It’s been a long time coming and yes I too believe that it is a cynical and calculated PR move from Vladimir Putin; but at last Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot have been released. Clearly Putin is trying to cover the appalling abuse of human rights that he is responsible for before the winter olympics kick off in Russia early next year. After being released Nadezhda shouted ‘Russia without Putin” and asked other countries to boycott the Winter Olympics. Click here to read the story on the NME website. I first posted about Pussy Riot back in August 2012, click here to read that post.
I’m not sure where this picture was taken but the green placard says it all for me! FUCK PUTIN!
Well this is it good people of the blogosphere and the world-wide web. To quote Noddy Holder ‘ It’s CHRISTMAAAASSS!’. The bearded weirdo may have already arrived in your neck of the woods. If he has then I hope that he brought you what you hoped for if he hasn’t then I hope that you’ve been good! This is December 25th, Christmas Day and Day 25 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent posts. That also means it’s my last post in this years advent postings. Thank you very much for reading and normal, non-Yuletide service will be resumed very soon. Above all that have a wonderful Christmas and a 2014 that brings you all the good things that you can handle. In the meantime I still have two songs with the number 25 in their title for you.
The late great Edwin Starr brings you the first of those songs “25 Miles”. The song reached number 6 in the US charts in 1969. Edwin was let down by UK record buyers as the song only reached number 36 here. The song was his second biggest hit in the USA, “War” was his biggest making number one in 1970. “25 Miles” was written by Edwin along with Johnny Bristol and Harvey Fuqua. Legal action saw Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns being given a writing credit as their song “32 Miles Out Of Waycross” was seen to be very similar to “25 Miles”. The Ragovoy and Berns song was recorded by Hoagy Lands and also under a different title (“Mojo Mama”) by Wilson Pickett and Don Varner. A young Michael Jackson once recorded a cover of “25 Miles”.
The final song in this years advent posts comes from Tracey Thorn’s Christmas Album ‘Tinsel And Lights’ and it is called “25th December”. If you own the UK release of the album you may not have heard the song as it was a bonus track included on the US release. The song is actually credited to Everything But The Girl. “Tinsel And Lights” was released last year, 2012, and is a great album. It’s not strictly a Christmas album as not all the songs relate to Christmas but it is pretty darned good.
This is it folks, we’re nearly there, it’s Christmas Eve and Santa has started his delivery schedule. I hope that none of you are on his naughty list! So let’s open the penultimate cardboard flap on the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent calendar shall we? It’s 24th December which means you’ll get two songs with the number 24 in their title. But today will be a little different from all my other advent posts this year as both come from the same artist. Who’d have thought that one artist would have two songs with 24 in the title? Well there is such an artist and his name is Gene Pitney.
The first song from Gene today is one that I’m sure most of you know, it’s “24 Hours From Tulsa“. The tune was a number 5 hit in the UK in 1963, It reached number 17 in the US and also made the top 5 in Australia and number 6 in Canada. In my head I always thought that this song was a UK number one. But Mr Pitney didn’t top the UK chart until his duet with Marc Almond on “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart” in 1989. That was 28 years after his first UK hit. Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote “24 Hours From Tulsa” and it has been covered by Dusty Springfield and Jay And The Americans to name but two.
The second Gene Pitney song in today’s post is “24 Sycamore”. This was a European only release from 1973 when it reached number 34 in the UK chart. Pitney was also a successful songwriter and among the hits he wrote were; “Rubber Ball” (Bobby Vee), “He’s A Rebel” (The Crystals) and “Hello Mary Lou” (Ricky Nelson). Sadly Gene Pitney passed away in 2006 but he lives on through his music.
As well as being something of a Rock God David Bowie is also a bit of an artist. He has painted, sculpted, designed clothes, designed stage sets and designed wallpaper. But did you know that he also designed the poster for the 29th Montreux Jazz Festival? His design also included a nod to the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshimaatomic bomb that helped to bring World War II to a close. Other posters for the event have been designed by Andy Warhol and Phil Collins.
“Call Me”, Blondie’s big hit from the ‘American Gigolo‘ film which starred Richard Gere in 1980 went to number one in three countries; the USA, Canada and the UK. It was also included on the band’s ‘Autoamerican‘ album. The writing credit goes to Giorgio Moroder and Debbie Harry. However the song was originally not earmarked for Blondie; Giorgio Moroder had written the instrumental track for the ‘American Gigolo’ soundtrack but had initially wanted to give it to Stevie Nicks off of Fleetwood Mac. I wonder how that would have turned out? I reckon that it would have been pretty good!
I think it’s really starting to feel like Christmas now. It’s 23rd December or Christmas Eve Eve as some like to call it. The With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent posts have reached day 23 and you will now be entertained by two songs with the number 23 in their title.
Strawberry Letter Twenty ‘Fro perhaps?
One of my favourite songs of all time is first and it is a song that I have blogged about quite a few times before. I give you the Brothers Johnson with the magnificent Shuggie Otis penned “Strawberry Letter 23”. Shuggie wrote and recorded the song for his 1971 album ‘Freedom Flight‘. George Johnson was dating one of Shuggie’s cousins a few years later who gave him that Shuggie album. George was so taken with the song that he and his brother Louis, the pair were known as the Brothers Johnson recorded it. It appeared on their album ‘Right On Time’ in 1977 and was also released as a single that year. The Brothers Johnson recording was produced by Quincy Jones and featured Lee Ritenour on lead guitar. It made it to number five in the US charts and number one in the US R & B chart. But sadly barely troubled the UK chart reaching a lowly number 35. I was always miffed about that given the shite that does sell by the bucket load. I have so far only ever met one other person who sees this as one of their favourite songs; take a bow Fraser Matthews.
Jimmy Eat World get the next song, simply called “23”. It is the closing track on their fifth album, ‘Futures’ from 2004. Along with three other tracks from the album (“Kill”, “Work” and “Polaris”) “23” was used to soundtrack part of the TV series ‘One Tree Hill. The band formed in Arizona in 1993. The name came from a spat between the younger brothers of guitarist Tom Linton. The brothers are called Jim and Ed and they often fought. After one argument Ed Linton made a crayon drawing of Jim shoving the planet Earth into his mouth. He had captioned it ‘Jimmy Eat World’. They should be touring in the UK next year. I hope that means that they will be putting in an appearance at the Reading Festival in 2014.
Just two more days at work for me before Christmas now. Then it’ll be eight days of over indulging in food and drink before going back to the office in January probably considerably fatter than when I left. December 22nd or day 22 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent posts for 2013. Clearly you know the drill, this means that you get two songs with the number 22 in the title.
Is Bradley that tall? Or is Weller just short?
The first of those is from the Modfather, Paul Weller. The song is “22 Dreams“, the title track from Paul’s double LP (single CD) released in 2008. The song was also part of a single coupled with “Sea Spray” from the same album. Sadly it only made it to number 59 in the UK singles chart. The album fared much better though, reaching the number one spot in the UK album chart in 2008. This was Weller’s third solo album to reach the top spot. The song was co-written by Weller and Simon Dine. The latter also plays, cowbell, horns, guitar and bizarrely, siren on the track. It was one of eight tracks on the album that Dine had a hand in writing. Although the album was called ’22 Dreams’ it didn’t quite match that number for tracks. The standard issue of the album has 21 tracks.
The second of todays songs comes from another iconic British act, Iron Maiden with “22 Acacia Avenue”. The song is taken from the band’s 1982 UK number one album ‘The Number Of The Beast’, but it wasn’t released as a single. Iron Maiden are one of the most succesful heavy metal bands in history with 85 million album sales worldwide. The band were formed back in 1975, appropriately for these posts on Christmas Day. So they are close to their 38th birthday. Steve Harris is credited with choosing the name after he saw a film based on the Alexandre Dumas novel ‘The Man In The Iron Mask‘. The band went through many personnel changes in their early years. Perhaps the best known Maiden vocalist is Bruce Dickinson. He replaced Paul Di’Anno in September 1981. Prior to that Dickinson had been the lead singer for another UK band, Samson.
It’s the 21st December, we can almost count down to Christmas in hours now. I am guessing that many of you have finished school, college and work for the holidays. I haven’t broken up yet; I am a money grabbing bastard so I’ll be working right up to Christmas Eve! Anyway all this means it’s day 21 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent posts. So by now the regular readers among you will know that today will therefore bring you two songs with the number twenty-one in their title.
Battersea’s finest hip hop collective, the So Solid Crew kick us off today with their 2001 UK chart topper “21 Seconds”. The song comes from their début album ‘They Don’t Know’ which reached number six in the UK album chart. That album spawned three more UK top 20 hits; “They Don’t Know” UK no. 3), “Haters” (8) and “Ride Wid Us” (19). MC Harvey, MC Romeo and Lisa Maffia all appeared on ‘The Games’ a Channel 4 reality TV show in 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively. Lisa and Romeo could only manage a bronze medal from the show. But Harvey bagged himself a gold medal. In 2012 Harvey and Romeo also made an appearance in two separate series of Celebrity Big Brother. Yes there were two series of it in one year; how awful is that? The group have had their fair share of controversy too with their former producer Carl Morgan convicted of murder in 2005. Band member Megaman was also accused but he was cleared after a retrial. The full album version of the song gives everyone at least a couple of lines in this order of appearance; Megaman, Asher D, Mac, Kaish, G-Man, Harvey, Romeo, Lisa Maffia, Face and Skatt D.
The second song of the day is “21st Century Schizoid Man” from King Crimson. Is this the first time ever that So Solid Crew and King Crimson have been mentioned in the same blog post? I’ll take the credit for that if it is! If you thought that So Solid Crew had a lot of members it’s fair to say that the Crimson have had plenty over the years too; 18 band members plus three lyricists. I reckon King Crimson should have sponsored a revolving door manufacturer with that kind of turnover. Robert Fripp is the only band member to have been with them since they began in 1968. “21st Century Schizoid Man” is from King Crimson’s 1969 album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson King‘. The track was released as a single in 1976 which failed to chart. It had been included on a compilation album that year entitled ‘A Young Persons Guide To King Crimson’. Greg Lake off of Emerson, Lake and Palmer played bass and provided the distorted vocal on the song.
Have you been pestered by teenage carol singers with shite voices yet? I saw some on the way home from work but I think the weather was a tad too inclement for them! But I’m sure the greedy untalented little gits will be back. Greedy, untalented little gits? I could have been talking about the majority of X Factor contestants there couldn’t I? Anyway we really are sliding down the slope towards Christmas now, it’s 20th December! So that means it’s day 20 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem Advent posts and you know you’ll be getting two songs with twenty in their titles.
T.Rex are first up with the magnificent “20th Century Boy” a UK number 3 hit from 1973. The song hit the top of the charts in Ireland. It was the penultimate single in a run of 11 UK top 4 hits between 1970 and 1973 which included four number ones. In fact Bolan and T Rex never made the UK top 10 after 1973 let alone the top 5. “20th Century Boy” was not taken from a T Rex album but it was included on a reissue of the ‘Tanx’ album which was originally released in 1973. The song was used as the soundtrack to a Levi’s Jeans ad campaign in 1991. It was re-released to accompany that and made it back into the UK chart where it peaked at number 13. Siouxse and the Banshees, Girlschool, Adam Ant, Def Leppard and Placebo have all covered this T Rex classic. Placebo performed the song live at the 1999 Brit Awards with David Bowie.
From a song featuring the late, great Marc Bolan let me now take you to a song from the late, great Eddie Cochran, “Twenty Flight Rock”. Cochran can be seen performing the song in the 1956 film ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ and it was released as a single in 1957. It was this Cochran song that a 15-year-old Paul McCartney played as part of his audition for John Lennon which led to him becoming one of the Quarrymen. McCartney has said that he thought that what impressed Lennon the most was that he knew all the words. Many artists have covered the song including Robert Gordon, Rolling Stones, the Stray Cats and Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen.
It’s been a long time coming and yes I too believe that it is a cynical and calculated PR move from Vladimir Putin; but at last Maria Alyokhina and
Jimmy Eat World
T.Rex
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 