With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

Reading Festival Day 3 – Sunday 30th August 2009 August 31, 2009

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 4:45 pm
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Well firstly apologies for the delay in the delivery of this post but it was a long journey home and basically I’m bloody knackered, this old body just can’t take festivals like it used to. I’m sure my fellow ‘old boy’ festival buddy Nick H would concur with that, wouldn’t you Nick?

Anyway on to the final day of the Reading Festival for 2009. Who’s up for 2010? We get there reasonably early on Sunday to make the most of what was supposed to be a sunny day but turned out somewhat grey in the weather stakes, but definitely not grey in the music stakes! First up we saw In Case Of Fire on the NME Radio 1 Stage, these guys all wore the same red shirts, I’m not sure a band uniform works for me (apologies to Devo and Kraftwerk and others). Anyway aside from that these boys certainly knew how to play some excellent punk power pop. Next up it was Noah and the Whale on the Main Stage. I had a few of their songs before but live I felt they were much better. For me they were kind of folky pop with shades of Aztec Camera, perhaps Prefab Sprout and even Lou Reed at times. Their singer even used an electric toothbrush on his guitar at one point, now that is warped. But perhaps slightly more disturbing was that on many occasions the drummer seemed to be miming to a completely different song to the one that the band were playing!

After this we decided to pay another visit to the Festival Republic stage following our success with 65 Days Of Static yesterday. However this was not another one of those finds, we saw the XX and we really weren’t excited by them at all, kind of trippy Indie which seemed incredibly dull, but they seemed to have a lot of fans so to each their own. We saw one song from the Teeth on the BBC Introducing stage. They seemed very good, but we only saw one song, they came across as a geeky, space age version of Sha Na Na. If Sha Na Na were the Flintstones the Teeth would probably be the Jetsons.

Back to the Main Stage now for an appointment with Aussie band the Living End. A bit like Green Day but with a Double Bass. They’re back in the UK for a tour later this year, I reckon they’ll be worth checking out. After this we had perhaps our quirkiest moment of the festival, we tripped across to the Alternative Stage and chanced upon Adam Buxton who in simple terms showed a few film clips and gave out some free snacks. However the quality of the films was truly wonderful, especially the literal video for Aha’s “Take On Me” give it a search on Youtube, I will add it to a post soon as well.

Then it was back to the NME Radio 1 Stage to see the Passion Pit. This is a US band with a sound that could rip a hole in the fabric of space time and a singer who comes across as Leo Sayer begatting Mika whilst on hard drugs. (Ha! I bet you thought begatting only happened in the bible didn’t you?). Next we were back to the Main Stage for the rest of the day. Starting with the brilliant Vampire Weekend, these guys know how to party, the African tinged guitars help I’m sure. I love their first album and this time they even played a few new songs. I also love M79 and whilst I know it’s about a bus in New York, does anyone else think the instrumental hook sounds remotely like “The Wheels On The Bus”? I’d love to know. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were next and just as I had made up my mind for the best costumes seen at the festival this year along comes Karen O wearing something that must have come together after an explosion at a plastic recycling plant! A great set though, but don’t you think her shouty between song voice grates a little? Incidentally until that point my vote for best costume went to the Where’s Wally team, I think there were six of them dressed as the elusive Wally (to my friends from across the big pond, you’ll know Wally as Waldo). The most disturbing costume that I saw was the guy in the Nuns Habit with a pig mask. scary! If you were one of the Wally’s or the Nun Pig I’d love to hear from you!

Bloc Party were the penultimate act on the Main Stage. I have managed to miss them all the other occasions they have appeared here, but I’m glad that I caught them this time, they played a storming set and their laser show was pretty good too.

But this year I think Reading saved the best until last with probably the best headliner I have ever seen at Reading; the mighty Radiohead (can we call them the ‘Head?). I thought that being Reading they might play “Creep” but to open with it, I don’t think anyone expected that! Their light show was truly amazing and for me they proved once again why they are easily the most influential band of their generation. How will the organisers follow that in 2010? Watch this space to find out and in the meantime let me know who you’d like to see at the event next year. Whether you liked the same acts that I did or you liked the ones that I didn’t I really hope you had a great festival and a safe journey home

 

Reading Festival Day 2 – Saturday 29th August 2009 August 30, 2009

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 9:55 am
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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!

 

“Giant steps are what you take” July 20, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 9:39 am
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One simple footprint which for me says so very much

One simple footprint which for me says so very much

Greetings fellow astronuts and space cadets! As most of you know I come in peace, but I’m not that interested in meeting your leader ok. I’m not particularly sure that I’d like to take over the planet either! Anyway enough blathering on, I simply could not let this momentous occasion go without a mention, even in a humble music blog. It’s July 20th today and 40 years ago two men landed on the moon; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and do not forget Michael Collins who piloted Columbia the Command Module which remained in orbit around the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin took the Eagle the Lunar Module to the surface.

The crew of Apollo 11 chose this, did you notice that the Eagle that represents America carries an olive branch representing peace?

The crew of Apollo 11 chose this, did you notice that the Eagle that represents America carries an olive branch representing peace?

In my opinion this is undoubtedly the greatest achievement of my 50 years on the planet. When I was a boy I wanted to be an astronaut, but then I guess millions of others did too. I wonder if as many people want that now? I hope so. My Mum and Dad were quite strict about my bedtime and I was only 10 years old in 1969 so it was amazing that my Dad let me stay up or woke me up in the early hours so that I didn’t miss anything. In those days I collected anything to do with the Apollo missions; newspapers, magazines, models, a massive poster of the moon and countless things that have disappeared from my memory. I did have an Airfix scale model of the Saturn V rocket and another of the Lunar Module. The latter was incredibly difficult to put together!

It looks like a Blue Peter project really doesn't it?

It looks like a Blue Peter project really doesn't it?

We sent a further six missions to the moon and in addition to Aldrin and Armstrong a further 10 men walked on it’s surface. I am still saddened that we haven’t really done much in the way of manned planetary exploration since Apollo 17 in 1973. I would love to think we could make it to Mars within my lifetime.

The Lunar Module leaves the moon and returns to the Command Module for the return to Earth

The Lunar Module leaves the moon and returns to the Command Module for the return to Earth

Let me briefly address those who say the moon landings were faked, in my opinion those people are talking complete crap. There is plenty of information around that debunks all those moon landing hoax theories. I won’t bore you with the details here, but to those who believe the conspiracy stuff please say hi to Elvis and Jacko from me when you next see them in the 7-11

Probably the most iconic picture of their time on the moon this is Aldrin snapped by Armstrong and is often known as the visor shot for what you can see reflected in Buzz's visor

Probably the most iconic picture of their time on the moon this is Aldrin snapped by Armstrong and is often known as the visor shot for what you can see reflected in Buzz's visor

In the UK the Apollo 11 mission was also important for a certain Mr Bowie. He got his first hit single out of it when the BBC used his “Space Oddity” as the theme for their coverage. It reached number 5 in the UK charts in 1969 and eventually made number one when it was reissued in 1975. That song is in fact reissued today in a format which also provides you with each separately recorded track to enable you to remix it yourself. I for one will be buying it later! Appropriately(ish) enough Thunderclap Newman’s “Something In The Air” was number one in the UK at the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Neil Armstrong's Space Suit........ or perhaps it was Major Tom's?

Neil Armstrong's Space Suit........ or perhaps it was Major Tom's?

So without further ado here is a small hit parade of Moon related songs, well this is a music blog after all!

1 “Space Oddity” – David Bowie (come on I’m a fan what did you expect!)

2 “Saturn V” – Inspiral Carpets (what a glorious sight that rocket was)

3 “Sleeping Satellite”  – Tasmin Archer (this song appears to express the sadness that I feel about us never having gone back to our sleeping satellite)

4 “Walking On The Moon” – Police (Ok now we’re onto gratuitous use of moon in the song!)

5 “Fly Me To The Moon” – Frank Sinatra (How could I not include this fabulous song?)

OK that’s my five moon related songs, I’m sure that you have plenty more, so tell me what they are!

In the meantime click here to enjoy some of the BBC’s coverage of the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic mission.

 

“She tied my eyes with ribbon of a silken ghostly thread, I gazed with troubled vision on an old four poster bed” July 14, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 9:17 pm
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Hello again dear readers, I’m back with another small collection of ‘onthisdays’ today, this time for July 15th. I should warn you that this post does contain two pictures of naked women (well the same woman actually, Lady Madge). OK so now there are only 50% of readers left, the others have all paged down to the pictures let me say that this blog has a history of naked pics; there’s been Eminem, Ronan Keating and not Lily Allen, although we did run the Lily Allen Naked experiment, check the tags to find out more, but whatever you think you WILL NOT find proper naked pics of anyone here. But I’m sure that won’t stop you looking will it?

On this day in 1973 the Great Western Express Festival took place at White City in London. It sounds like it was sponsored by a train line or train company, does anyone know if that was the case? Anyway trains or no trains the line up included the Edgar Winter Group, Sly & the Family Stone, Canned Heat, Lindisfarne and the Kinks. It was at this White City show that Ray Davies off of the Kinks announced that he was sick of the whole thing and was retiring. He apparently then walked to the local hospital and collapsed, presumably when he saw the size of the queue (my American readers should replace queue with line!). Clearly he didn’t retire for long either.

This time the boys made certain that Ray couldn't leave by sitting on him

This time the boys made certain that Ray couldn’t leave by sitting on him

Lindisfarne who were also on the bill that day were particularly successful in the UK in the early 70’s having two UK top 10 hits in 1972 with “Meet Me On The Corner” and “Lady Eleanor“. Perhaps lesser known though is that the band’s Alan Jackson played the mandolin on Rod Stewart’s 1971 UK number one “Maggie May”. This part was once mimed on the BBC’s Top Of The Pops show by the greatest DJ that ever lived, the late great (hey welcome back l & g’s) Mr John Peel.

Clearly sharing the booze would be difficult with hardly any glasses. meet me on the corner and I'll give you some guys!

Clearly sharing the booze would be difficult with hardly any glasses. meet me on the corner and I’ll give you some guys!

It was on this very day in 1985 that nude photos of Madonna taken in 1977 appeared in both Playboy and Penthouse this month. I’m not sure whether she took any action but it was just a few years later that she launched her book ‘Sex’ containing naked and erotic pictures of herself. It was hardly pornographic although the price was somewhat obscene. Anyway here is Madge herself with “Erotica” and just remember guys it may make you go blind! You have been warned

Madonna shows the world her pussy.............................cat!

Madonna shows the world her pussy………………………..cat!

By the time Madonna published her 'Sex' book the need for Parental Advisory Style Stickers had become somewhat ridiculous

By the time Madonna published her ‘Sex’ book the need for Parental Advisory Style Stickers had become somewhat ridiculous

Back in 1998 on this day Aerosmith had to cancel an upcoming US tour after the band’s drummer Joey Kramer suffered a bizarre accident. His car caught fire and was destroyed completely as he was filling it up with petrol. he was admitted to hospital with second degree burns.

Joey soon realised that starting fires by rubbing his sticks together was much safer than starting fires in petrol/ gas stations

Joey soon realised that starting fires by rubbing his sticks together was much safer than starting fires in petrol/ gas stations

 

“So tonight gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf and just enjoy yourself” June 26, 2009

Filed under: Obituary — justwilliam1959 @ 3:18 pm
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OK so I haven’t posted much lately but I couldn’t let a momentous event like the death of Michael Jackson go by without posting could I? As many of you know the first gig I ever saw was the Jackson 5 at the Wembley Empire Pool (now known as the WembleyArena). I went with a school friend, Brian Taylor who later found fame as an incredibly talented drummer for the Tom Robinson Band and the Stiff Little Fingers amongothers. (Brian if by some weird twist of fate you’re actually reading this feel free to get in touch). The importance of the group to Motown was apparent in the choice of support acts; Junior Walker and the All Stars and a pre-fame Commodores.

Sadly I actually had a jacket similar to that, but it was the 70s!

Sadly I actually had a jacket similar to that, but it was the 70s!

If my memory serves me well the Jackson 5 had recently released the fabulous “Looking Through The Windows” single, which I still love to this day. In fact I still play a few Jackson 5 songs in my DJ sets. Most recently I ran “I Want You Back” next to “ABC“. Indeed the former has been the ring tone on my mobile phone for months now. Those early J5 songs were fantastically produced, supremely well written and perhaps most importantly performed so brilliantly. I think that at the time, perhaps because I was pretty much the same age as Michael Jackson (he was born in August 1958 and I was born in January 1959) the J5 were by far my favourite group. I’m not ashamed to admit either that I used to mime to those early singles in front of the mirror using my hairbrush (for in those days not only did I possess one I actually needed to use it) as a microphone. Go on there must be more of you who did that kind of thing, like maybe miming to Hendrix using your tennis racket as a guitar? Post a comment about it, let’s have a series of ‘Confessions Of A Teenage Mime Artist’

Mike on the mic

Mike on the mic

Anyway back to the late great Michael Jackson as the J5 was the first live act I ever saw (I’m not counting the dreadful covers bands that played in hotels when my folks took me to Spain as a youngster – “Guantanamera” in-bloody-deed!) I was always going to interested in them to some degree. I followed their recording career quite closely throughout the 70s. Stuff like “Dancing Machine” is excellent. Then they left Motown to join Epic and produced some great stuff there too, for me the best being “Enjoy Yourself” and “Show You The Way To Go“. I felt that from around 1972 until “Off The Wall” Michael’s solo releases were at best patchy. But when “Off The Wall” hit the record racks that has to be the moment he began to ascend the stairs to super-stardom. He probably reached a level of fame that no one else ever has. In terms of fame he was probably far bigger than the Beatles or Elvis ever were. That level of celebrity must bring such pressure to bear on the way you need to live your life and maybe that’s perhaps where things began to go a little awry. Now is not the time to discuss the allegations of child abuse and whether I believe he was guilty or not is irrelevant. But I will say that it might have been better if he wasn’t surrounded by ‘yes men’ who did nothing to control his excesses. Did those people really care about him or about their own wealth? I’ll let you make your own minds up on that one! What is undeniable though is that he was one of the most talented individuals ever to have graced the world of music. His contemporaries from an age perspective at least were Madonna and Prince. Both of them are also supremely talented, but on the same level as MJ? I don’t think so. I reckon that Michael would probably appear in the top tens of more music fans than any other artist. What do you think dear readers?

A still from the Billie Jean video

A still from the Billie Jean video

The ‘Off The Wall’ album was the first in what proved in my opinion at least to be a trilogy of his greatest recordings. This was followed by the juggernaut that was ‘Thriller’ and then by the underrated (in my opinion) ‘Bad’. After that I never felt he reached those artistic highs again and I’m not sure that he ever would, but now we’ll never know will we?

‘Thriller’ sold in excess of 50 million copies worldwide, I wonder how many more copies will be sold now he has died? Remember that people tend to buy lots of product of immediately deceased stars. Just recall all the hits that Elvis and John Lennon had after they died, in some cases many years after they died

A still from the Zombie dance in the Thriller video

A still from the Zombie dance in the Thriller video

I would like to think that history looks reasonably kindly on Michael Jackson. He was a truly talented individual and yes he had flaws, some allegedly quite serious. But then how many of us can say we are completely flawless?

So let’s celebrate MJ’s life with another view of his superb performance at the Motown 25th Anniversary show in 1983. Click here to see it. Additionally Mojo Magazine has an excellent collection of Jacko videos on their website, click here to see them.

Also did any of you ever see his collaboration with my favourite author, Stephen King? It was a short but superb movie called “Ghosts”

I happened to visit HMV at lunchtime today and oh boy have they moved quickly. Nothing but Jacko on the sound system and stacks of his CDs now occupying prime positions in the store whereas last week they were all in the sale items (2 for £10). I know that sales people are often seen as cynical but to do that so soon after the guy is dead really takes the biscuit!

The tributes from other celebrities are quite interesting too, here are some words from Celine Dion; “He was not only a talented person, but he was unique – a genius. It’s such a loss. It feels like when Kennedy died.” Now it’s kinda strange that she seems to remember how that felt when Kennedy was killed in 1963 and Ms Dion wasn’t born until 1968.

Thanks to Popbitch for the following  joke I know that the usual crop of sick jokes are doing the rounds as well, but I actually found this one quite amusing, here goes, but don’t read it if you think you might feel just a little bit offended ok. You have been warned;

There will be a post-mortem today to determine which was the cause of death:

A) Sunshine B) Moonlight C) Good Times D) Boogie

And a bit of fun to try and cheer up Jacko’s fans, here is an excellent Bollywood version of Thriller (thanks again to Popbitch for pointing this one out too)

Overall the BBC coverage of Michael’s death has been excellent, check it out here.

As a bit of an epilogue to this story I actually received my 15 minutes of fame this morning (well more like 15 seconds actually) when I made a brief appearance on BBC Radio York (thank you to Liam for arranging that!) this morning to comment on MJ and how it was the first gig I’d ever seen.

 

“Eat your words but don’t go hungry, words have always nearly hung me” June 12, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 11:29 pm
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Hello once again dear readers. Did you read the news that according to an American company the one millionth English word is about to be born, well actually it is probably already filling nappies (or diapers if you wish) as we speak. Apparently a company called GLM based in Texas whose raison-daitre is to tell companies how many times they are mentioned on the Internet can also search for the appearance of any word. Their self created methodology in determining a new word says that it must have appeared 25,000 times on the Internet, there is no time period applied. This all seems somewhat like bollocks to me (I’m not swearing bollocks is an Anglo Saxon word, just ask the Sex Pistols and Virgin Records!). Many Lexicographers (now that’s a fantastic job title!) are unhappy with these colonial usurpers telling them how it’s done! I tend to agree, but only because most Americans don’t speak English ‘like what it is supposed to be spoken’ I mean come on, no ‘U’ in colour, pronouncing route incorrectly, then there’s schedule and tomato. Don’t even get me started on fanny OK! 😉 Seriously though please don’t take offence at this if you are American, feel free to take offense though 🙂 But if you’d like a slightly more serious view click here for the link to the BBC that carries the story. Then click here for the follow up, for indeed while I have been typing (admittedly it has taken nearly three days to complete this post!) the new word has been dumped kicking and screaming into a world that, frankly, neither wants it or needs it. Only a nerdy geek could have given birth to it. For I know the word and the word is……………… Web 2.0, I kid you not. The nearest rivals were Jai-Ho (from the Slumdog Millionaire movie) and nOOB (something to do with nerdy, geeky gamers I believe) All that hype and all we get is a couple of small turds plopping into the lexicon of life.

Anyway I was thinking that a word related post might be interesting so here goes. Let’s kick off with the rather stupendous Tom Tom Club with the rather jolly “Wordy Rappinghood” Now I think Rappinghood would have made an excellent millionth word contender, how about you? Tom Tom Club I suppose really began as on offshoot of Talking Heads, I think nowadays the correct term might be side project! The band consisted of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz off of Talking Heads and a cast of many other noted musicians; Adrian Belew, Wally Badarou and the Compass Point All Stars to name just a few. Their earliest success came with the divine “Genius Of Love”. But they really broke big when the 12 inch versions of Genius and Rappinghood were issued and got a lot of club play in 1982. Their songs have been sampled by many people including Grandmaster Flash and Mariah Carey. The band also appeared on the Talking Heads live concert movie ‘Stop Making Sense’

camouflage was not that well understood by Tom Tom Club

camouflage was not that well understood by Tom Tom Club

Next up it’s the Gibb Brothers (OK the Bee Gees then) with “Words” Which was once given a depressingly dull makeover by the band that put bland into everything the rather shite (in my opinion of course) Boyzone. Sadly it gave Ronan and the boys their first UK number one. But if you’d like to hear some better covers of the song there are plenty out there. Check out some good covers from Rita Coolidge and Georgie Fame. You can find a great Bee Gees reference in the strangest place, there is an excellent parody of them in Blink 182’s video for “First Date” Speaking of the Bee Gees , I was walking to the train station earlier this week lost in my iPod and on came “Stayin’ Alive”, how I longed to be carrying a pot of paint so that I could make like Travolta’s Tony Manero in ‘Saturday Night Fever’. Sadly a laptop bag just doesn’t cut it, does it?

The Gibb boys prepare for the Christmas number one by wrapping themselves in Bacofoil like Turkeys

The Gibb boys prepare for the Christmas number one by wrapping themselves in Bacofoil like Turkeys

Then we have the boys that put Cod Piece back in the dictionary, Cameo with “Word Up” Which bizarrely in my humble opinion was covered by Korn! Click here to here the Korn version. The song was a massive hit for Cameo in 1986, the promo rounds were probably made much more memorable by Larry Blackmon’s polished red cod piece. For me Larry was one of only two people who have ever been able to pull off a cod piece (ooooooooh Matron!) The other one being Edmund Blackadder. The song also gets played in an Episode of the Simpsons entitled, appropriately for this post, ‘Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words’ where Lisa performs in a crossword competition.

Mr Cod Piece 1986

Mr Cod Piece 1986

I haven’t mentioned the Beatles and Bowie for a while so how about the Beatles with “The Word” and Mr Bowie with the hardly ever played “Word On A Wing”. The Beatles song appeared on ‘Rubber Soul’ and in addition to the Fab Four also had George Martin playing the Harmonium. Bowie’s song appeared on the excellent ‘Station To Station’ album from 1976 and emanating from the Dame’s ‘Thin White Duke’ period. It was also a B side to the single version of “Stay” from the same album. It is a relatively religious song and written while Bowie was very much coke addled. It also coincided with the time Mr Jones began to wear a crucifix

John you may have more friends than me, but at least mine isn't a midget!

John you may have more friends than me, but at least mine isn’t a midget!

I shall finish this post with the wonderful “ABC” by the Jackson Five. OK I know it’s not strictly a word but if you didn’t know your ABC you wouldn’t be able to make words would you? The song was a US number one and like the earlier “I Want You Back” was written by the mysterious Corporation. Not that mysterious though it was a Motown writing team that consisted of Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Alphonso Mizell and Deke Richards. The song was backed with a cover of a lesser known Diana Ross And The Supremes song; “The Young Folks”

Before they could afford a tour bus the boys used alternative transport

Before they could afford a tour bus the boys used alternative transport

OK that’s all for now, but tell me your word songs, I can think of a couple more but I’d like to hear from you my dear readers!

 

“I’ll be buzzin’ round your hive everyday at five” May 2, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 8:14 am
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It’s me again people, I’m back with another one of those annoyingly intermittent blog posts. Actually they may well become more intermittent these days as I move back to being much more fully immersed in the corporate world, I start a new job next week. What will I be doing and who will I be working for? Well (and to those of you who truly believe that gullible really has been removed from the dictionary this next bit should be read with tongue in cheek!) I have searched far and wide to discover and produce an alternative cheap and environmentally friendly fuel to power our motor vehicles. I have left no stone unturned and no sting unstung. Indeed it is the sting thing that finally led me to my discovery. For some time I have been extracting the urine from Bumble Bees, well frankly anyone who wears a black and yellow hooped jumper deserves to have the piss taken out of them don’t you think? The extraction process is quite painful, well it is for the bees! Anyway I now have so much of the stuff in the fridge that it’s beginning to curdle the milk, so it’s time to put some in the car and guess what…….. it works! It powered the mighty Volvo for around ten yards, yes I am now being fuelled by Bee Pee. So can you guess who I’ll be working for? 😉

You may be smiling now but just wait until the extraction starts!

You may be smiling now but just wait until the extraction starts!

I know that this is really supposed to be a music blog and this one isn’t even about bees either but this story was too good not to share. It’s about a cat called Henry who steals socks. Click here to read it on the Beeb.

In keeping with the first part of this post todays trivia will be Bee related 🙂

So let’s start with the late great (those ever present l’s & g’s are here again) Elvis Aaron Presley, who had a hit with “I Got Stung” in 1958. A song so old it even has more wrinkles than me. The song was one of many that Elvis recorded during his National Service and was in fact on the flipside of “One Night”. some of you dedicated trivia fans probably know that the song also topped the UK charts during the 2005 reissues programme, indeed I have all those reissued singles, how sad am I? “I Got Stung” was written by Aaron Schroeder and David Hill but is was produced by Mike Stoller off of Leiber and Stoller. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote a number of hits for Elvis, including “Jailhouse Rock” A young Phil Spector also worked with the pair in his early career in the music industry.

Elvis really swelled up after he got stung

Elvis really swelled up after he got stung

Those of you that are older than me will remember that Arthur Askey recorded “The Bee Song” but did you know that he also starred in a 1944 movie called ‘Bees In Paradise’? Whilst it was set on a mysterious island in the South Atlantic (so not the Falklands then?) where men are regarded as disposable beings useful only for breeding purposes. The island is ruled by scantily clad warrior women. The story involves four airmen, including Arthur Askey, parachuting onto the island with Askey’s character becoming the object of desire for one of the native women played by Ann Shelton. Whilst the film may have been set on a tropical island it was actually filmed in Torquay.

That's not glasses that Arthur is wearing they're protective goggles

That’s not glasses that Arthur is wearing they’re protective goggles

How could I do a post relating to Bees without mentioning Sting, well quite easily actually, but I won’t. Sting or Gordon Sumner to his nearest and dearest got his nickname after wearing a black and yellow hooped jumper when playing a gig with a jazz band, the Phoenix Jazzmen. As I said earlier anyone who wears a black and yellow hooped jumper deserves to have the piss taken out of them, I rest my case! Anyway here is Mr Sting with the fabulous “Englishman In New York”

Actually I think I'd prefer him in the yellow and black hooped jumper

Actually I think I’d prefer him in the yellow and black hooped jumper

And without further ado let me end with a classic philosophical Monty Python song “Eric The Half A Bee” Enjoy!

The end............. for now!

The end…………. for now!

 

 

“You in your small corner, I stand in mine. Throw all the punch you want to, I can take them all” April 30, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 10:49 am
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Hello once again good Blog Peeps, this is the first time I’ve posted two days on the trot for ages, so I’ll try and make it a good one.

Firstly I recently reacquainted myself with the wonderful ‘KissThisGuy‘ website aka the Archive Of Misheard Lyrics. You’re probably all familiar with that classic Hendrix misheard lyric which gives the site it’s name. The lyric comes from “Purple Haze” and if you click on the song title you will see that perhaps this wasn’t necessarily the misheard lyric we all thought it was. Incidentally if you’re not familiar with this and you wondering what the hell I’m talking about the original line was ‘scuse me while I kiss the sky’ and has apparently often been misheard as ‘scuse me while I kiss this guy’. There are some excellent misheard lyrics on the site my favourite has to be the one taken from “Centrefold” by the J Geils Band, are you ready for this? Are you sure? Really, really sure? You won’t be offended? OK then here it is ‘my anus is the centre hole’ Isn’t that excellent?

Jimi prepares to 'kiss this guy'! ;-)

Jimi prepares to 'kiss this guy'! 😉

I’d like to finish this misheard lyrics piece with a comment about my Mum, she’s smarter than me in most things, but she has come up with some excellent misheard lyrics. My two favourites from her are Dr Hook’s “Sylvia’s Mother” where she heard ‘Sylvia’s mother’s dead’ rather than ‘Sylvia’s mother said’ and also Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World” where my Mum for some strange reason heard ‘Hiawatha was a bullfrog’ instead of the actual lyric of ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’ Hopefully you’re reading this post Mum 😉 In defence of my Mum, I’m not perfect when it comes to misheard lyrics either. I was perhaps aged 9 or 10 when I first heard Max Romeo’s classic reggae single “Wet Dream“. being a complete innocent in those days I actually thought the whole song was in some made up foreign language. So I heard phonetically ‘lygo lygo hushy girl hushy girl lygo’ when in fact Max was singing ‘lie down gal let me push it up, push it up lie down” As you can see I wasn’t even close 🙂 The song was banned from radio in the UK for being sexually explicit, although Max did explain once that the song was about a plumber coming to fix a leak, you know somehow I reckon he was telling porkies, what do you think?

Is Max's girl waiting for the plumber?

Is Max's girl waiting for the plumber?

Anyway enough of that vulgar frivolity and onto the usual dull and boring stuff, starting with a birthday. April 30th 2009 is the 76th birthday of Mr Willie Nelson, one of the few country stars that I can actually listen to. Over the years Nelson has proved himself to be an excellent songwriter, perhaps one of his greatest songs was “Crazy” which became the signature tune of the late great (see the l’s & g’s never go away for long!) Patsy Cline. He has also collaborated with many other artists including Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Snoop Dogg and a former Real Madrid goalkeeper Senor Julio Iglesias with “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” Nelson’s guitar is named Trigger after Roy Rogers ever present and faithful horse. Willie has said that when Trigger becomes unplayable he will probably retire. Enjoy some Willie here (ooooooooooh MATRON!) with “You Were Always On My Mind”

This is Willie Nelson's guitar, affectionately known as Trigger. It sure has been used!

This is Willie Nelson's guitar, affectionately known as Trigger. It sure has been used!

On this day in 1968 the ‘Cilla Black Show’ was launched by the BBC. Cilla apparently became the first British female artist to have her own show. The theme song “Step Inside Love” was written by none other than Sir Paul McCartney off of the Beatles!

Cilla has to duck to avoid the glass ceiling at the BBC

Cilla has to duck to avoid the glass ceiling at the BBC

And finally on this day in 1976 Keith Moon off of the Who paid nine cab drivers to block both ends of a New York street so that he could throw the contents of his hotel room out of the window. Now that is what I call rock n roll! They don’t make ’em like that any more do they?

keith had thrown almost everything out of his hotel room, except of course for the girls!

keith had thrown almost everything out of his hotel room, except of course for the girls!

 

The Boat That Rocked April 12, 2009

Filed under: Film — justwilliam1959 @ 10:29 am
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How many of you have seen the new Richard Curtis movie “The Boat That Rocked”? Isn’t it excellent? If you haven’t seen it I’ll forgive you for just a short while as it has only just been released, but report to the headmasters office if you still haven’t seen it by the end of the month.

Nick Frost

It’s a comedy set aboard a pirate radio ship in the North Sea in the 60’s. I don’t know about you but I am old enough to remember the heyday of pirate radio stations. Indeed I remember listening to both Radio London and Radio Caroline as a child at home. The film’s station Radio Rock sounds authentic to me. At the time the BBC’s pop music output was tiny at no more than two hours a week. The British government were keen to shut down the pirates, presumably as this would give them more control. At it’s peak it was estimated that more than 20 million people were listening to pirate stations.The government eventually succeeded with introduction of the Marine Offences Act but they clearly understood the value of pirate stations as the BBC launched Radio 1 on 30th September 1967. In fact many of the Radio 1 DJs had previously worked on pirate stations, including Tony Blackburn and my favourite DJ’s Johnnie Walker and John Peel.

Anyway back to the movie. The script is hilarious and the casting is first class. Bill Nighy is truly wonderful as the stations owner. Thick Kevin is a very funny character too. Some of the funniest characters are Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Count, Nick Frost as Doctor Dave and Rhys Ifans as Gavin. Watch out for the ‘chicken’ contest between Doctor Dave and Gavin it’s hilarious. So is the truth or dare scene about flatulence follow through! A special mention certainly goes to Kenneth Brannagh as a government minister too. My favourite character though was probably Angus ‘The Nut’ Nutsford played by Darby Rhys. You may have seen him before as Murray the Manager in ‘Flight Of The Conchords’

The soundtrack is bloody good too. Some excellent 60’s sounds including Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”, Martha and the Vandella’s “Dancing In The Street” There is an excellent cover of Lorraine Ellison’s “Stay With Me Baby” (which is one of the 50 songs in my top 10) from Duffy. perhaps the oddest choice of music though is the use of David Bowie’s 1983 number one “Let’s Dance” to close a sixties movie. In a nutshell that is the only thing I didn’t like about the film.

The Boat That Rocked is definitely a feel good movie and has some great laugh out loud moments. Failure to see it is not an option! Check out the film’s official website here.

Radio Rock really does rock!

The Boat That Rocked