Last year I posted about the death of Jimmy Saville as did many people. At the time I felt that he had been a bit of an eccentric but now it is clear that he was a cowardly paedophile scumbag. In the last few weeks I have had thousands of people searching for Saville arriving at my blog. I just want to make it clear that I have no respect for him and the only feelings I have for him are that he died before he could be tried. If there is such a place I hope he rots in hell.
As usual the downfall of a celebrity brings about a whole range of jokes about that person, usually derivatives of those that have been used for others. One of the many that I have seen was “The Vatican has revealed that Jimmy Saville was only two sexual assaults from getting his own parish!” Now that one did appeal to my sick sense of humour. However what I read earlier on a BBC profile of Scumbag Saville, who was a lifelong Roman Catholic, was that 22 years ago “Pope John Paul II made Saville a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great . This particular honour is also called a papal knighthood“. So maybe that joke wasn’t too far from the truth after all. What do you think of what appears to be the real Jimmy Saville?
Clearly paedos hunt in packs! I hope Glitter is shitting himself now!
XFM listeners recently took part in a poll to name the greatest front man of all time. So many great blokes to choose from and they went for Liam Gallagher. Now don’t get me wrong Liam has been very good in the past, particularly in the early days of Oasis, but the greatest front man of all time? I don’t think so. The full top 20 was;
I agree with many of these, but I am surprised Robert Plant and John Lydon didn’t make the cut. Who do you think should have been included? Click here to read the report on nme.com.
Vinyl records are on the increase in the UK. Sales of vinyl albums this year have already reached 240,000 compared with 234,000 for the whole of last year. Whilst this is good news for many of us the treasured vinyl album format is unlikely to ever come near its 1975 peak when 91.6 million vinyl albums were sold. To be fair there were no MP3s or CDs, just vinyl, cassettes and a few 8-Tracks. To put that into perspective this years sales are just 0.26% of the total for 1975.
The top 5 vinyl albums sold in the UK this year so far are;
Strangely I do have all the top 5 in either electronic or CD format, but I have none of them in vinyl. Read the rest of the story and see the full top 10 by clicking here.Radiohead have also announced that they will be touring next year, although no details have been given yet. Will they be a surprise guest support act on the Stone Roses bill? Somehow I don’t think so! But joking aside I will certainly be trying to get tickets for Radiohead. It would become the fourth time I had seen them.
The best-selling UK album in 1975, depending upon your source, was either ‘The Best Of The Stylistics’ by, strangely enough, the Stylistics or ‘Elvis Presley’s 40 Greatest Hits’ unsurprisingly by Elvis Presley. However the best-selling album that wasn’t a greatest hits package was Rod Stewart’s ‘Atlantic Crossing’. I have focussed just on the albums released during that year. That Rod album featured my Dad’s favourite song of all time; “Sailing”. We played it at his funeral back in 2001 and it’s only recently that I have been able to listen to it without getting rather emotional. But whenever I hear it I always get a great picture in my head of my Dad singing along to it. So Dad if you are reading this (I like to keep my options open on the afterlife) then I hope your singing is more in tune now!
I have a small selection of oddities for you in this post. Starting with the Arctic Monkeys, no I’m not suggesting that the Monkeys are oddities, but a funny little story about what rude boys they are! Apparently their new album will suffer the indignity of having a sticker placed over its title when it goes on sale in a large US supermarket chain. Not because it has nudity, pornography, swearing or anything like that on the cover, but because the title is said to be very suggestive. I don’t agree at all. So what is that offending title? Why it’s a phrase I have often used myself. It’s ‘Suck It And See’ Now I can hear all of you with an honours degree in double entendre sniggering, but frankly what’s the point in stickering (stop sniggering again ok) that? I thought it was pretty stupid when a pretty tasteful naked girl on the cover of the first Darkness album was covered with a sticker in US supermarkets. But the funniest for me was that the todgers on the classic statues on the cover of the Dame’s second Tin Machine album were removed for the US supermarkets. What a pathetic bunch of arseholes! Tipper Gore this is your legacy!
Liam shows just how much he enjoys lay lady lay by laying down
Now for some Gallagher brother news. It would appear that Liam Gallagher is not a big fan of Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan. Liam likes Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” but thinks that Bob is a ‘bit of a miserable c*nt’. He also has a dig at 60s and 70s bands that reform to rake in festival money with greatest hits sets. read what he had to say by clicking here for the NME site. In another piece of Gallagher news it appears that Noel and Liam’s Mum is ready to bang their heads together. She says that the only way she expects Liam to miss Noel’s forthcoming nuptials is if both his legs are broken. If I were Liam I’d be afraid, I’d be very afraid. Read about that in the NME as well by clicking here.
So tell us Gaga, how many Muppets were harmed or killed in the making of this outfit?
It appears that Amazon have had one of the biggest loss leader products in recent years. They have been charging just 99 cents for the download of the new Lady Gaga album ‘Born This Way’, but they have been paying her record label 9 dollars per album downloaded! It is estimated that in about a week they have lost around 3 million dollars. Now is that just pure waste or some kind of reverse greed? Click here to read the story.
And finally, Catwoman and I went to see the new Marvel movie Friday evening; ‘X Men: First Class‘ I won’t be doing a full review as it’s not really a music related movie. But it is an excellent film and for me one of the best Marvel adaptations so far, go and see it if you get the chance. But there is a small music link as the song that is played over the closing credits is the new Take That single “Love Love”. In spite of the fact that Robbie is involved and regular readers will know I really don’t like his stuff, I sadly really like this song. Do I need therapy?
I had the pleasure of attending yet another great gig promoted by Mr Simon Pattinson from York. It was another benefit for York Hospital Radio and £300 was raised. As usual Simon promoted a brilliant gig, you can’t really beat four excellent bands for £5 can you? But firstly let me apologise for missing Rosie who were the first on the bill. But all the people I spoke to that saw them rated them very highly.
The first band I saw on the night was the Paper Tigers. A great band name in my opinion and whilst their name says paper their sound is so much stronger. A female singer with a great rock vocal ability, a superbly tight rhythm section and a guitar sound reminiscent of Steve Jones aural attack with the Pistols. I’m sure from a visual perspective they might be compared to the likes of Paramore. But believe me these guys are bloody good in their own right. They can rock out and they can be mellow. I particularly loved their song “Rebellion” and frankly anyone who writes a song called rebellion is more than alright with me! I hope they go on to bigger things.
The next band up were the Shadracks, how good a name is that? A really exciting band who I suspect really know how to party. They’re from Scarborough and even have a song in their repertoire about that very town, which they referred to as a shit hole. But then don’t we all think the town we come from is a shit hole. Hillingdon, where I came from certainly is. The Shadracks sound was reminiscent of the Arctic Monkeys before they got a bit pretentious and up themselves. They also carry a great dose of superb northern wit with them. They had, sadly, run out of CDs ( a real shame, because I definitely would have bought one!) but to make up for it they brought along a load of hand-made party goody bags containing sweets and tied up with a glow in the dark wrist band. All this was hand crafted by the singers Mum. Now that is a brilliant touch! I absolutely loved their song “Lucy Locket”. Their disco Bomb activity worked well, getting everyone to crouch down and then, on the count of four, jump up and pogo. I have seen the Streets do this at Reading, but that audience was far more sedate than the Shadracks audience! I would definitely pay to see these guys again.
The headliners were Surprise Fire, these guys really know how to rock and how to work the audience. I bought their EP before they had finished their third song! A really powerful guitar sound and a great heavy drummer. This is a band with a social conscience (check out their song “Coal”) and a great sense of fun (they had us all join in a rendition of Happy Birthday for their friend Daniel). The singers vocal wasn’t mixed very well for the first couple of songs, but even then they were still very good and just got better! I can see them working really well as part of a support package to someone like Rage Against The Machine. They would go down a storm at the Reading Festival given the chance.
So after my last gig it seem that normal service has been resumed. Regular readers will know that my last gig review contained a view of probably the worst band I have ever seen. This gig was excellent and I would definitely seek out all the bands again given the chance. I will also check out Rosie, seeing as how working late made me miss them.
Finally, if Simon can fill Stereo, how come whenever my son’s band Steal The Smile play at the FaceBar in Reading there is hardly anyone there? It’s all about promotion in my opinion, some promoters promote and many others don’t!
I'm not sure if that sign is a statement or an instruction
Today I had the iPod on shuffle and up popped the wonderfully talented Scroobius Pip aided and abetted by Dan Le Sac. I am a big fan of Messrs Pip and Sac. The song in question was “Thou Shalt Always Kill” It got me thinking that a post addressing all the Pip commandments might be quite fun. So firstly apologies to Dave Gorman who once did a live show which analysed all the parts of Ian Dury’s “Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3”, indeed Catwoman actually saw it (and to be fair he probably did it far, far better than I am about to with Pip and Sac). So on with the song!
Thou Shalt Always Kill – Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
(Feat. Pos Plug Won)
Thou shalt not steal if there is a direct victim; I totally agree with this one, so I guess this makes it ok to steal from banks right? Maybe some office stationery too
Thou shalt not worship pop idols or follow lost prophets; Who the hell would want to worship bloody pop idols anyway, that’d be like ‘All Hail Gareth Gates’ or more fitting with his current life maybe ‘Our Server who art in McDonalds’. As for the Lost Prophets they weren’t a bad band, ok they are Welsh, but that’s not their fault is it?
Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Johnny Hartman, Desmond Dekker, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or Syd Barret in vain; I totally agree, but who the hell is Johnny Hartman?
Thou shalt not think that any male over 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile, some people are just nice; I am way over 30, I love kids and I’m not a paedo, so I guess that makes me nice, doesn’t it? Incidentally isn’t it strange that those awful swimming trunks are called Speedos? Phonetically just one letter away from Peedo.
Thou shalt not read NME; Nope, can’t agree with this one at all, I’ve been reading NME since I was a young lad, from 1971 to be precise
Thou shalt not stop liking a band just because they have become popular; How very true, people they are not YOUR band just because you liked them before 99% of the population. Tom, it is ok for you to continue to like the Kings Of Leon!
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry; Yes, because Mr Fry has a brain the size of a planet and has more intellect in his belly button fluff than the collective intelligence of the England Football team
Thou shalt not judge a book by its cover; True, well unless it’s the Playboy Annual or something similar, equally any book with Robbie Williams on the front must, by definition, be rubbish!
Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover; So that must mean you judge it by Mel Gibson, but I’m confused, does that make it better or worse?
Thou shalt not buy Coca Cola products; Absolutely, all that sugar has to be bad for you. Mind you I do like the odd Coca Cola Christmas bauble, so that would be another Pip commandment I have broken
Thou shalt not buy nestle products; Well I can live with this, apart from the fact that my good friend Karen McP works there, but personally I prefer Cadburys anyway
Thou shalt not go into the woods with your boyfriend best friend, take drugs and cheat on him; Well I am completely exempt from this as I don’t take drugs, oh and I don’t have a boyfriend either!
Thou shalt not fall in love so easily; That is easy to say but bloody difficult to do
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls pants……use it to get into their heads; ok, just as long as I can be forgiven for my teenage years, where I confess I did use music in the former regard quite a lot and the latter regard quite a little. Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” always worked for me
Thou shalt not watch Hollyoaks; Nor any Aussie soaps either in my opinion
Thou shalt not attend an open mic and then leave as soon as you have done your shitty little poem or song you self-righteous prick; Well I think that one speaks for itself really!
Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in & week out just because you once saw a girl there that you fancied that you’re never going to talk to anyway; Guilty as charged, but only in my teenage years and only a couple of times and on the second occasion I did get to speak to her, but she did make it very clear she wasn’t interested. Just rearrange these letters to understand what two-word phrase she used. kfcfuof, did you work it out?
Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were; I did this with David Bowie back in the 70s, but then he recorded in the 80s and that made me see the error of my ways
The Beatles.
Were just a band.
Led Zeppelin
Just a band.
The Beach Boys.
Just a band
Sex Pistols.
Just a band.
The Clash.
Just a band.
Crass.
Just a band
Minor Threat.
Just a band.
The Cure
Just a band.
The Smiths
Just a band.
Nirvana.
Just a band.
The Pixies
Just a band
Oasis.
Just a band
Radiohead.
Just a band.
Bloc Party.
Just a band.
Arctic Monkeys.
Just a band.
The next big thing
Just a band.I can agree with almost all of the above, except for the Clash, these guys were way more than just a band to me
Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries; Too true, how many times has the news reported an earthquake somewhere like Mexico and had it low down the running order because no British people were hurt?
Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling where never part of the four elements and never will be; I love rap, but this is sadly so very true
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music;
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music; I suspect that this relates to dance music and the Government’s attack on the rave generation, but it could equally apply to the bland crap produced by almost anyone of Simon Cowell’s identikit pop muppets
Thou shalt not pimp my ride; But I assume that it is ok for me to pimp my man-bag though, right?
Thou shalt not scream if you wanna go faster; nor indeed listen to Geri Halliwell whilst in a sober state
Thou shalt not move to the sound of the wickedness; well ok, but sometimes that is a really good feeling!
Thou shalt not make some noise for Detroit; or any other city or town, but then again I am sure that later this year at Reading my good friend Nick H and me will make some noise for Reading
When I say “hey” thou shalt not say “ho”; Say Gabba Gabba instead, in honour of the Ramones
When I say “hip” thou shalt not say “hop”; Say replacement instead
When I say, he say, she say, we say “make some noise”…..kill me; ok then, seeing as you asked nicely
Thou shalt not quote me happy; or like the Go Compare advert
Thou shalt not shake it like a Polaroid picture; Well that’s how I dance bro’ – live with it!
Thou shalt not wish your girlfriend was a freak like me; my girlfriend is all the freak I need thank you very much
Thou shalt spell the word phoenix : P-H-E-O-N-I-X not P-H-O-E-N-I-X regardless of what the Oxford English dictionary tells you; Now as far as this one goes I really don’t care
Thou shalt not express your shock at the fact that Sharon got off with Brad at the club last night by saying “is it?”; very true, the correct statement is ‘innit’ innit?
Thou shalt think for yourselves; I hope everyone does this already
And thou shalt ALWAYS kill. I certainly can’t agree with this, although Catwoman and I do tend to regularly kill all the plants in the back yard, usually by neglect
Hello once again dear readers and here is the second of a series of three bulletins from the muddy trenches at the front line of the Reading Festival. Actually I lied about the mud it’s more like a dust bowl. In fact the dust kicked up by the mosh circles on Saturday were kicking up more output than the smoke machines on the main stage. Unlike yesterday today was more of a Main Stage day for us.
We arrived just in time to see the whole of the Eagles Of Death Metal’s set. OK death metal they’re not, but fantastic full on rock band they are. These guys know how to party and party we did! well we bounced up and down a lot anyway. The video screens showed Dave Grohl off of the Foo Fighters and Nirvana backstage with his daughter, she’s clearly not ready for fame yet as she covered her eyes the whole time, a real sweetie though 🙂 Josh Homme off of Queens Of The Stone Age was also in the backstage crowd
Next up was the excellent Enter Shikari and like the EODM these guys know how to party, I will go so far as to say that I thought they were among the top 10 bands I have ever seen at Reading and I have been going a looooooong while! We then took a short but offensive break in the comedy tent with Gary Delaney and Doug Stanhope. These guys, particularly Doug, know how to take things right to the edge! Bloody funny indeed! After this we returned to the Main Stage for Ian Brown and for me he was without doubt the biggest disappointment of the day. He really didn’t seem quite with it and sounded out of tune much of the time.
After Ian Brown things could only get better and we headed to the BBC Introducing stage to see the stupendous Soft Toy Emergency. Regular readers will know that I have seen this band before and today, once again they were truly on fire. This will be a very big band indeed and if they’re not on the NME Radio Stage next year I will eat two of the festivals foot long frankfurters!
To fill time before I next visit to the Main Stage we wandered over to the Festival Republic tent and chanced upon a truly excellent instrumental band, 65 Days Of Static. I must confess that I had never heard of them before, but check them out I’m sure that you’ll love them! So back to the Main Stage, the crowd for the Prodigy was so vast that at one point I was facing away from the stage and had to wait for a crowd surge before I could turn around. The band were easily up to their usual high standards though, Firestarter was a massive favourite with the crowd. How could anyone follow them? Well the Arctic Monkeys tried, but for me whilst they have great songs and play really well there is no real personality there. So we left about half way through their set and caught the last part of the Gossip in the NME Radio 1 tent. Absolutely brilliant, Beth Ditto was on great form. Standing In The Way Of Control blew the roof off and she even came back on at the end with a towel on her head for a short sing along of Queen’s We Are The Champions!
Gotta go now and get ready for Day 3, so until the next time folks!
Hello once again dear readers. I haven’t posted for a while but this week’s furore over the NHS drew me back to the keyboard. Essentially many right wing politicians in the US who clearly don’t understand Obama’s health reforms have been scaremongering by pointing out the terrible state of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Many of the comparisons they have made between US Healthcare and the NHS are at best inaccurate and at worst outright fabrication! The argument was then compounded by a complete twat (copyright Dave Cameron) of a Tory MEP garnering himself an appearance on US TV to criticise the NHS. Before you wade into this debate from an American point of view I would suggest that you complete just a modicum of research. Firstly read this article from the Guardian which answers a number of the points raised by Republican politicians, click here to read it.
You should also watch Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” which offers a brilliant comparison of US versus European Healthcare. But then if you’re a right wing politician in the US you certainly won’t watch anything from Michael Moore will you? Wasn’t the best right wing criticism of Moore a couple of years ago that he was a rich, fat, white man? Hold on a cotton picking minute here, that description could apply to many Republican politicians as well surely.
Also for those of you who fell for the argument that Stephen Hawking would not have survived if he had not been American. He is British, his voice box happens to have an American accent! He himself has said that he would not be here if it wasn’t for the NHS.
In my opinion the NHS does a fantastic job. If I were to fall ill in the UK I know I would be treated regardless of whether I have health insurance. That would not be the case in the US. Millions of people in the US are unable to afford private healthcare. If we consider ourselves part of a caring society we should not even consider leaving these people outside the system!
The doctors and nurses from the NHS that treated my father before he died from Lung Cancer back in 2001 did a fantastic job. I have a friend who is an A & E nurse in the north, you would be hard pressed to find a more dedicated healthcare professional. The NHS like any large organisation is not perfect, however before you jump to conclusions get your facts right!
OK rant over, this is essentially a music blog after all and I thought I’d link to a few medical related songs to tie in. I hope you like them! Oh and as usual there is a tidbit of trivia for each one!
“Doctor Doctor” – Thompson Twins. Did you know that no one in the band was called Thompson? In fact they took their name from the two detectives in Herge’s Adventures Of Tin Tin. I’m looking forward to the movie adaptation of that, are you? Is it true that along with Poirot, Tin Tin is the only other famous Belgian ever? If any Belgians are reading this please add a comment to put me right, name some famous Belgians that aren’t fictional characters
Belgian? This looks like two British MPs on holiday to me
“The Medicine Song” – Stephanie Mills. Stephanie was married to Jeffrey Daniel off of Shalamar for a short period. Jeffrey is the man who taught Michael Jackson to Moonwalk and Stephanie was also romantically linked to Jacko when they appeared together in the late 70s adaptation of the Wizard of Oz called the Wiz! Now that’s what I call a link!
See Jacko really did used to be just an ordinary black kid (with an extraordinary talent though!)
“Night Nurse” – Gregory Isaacs. The Cool Ruler in my opinion had the potential to be a third world superstar along the lines of Bob Marley. However it was the lines that put paid to it, Gregory had a serious cocaine addiction which badly affected his voice at times and also caused the loss of most of his teeth.
Gregory wears a hat like that and looks cool, if I wore a hat like that I'd look like a twat (copyright Dangerous Dave Cameron)
“Knocking On Heaven’s Door” – Bob Dylan. Mr Zimmerman wrote this song for the soundtrack of the 1973 film ‘Pat Garrett an Billy the Kid” and it is one of his most covered songs. Perhaps the best known covers are from Eric Clapton and Guns ‘N’ Roses although let’s not forget that Ruth Lorenzo also covered it on X Factor. On second thoughts let’s forget!
Bob seems to have taken Johnny Cash's advice and is trying to steal a car one piece at a time
“Sexual Healing” – Marvin Gaye. Following my earlier comments about Belgium I should point out that this song was in fact recorded in Ostend in Belgium! It has also been covered by many people from Phish to Kate Bush. Click here to hear Kate’s wonderful version.
Marvin auditions for the Village People with the YMCA dance
“The Drugs Don’t Work” – The Verve. This song gave the band their first UK number one single. At various times Richard Ashcroft has said that the song is about his addiction, the death of his father or his love for his wife.
The drugs don't work? Indeed boys, indeed! 😉
“Heal The Pain” – George Michael. My favourite George Michael album is ‘Patience’ (I guess that kind of fits with the medical theme too…………. think about it!) One of the tracks from the album caused a great deal of controversy when the video was released. The track was “Shoot The Dog” and it showed Tony Blair as George W Bush’s poodle. Hmmmmmm so what’s wrong with that then, it was true wasn’t it? Click on the song title to check out the video and make up your own mind. Incidentally there might be a prize for the first person to tell me which song George samples on the track
George heals the pain (well I think that's what he's doing) of the other bloke off of Wham
“Doctor My Eyes” – Jackson Browne. This song has been covered a few times, most notably by the Jackson 5 in 1973, click here to hear their version. Jackson Browne himself recently won his case against John McCain and the Republican party for using his song “Running On Empty” without his permission.
So no chance of John McCain getting through that door then, thankfully!
“Bad Medicine” – Bon Jovi. Jon BonJovi played in a band called Raze at school and later he went on to play in a covers band called Atlantic City Expressway. Also when he first left school he worked in a women’s shoe shop. Is that a fetish thing maybe?
Jon's hair transplant was a moderate success, he had wanted more on his head really. Oh nad please, no searches for naked Jon BonJovi as a result of this picture ok?
“Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors” – Editors. The video was shot around Prague in the Czech Republic. The band were once named as the second biggest band of the decade by the Mail On Sunday. Actually I’m not sure that’s an accolade I’d want! Incidentally those cheeky chappies from Sheffield, the Arctic Monkeys were first
Today’s post may be somewhat random in terms of content but you know what? That’s how I like it!
Some of you may know that I travel down south every Monday morning from York on the 6 a.m. train to London. This means that I get up at 5 a.m. Whay am I telling you this in a music blog? Well last Sunday night I went to bed around 11pm and some inconsiderate muppet (apologies to Mr Henson) at the end of the street decided to play what seemed like his entire collection of Shirley Bassey songs at high volume until almost 2 am. In between songs he could be heard discussing, again at great volume, the death of Michael Jackson. Things like “He’s all over the bloody papers and TV, I mean what’s that all about, he’s just a fookin’ pervy freak” Well Mr Noisemaker that may well have been true, but it’s clear that you are a completely inconsiderate bastard. I was going to come and knock on your door that night, but I doubt that you would have heard me. So I opted for a cunning plan. It was me who banged on your door Monday morning at 5.20 am while I was waiting for my taxi. I was disappointed that you didn’t answer, but oh how pleased I was when I looked back as the cab turned the corner to see you stepping out of your door with a very tired and puzzled expression. What would I have given for your door to slam shut behind you at that point. If there is any chance that you read this post, just be aware that I will do the same thing again if you persist in disturbing the neighbourhood in the same way again. You are obviously a Shirley bassey fan, so here is a few snippets of trivia about dame Shirley. Did you know that she is the only person to record more than one James Bond theme? Well it’s true and she actually recorded three; “Goldfinger” from 1963, “Diamonds Are Forever” from 1973 and “Moonraker” from 1979. Incidentally “Moonraker” was written for Johnny Mathis, well it’s your loss Johnny! She became a Dame Of The British Empire (DBE) in 1999. When Dame Shirley appeared at Glastonbury in 2005 the Arctic Monkeys played a cover of “Diamonds Are Forever” in her honour. Her vocals were also sampled by Kanye West on his hit “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” I bet you can’t guess which of her songs he sampled? 😉 She will be 72 in December which makes her old enough to be my Mum. My very own mother was 73 in February this year and in my opinion a certainty to reach triple figures
🙂
Dame Shirley enters the mud wrestling ring at Glastonbury in 2005
Many of you are aware that my son Luke is in a truly brilliant band called Steal The Smile and if you’re not then you clearly haven’t been reading my posts regularly enough. Anyway Steal The Smile have a new single out tomorrow 1st July. So get yourself over to their MySpace page and buy it and tell them I sent you! It’s called “Rome Was Built To Burn” and they are doing some gigs to promote it, including one at the FaceBar in Reading this Thursday (2nd July). So get yourself down there, you won’t be disappointed! Click here to visit their MySpace page
Gig poster for the mighty Steal The Smiles single launch party at the FaceBar in Reading Thursday July 2nd 2009. Be there or be Rhomboid
And finally, let’s get back to the kind of stuff that I published when I first kicked off this here blog back in February. On this day in 1975, 10CC were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘I’m Not In Love’. The instrumental break featured the repeated spoken phrase: ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry…’, which resonated with a sixteen year old me and was spoken by Kathy Warren, the receptionist at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, Cheshire where the band recorded the track. Apparently Jonathan King ‘discoverd’ Ten cc and came up with their name, allegedly the average male’s ejaculate adds up to 9cc……… well you can guess the rest. Jonathan also claims to have discovered Genesis and now he is in jail for kiddie fiddling which he denies, so what are we to believe? well good people I’ll leave that up to you!
kevin Godley was somewhat miffed that the other band members hadn’t told him about the shave your beard off for charity gig they had recently played
Well here we are again and it’s the end of March, that’s a quarter of the year gone already, where did it go exactly? I mean you often hear people say where did the time go, but does it actually go anywhere? Answers on a postcard please or just in the blog comments, or maybe you don’t have the time, if that’s the case where did it go? I mean you often hear…….. oh bloody hell it’s not Groundhog Day is it? 😉
I was going to call this post Big Balls and Sugar Walls, read on and I’m sure you’ll guess why!
If you read yesterdays post you may recall that I spoke about some of the search stats for the blog, well don’t worry I’m not going into that much detail today! But I just had to tell you that there have been 4 searches using the phrase ‘invisible man and invisible women naked’ that have arrived at this blog. The reason they arrived here is that in a previous post I made a joke comment about the invisible man in a picture. however what interests me is why anyone would search for something like that, I mean how would you know from a picture that the invisible man or woman was naked? So if you are prepared to admit it was you who searched then let me know. Also let us know whether you actually found the picture too.
I spent the usual ridiculous amount of time trying to buy Reading Festival tickets last night. The Seetickets site was down almost from the start and the Ticketmaster site seemed to have run out of tickets in a matter of minutes. As for the telephone lines, what a waste of space! So rather than give up I tried Viagogo, official ticket exchange partner of the Reading and Leeds Festivals. Viagogo are aimed at preventing touts from scamming money off real music fans, that is a principle I totally support. However when I pay more than double the face value and also get hit with a £50 plus admin fee my support diminishes somewhat. This seems no better than touting to me. What is the answer in the longer term, probably a Glastonbury style registration system and also stop putting the tickets on sale at 19.00 on a Monday evening, what happened to 9.00? when tickets used to go on sale in the morning they were usually available throughout the day. I have been going to the Reading leg of the festival for around 20 years and have missed only one in that time, but the shambolic way the tickets are sold tells me that I could be in line for missing more in future. Well at least the line up is pretty strong. Headliners are Kings Of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead. I was totally gobsmacked that Radiohead are appearing, I mean I love them, but they always seemed like more of a Glasto or V Festival band. As for the rumours of AC/ DC or Blink 182 headlining, well that came to nothing. But already the rumour mill for Reading 2010 is turning and suggests that two of the headliners will be Blink 182 and Green Day. If that’s correct remember where you read it first ok? 😉
Reading Festival 2009 Line Up
Now on to the usual stuff, starting with a birthday. It is Angus Young off of AC/DC’s 54th birthday today. Although some sources have him as 52 or 50, this is thought to have come about following comments made to the press when he first adopted the school uniform look for gigs. Although a part of one of the biggest and best Aussie bands ever, Angus McKinnon Young was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was just 18 when he formed AC/DC in 1973 with his brother Malcolm. They took the name from seeing those letters on the back of a sewing machine owned by their mother. Here is Angus with the rest of the AC/ DC gang with “Big Balls”
probably the only 50 something man who might seem attractive to Michael Jackson, but only if he is fooled by the school uniform!
On this day in 1967 Jimi Hendrix began his first British tour with Cat Stevens. It was on this tour that Hendrix set fire to his guitar for the first time
No one could light farts the way Jimi could. The wind didn't cry Mary it cried fan me and flame me!
And on this day in 1987 Prince’s – ‘Sign O’ The Times’ double album was released. The Purple One actually intended it to be a triple album but Warner Bros talked him down to a 22 track double album. I still rate this as my favourite Prince album. he even duets with Sheena Easton on “U Got The Look”. Although my favourite songs are “Starfish And Coffee” and “If I Was Your Girlfriend“. He also wrote a rather risque song for Ms Easton called “Sugar Walls”
Say what you like about Prince but he sure had big balls, well at least one anyway!
And finally on this day in 1992 White Zombie’s ‘La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. One’ was released. It was their first release on a major label. The band named themselves after a Bela Lugosi film and lasted until the fabulous Rob Zombie left in 1998. In 1993 their single “Thunder Kiss ’65” was played hundreds of times on MTV. Here are White Zombie with a fantastic video and cover of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “I’m Your Boogie Man”
So they made ugly music for ugly people did they?..........
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 