I think I have come close to experiencing regret on two occasions and that is with the benefit of hindsight. Those two occasions occurred in the late 70s and both involved me turning down what would have been significant opportunities.
Firstly I was sitting in my local pub one evening in December 1976 (it was the now sadly departed Oak Tree in Hillingdon) when someone came in and offered tickets to see a band at Brunel University. It was a band that was causing quite a stir and I could have made it quite easily. But I decided that the pub would win that night. The band was the Sex Pistols!
Possibly the very ticket that I turned down!
Secondly I was on a lad’s holiday in Spain in 1977 (or it might have been 1978). We were staying maybe less than an hour’s drive from Barcelona. While we were there a now sadly late, great performer was playing a gig in the city. We asked our travel representative about getting tickets. He
said getting them was easy but that for a bunch of English blokes to turn up at a gig in Spain would incite the Spanish youth to violence. I now realise that this was probably complete bollocks and we should have gone to the show. That legendary, late, great performer was none other than Bob Marley.
So I have always felt that I have never regretted anything I have done in my life so far. I still believe that and I also feel that this is a good philosophy, however that doesn’t mean that you can’t be sorry about some things you have done, does it?
There were a couple of people at school that to be perfectly honest I treated in quite a mean and disrespectful way. With one of those people I simply followed the herd and behaved just like most other people in my school peer group. With the other person I made them look like a liar in order to save some teenage face. So there you have it, my teenage confessions of sorts. I would like to apologise to both of these people albeit so many years later, but I guess I am just salving my conscience. I thought long and hard about whether I should mention them by name and I personally feel that I should, I’m sure that the chances of them reading this is pretty remote anyway.
So at the risk of steering into Simon Mayo confession territory I would like to apologise unreservedly for my behaviour towards two people between 1972 and 1977 or thereabouts. Geoffrey Guile and Susan Batty this one’s for you! If I knew then what I know now then I would have behaved very differently.
Thanks to my good friend Nick Horslen for directing me to this rather amusing story on the BBC recently. Apparently the latest movie in the Resident Evil franchise is being filmed in Toronto and when a number of actors in Zombie guise were moving from one stage to another there was an accident. There were no major injuries, just cuts and bruises. However the best part of the story is the surprise of the emergency services when they arrived. Can you imagine turning up to an emergency only to find that the victims were covered in blood; mostly fake blood as it turns out!
You can click here to read the story on the BBC. Obviously given the music nature of this blog I simply had to include some Zombie related
songs. Maybe you should consider including some of these on your Halloween party soundtrack later this month! Keeping up that Zombie theme, how many of you are fans of “The Walking Dead”? I think it’s a superb horror series, enjoy the trailer for series two by clicking here.
“Zombie” – Cranberries – Not really a Zombie song as it relates to the troubles in Ireland.
“Pet Sematary” – Ramones – This is also not strictly a Zombie song but the classic Stephen King story centres around how things that are buried in an ancient native American burial ground come back to life. This song is the theme to the movie version. As I believe the strapline on the film poster and trailer said…….. ‘Sometimes dead is better’
“Call of the Zombie” – Rob Zombie – No Zombie song list would be complete without Mr Zombie himself would it. He recently made an appearance on the new Alice Cooper album “Welcome 2 My Nightmare” which is a sequel to, can you guess the title………… “Welcome To My Nightmare”. It’s rather a good album in my opinion.
“Zombie” – Fela Kuti & Africa ’70 – More of a tub thumping funky criticism of the Nigerian army than about zombies themselves. But an excellent song nonetheless.
“Thriller” – Michael Jackson – I guess this must be the Zombie song that everyone knows, especially the Zombie dance section. Did you
know that Vincent Price and Paul and Linda McCartney all appear as Zombies in the Zombie formation dancing section of the video.
I bet you can't guess who this fine looking Zombie is can you?
Here we are again just about a year after the X Factor finalists last murdered a song the new batch of pop muppets are killing another classic. Last year it was Bowie’s “Heroes” and this year it’s Rose Royce’s 1978 hit “Wishing On A Star”. The only saving grace is that at least the proceeds go
to charity. However why not donate to the charity directly (use Gift Aid if you are a UK taxpayer) and not buy the single. That way the X Factor has a flop single on its hands and the charity gets more money. Let’s face it how many charity singles get played again after the first couple of weeks (or days even!) So if you’re thinking of buying this years X Factor charity single, it’s simple; don’t! Just make a donation directly to the charity. Click here to go to the ACT & Children’s Hospices UK website and do the right thing! I’ve made my donation to the value of 5 copies of the single!
Now enjoy the original of the Rose Royce song and an excellent cover version by Paul Weller too. Obviously as a big Bowie fan I have included the original of “Heroes” as well!
Rihanna has just gone to the summit of the UK singles chart once again with her 6th number one in 5 years, a record for a female solo artist. The song is “We Found Love” and it features Calvin Harris. It is even more of an achievement given that it was only released on Wednesday whereas most singles are released on a Monday. I can’t help thinking that there is a bizarre double entendre style headline in that story somewhere as well. Something like ‘RIHANNA DOES SIX NUMBER ONES IN SIX YEARS, BUT NO NUMBER TWOS!’
the accompanying story would ask how she has managed to stay so slim given the lack of number twos! If you are reading this outside the UK the number ones and number twos reference may not translate well, even elsewhere in the English-speaking world. If you’re confused and need an explanation let me know. OK let me leave the potty humour for now.
If only the farmer could have given her a little more time with his sheep then Rihanna could have finished knitting her sweater 😉
The news of her sixth number one must have cheered Rihanna up no end after she was told to put more clothes on by an Irish Farmer at a recent video shoot on a farm in Northern Ireland. The farmer, Alan Graham was quoted as saying that he did not “believe young ladies should have to take their clothes off to entertain”. Well maybe that’s true but personally I would have been entertained if a scantily clad Rihanna was cavorting around my farm! How about you?
I watched the classic Peter Sellers movie ‘Being There’ for the first time in years yesterday. I went out and bought the DVD at the weekend following a chance (no pun intended to fans of said movie!) conversation at work last week.
My memory of the film was always that it was quite deep, funny, emotional, spiritual and very well written and acted. On this occasion
my memory has certainly not failed me, this is truly a classic film, featuring in my opinion Peter Sellers finest performance. The supporting cast is equally accomplished too.
If you haven’t seen it I will try to describe it simply and with no spoilers. Sellers plays a character known as Chancey Gardener, who in
fact is just a gardener…… or is he? It seems that everything he knows he has learnt in the garden or from watching TV. His simple, yet powerful thoughts on life in relation to gardening can be seen as the ramblings of a slow-witted person or something much more profound. Personally I’d opt for the profound.
If you haven’t seen this film yet then I would strongly recommend that you do. If you come away from watching it not feeling better
than you did before then you really are hard-hearted.
It’s not a musical but I felt able to include it in my music blog simply because of its excellent use of two seminal 70s tracks, the latter
of which is one of my all time favourites. If you have already seen this film or have watched it on my recommendation I would love to hear you opinions on it.
Many of you know that Catwoman (a.k.a. Catherine Lee now Catherine Adamson) and I recently got married. As you might have guessed music did play quite a big part in the day, beyond just the choice of first dance. We chose a small but special group of songs for our guests to listen to while they were waiting for the beautiful bride to arrive and the ceremony to start. Those songs were;
It took us months to choose the song that Catherine would walk up the aisle to and we believe in the end it was the perfect choice. It
was Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World”
Then we had four songs very carefully selected for the signing of the register. Those were;
We even chose the song for us to exit the ceremony room. That simply had to be “This Will Be” from Natalie Cole. We even managed a half decent jig on the way out of the room to that one!
We also chose a selection of swing type songs as background to the serving of champagne and canapés or as I like to say; fizzies n fod! The background music for the wedding breakfast (incidentally why is it called a breakfast when it’s not usually in the morning?) was carefully selected classic soul and Motown love songs. These two sets are included as a list at the end of this post.
Then of course it was time for the first dance, the title of which was also immortalised on my cufflinks for the wedding day. It had to be
the really beautiful Nick Cave ballad, “Into My Arms” Probably the only song I know that includes the phrase ‘interventionist god’ in its lyrics.
We hired a swing band for the evening; the truly excellent and very talented Chris Hilton Little Big Band. They did two sets of around an
hour each combining swing classics and swing arrangements of many other hits too. Their version of “I Wanna Be Like You” from the Jungle Book was a real rocking party tune.
There was also a very special guest appearance after the bands first set. A long overdue set from the superstar DJs of the 70s ‘Bill
& Glen the Disco Men’ this was their first gig in more than 30 years. They had specially designed wigs and costumes. Well ok cheap T Shirts with their pictures on and tacky 70s wigs from the party shop. None the less the boys really rocked the joint with a storming set of pure 70s disco classics, many of which haven’t been aired in years. In case you were wondering, the Bill part of the team is me and the Glen part is my best buddy Glen Voisey. We went to Ryefield Primary School together in Hillingdon in the late 60s. It was my selection that managed to actually clear the dance floor though; personally in my defence I just feel that there was no one with enough class and taste to really appreciate the finer points of Mr Dooley Silverspoon’s amazing “Bump Me Baby” The full Bill and Glen set was;
“Boogie Nights” – Heatwave
“Get Dancin'” – Disco Tex And The Sex-O-Lettes
“Ain’t Gonna Bump No More” – Joe Tex
“Bump Me Baby” – Dooley Silverspoon
“You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” – Sylvester
“Get Down Tonight” – KC & The Sunshine Band
“Rock The Boat” – Hues Corporation
“September” – Earth, Wind & Fire
In addition to all of this there were also two other musical related items on the day; one was a reading of the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Wedding Song” lyrics from the Planet Waves album. This was read by our good friend and wife of my best man, Caron Godbold-Derbyshire. (The other two readings were not music related but were superb none the less, so thank you also to Rachel Vernelle and Ruth Smethurst). The second of these musical pieces was a part of my speech at the end of the wedding breakfast. I wanted to do
something along the lines of what Peter Sellers did in the 60s with George Martin, when he recorded a version of the Beatles “A Hard Days Night” in the style of Laurence Olivier.
It took me ages to come up with the right song. I considered Kylie’s “I Should Be So Lucky” and “Love Is All Around” from the Troggs or Wet Wet Wet. But then the weekend before the wedding I saw Madness at the Reading Festival and I knew what song I was going to try in a Olivier style; it simply had to be “It Must Be Love”, and it was! I introduced that part of the speech as something Shakespearian, using some props; a cape and a skull. I kicked off with “Alas poor Yorrick…….” And then went straight into “It Must Be Love” in my
best Olivier style. I felt it could have worked really well or could have bombed completely. I think it went quite well, but obviously I would appreciate any comments from those of you who were there!
I should also add that my excellent Best Man, Mr John Williams also managed to include a little section from David Bowie’s “Heroes” in his speech!
Thank you for reading this far into what has been a rather self-indulgent post, but I hoped that you have enjoyed the music too. I would
also be interested to hear any stories you have of music used at weddings; be they your own or those of friends and family.
I know he wasn’t a singer, musician or songwriter but Steve Jobs sure as hell left an incredible mark on the music industry. His genius, foresight and innovation has fundamentally changed the way we buy/ obtain our music and indeed how we listen to it. Are there many households, or even people, in the world that don’t have an Apple product that can play music? iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac even if you have none of those you may have iTunes on your pc. I think that names like iPod will become synonymous with portable music players in the same way that ball point pens are mostly called biros and vacuum cleaners are mostly called Hoovers (although Dyson may take that crown in the long run)
Back in my schooldays inventors and innovators were old, dead or probably wearing a white coat in a secret nondescript lab somewhere in the world. This generation of innovators, inventors and geniuses (or should that be genii?) are much more visible. For example are there any of these names that you don’t recognise; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg?
His life is also a lesson for those who focus on a formal qualification being the golden ticket to a successful career. Mr Jobs dropped out of college, did that stop him having a great career? I think not! In addition to the music related innovations that he was responsible for he also put a lot of money, time and effort into Pixar. So you could argue that he also helped to save Disney studios, who frankly would have been on their knees without Pixar.
Steve Jobs will be sadly missed. In my opinion whatever you may think of Apple from a corporate perspective it would be very difficult to argue that this wasn’t a truly great man. RIP Steve Jobs.
I have tried to think of the most appropriate music I could with which to mourn his passing and celebrate his life. I have chosen a few tracks from what the previously available Ping function on iTunes revealed as his favourite albums a few years ago. Enjoy and celebrate the life of a great man.
Apparently Queen‘s “We Are The Champions” is the catchiest song ever according to researchers from Goldsmiths University and the University of York (my hometown folks!). Now that sounds like a cushy job to me. Anyway the researchers observed a large number of people singing various songs and determined that there are four key components that make a catchy song; Long and detailed musical phrases, multiple pitch changes in a song’s ‘hook’, male vocalists, and higher male voices making a noticeable vocal effort. So bad news for all the great female singers then and whatever happened to a song being catchy if you heard your milkman or postman whistling it?
The UK number one single this week is “Loca People” by SpanishDJ Sak Noel. It has already made the top spot in Denmark, Holland and Belgium and top 5 in Sweden, Switzerland and Austria. It seems to be the first holiday hit in ages that has hammered the UK charts after getting played all over Europe. Frankly it’s a lot better than some of the crap that achieved the same in the 70s. Does anyone remember “Y Viva Espana”?
The vocal and indeed the superb ‘what the fuck’ line is delivered by Esthera Sarita. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the track, personally I’m loving it!
Regular readers of this blog know that I am not particularly fond of X Factor and all the crap that produces. I have taken a conscious decision to not watch it again. I saw 20 minutes of one episode of the new series and frankly it looks like the same old stuff yet again; a bunch of, at best, moderately talented individuals who might have a chance of a 12 month career in the music industry before being dropped. If you are a true music fan you probably never watch the show anyway. But for those of you who aren’t sure; The X Factor is NOT the future of rock ‘n’ roll. The X Factor DOES NOT produce or nurture great talent. The X Factor WOULD HAVE turned down the likes of Kate Bush or David Bowie. Olly Murs IS NOT rock ‘n’ roll (an appearance on Saturday Kitchen and on the bill at V Festival on the same day! A great reason to boycott the V Festival and go to Reading or Leeds instead) The X Factor IS JUST a light entertainment programme. I really mean all those kind of shows when I say X Factor; American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent etc.)
Probably more talented than most recent winners and finalists of the X Factor
In addition have you heard the new Matt Cardle single? It sounds like a song that Coldplay or Snow Patrol have rejected. Yes I know it was written by Gary Barlow off of Take That; but it is a bit of a dirge isn’t it. As for the stranglehold the show has on the Christmas number one we really need to create another Rage Against The Machine moment to prevent this years Joe Cardle or Matt McElderry (yes I know the names are juxtaposed!) or whatever identikit pop muppet wins. I propose something like the first Public Image Limited single “Public Image”, “White Riot” by the Clash or perhaps the Ramones with “I Wanna Be Sedated” I would love to hear your thoughts on that one. Check out the videos for those songs below.
Simon Cowell; So talented he can make the shape of his signature with his arms
I know many of you will, if you can be bothered, comment with a list of all the major successes these shows have produced. But it really would be a short list wouldn’t it? Personally I would only include Will Young on that list. Also how can a show overhaul its judging panel so extensively and still leave Louis Walsh in place? He’s about as useful as a teapot made of dog turds.
Louis looking remarkably like a dog turd teapot in my opinion
And finally spending four hours or whatever the hell it is each weekend watching such mindless drivel as the X Factor is a whole stack of hours that I will never get back. So why don’t we all do something different, something real. Go to a music venue, even if it’s just live music at a pub. just don’t sit in and allow yourself to become addicted such crap. Let’s start hoisting the flag for real music not puerile, manufactured shite that the X Factor drip feeds you with.
OK hit me with your comments good people! I thought for little while about what song to finish with. It had to be X Factor related yet not X Factor related at the same time. So it had to be Lauryn Hill with “Ex Factor”
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 