What was the first album on an independent record label to enter the UK top 20? If you had asked me to guess this I am pretty confident that I would have got it wrong. But according to a recent piece in Vive Le Rock magazine it was Stiff Little Fingers with their début album ‘Inflammable Material‘. It reached number 14 in 1979. So now feel free to enjoy a few tracks from that classic album from one of Northern Ireland’s finest bands. Including an excellent cover version of Bob Marley’s “Johnny Was”
Is it really December 17th? It is? Oh well Christmas will soon be over. But in the meantime we’re at day 17 of this years advent calendar blog posts. this means that we are now at the 17th letter of the alphabet, which as you know is ‘Q’. Can you guess which band will feature under the letter ‘Q’ in my ABC of British bands? Really? Are you sure? I’m thinking that most of you guessed Queen, in which case you’d be wrong. Todays band proudly representing the letter ‘Q’ are the Q-Tips. (Any free advertising here for Q Magazine is purely coincidental and accidental; unless the publishers of that great magazine would like to ply me with money and gifts!).
The band was formed in 1979 by the remnants of one hit wonders Streetband who hit the charts with “Toast”. Three members of that band stayed together and they were John Gifford (guitar), Mick Pearl (Bass) and Paul Young on vocals. Yes that Paul Young the one with the spiky hair and who layed his hat anywhere he damned well wanted to. They brought in another guitarist, Dave Laswell and Baz Watts on drums. They then added a brass section consisting of Oscar Stuart Blandamer, Tony Hughes, Richard Blanchchard and Steve Farr. The band was further augmented by keyboard player Ian Kewley. Later in their career Gifford and Blandamer were replaced by Garth Watt Roy and Nick Payne.
The band was quite short-lived, breaking up in 1982 when Paul Young signed a solo contract. During their time they were a highly praised live act. They also supported some massive names including the Who, Average White Band, J Geils Band, Bob Marley, The Knack and Thin Lizzy. They began by playing lots of soul music covers but in the end they had a substantial amount of self-penned material as well. The band briefly reformed for some live dates in 1993. In case you were wondering they took their name from a well-known brand of cotton swabs. Now enjoy some rather spiffing tunes from the Q-Tips.
Now the North Korean authorities have decreed that everyone must get a hair cut exactly like their supreme leader Kim Jong-Un, (Actually just male undergradutes to begin with). Really? I know it might sound a little rich coming from a bald bloke like me, but Mr Jong-Un has a shit haircut doesn’t he? Will North Korean women also have to have the same haircut too?
Imagine if every country had that rule I would have worn a wig for years, including a Thatcher syrup (that’s cockney rhyming slang for the benefit of my overseas readers). Nowadays I’d have to seek out a nondescript Cameron cut.
Anyway let’s celebrate this ridiculous news with a haircut themed post. While you are listening click here to read the story on the BBC site.
So the big news for the year so far would seem to be that the Pope is retiring. It’s only a surprise because it hasn’t happened in nearly 600 years, but frankly isn’t he a bit of an old duffer to be holding such a big role? I mean he was 78 when he took the job on in 2005. I wonder why he chose to go now and did he pontificate much (did you see what I did there)? But clearly the world economy must be in a bad state when even God starts laying people off. Anyway if you are likely to be offended by an opinion of religion which may not be in support of the Pope or the Catholic Church I suggest you stop reading now. You have been warned!
the conspiracy theorists are probably going into overdrive as I type this; does it relate to unpaid subscriptions for his Hitler Youth membership. is he about to admit to kiddie fiddling with a choir boy or two? If so did he use a condom? The latter would probably be a bigger sin wouldn’t it? Does he feel guilty for the Vatican giving Scumbag Saville a papal knighthood? Is he in fact the Anti Christ or even worse a transvestite; the Aunty Christ anyone? Or is he about to give us the headline the world has waited for and never thought possible? I’m talking ‘POPE ELOPES’ folks.
I am also really surprised at the length of his notice period. He resigns on 11th February and his last day is 28th February. 17 days? My notice period is 4 weeks and I barely lead one and a half people let alone 1.2 billion. Will the new Pope Bloke be a radical reformer or just another old duffer in a funny hat? I’d like to think reformer, but it’ll be a duffer won’t it? But before I get to the music I’d like to float my conspiracy theory. I believe that Benedict is resigning because the end days of the Book of Revelations are upon us. The four Horseman of the Apocalypse have in fact arrived but somewhere the translation was incorrectly carried out. The Horsemen are in fact the four Horse Meat products; Ladies and gentlemen I give you Bad Burger, Bloody Evil Bolognese, Sinful Sausage and Lousy Lasagna. These are the true heralds of the apocalypse. As for the Anti Christ, that must be Sinead O’Connor right? If it is then she has my full support!
According to the UK tabloid the Sun Prince Harry has aspirations to become a reggae DJ. This apparently all stemmed from what has been described as an inspirational meeting with Bob Marley’s widow Rita on his recent visit to Jamaica. He has supplemented his House music vinyl collection with some heavy reggae on vinyl and has taken mixing lessons.
Someone needs to sign him up for a club gig, for a Royal he seems to have a good attitude. Coming from me that is high praise indeed. I wished that I hadn’t retired as a mobile DJ, otherwise I’d have offered my help. In fact maybe my life long buddy Glen and I (formerly Bill & Glen the Disco Men) should reform and let Harry join the team. How does Harry, Bill & Glen the Royal Disco Men sound?
Do you receive a regular selection of random e mails from various groups that you have subscribed to over the years? I get loads and often I can’t be bothered to look at them. But for some reason I took a chance and opened one at random. It contained stacks of old pictures. Mostly of different stars together and not necessarily those that had worked together. Here are a few that I really liked and had never seen before. let me know what you think of them.
Bob Marley & the Wailers and the Jackson 5
George Harrison & Bob Marley
Mick Jagger & Jimi Hendrix
Mick Jagger & James Brown
No more words required just listen to some great music by some of those artists while you enjoy the pictures.
This hopeless sinner (or maybe I’m just a talented sinner) was listening to the radio at the weekend and a song that I really love came on. It was the beautiful “People Get Ready” by the Curtis Mayfield era Impressions. Now this is a very religious song and I am not a religious person. So my question to you is; should I be able to enjoy religious songs even if I am not religious myself? Well I’m talking conventional religion I suppose because in the last two census forms I completed I registered as a Jedi (hence the Star Wars elements of this post!)
I have quite a few songs of a religious nature in my collection including;
“I Want Jesus To Walk With Me” – Johnny Nash – But then I do have a rather extensive Johnny Nash Collection
“Forever Loving Jah” – Bob Marley – I love loads of Rasta but let’s face it I can never be one, I am now forever a “Crazy Baldhead”
“You Got The Love” – The Source featuring Candi Staton – Probably my favourite dance track, probably my favourite song of the 90s too! I am pretty sure this is a religious love song about the love of god rather than just a love song.
“People Get Ready” – The Impressions – A truly beautiful song whatever it’s sentiment in my opinion
I’d like to know what you think about this potential dilemma. I don’t have a problem with this, but I wonder if there is anyone out there that does. On a similar vein I once worked with a guy who was a racist, I’d like to stress that he wasn’t a friend. He had lots of 60s soul music in his collection; Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and plenty of Motown. Personally I find that hard to reconcile; he didn’t like black people and yet he had a large amount of black music in his collection. I’d love to hear your views on that too.
Incidentally I would like to state categorically that I do not own any of Cliff Richard‘s religious songs such as “The Lords Prayer ” and “Saviours Day” 🙂
I think I have come close to experiencing regret on two occasions and that is with the benefit of hindsight. Those two occasions occurred in the late 70s and both involved me turning down what would have been significant opportunities.
Firstly I was sitting in my local pub one evening in December 1976 (it was the now sadly departed Oak Tree in Hillingdon) when someone came in and offered tickets to see a band at Brunel University. It was a band that was causing quite a stir and I could have made it quite easily. But I decided that the pub would win that night. The band was the Sex Pistols!
Possibly the very ticket that I turned down!
Secondly I was on a lad’s holiday in Spain in 1977 (or it might have been 1978). We were staying maybe less than an hour’s drive from Barcelona. While we were there a now sadly late, great performer was playing a gig in the city. We asked our travel representative about getting tickets. He
said getting them was easy but that for a bunch of English blokes to turn up at a gig in Spain would incite the Spanish youth to violence. I now realise that this was probably complete bollocks and we should have gone to the show. That legendary, late, great performer was none other than Bob Marley.
So I have always felt that I have never regretted anything I have done in my life so far. I still believe that and I also feel that this is a good philosophy, however that doesn’t mean that you can’t be sorry about some things you have done, does it?
There were a couple of people at school that to be perfectly honest I treated in quite a mean and disrespectful way. With one of those people I simply followed the herd and behaved just like most other people in my school peer group. With the other person I made them look like a liar in order to save some teenage face. So there you have it, my teenage confessions of sorts. I would like to apologise to both of these people albeit so many years later, but I guess I am just salving my conscience. I thought long and hard about whether I should mention them by name and I personally feel that I should, I’m sure that the chances of them reading this is pretty remote anyway.
So at the risk of steering into Simon Mayo confession territory I would like to apologise unreservedly for my behaviour towards two people between 1972 and 1977 or thereabouts. Geoffrey Guile and Susan Batty this one’s for you! If I knew then what I know now then I would have behaved very differently.
I bring you some momentous news in this post dear readers, oh and some other rubbish too. So firstly the momentous news. According to the US Social Security Administration Elvis has dropped out of the top 1,000 boys names for the first time since 1954. Fans can console themselves by the fact that Presley is still hanging in there at number 274. The top five boys names are Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Jayden and William. For the girls it’s Isabella, Sophia, Emma, Olivia and Ava. There is a rather strange girls name at number 25 though; it’s Nevaeh. It’s heaven spelt backwards if you were wondering. I think I may just start calling myself Lleh, what do you think?
After all this time Elvis really should have known that farting in a jump suit wasn’t a good option
Canadian Josh Chalom runs the amazing Cube Works Studio in Toronto. He has made some superb art pieces from carefully and strategically turned Rubik’s Cubes. Check out the gallery website by clicking here and enjoy some of his work below. In particular; the aforementioned Elvis Presley, Billy Idol, Bob Marley, Mick Jagger and Alice Cooper
There was some rather sad news at the weekend. David Mason died late last month aged 85. He was a classical trumpet player and was a regular in many orchestras. But from a rock music perspective it was Mr Mason who played the Piccolo Trumpet solo on the Beatles song “Penny Lane“. RIP
This will be quite a short post, but one I simply had to post. Regular readers will know that I am a big Johnny Nash fan and also not a small fan of Bob Marley. I have a Google Alert set up for Johnny Nash and today it pointed me towards a real gem of a blog post from the Transpontine Blog. It is a South East London Blogzine and todays post was about a story that appeared in the Southwark News from early November. If you thought Peckham was only famous for Del Boy and Rodney then prepare to think again, for it may have reignited the career of Johnny Nash and sparked the career of Bob Marley in 1972.
Keith Baugh, the Art Teacher at Peckham Manor School in the early 70s met Johnny and Bob in a London club in 1972 where they bemoaned the fact that they simply couldn’t get their songs played on the radio. So Keith suggested that they do a bit more promo work, perhaps with a gig at his school. So they took him at his word and played two sets, they also found time to play a bit of football with some of the pupils.
I really loved the Transpontine post, so thanks to them, the Southwark News and Keith Baugh for providing the photos and the story. Transpontine has also been added to my Blogroll. Obviously this also gives me a chance to indulge in a few songs from a couple of my most favourite artists. Did I ever tell you that Johnny Nash was the first person to have a UK chart hit with a Bob Marley song? Well he was and that song was “Stir It Up”
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 