
First up was the unbilled Gobbledigook who performed as a duo in the bar before the main show started. They were also behind setting up the gig I assume given that it was promoted by gobbledigooktheatre.co.uk. Anyway these guys were bloody good. All they had was an acoustic guitar and a single percussion instrument. Plus some excellent songs of their own coupled with brilliant vocals and excellent fast worded and clever poetry. At times this reminded me of a stripped down acoustic led version of the fabulous Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip. In addition to their own material they also included a strong and nicely different from the original cover version of Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know“. Introduced hilariously by the singer as this is a Whitney Houston song which you might be more familiar with from me singing it around town for years. Priceless! I loved them.
In the main room where the majority of us were seated around candlelit tables Antonio Lulic was first on. He and his band (which included John Parker, Nizlopi‘s double bass player) were stunning. Mr Lulic is a truly gifted songwriter with an incredibly soulful and powerful voice. He even slotted in a couple of extracts from a diverse couple of songs towards the end; Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” and Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe“. I hope Antonio makes it big, I bought both the EPs that he had on sale at the show and they are brilliant. He told us that he will shortly be supporting none other than Ed Sheerhan on some big South American shows. I wish him massive luck with that and I hope I get the chance to see him play again!
Fiona Bevan is incredibly talented and has the voice of an angel. Her songwriting is very mature and accomplished and she has amazing stage presence. Great image, especially that fantastic hair and a great personality. Her guitar playing is sublime, was she classically trained? Possibly. There is nothing with Fiona Bevan and her music that is not to like. I bought her album and it has already been on in the car today. She ought to go far. In fact her song “Slo Mo Tiger Glow” is featured on an advert for HSBC. She played a great version of the song in her set. I would definitely pay to see her again. Incidentally her band also included the hardest working man in the De Grey rooms that night; John Parker Nizlopi’s double bass player.
Finally it was time for Nizlopi to take the stage or at first the floor. Playing among the audience is a really intimate way of getting your music across and I have seen many bands do this really well, most notably the Tuts. However I do believe that it can be overdone and become detrimental to the whole set. This is how Nizlopi’s set felt to me, I really think that they overplayed the getting among the crowd element. Which meant that unless you managed to get to near the front then you often couldn’t see them or hear them very well. Both Catwoman and I felt that musically Nizlopi are an excellent band, John Parker is an excellent bass player and Luke Concannon‘s voice is pretty good. But what let them down for us was the clumsiness of some of their lyrics and what came across as the incredibly egotistical approach of the singer. Clearly many among the crowd might disagree with this opinion given the enthusiasm that some punters showed. But we stand by our disappointment. However the night was well worth it for all the three support acts!
Pictures and therefore the poor quality by me on my phone. Videos courtesy of YouTube!
The song “Birdland” taken from the classic Patti Smith album ‘Horses‘ was inspired by the 1973 book by Peter Reich. The title was ‘A Book Of Dreams‘ and Patti had been urged to read it by writer William Burroughs. The same book can be seen in the video for “Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush. That song was also inspired by Reich’s book.
I am pleased and a bit excited to announce that my blog reached a fantastic landmark last weekend. It has been around for just over six years and on April 4th it received its one and a half millionth hit! Yep that’s 1,500,000. If I include the hits for my other three blogs the total is in excess of 1,600,000. Now don’t get me wrong, I realise why many people have arrived at my blog; so many have searched for various celebrities in a state of undress notably Lily Allen and there was even a search for Meatloaf naked which arrived here. Recently thanks to glamorama.cl a Chilean gossip site there have been loads of hits in search of pictures of J-Lo‘s bottom. If you are interested my other blogs are;
Anyway by means of a celebration I thought I would give you some random statistics which show how far around the world this blog has gone and the countries that still haven’t succumbed. In addition I have made a very special top twenty where if you add up the numbers in the song titles they add up to 1,500,000. There was only a bit of artistic licence involved in this. I hope you enjoy the tunes. Incidentally the geographical stats have only been available for three years.
If you are from any of these countries or indeed any other country then feel free to come and say hello. Actually even if you’re from another planet I’d be happy to see you here! And now here is the top twenty that really does add up to 1,500,000.
I guess most readers of this blog and anyone with an interest in music trivia will have heard the rumour that former Countdown host Bob Holness played saxophone on Gerry Rafferty‘s classic ode to a famous London Street, “Baker Street“. Well you are also probably well aware that this is in fact untrue and Raphael Ravenscroft actually played sax on the record.
However the Holness family do feature in music history. His daughter Ros Holness was a member of Toto Coelo who had a big hit with “I Eat Cannibals” in 1982. The song peaked at number 8 in the UK charts that year. Sadly none of their follow ups dented the UK top 50. Although “Dracula’s Tango/ Mucho Macho” reached number 19 in the Australian chart in 1982 while “Milk From The Coconut” hit number 4 in South Africa the following year.
Ros’ sister Carol Ann Holness was also a musical success, as well as singing backing vocals for Lena Zavaroni and Cleo Laine she also wrote the fabulous “Flip” for Jesse Green. This was one of my favourite 70s disco hits. She was also a founder member of Toto Coelo with her sister Ros, although she left the band before their chart successes. Carol Ann was known by her stage name of Nancy Nova and also had some solo success in the dance charts and on Italian television.
Did you ever wonder why the Prodigy‘s classic 1997 album ‘The Fat Of The Land‘ had a picture of a crab as it’s cover? Well it was originally going to be a doner kebab on a spit, you know the one that looks like an elephant’s foot. The meat was going to have the album title seared into it. Liam Howlett changed his mind on seeing the picture so XL Records in-house designer Alex Jenkins found the dancing crab photo. He then increased the size of the creature’s left claw to make it seem as if the crab was sticking two fingers up to the world.
I love ‘The Fat Of The Land’ and I also think that the new Prodigy album ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ is bloody good too. What do you think?
Regular readers of this blog will know by now that I am a big fan of one of Middlesbrough’s finest bands and indeed a great British band, hell just a great band anyway you look at them; I’m talking the magnificent Avalanche Party. Well the boys have a rather spiffing new single out called “Money”. It’s stunning video was launched earlier today. The film was produced by Jodie Canwell. I don’t know much about Jodie but I felt there were elements of David Lynch in her work on this video. It was all shot on the North Yorkshire Moors and when I say it’s weird I mean that as a big compliment. Can I be in the next video please?
But not only is it a brilliant video the song is bloody good too. I hope there are vinyl copies of it available next time I see the boys (which hopefully will be on 23rd May at Fibbers in York). If this song is an indicator of future direction for this wonderful band then roll on more releases. EPs, singles an album anything will do me. The song was produced by Fred Purser who has worked with a wide range of artists including the Futureheads and Tom Jones. Have you downloaded “Money” yet? If not then why not? It’s bloody well free people! Click here and download it immediately! Anyway never mind “one for the money” I give this 9 out of 10. Why not 10 I hear you ask, well because I’m saving that for the Avalanche Party album! Jordan, Owen, Kane and Joe – keep on rocking! Sadly my wife Catherine (aka Catwoman) isn’t keen on the song…. but I’m working on her!
What was the first album on an independent record label to enter the UK top 20? If you had asked me to guess this I am pretty confident that I would have got it wrong. But according to a recent piece in Vive Le Rock magazine it was Stiff Little Fingers with their début album ‘Inflammable Material‘. It reached number 14 in 1979. So now feel free to enjoy a few tracks from that classic album from one of Northern Ireland’s finest bands. Including an excellent cover version of Bob Marley’s “Johnny Was”
As many of you are aware there will be a General Election in the UK in May. Well for the first time that I was granted the legal right to vote in 1977 I really cannot find any politician or party that inspires me enough to put my ‘X’ next to their name on May 7th. What are the main options?
Tories a.k.a Conservatives – I despise this party and I think hell might freeze over before I voted for them and Cameron is an incredibly weak leader in my opinion
Liberal Democrats – like many former Labour supporters who switched to them in 2010 I feel betrayed after they joined forces with the Tories. I hope Nick Clegg loses his seat, his party is as good as over.
Labour – lacking in direction when they should be crushing the other main parties. Sorry but they chose the wrong Milliband brother to lead them.
UKIP – Farage and his cronies? Why would anyone vote for this bunch of racist, Daily Mail supporters with no more than one policy
Greens – My heart says possibly but my brain says no. From what I’ve seen I don’t believe that they have the ability to lead or to influence a minority government
BNP – Fuck off you racist scumbags!
Obviously I can’t vote for the nationalist parties of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales as I am in England. I would have gone for the ‘None Of The Above’ movement but then I saw that they propose to actually stand candidates, that goes a lot against the grain for me. So all I hope is that the Monster Raving Looney Party are standing in my constituency or I may simply go along and spoil my ballot paper. The government do record and publish the number of spoiled ballots so perhaps that is the most effective protest that we have in this “democracy” of ours. What do you think and feel free to cast your vote in the poll.
John Lennon was originally intending to give the name Glass Onion to a band that had been signed to the Beatles Apple record label. That didn’t happen and the band went on to become Badfinger. Oh well no matter….what! Oh and “Glass Onion” went on to become a song on the Beatles’ classic ‘White Album‘ from 1968. The song references at least five other Beatles songs too; “I Am The Walrus”, “Fool On The Hill“, “Fixing A Hole“, “Lady Madonna” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”
