If you have read the posts for the first three days you will know that this years 12 Days of Christmas showcases a collection of songs that communicate hope. This kicked off with the Bill Withers classic, “Lean On Me”, followed with “Here Comes The Sun” by the Beatles and yesterday Johnny Nash with “I Can See Clearly Now”. At the end of the twelve days I will compile all the songs into a playlist and might even add some of your choices that didn’t make it to my list. We have all been through some very dark times in the past couple of years, some far more than others. I hope todays song helps bring a little light to your darkness, it is Bob Marley with “Three Little Birds” Once again let me say, stay strong people and if you are feeling particularly low talk to someone. I am happy to be here for you if you need me!
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I am proud to say that the With Just A Hint Of mayhem blog has now been around for twelve years, yes on February 9th back in 2009 is where it all started. In that time there have been more than 1,500 posts, nearly 1.7 million views and we now have over 2,500 followers. I can’t let this post go without a very special thank you to my great friend and wonderful human being Nick Horslen who suggested that I should start blogging all those years ago! After a very brief introductory post the first proper post was one about Bob Marley, click here to read that. I just read it again and despite expecting it to be a bit crap, I think I am quite proud of it. You have to start somewhere, right? The mention and the link to MySpace certainly dates it though. Given these awful times we are living in rather than suggest huge celebratory party songs in honour of WJAHOM’s 12th birthday I have chosen a couple of songs that always make me feel good which I hope will help you through these dark days. One of them is, in my opinion, the finest Bob Marley recording ever and the other is by my favourite vocalist of all time, Johnny Nash who we sadly lost this year! On top of that I have added a Bowie classic, well you knew I’d do that didn’t you. Stay safe people and thank you to everyone of you who has read, followed, commented, liked or dissed WJAHOM over the years. A huge thank you to all the bands and artists that have been a part of this journey. Here’s to the next 12 years, by which time I’ll be 74, so things might slow down by then, but who knows?
If only the Dame was still around to help celebrate the 12th Birthday of With Just A Hint Of Mayhem! Especially as the blog title was stolen from one of his lyrics!
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I thought I would share some of my Spotify listening habits. Apparently I listened to Spotify for more than 12 days last year, I wish I knew how much time I listened to vinyl, CDs, MP3s, radio and other on line sources too. I discovered 577 new artists, wow! My most listened to song was David Bowie’s version of “Wild Is The Wind” and unsurprisingly Bowie was my most listened to artist once again (996 minutes, nearly 6% of my total Spotify listening time) I was also in the top 0.5% of Bowie listeners. The other artists in my top 5 were Biffy Clyro, the Streets, Ella Fitzgerald and Woke Up Dead. I listened to 1,286 artists. My top decade was the 1970s, again no surprise there. Top genres were Rock, Soul and Dance Rock. Rather fascinatingly my music is more obscure than 80% of UK users, what on earth does that mean? I also found a few rather amusing, to me anyway, graphs and charts to accompany this post!
Since starting on this post I have also discovered a few sites on which you can regularly update your Spotify statistics split between artists and tracks and then last 4 weeks/ current, Last six months and all time within that. My favourites among these sites so far are Favourite Music Guru, Obscurify Music and Stats For Spotify. Have you used any of these or can you recommend others?
In case you’re interested in my warped eclectic taste these are my top artists on Spotify (Current, Medium Term and all time) The top songs follow those lists. Incidentally the Kunts and Jarvis Cocker feaure strongly on the tracks lists simply because I did my bit to get them to be the Christmas number one in the UK these last two years!
Top Artists — Short Term (4 weeks)
The Beatles
Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Eagles
London Symphony Orchestra
Evie Sands
Rumer
Jackson Browne
David Bowie
Bobbie Gentry
Harry Styles
Top Artists — Medium Term (6 months)
David Bowie
Biffy Clyro
Gregory Porter
The Avalanches
John Lennon
Eminem
Stevie Wonder
Stephen EvEns
Ella Fitzgerald
The Beatles
Top Artists — Long Term (years)
David Bowie
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Biffy Clyro
Frank Turner
Bruce Springsteen
Four Tops
Eminem
Johnny Nash
Elton John
The Streets
Top Tracks — Short Term (4 weeks)
Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
Billy the Kid, Ballet Suite: I. The Open Prairie — Aaron Copland, London Symphony Orchestra
True Faith ’94 — New Order
Jamaica Say You Will — Jackson Browne
Everybody Used to Love You — Silverjet
Raison D’Être — Stolen Dead Music
Wear A Mask — Sing Sing Rabbit
Three Points on a Compass — Martin Rossiter
Drag Me to the Light — Miles and the Chain Gang
Alfred – Intro — Eminem
Top Tracks — Medium Term (6 months)
Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
Taking It Slow — Heartsink
Concorde — Gregory Porter
Freakin’ At the Freaker’s Ball — Dr. Hook
Pepper — Butthole Surfers
Career Criminal — Stephen EvEns
Close — The Islas
Belladonna — Spunsugar
Make Us Eat — The Shining Tongues
Smiling — Alanis Morissette
Top Tracks — Long Term (years)
Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
Running the World — Jarvis Cocker
Star Treatment — Arctic Monkeys
(red, white, and blue) Cheerfulness — Perry Farrell
Balance, Not Symmetry — Biffy Clyro
Future Legend – 2016 Remaster — David Bowie
Deep Sea Dreaming — Ocean Flaws
Loser of the Year — Woke Up Dead
Three Points on a Compass — Martin Rossiter
Wild Is the Wind – 2016 Remaster — David Bowie
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With Just A Hint Of Mayhem’s birthday celebrations are nearly over. Today is day 10 and it is February 9th which is the official 10th birthday…. WOO HOO, here’s to ten more years! Today you get two top tens in two separate posts this one is my top ten favourite singles and part 10a features my top 10 albums.
Regular readers will know that so far I have shared with you top ten most viewed posts on the blog since it began back in February 2009, the top ten countries that have given With Just A Hint Of Mayhem the most views, rock/ music related books, biographies and autobiographies, my top 10 Bowie songs, my 10 favourite bands of all time, my top ten favourite male artists, the ten greatest gigs that I have been to, my ten favourite music related films and yesterday my top ten favourite female artists. (Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here to view those again). So this is it for the 10th birthday celebrations but there is, I hope, much more to come from With Just A Hint Of Mayhem in the coming months and years, watch this space!
So here are my top ten favourite singles of all time, ask me next week and the list may change, although almost certainly not the number 1. I did deliberately ignore David Bowie for this list otherwise he might have occupied three or four places. If you are interested my favourite Bowie single at the moment is “Where Are We Now?”
1. No Woman No Cry (Live) – Bob Marley and the Wailers – In my opinion the greatest song and the greatest version. This will be my funeral song, unless of course I turn out to be immortal!
2. Strawberry Letter 23 – Brothers Johnson – The great Shuggie Otis wrote this but the Brothers Johnson made it their own.
3. I Want You Back – Jackson 5 – This is possibly one of the finest pop songs ever committed to vinyl. That opening piano flourish is magical.
4. White Man In The Hammersmith Palais – The Clash – For me this was the Clash’s finest hour both musically and lyrically.
5. Don’t Let Me Down – Beatles Amazing to think that this was just a B Side. It is my go to song to sing at volume when I am very drunk.
6. Do Anything You Wanna Do – Eddie And The Hot Rods – A truly inspirational song which still inspires me even in my advanced years!
7. God Save The Queen- Sex Pistols – Fear and conspiracy kept this from the number one spot in the Queens Silver Jubilee week in 1977. For me this should be the true UK national anthem.
8. Theme From A Summer Place – Percy Faith Orchestra – You might say that this is one of my guilty pleasures, well maybe, but it is a beautiful piece of music. It was also used to great effect in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Rose Red’.
9. Mack The Knife – Bobby Darin –Â I love story songs and this is easily one of the best. The law says that you have to tap your feet and click your fingers to this, right?
10. Into My Arms – Nick Cave –Â As love songs go this might be quite strange but it is undoubtedly beautiful too. This was also the first dance at my wedding to my wonderful wife Catwoman a.k.a Catherine.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem’s birthday celebrations are nearly over. Today is day 10 and it is February 9th which is the official 10th birthday…. WOO HOO, here’s to ten more years! Today you get two top tens in two separate posts this one is my top ten favourite albums and part 10b features my top 10 singles.
Regular readers will know that so far I have shared with you top ten most viewed posts on the blog since it began back in February 2009, the top ten countries that have given With Just A Hint Of Mayhem the most views, rock/ music related books, biographies and autobiographies, my top 10 Bowie songs, my 10 favourite bands of all time, my top ten favourite male artists, the ten greatest gigs that I have been to, my ten favourite music related films and yesterday my top ten favourite female artists. (Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here to view those again). So this is it for the 10th birthday celebrations but there is, I hope, much more to come from With Just A Hint Of Mayhem in the coming months and years, watch this space!
So here are my top ten favourite albums of all time, ask me next week and the list may change, although almost certainly not the number 1. I did deliberately ignore David Bowie for this list otherwise he might have occupied three or four places. If you are interested my favourite Bowie album is ‘Diamond Dogs’
Now this is an opportunity that doesn’t happen too often. The chance to see one of the finest ska bands that ever existed, the Ska-talites. Actually in my adopted home city of York too. Anyway before I talk of the ska giants let me tell you about the support. Opener was the rather excellent ska DJ team Bangarang with some truly superb ska and reggae tunes to set the scene for the evening. The support band was the Magnificent 7, one of York’s finest young bands and purveyors of authentic, skillful and fun ska punk, ska, pop punk and hip hop. Well the latter is largely down to their excellent cover of the Eminem classic “Lose Yourself” which works really well with a ska punk arrangement. Their own compositions are pretty damned good too and oh boy did it look like they were having fun on that stage. On stage dancer of the night award should probably go to the trombone player from the Magnificent 7.
So now it was time for a band that originally formed in the mid 60s. Whilst there are hardly any original members left the spirit lives on and a band that had reggae greats Tommy McCook, Don Drummond and Roland Alphonso in their membership originally clearly has a great heritage. The Ska-talites are mainly an instrumental band and the first part of their set showed just how good an instrumental band they are with tunes like “Confucius” and “Latin Goes Ska”. Later in the set they were joined by reggae and ska goddess Doreen Shaffer on vocals for a few songs. Notably “My Boy Lollipop“, “Sugar Sugar” (not the Archies song), a very classy “Simmer Down” and one of my favourites “Nice Time”. The latter is a wonderful Bob Marley composition that I first heard via the Johnny Nash version in 1974. Doreen Shaffer must be over 70 now and she has aged incredibly well and she still has the vocals of a much younger woman. After she left the stage the band showcased their individual talents and frankly there is not a single weak link in this band. They closed with and amazing extended romp through their 1967 UK top 40 hit cover of the theme from the “Guns Of Navarone”. They closed with “Phoenix City” which was originally recorded by Roland Alphonso back in 1966. We also got to hear the Freedom countdown twice too. So if you didn’t get to Fibbers tonight why not? I expect a signed excuse from your parents or guardians in my pigeon-hole tomorrow. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ……… FREEDOM!
I don’t often post about music birthdays on this blog, well certainly not too often anyway. But I will make an exception for one of my favourite singers of all time, Johnny Nash. He turned 77 on 19th August. He has a voice like no other and along with hits that span genres using blues, reggae and soul to name but a few, he was also influential in bringing Bob Marley to the fore. Johnny was the first person to have a hit internationally with a Bob Marley song; “Stir It Up” in 1972. Most people will know Johnny Nash for “I Can See Clearly Now” but he has recorded plenty of other great songs in a career that began back in the 1950s. Enjoy a few of those to celebrate his birthday now!
The other day I decided to take a quick count of all the artists in my album collection where I have at least 10 albums by a single artist. I included CDs, LPs and cassettes (although the only non compilation cassettes that I have are David Bowie bootlegs). Oh and while I’m on bootleg recordings obviously I have included them whether they are live, studio outtakes or simply unreleased stuff. I have not included digital recordings. I was surprised to find that there are 4o artists where I have at least ten releases by them. The list is below, (artist followed by the number of albums) there are no real surprises for me, are you surprised at any on this list? Have you ever done anything similar? I have also added a song from each of the top ten artists 🙂
David Bowie 141
Bob Dylan 30 Johnny Nash 26 Bruce Springsteen 26
Beatles 25
Neil Young 25
Elton John 19
Bob Marley 19
U2 19
Rod Stewart 18
Pink Floyd 17
REM 17 Elvis Costello 15
The Eels 15
Prince 15
Paul Weller 15
Ryan Adams 14 Led Zeppelin 14
Madonna 14
The Clash 13 Elvis Presley 13
Radiohead 13
Kate Bush 12
Oasis 12
Lou Reed 12
Stevie Wonder 12
Morrissey 11
Tom Waits 11
ZZ Top 11
Jeff Buckley 10
Julian Cope 10
Johnny Cash 10 Michael Jackson 10
John Lennon 10 Manic Street Preachers 10
Kylie Minogue 10 Iggy Pop 10
Rolling Stones 10
Frank Turner 10
The Who 10
Circles is a cosy little place that serves excellent cakes and sandwiches and especially good coffee. Other beverages are also available. When the weather is good you can even sit outside. If you’re coming to York by train this is a wonderful place to stop off on your walk into the city or on your walk back to the station. Or maybe you could even stop in both directions!
If you would like to recommend any other places that make good use of song titles or lyrics, they do not have to be cafe’s, then please let me know.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 