This will be another short post, I promise. Largely because I have imbibed a few units of alcohol while watching a rather dull Champions League game (Glasgow Rangers versus Manchester United) with some new work colleagues in London. Anyway after travelling back to my hotel in the Old Kent Road (yes that’s one of the cheap brown ones on the Monopoly board) I switched on the TV to catch the BBC news. As expected the main coverage was the student protests in London. Click here to read the story
Now as I have said before I very much support the actions of the UK students although I do not condone the violence and damage to property that a rogue element seem to perpetrate. Anyway there was a rather funny clip shown where at the height of the protests, while some idiots were trashing a police van. Why was it funny? Well largely because the young lady interviewed on camera shouted her protest at the government, it was something along the lines of “they will be charging us £9,000 a year, for three years, that’s £21,000” Forgive me for being cynical but that young person really does need an education in basic arithmetic, doesn’t she?
OK amusement over, let’s get back to some music and for today I thought I’d go for a couple of slightly appropriate songs from the late and very definitely great Mister Ian Dury! Ladies, gentlemen and those of you with both bits, please enjoy “There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards” and “Clever Trevor” Also as many of todays protesters were in fact school kids I thought that you might also like Alice Cooper‘s classic “School’s Out” from 1972 and performed here on the Beebs sadly missed Top Of The Pops show.
Many hundreds of people have found their way to this blog by searching for Lily Allen, so on behalf of those people and myself I would like to say to Lily that we are all thinking of her at this sad time. Lily suffered her second miscarriage, this was at quite a late stage in the pregnancy. Hopefully the paparazzi won’t be hounding her for a while. You can read the report on the BBC Newsbeat site.
Gaga in disguise with glasses!
Apparently an US university has now dedicated a course to none other than Lady Gaga. The University of South Carolina now lets you enrol on a sociology course which is dedicated to the life, work, music and rise to fame of Gaga. The lecturer Professor Mathieu Deflem is a fan, as you might have guessed. The Professor is also partial to Frank Zappa, Prince, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Status Quo and Ritchie Blackmore. the course also has its own blog, click here to see it. Read the BBC report here.
Now these next pictures completely passed me by, but Rihanna did a rather titillating photo shoot for the Russian GQ earlier this year. What do you think?
A few trinkets of music news for you today. Firstly Wyclef Jean off of the Fugees seems likely to run for the presidency of Haiti in November. He has until 7th August to register. Although he now lives in Brooklyn he has always been fiercely proud of his Haitian roots. He was very prominent in supporting his fellow countrymen following the devastating earthquake in January. Personally I hope that he runs and wins the election, I suspect that he will be a breath of fresh air to politics. Read the story on the BBC by clicking here
The dress code in the Haitian Parliament was clearly far more relaxed than in Britain
It got me thinking about who we’d like to see enter politics from the music world. Clearly Bono would like to be considered, but whilst I am a U2 fan, Bono can be bloody annoying at times. I can think of a number of dead stars who might have made an interesting career in politics; John Lennon, Bob Marley and obviously Screaming Lord Sutch, who did partake very regularly in UK elections. He was also the longest-serving party leader in British politics I believe. He created and led the Monster Raving Looney Party for many years. Alice Cooper famously stood against Nixon as an independent candidate in the 1972 US elections. I think of living stars Paul Weller, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Jackson Browne would be good. What do you think?
In other news Lady GaGa has been nominated for a record 13 MTV Video Music Awards, next in line Eminem has just 8 nominations. GaGa is never short of a good quote and she didn’t let us down here either, having said that she was pleased that her number of nominations was an unlucky 13 she went on to say “God put me on Earth for three reasons – to make loud music, gay videos and make a damn ruckus!” I love that one! Read the story here on the BBC site, the awards themselves take place on 12th September in LA.
Sometimes GaGa just couldn’t be bothered with all the fancy dresses or maybe she was covering the Cranberries song “Linger(ie)”
In a separate story Lady GaGa has admitted to Vanity Fair magazine that she is an occasional user of cocaine. She also pointed out that she did not want her fans to take the drug. Maybe I’m a bit simple here, but if you don’t want the more gullible of your fans to do the drugs you do, then maybe not telling them might help! The BBC has the lowdown on that story, click here
Lady GaGa was so rich she could now afford to employ her own commode-bearer
Squeezing into that little box was easy, but Gordo, Dave and Nicky realised it was going to be bloody difficult to get out!
As I have said many times before this is ostensibly a music blog and therefore pretty much everything I write about gets taken in that direction. This post is no exception. Thursday 6th May sees another General Election in the UK, the 8th one that I have been eligible to vote at, having reached official voting age before the 1979 election.
If only it were true 🙂
I have never failed to cast my vote and I urge you to do the same. It is the apathetic voters that allow the extremists into power, we cannot let that happen with evil and deluded parties like the BNP. But this week those of us in the UK should also vote for change. I know that voting for change is somewhat of a cliché, however I believe that our first past the post system has now had its day. A system that would allow the party with fewer votes to win more seats in parliament is not right, is it?
Most of the fake posters for this election have been better than the real ones don't you think?
In many ways I don’t care who you vote for, but I do care that people actually get off their arse and use theirs. So don’t let the country down, let’s mobilise for a massive turnout!
While you consider who you vote for here are some alleged trivial facts about the leaders of the three main parties; Nick Clegg once set fire to a very rare cactus. Gordon Brown apparently eats nine bananas a day and David Cameron is a direct descendent of King William IV
As I said at the start this is not a vehicle to voice my political opinions, (well perhaps apart from my dislike of the BNP) it’s a music blog. So here are twenty political type songs for you to enjoy while watching the remaining election coverage this week. Enjoy! You can follow the election on the BBC or the Guardian(I will be). Oh and there is also a hidden track somewhere in this post, have you found it? The usual crap prize, subject to postage awaits the first person to tell me what it is and where it is!
Ball Of Confusion – Temptations. This song reminds me so much of my youth and for me is one of the greatest songs Norman Whitfield produced for the Temptations. There was also a pretty good cover produced for Tina Turner by Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware off of the British Electric Foundation (BEF), also off of Heaven 17 and also once off of the Human League! Click here to listen to Tina’s version.
Elected – Alice Cooper. Probably one of my favourite Alice Cooper songs. Did you know he actually ran for the US Presidency in 1972? With a hook line of “They’re changing guards at President Palace, out goes Nixon and in comes Alice” Why I remember that line I don’t know, but it has been stuck in my head now for nearly 40 years! There was a cover of this song a few years ago in aid of Comic Relief which I believe was credited to Mr Bean and Bruce Dickinson off of Iron Maiden. Click here for that one!
Electioneering – Radiohead. Taken from the classic ‘OK Computer’ album and seen by many as one of the greatest political songs. It also takes a nice dig at the IMF too
Election Day – Arcadia. The Duran Duran offshoot that wasn’t the Power Station, well that’s my view. I would always prefer a band with Robert Palmer as vocalist rather than Simon Le Bon. Which one did you prefer?
The Politics Of Dancing – Re-Flex. In this list purely for the title! You know how low my opinion of most 80s stuff is! ‘Nuff said!
You Haven’t Done Nothing – Stevie Wonder. Now this is a superb song and so true of today’s politicians. If you listen carefully you can hear Stevie bringing the backing vocalists in when he says “Jackson Five come sing along” Yes, it was the Jackson clan providing the ‘doo do wops’ on this song
Abraham, Martin And John – Marvin Gaye. Motown really started to get politics in the late 60’s and early 70’s didn’t it, this was in advance of Marvin’s classic ‘What’s Going On’ album, more of which later. I believe that Dion off of Dion and the Belmonts also had a hit with this
Stand Down Margaret – The Beat. In the event her own party stood her down. Whilst I was really pleased that it happened it was pretty disloyal wasn’t it?
A Design For Life – Manic Street Preachers. For me the opening line says everything about when the working class really moved forward. “Libraries gave us power”
Police And Thieves – Clash. I will never tire of hearing this excellent cover of Junior Murvin’s brilliant song, oh and did I tell you that I consider the Clash to be the best band there has ever been? I did? I thought so
So Much Trouble In The World – Bob Marley And The Wailers. No political song list would be complete without Mr Marley in my opinion and there are so many good ones to choose from.
The President Wore Pearls – Lisa Simpson. What can I say about this? Lisa is trying to get elected but doesn’t think she will be cool enough
Anarchy For The UK – Sex Pistols. Well we may not have anarchy by Friday but we will probably have a hung parliament as opposed to some parliamentarians who should be hung. Duck islands and moats indeed!
Rocking In The Free World – Neil Young and Pearl Jam. Great combination which gives Mr Young extra added rock power, also a bloody good song too
Vote Baby Vote – Lady Kier off of Deee Lite. This was put together for an MTV special ‘Rock The Vote’ show, so it’s perhaps more a jingle than a song, but the message is very clear
I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician – Roger McGuinn off of the Byrds. I wonder if this is when politics became a career? I don’t know about you but the term career politician seems to be an oxymoron, with the emphasis on the moron bit for many of them!
Wake Up The Nation – Paul Weller. Is there no stopping this bloke? His last album ’22 Dreams’ was fantastic and the new one ‘Wake Up the Nation’ is even better in my opinion. Nice to hear him getting a tad angry too. How weird is it that Old Etonian David Cameron claims ‘Eton Rifles’ by the Jam as one of his favourite songs? Surely he can’t have listened to the lyrics can he?
Ghost Town – Specials. Reached number one at the height of Thatcher’s early years and amidst all the inner city rioting across the UK. It really summed up the nation at the time I think. It was the night the band performed this on Top Of The Pops that Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple told Jerry Dammers that they were leaving the band to form the Fun Boy Three. Whose first hit was, and still is, appropriate for politicians; “The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum”
What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye. Taken from one of my favourite albums of all time and the lyrics and message are still sadly relevant today, nearly 40 years after it’s release
Arrogance, Ignorance And Greed – Show Of Hands. One of Catwoman’s favourite bands and she has got me into them too. The message on this one fits pretty well all modern politicians and perhaps bankers too. Most of them are arrogant, ignorant greedy bastards aren’t they?
This is Ryefield School in Hillingdon a great place where I was a pupil from 1965 to 1970
Once again it’s been a long while since my last post, but not as long ago as the last time I attended Ryefield Junior School in Hillingdon. I was just a little boy called Billy in those days. I attended the school from 1965 until 1970 up until I was 11 years old. I discovered this week that it is Ryefield School’s 50th birthday celebrations this year, I hadn’t appreciated that I was just one year older than the school. One year and three days to be precise as it opened on January 4th 1960. So how did I find out about this auspicious occasion? Well I have mentioned Ryefield in a previous post and the present Headmaster Mr Dodd was doing some research and chanced upon my blog. Serendipity huh?
Anyway it got me thinking about those good old school days and for me Infant and Junior School was so much more fun than Senior School. I will remember Ryefield for many things. But the two that spring to mind immediately are the wonderful headmaster from my days there, Mr Yates. I don’t know much about him other than the fact that to me he was a wonderful man and although I didn’t realise it at the time he was probably my first mentor from outside my family circle. He encouraged me to learn by reading and indeed writing too. I also loved all those mental arithmetic tasks he set. The second thing that is in my mind about those years is my first ever foreign trip. It was a school trip to Paris and it was my first ever flight too. One of the things we were asked to do was write a postcard on the first day to send back to our parents. I did write my postcard, but I left it in my case and gave it to my Mum and Dad when I came home. I can only assume that they weren’t too worried about me
And so on to the music, for that is the purpose of this little blog. And obviously todays choices are all school related, I hope you enjoy them and as usual your school song suggestions would be welcomed
Schools Out – Alice Cooper. OK I know this was an obvious choice, but it is good isn’t it. For me it was one of the defining moments of early 70s music television
Remember The Days Of The Old School Yard – Cat Stevens. Just how talented was this man? Still just as talented these days now he is known as Yusuf. I believe the additional female vocal on this track is Elkie Brooks. Linda Lewis also recorded an excellent cover of this song, although sadly I can’t find it on line
Teacher I Need You – Elton John. A classic slice of Elton and Bernie from the wonderful 1973 album ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player’
Teach Your Children – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. This is accompanied by a photo montage that shows the Iraq war through the eyes of children
Don’t Stand So Close To Me – Police. Written by a former teacher, Gordon Sumner aka Sting and probably the only lyric which manages to rhyme cough with Nabokov, albeit it rather clumsily! This is the original version which is so much better than the 1986 remake
Be True To Your School – Beach Boys. This one says it all really doesn’t it and with added cheerleaders too.
Hello dear readers I’m back with another post and firstly I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read any of my blog posts. The total number of views reached 100,000 yesterday. Now that gives no clue as to how many ‘regulars’ there are out there so if you are a regular reader I would love to hear from you. (Mickey G you’re welcome to respond to this, but I know you’re a regular!)
Anyway as the number of views has hit six digits for the first time I thought I’d include a few statistics, wow how exciting does that sound……..NOT! But I’m going to do it anyway. Firstly the artists that most people have searched for and found there way to my blog are;
Kate is in fact top of the class and definitely not a dunce. She is just borrowing Robbie Williams' hat 🙂
1 Kate Bush, 2 Pink Floyd, 3 Lily Allen, 4 Jackson Five, 5 Slipknot, 6 Iggy Pop, 7 Beatles, 8 Catwoman, 9 Michael Jackson and 10 Green Day This ranges from more than 10,000 hits for Kate and the Floyd and 1,400 for Green Day
Lily uses her new eco friendly banana microphone
Of course some of you may be familiar with the ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment we undertook here (if you’re not then check out the tags). The principle was not to lower the tone far enough to show any tabloid style naked pictures of the wonderfully talented Miss Allen, but simply to see how many people arrived here by using Lily Allen Naked as a search term. I can confirm that 220 people have done that. In a couple of strangely related incidents though 253 have searched for Ronan Keating Naked and a further 205 people for Eminem naked. There were also a handful of searches for Kate Bush naked and perhaps I shouldn’t mention the 4 people who searched for Meatloaf naked! (But for those who did search for Meatloaf Naked check the picture below, it’s just for you 😉
Meatloaf Naked, well there's no gravy on it is there?
And finally for the stats the most viewed links from the blog have been Steal The Smile (my son’s excellent band – click their name to check them out!), Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” video and Wyclef’s “Stripper Song” video with 34, 26 and 19 views respectively. Catwoman asked me to point out that she loves statistics or maybe she said that she didn’t 😉
OK I’ve bored you enough withnumbers so let’s move on to some hopefully more interesting stuff. Firstly an item from yesterdays newspapers in the UK. A 46 year old Alice Cooper fan was fined £250 and also received a suspended jail term and a 3 month curfew order. He apparently removed his prosthetic leg and waved it around at Alice’s gig in the Southampton Guildhall. One member of the audience tried to stop him and was beaten up. To me this almost sounds like it could have been part of the one time Vincent Furnier’s act. Here is the link to the story in the Daily Telegraph. Let me know what you think of it.
Alice warns the unruly fan that if he hits anyone else with his false leg he'll cut the other one off too!
Also in the news yesterday was the legendary (in my opinion) Mick Jones off of the Clash. He has opened a library/ exhibition of a stacks of his Clash memorabilia, clothing and various other personal items. He calls it ‘one big living artwork’ Read about it here on Spinner.com. I would love to visit but I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it
Either Mick now runs a newspaper stand or this is some of his collection
Morrissey played at the Brixton Academy a few days ago and this is the film and music he played before he came on stage, bloody brilliant in my opinion! Did you guess the music? It’s “Lighten Up Morrissey” by Sparks! And for the hell of it here are the excellent Flaming Lips with a wonderful cover version of Madonna’s “Borderline” I would like to thank those wonderful folks at Mojo Magazine for pointing me to those two
Here’s a great blog for you, I know it’s not music related but I thought it was bloody funny it’s called Kemp Folds and features pictures of Ross Kemp off of Eastenders (aka Grant Mitchell) that have been folded. OK I know that sounds stupid but check it out by clicking here
Let’s finish today July 24th with a few ‘onthisdays’. firstly on this very day in 1967 all four of the Beatles and their then manager the late great (l’s & g’s are back ra ra ra) Brian Epstein signed a petition printed in The Times newspaper which called for the legalisation of cannabis. Well it seems like no one listened doesn’t it? Where can you use marijuana legally now apart from Amsterdam Coffee Shops?
On this day in 1997 Liam Gallagher off of Oasis was given a caution by police after admitting he had caused criminal damage following an altercation with a cyclist in Camden, London. Liam was travelling in a chauffeur-driven car (it’s a tough life being a rock star isn’t it?) when he grabbed the cyclist through the car window and broke his Ray Bans. Do you remember when Ray Bans were THE fashion item? There not as big these days are they? Anyway sticking with Oasis, when Noel Gallagher was the guitar tech for the Inspiral Carpets. The Carpets used to call him “Cot Death” because he slept so much.
I thought this was quite amusing. Thank you to Snipes.com
And finally for the ‘onthisdays’ today we go back to 2002. A garden centre was sued by the late great (l & g’sback with a vengeance) Freddie Mercury’s former partner Mary Austin. the law suit accused Clifton Nurseries of killing a collection of Freddie’s prized Koi Fish. Austin had inherited the collection on his death. The claim was that 84 fish died when a the electricity which supplied power to the fishes environment (a temporary pond apparently) was accidentally turned off by a worker at the Garden Centre in Maida Vale, London. Apparently by the time he died Freddie had built up one of the biggest Koi collections in the UK. These are not the sort of fish you’d find in your local fish and chip shop, one Koi can be worth as much as £250,000.
Imagine that Battered Koi, Large Chips and Mushy Peas ...... mmmmmmmm 🙂
To finish let me say thank you once again to everyone who has stopped at this blog occasionally, visited regularly, read it, commented, clicked on the links or simply looked at the pictures! And as this has been a statistics lead numbers post here is a link to the wonderful “Living By Numbers” from New Musik
Hello again people here we are halfway through March, well thereabouts anyway. It’s the 16th so technically it’s slightly over halfway. Anyway enough of that crap let’s get on with the show. Did any of you in the UK get the Sunday Times this week? It came with a free CD of Noel Gallagher’s appearance at the Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, I think it was recorded 2007. It’s an excellent CD with acoustic versions of a number of Oasis songs plus an excellent cover of the Smiths “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” . He is also joined by Paul Weller for a version of the Jam’s “Butterfly Collector” and the Beatles “All You Need Is Love”. Do everything in your power to get hold of this CD it’s bloody good! Here are Paul and Noel with the aforementioned “Butterfly Collector”
Noel made Liam promise that he would never try the Superglue on the Tea Cup trick again
Firstly with just the one birthday for today. It’s the 61st birthday of Michael Bruce, guitarist with the original Alice Cooper Group. When the band broke up in 1974 Michael went on to form a band called the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ named after an Alice Cooper album, a rather good album in fact. The new band were stuck in a legal row over the use of the name and eventually managed to release just one album, “Battleaxe” in 1977. Michael in fact sang lead vocals on a few tracks on the first Alice Cooper album. Here are the Alice Cooper Group with “Billion Dollar Babies”
Alice realised that with the high risk of follow through white was the wrong colour to wear in a curry restaurant
To make up for just one birthday there are three ‘onthisdays’ today. Starting in 1969. ‘Popworld 69’ took place on March 16th some 40 years ago today. The artists appearing at the Empire Pool in Wembley (now known as the Wembley Arena) were; Fleetwood Mac, the Move, Amen Corner, Peter Sarstedt, the Tymes, Geno Washington and Harmony Grass. I’ve never heard of the last one, have you? They do have a mention on Wikipedia though, click here to see it. In the interests of keeping todays post down to the usual length I intend to briefly focus on just one of these acts, the Move.
I have a story which relates to a cover version of the Move’s song “Fire Brigade”. This is one you will never find on the internet or indeed anywhere else. I was in my last year at Primary school and aged just 11. I got together with my four best friends and we decided that we would form a band for the final school assembly. The fact that none of us could play an instrument wasn’t going to stand in our way either! It was 1970 and we had that punk ethos way before anyone else, does that mean history needs to reflect that we indeed invented punk? Somehow I don’t think so. Anyway on the big day after at least three rehearsals we were ready. Deano on vocals, Duffy (not the current female one) on his brothers guitar, Billy D on a very rudimentary drumkit (cake tins mainly!), Terry on Bongoes and me Billy A on tambourine, backing vocals and record player. Yes to beef up our amazing sound we played the 45 of the Move single! I would love to say that we sounded great, to us it felt like it, but the benefit of hindsight and a conversation with my old headmaster a few years later I can confirm that we definitely sounded crap. I would also love to say that all of us went on to glittering musical careers, but we didn’t unless I can count my time as a Mobile DJ? All bookings considered by the way, but unless you’re in reasonable driving distance of York in the UK then the travel charge may be a little prohibitive!
My old school (1965 -1970)
As for the real band they formed in the 60s. Many of their 60’s and early 70s hits were written by Roy Wood, although Carl Wayne was the lead singer on many hits. Jeff Lynne had joined the band by the time they broke up around 1973 and went on to form the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) with Roy Wood. Roy left ELO and went on to record some excellent stuff with Wizzard, but their success was somewhat eclipsed by the levels that Jeff Lynne took ELO. The Move had the honour of having the first single ever to be played on Radio 1 in the UK when it began broadcasting on 30th September 1967. The single which was spun by Tony Blackburn was “Flowers In The Rain”. The song was written by Roy Wood and neither he nor the band have ever received any royalties for it. When it was originally released their management in order to promote it produced a postcard of then UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary Marcia Williams. He was alleged to have been having an affair with her. Wilson sued for libel and the band paid all court costs and the royalties for the song went (and indeed still go) to a charity of Wilson’s choice. This has continued even after Wilson’s death. Here are the Move boys with “Flowers In The Rain”
The band were longing for the day when the audience members would outnumber the band members
This day in 1970 was a very sad occasion, it saw the death of the wonderfully talented Tammi Terrell from a brain tumour aged just 24. She was born in Philadelphia as Thomasina Winifred Montgomery. Many of you will remember her for the excellent duets that she recorded with Marvin Gaye. One of the first public signs of her illness was when she collapsed in Marvin’s arms while the two were performing together on October 14th 1967. This was one of the events in Marvin’s life that had a profound effect on him and ultimately led to him recording the landmark album “What’s Going On”. The environmental message of this album still, sadly, rings true today almost 40 years later. It has often been thought that the Jean Terrell who was at one time a member of the Supremes was Tammi’s sister, this is not the case, Jean was the sister of WBA Boxing Champion Ernie Terrell who once fought Cassius Clay. This is Tammi duetting with Marvin on the classic “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” this knocks spots of the Diana Ross version I reckon, how about you?
Tammi Terrell - I think she was gorgeous!
And finally on this day in 1973 David Cassidy played the first of six sold out shows at the Empire Pool Wembley. Cassidy first came to prominence as Keith Partridge in the TV sitcom the Partridge Family. His mother was played by Shirley Jones who coincidentally was also his Stepmother in real life. In an attempt to break away from his clean cut image David posed nude for a Rolling Stone Magazine photo shoot by Annie Leibowitz. I liked some of his songs but when he was a teen idol in the early 70s it really wasn’t cool for me to like him 😉 Watch David singing “Rock Me Baby” here.
David thought it had been a good idea to pose nude, but he hadn't really considered where the staples would go.........ouch!
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 