With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 7 – 100 gecs December 20, 2023

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 12:31 am
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Day 7 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series for 2023 brings you 100 gecs, a band I discovered thanks to the Spotify playlist Misfits 2.0. Dylan Brady and Laura Les formed 100 gecs in St. Louis, USA in 2015 and they have now released two albums (‘1000 gecs’ and ‘10,000 gecs’ in 2019 and 2023 there was also a remix album, ‘1000 gecs and the Tree of Clues’ in 2020) Based on the album titles so far will there next one be called ‘100,000 gecs’? Their music is most prominently dance-based, and they have worked with some giants in that field including Skrillex and Basement Jaxx. Their reimagination of Linkin Park’s “One Step Closer” is beyond special. They also issued a Christmas(ish) tune, back in 2020, called “sympathy 4 the grinch” which has so much pop punk and ska in it. Some of their earlier remixes might have originated in a parallel universe in which 100 gecs are musical gods.

I am not sure I can really find the words to describe the wacky, wonderful weirdness of their self-titled EP from 2017. “Fuck Teeth” is delightfully different. While “25 bands and a geccco” might have been made via a sentient AI being trapped inside an arcade game, bloody brilliant! The 2022 EP ‘Snake Eyes’ features the previously mentioned collaboration with Skrillex and two other very classy tunes. The hard disco blues of “Hey Big Man” and the ethereal pop dance, with added heavy guitar riffage, of “Runaway”. I loved this year’s album ‘10,000 gecs’ so much that I placed it at number 20 in the Mayhem Albums Of The Year! Check 100 gecs out, you need them in your world!

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Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 6 – ALT BLK ERA December 18, 2023

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 4:20 pm
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It is halfway house for this year’s Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series which features artists that I have discovered via Spotify’s Misfits 2.0 playlist or artists that I love who have appeared on it. Day 6 features the magnificent ALT BLK ERA. I heard them for the first time quite a while ago and then had the opportunity to see them headline the BBC Introducing Stage at Leeds Festival in August. I was also honoured to get to interview them at Leeds too. Nyrobi and Chaya, if you’re up for a longer interview in 2024, let me know. ALT BLK ERA have released some stunning singles since 2022 and this culminated in their awesome EP ‘Freak Show’ which came out in September. They also worked on a brilliant collaboration with one of my favourite living artists, Delilah Bon on the monumental track “Witch”. They have recently been nominated for a MOBO award. I believe that ALT BLK ERA has the potential to be huge. Get listening to them now, that’s an order!

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The Bowie Contingent – Fulford Arms, York – Wednesday 13th December 2023 December 17, 2023

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:28 pm
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The Bowie Contingent is a Sheffield-based band that pays homage to the music of David Bowie. They are not a tribute act in the same sense as Absolute Bowie, where you get the full theatrical costumed appearance. The Bowie Contingent clearly has huge respect for Bowie’s music and they play it supremely well. The focus for tonight’s show was the much-acclaimed Berlin Trilogy. Although as the singer Jason said, we all know that not all of that music was recorded in Berlin. (‘Low’ was recorded in France and Berlin, ‘Lodger’ in Switzerland and New York. ‘Heroes’ was the only one of the famous album triptych to be recorded completely in Berlin.) The Bowie Contingent promised deep cuts from this era and they delivered. The band played for a little under two hours, what a show!

They played some of the instrumental tracks from the period. The highlights of those were “Sense Of Doubt”, “A New Career In A New Town,” and a magnificent rollicking version of “V2-Schneider” (yes, I know the latter has some vocal elements, but it is mostly instrumental. I really loved that the focus wasn’t on big hits, although some of those did get aired. I must applaud the Bowie Contingent for their spot-on and respectful takes on “DJ”, “Be My Wife”, “Blackout”, “Beauty And The Beast” and “Joe The Lion”. These tracks showcased just how good this band is. I know how much the Spiders From Mars were revered and they were a brilliant band, but I believe the strongest band in Bowie’s career was with him during those three albums, I am talking of the DAM trio (Dennis Davis, Carlos Alomar, and George Murray). If you shut your eyes during this set you could almost imagine that the DAM trio were in full force at the Fully Arms.

Some of the arrangements were very clever. It felt like “Always Crashing In The Same Car” was played in a slower tempo, “Sound And Vision” was more acoustic than electronic and how could you not love the slow start to “Let’s Dance”. The main highlights for me, and there were many, were the superb vocals from Jason and the piano accompaniment on “Life On Mars”, the enormous fun the band had during “Boys Keep Swinging” and “Scary Monsters” and perhaps best of all using the bass intro for “Under Pressure” as the start of “Heroes”. The latter was a work of sublime genius. Whatever you feel about tribute acts, if you’re a Bowie fan you will love the Bowie Contingent!

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Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 5 – tiLLie

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 8:27 pm
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Day 5 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas posts brings you the supremely talented tiLLie. She has been releasing some fantastic tracks since 2019. It is almost impossible to put tiLLie in a genre box, which makes her just the kind of artist I love. She has a knack for producing music with infectious hooks and is skillful at developing perfect earworms. She has a great pop sensibility which is intertwined with punk, metal, and rap to name just a few. Her current single “jeLLiefish aPocaLypsE” is something very special and her cover of the Darkness classic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” is one of the best covers I have heard for a while. Check out tiLLie now!

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Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 4 – girli

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 8:27 pm
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Day 4 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas series for 2023 features girli, another fabulous artist I discovered thanks to Spotify’s Misfits 2.0 playlist. girli made it into the Mayhem Charts top ten last month. I have said before that the argument about the atrocious way Spotify treats artists will be covered in the new year. But for me, Misfits 2.0 has helped to expose some great artists, including girli. She has released music since 2015, including a collection of fabulous singles and a debut album ‘Odd One Out’ in 2019. “Nothing Hurts Like A Girl” is close to being a perfect pop single. If you like electro, sharp pop, classy punk, rap and hooks worth their weight in gold then look no further than Amelia Toomey a.k.a girli. She has even recorded with one of my favourite bands, the Tuts, who sadly are no longer together. Get some girli in your ears and in your life, you will not regret it.

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Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 3 – Poppy December 16, 2023

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 6:38 pm
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Day 3 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas features Poppy or Moriah Rose Pereira to her family. She was born on my 36th birthday back in 1995 in Boston, Massachusetts. She came to prominence as a YouTube viral sensation, an android who made some excellent and cutting commentary on modern culture back in 2014. Then she signed her first record deal in 2017 and has since produced some stunning metal/ industrial music. She has so far released five albums, the third one, ‘I Disagree’ went to number one in the UK rock chart. Get Poppy‘s music in your life now!

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Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 2 – Royal And The Serpent December 14, 2023

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 3:50 pm
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Here we are at day 2 of Mayhem’s 12 Days of Christmas for 2023 and it is another act I discovered via Spotify’s Misfits 2.0 playlists. Today we feature American singer-songwriter Royal and the Serpent a.k.a. Ryan Jillian Santiago. Apparently Royal and the Serpent translates to Me and my ego. Since 2019 she has released a fantastic selection of eclectic and stunning singles and has supported a diverse set of artists including Demi Lovato and Fall Out Boy. She made it into the US Alternative and Rock Charts top 20 in 2020 with “Overwhelmed”. Check out the video for that tune and some other excellent tracks below.

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Mayhem’s 12 Days Of Christmas – Day 1 – WARGASM December 13, 2023

Filed under: Christmas — justwilliam1959 @ 8:09 am
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The Mayhem 12 Days of Christmas feature hasn’t been around for a while, so I am reinstating it for 2023. It is not always Christmas-themed, sometimes, like this year it is an opportunity to showcase some great sounds. This year does have a theme though, Spotify gets so many things wrong, like not paying artists fairly, but that argument is for another day. One thing I believe that the greedy streaming service with the green logo has got right is its Misfits 2.0 playlist. The 12 Days of Christmas tunes will feature 12 acts I have discovered via Misfits 2.0 or some favourite acts featured on the said playlist. The Mayhem 12 Days of Christmas series for 2023 will culminate in a playlist at some point.

Day 1 features London’s WARGASM, a band formed 2018 by Sam Matlock and Milkie Way. They draw on electro, punk, definitely the Prodigy, and even pure pop. But they are very much out there in a space that could only be filled by WARGASM! Check out some of their ace tunes in the videos below.

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Mayhem Albums Of The Year 2023 December 10, 2023

Filed under: Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 9:29 pm
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I know a lot of people don’t like the end-of-the-year list craze, but I do, so the Mayhem Albums Of The Year feature is back for 2023! I tried to keep it to a top ten, but I failed miserably, so it is a top twenty. Is your favourite included, or conversely, is your least favourite one of my favourites? There are a lot of big artists on the list, because whilst I focus on newer and smaller artists, I still listen to the big ones, what can I say, I just bloody love good music! I am not going to write a piece on every album and artist included, but I would love to hear your choices for 2023. So here it comes, the Mayhem top 20 albums of 2023!

  1. Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd – Lana Del Rey
  2. Black Rainbows – Corinne Bailey Rae
  3. Heavy Heavy – Young Fathers
  4. Chaos For The Fly – Grian Chatten
  5. Drop Cherries – Billie Marten
  6. The Ballad of Darren – Blur
  7. Seven Psalms – Paul Simon
  8. UK GRIM – Sleaford Mods
  9. Smile – Skindred
  10. Fata Morgan – Liz Davinci
  11. The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons – The Hives
  12. Vertiginous Drops – Carol Hodge
  13. Venom – WARGASM
  14. Chronicles of a Diamond – Black Pumas
  15. Black Classical Music – Yussef Dayes
  16.  1989 (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift
  17. Things Lost – Suncharms
  18. Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart – Lucinda Williams
  19. CACTI – Billy Nomates
  20. 10,000 gecs – 100 gecs

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The Mayhem Charts – November 2023

Filed under: Mayhem Monthly Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 8:26 pm
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The Mayhem Monthly charts return for the fourth month in a row (I probably need to stop opening with that line soon, right?) Regular readers know the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month. The chart is still contemporary-ish, or it would be just an oldies chart The top three “Legacy” artists are David Bowie (no surprise there!), Mott The Hoople, and Donny Hathaway. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists including three that were in the top ten last month (ALT BLK ERA, Delilah Bon, and Scene Queen). In fact, this is the fourth month in a row that ALT BLK ERA have featured in the artist top ten. Apart from UGLY CLUB at number five, the top five songs are all by artists that feature in the top ten artist chart. Just like Delilah Bon last month tiLLie does the double, she is at the top of both charts! So without further ado here are those charts! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.

MAYHEM ARTIST CHART NOVEMBER 2023
1 tiLLie
2 DJ Yoda
3 Scene Queen
4 Billie Marten
5 Rosalía
6 ALT BLK ERA
7 Delilah Bon
8 girli
9 Shaka Ponk
10 Emyln

MAYHEM SONG CHART NOVEMBER 2023
1 bLeSs uR hEaRt – tiLLie
2 I Can’t Get My Head Around You (Audiotree Live Version)- Billie Marten
3 Nothing Hurts Like A Girl – girli
4 Witch – Delilah Bon featuring ALT BLK ERA
5 What’s Wrong – UGLY CLUB

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