Bull have stormed back with a splendid new single, “Stuck”. It is perhaps their most danceable tune and frankly, it pushes the psychedelic switch up to 11. Everything about this song is great and the band is on fire. Vocal harmonies are every bit as good as the Beach Boys or the Byrds, the keyboard runs are reminiscent of Ray Manzarek of the Doors. The production is wonderfully over the top as the band plays a whole plethora of instruments and maybe even the kitchen sink! Get STUCK into Bull now!
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Ruby Addy is back with her sublime new song, “Sour Milk”. Ruby is most definitely a torch singer for the 21st century. The emotion in her voice makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and it is impossible not to imagine her playing in a dark New York jazz club and stunning the audience into silence and sending them away with a feeling of supreme adulation for such a fine singer-songwriter. If you thought her last two singles were good, you need to listen to “Sour Milk” it is, in my opinion, her best yet!
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Here comes the third monthly Mayhem Top 20 Song Chart. This month’s number one is from a band that has featured on this site quite a few times and will continue to do so if they keep up the superb quality of their great music and live shows. They scraped into the artist chart at number 20 back in March. But now they follow Prairie Brigade and the Hazy Janes to hit the top spot in the song chart. Who am I talking about? A fabulous York band called Vaquelin with their current single “Roads Leading Nowhere”. They managed to hold off competition from Harry Styles who sits at number 2. There are a lot of oldies in this month’s chart, including Bill Withers, Love, Steely Dan, the O’Jays, the Clash, Mike and the Mechanics, Traffic, and the Sex Pistols. T.Rex take “Metal Guru into the top 20 for the second time in three months, it hit number 20 in March and sits at number 18 for May. David Bowie makes it three entries in a row and Roxy Music appear for their second month in a row. The oldest release on the list is “Alone Again Or”, a 1968 UK hit from Love at number 8. A really eerie cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” by M Ward hits number 6 and my favourite Professor Elemental song, “I Love Libraries” gets to number seven. There are also appearances from Leeds band Astoria at a very creditable number 4, the Institutes, Let’s Eat Grandma, and Kendrick Lamar. Eight artists featured in the Mayhem Top 20 Artist chart for May also feature on this list. We would love to hear your thoughts on the Mayhem Song Top 20 Chart as we hope to make it a regular feature. Check out the complete list below.
1 Roads Leading Nowhere – Vaquelin 2 Music For A Sushi Restaurant – Harry Styles 3 Goodbye Mr. Blue – Father John Misty 4 (Don’t) Turn Around – Astoria 5 Use Me (Live) – Bill Withers 6 Let’s Dance – M Ward 7 I Love Libraries – Professor Elemental 8 Alone Again Or – Love 9 Haitian Divorce – Steely Dan 10 All That You’ll Ever Know – The Institutes 11 The Living Years – Mike and the Mechanics 12 London Calling – The Clash 13 Pyjamarama – Roxy Music 14 I Dig Your Act – O’Jays 15 What In The World – David Bowie 16 United In Grief – Kendrick Lamar 17 Happy New Year – Let’s Eat Grandma 18 Metal Guru – T Rex 19 Freedom Rider – Traffic 20 Anarchy In The UK – Sex Pistols
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The Mayhem Artist Top 20 artist chart for May 2022 is here. Many of you know that I am a keen user of a site called Obscurify. It claims to tell you how obscure your listening on Spotify is. Compared to the rest of the UK I achieved a level of only 96% more obscure than other users in the UK this month, one point up from last month’s 95%. Regular readers will know that it also lists my most obscure artists, (two of which had been there since I began doing these posts, although for the first time ever Woke Up Dead and Promethium are not on that list! Sorry chaps) which currently are;
Gene (The best British band of the Britpop era in my opinion, back for a second month)
Har Mar Superstar (American modern disco maestro and supremely good live act)
Astoria (A fine young band from Leeds who were recently featured in our Mayhem Virgins series)
Vaquelin (One of York’s finest young bands. They will definitely be in the Mayhem Song chart for May 2022 when it is posted soon. Check out their latest video below too)
Matty Groove (An incredibly talented beatboxer who I recently saw supporting Professor Elemental)
As for the May Top 20, only Dame David remains from the last chart, but he drops from number one to number six. Other classic artists include Sex Pistols (at number one), Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, John Lennon, and The Clash. A few would giants make an appearance too including Bill Withers and the Four Tops. I learned in Uncut magazine this month that somewhere out there is an unreleased album that the Tops recorded with Norman Whitfield. Who do we need to speak to about getting that released? There is quite an eclectic mix here for May: Father John Misty, OMD, Steve Earle, Professor Elemental, and The The. Harry Styles rocked up at number 14 in April and hits number two in May. I am most definitely a Harry Styles fan, he is a hugely talented artist and I bloody love his music! I would love to hear your thoughts on this chart. Oh and keep your eyes open for the third Mayhem Monthly Song Chart, just like an old-school top 20 singles chart! That one includes songs by a few of the artists featured in the April Artist Chart. Will one of this month’s obscure artists get the coveted number one in the song chart? Maybe, but you will find out soon!
1 Sex Pistols 2 Harry Styles 3 Pink Floyd 4 Bill Withers 5 Four Tops 6 David Bowie 7 Father John Misty 8 The Institutes 9 Steve Earle 10 Arcade Fire 11 Lou Reed 12 Daryl Hall & John Oates 13 Elvis Costello 14 The Clash 15 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 16 John Lennon 17 Yelawolf 18 The The 19 Professor Elemental 20 Linda Ronstadt
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This is the fourth singles round-up of 2022, possibly our most eclectic yet, which includes ten great songs from a group of artists from all over the UK and the world. Liverpool (via Austria), USA, Bristol, London, Norwich, Rochester (NY), Tennessee, Durham, San Francisco (Bay Area), and Switzerland. Three of these artists have appeared on these pages before and while the rest are new to us I am 100% confident that their first appearance will not be their last appearance.
This has shades of the Divine Comedy and some of the finest 60s style melodies and harmonies, a truly gorgeous tune. The MonaLisa Twins are in fact real twins. Mona and Lisa Wagner hail from Austria and currently reside in Liverpool. “Questionable” is an original song, but the duo have also recorded some rather wonderful cover versions too, including a great version of The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright”
This is proper old-school R & B, perhaps by the skillfully sampled hook from Isley Brothers’ classic “Between The Sheets”. Lisa’s voice reminds me of Millie Jackson in her softer ballad moments. This is a sublime summer soundtrack tune
This is a proper earworm that would fit nicely alongside the likes of Lily Allen, I love the video too, the telephone call part is rather funny. The tune has a lilting light reggae/ ska feel to it and refuses to leave your head long after you first hear it.
This 21st century Riot grrrl and Femegades wear their feminist badge proudly and rightly so. This is a great tune and Femegades are definitely a band to keep on your radar. Probably one of the best band names that I have encountered in a while too!
Millie Manders and the Shut Up covering Little Mix, that really doesn’t work on paper does it? But who cares about paper, this is a 100-mile-per-hour ska-punk masterpiece and I bloody love it! It really is difficult to recognise it as the original Little Mix tune. An absolutely banging cover version!
This is a fine and incredibly heavy slab of metal that smashes straight into your cerebellum with the force of the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs. If this lot has not played at Download before then they need to!
First-class southern bluesy rock from Mr. Drevet and his pals with a song about his motorbike. This is a song that is really difficult to not like. A really great tune for a long drive or road trip.
This is an absolutely sublime indie-pop track. Great riffage, awesome harmonies, and a chorus that many bands would kill for. This band needs to be in your life, make it happen!
Bluesy, swampy, sweaty 60s R & B, like a young Tom Waits fronting Booker T and the MGs. This is a great tune that was created to become a classic and will be! Check out their earlier single “Juvie” too.
If you like dance music you will love this. It sounds good played loud in my headphones but over a nightclub sound system this will be monumental. Molie’s vocal is a perfect first for Larock’s infectious beats!
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Having made number five in the UK charts two years in a row, with “Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt” (2020) and “Boris Johnson Is STILL A Fucking Cunt” (2021) the Kunts are bidding to go better for the Queen’s Jubilee year. They have just released “Prince Andrew Is A Sweaty Nonce” in time for the Jubilee celebrations. I think it is our duty to stream it, download it and share it. Can we get the Kunts to number one in the UK with this rather fabulous singalong about Prince Paedo? Go on people, you know what you need to do! In addition to the original single, there is also an unplugged take and a couple of remixes, check them out below and click here to stream the hell out of this wonderful track on Spotify and find a remix here on Apple Music!
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A gig on a Tuesday is never a super appealing night, is it? I always prefer Thursdays and the weekend. But sometimes something draws you in and here it was Percy and Soma Crew, two bands that I have seen before; frankly, neither of them has ever been anything but sensational. So a Tuesday gig it was! First up, for their first-ever gig, was the New Solar Drones. Their first couple of songs reminded me musically of early R.E.M and perhaps lyrically some tones of early Eels. I love that the band has a percussionist, there are not enough of them in music any more. This dude looked a little like Elton John’s long-time percussionist, Ray Cooper. The bass player stood out with his 5-string bass guitar, it’s not often that you see anything but a 4-string bass. But ignoring the number of strings, he played a magnificent bass rumble throughout the set. Their last track was truly epic, very proggy with shades of Genesis, Focus, and Jethro Tull, but still definitely very original. This is definitely a band to keep an eye (and your ears) on!
The New Solar Drones
Next on the floor, yes this was a floor show just in front of the stage, was Percy a.k.a. west Yorkshire Superheroes. They have a new album coming out next month and it is bloody ace. The obvious comparison people make when they hear Percy for the first time is the Fall. But this bunch goes so much deeper than that. I hear punk, C86, and thanks to Andy’s towering bass lines a little of Flea’s finest bass licks. Meanwhile, Paula’s keys add a Doorsian weirdness to the whole thing. The older songs are fast becoming live classics, particularly “Will Of The People” which seems likely to remain topical forever! New tunes “What Lez Said” and “ICU” are very classy indeed. But the high point for me was probably the warped magnificence of “Chunks” which confirms that all is well on Planet Percy!
PERCY
Headliners Soma Crew is a deeply talented band laid-back, psyched-out and grungy sometimes at the same time! They use that drone sound really well but these magnificent noiseniks are so much more than a drone-driven shoegaze kind of band. Their influences run very deep, even drawing on the blues at times. The use of subtle looping works really well and while there are definitely some 60s influences underlying the songs Soma Crew are undoubtedly a band planted very firmly in the 21st Century. Si Micklethwaite, singer, songwriter, and guitarist was absolutely on fire in this set a truly mountainous performance. I hear so many influences in the Soma Crew sound; Jonathan Richman, Beatles (in their most experimental moments, Pink Floyd (circa 1970/71), Spiritualized, and even 60s West Coast light rock. But none of that detracts at all from the fact that they are a great band and there is not another band quite like Soma Crew.
Soma Crew
All pictures, except the gig poster, were taken by me using my very cheap Chinese Android phone. The videos were found on YouTube. If the video is yours and you would like a credit or for it to be removed please let me know.
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Just when you thought Vaquelin couldn’t get any better after their magnificent debut album ‘Where Dreams Hurt‘ earlier this year they hit you with their magnificent and truly epic new single “Roads Leading Nowhere”. It has a much more acoustic feel than the album but lyrically its words and ciphers are darker than obsidian and deeper than the Krubera Cave. The lyrics have references to suicide and some incredible couplets like “The fish in the water got me hypnotised, our captain’s overboard he’s been snorting lines”. I thought that the weird sound motif in the intro was a backwards tape loop, but what it is actually is chords in reverse order, with the audio clip then being reversed. So maybe I was half right. I felt shades of Paul Weller circa “Wild Wood” and Traffic from 1970s “John Barleycorn Must Die”. Vaquelin are clearly not content to simply rest on the laurels of the first album and this single is a magnificent manifesto for the sophomore album whenever that arrives. I think the band sees this as a risky release that might alienate some fans, well if it does all I can say is that those fans maybe don’t really appreciate great music. Get your ears around this track now, you will not be disappointed. Check it out here on Spotify.
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I had been looking forward to this gig for a while and it was one of those occasional shows where my Catwoman (a.k.a. my wonderful wife Catherine) joined me. Why does she only come to some? well my taste is ridiculously eclectic, while Catwoman has great taste it is not as wide as mine, so I would never take her to a punk or metal show. But enough of us we were here at the mighty Crescent in York to witness Newen Afrobeat in the flesh. On paper, a Chilean band playing Afrobeat doesn’t sound right, but who cares about paper, on stage, they were something stratospherically special. A combination of Latin rhythms and beats combined with the kind of Afrobeats forged by the late great Fela Kuti was mesmerising and I am pretty sure everyone in the crowd was on their feet for the whole set. At one point there were at least thirteen band members on stage, I don’t think I have ever seen that many people on the Crescent stage! There were drums, percussion, guitars, keyboards, amazing brass, and two incredibly energetic singers who frankly danced the rest of us off the floor!
The band kicked off with an instrumental track before the two singers bounded on stage and upped the already high energy level even more. Their original material is incredible and their covers of Fela Kuti songs are played in such a way that the tunes are taken to another level completely. I have been listening to their ‘Newen Plays Fela’ EPs and they do absolute justice to the master but the live versions are blisteringly good. “Zombie” was an absolutely immaculate performance! Newen Afrobeat has played some huge festivals, including Felabration in Lagos, but seeing a band this good in such an intimate setting makes it a mind-blowing experience. They were joined on stage by a true giant of Afrobeat, Dele Sosimi, for a few songs. Who would have thought that they could sound even better, but they did when Sosimi joined them. I heard on good authority that the band and Sosimi went to Young Thugs Studio in York the next day to record together. I am looking forward to that stuff! The band has quite a few dates left on their European Tour (check the tour poster at the top of this post). If you can get to any of them you really should, this is a band that I suspect could never disappoint even if they tried. Next time they are in my neck of the woods I will be there!
All pictures, except the tour poster, were taken by me using my very cheap Chinese Android phone. The videos were found on YouTube. If the video is yours and you would like a credit or for it to be removed please let me know.
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This is the sixteenth in our Mayhem Virgins series and it features Leeds band Astoria. The band is made up of Vinnie Smith on vox and lead guitar, Luke Etchells on rhythm guitar, Alex Mawson on bass, and sticksman George Grady. They released their first single “Where The Light Lives” in May 2021. It has been described as an alt.rock ballad and it certainly has those qualities. Above that, it is a very open, emotional, and soulful tune. There are not many rock songs that bring a tear to my eyes, but this one does. The band says that the song “was intended as a love letter to a friend, although written years too late“. It sounds like there is a whole gamut of emotions driving its creation. Follow up release, also from last year, was “The Snow”, coupled with what in the olden days would have been a b-side “(Don’t) Turn Around”. Astoria sound like a band that really knows where they are and where they want to go. “The Snow” is an anthemic rock track that is cinematic in scope Vinnie’s vocals are stunning here and the riffs are huge. Meanwhile, I think the rhythm section is on fire. This is probably my favourite Astoria track at the moment. “(Don’t) Turn Around” sounds rougher and harder than their other tunes, like Cast taking a shot at metal. This is a band for the 21st Century, one that may help to see us through troubled times. I can hear in them the potential to become one of Yorkshire’s finest rock bands, maybe even one of the UK’s greatest bands! You can catch them headlining live at the Lending Room in Leeds on Friday 15th July, click here for tickets.
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With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 