With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

The Mayhem Charts – December 2024 January 1, 2025

Filed under: Mayhem Monthly Chart,Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 5:49 pm
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Here is the Mayhem chart for December 2024. Regular readers know the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits. These are gathered over the last month by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have fallen by four points to 92% more obscure than the rest of the UK! It must be all the Christmas standards I have listened to last month. Incidentally no Christmas songs are included in the chart. But the most popular Chrimbo tune was Mr. Strange with “Santa Clause Hates The Poor”. The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Wham! Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for November: Liz Davinci, Sleuth Gang and Carol Hodge. Carol also appears in the artist chart and the song chart. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including three that were in the top ten last month. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds went up from number 2 to number 1. Herorangecoat is staying at number 7. Delilah Bon is staying at number 9. Delilah has been in the artist charts now for 13 months! Two artists appear in both lists for December: Delilah Bon and Carol Hodge. The number one song comes from HANDSHAKE IN SPACE. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the Spotify link below to listen to the famous (or infamous) five!

Mayhem Artist Chart December 2024

1 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
2 Carol Hodge
3 Cassyette
4 Taylor Swift
5 Lana Del Ray
6 Du Blonde
7 HerOrangeCoat
8 Mannequin Pussy
9 Delilah Bon
10 Bobbie Dazzle

Mayhem Song Chart December 2024

1 Let’s Control It – HANDSHAKE IN SPACE
2 Not The President – Delilah Bon
3 Shake The Slack – Avalanche Party
4 Hunt You Down – ALT BLK ERA
5 Manoeuvres – Carol Hodge

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Mayhem’s Top 20 Albums Of 2024 (Part 1) December 9, 2024

Filed under: Album Of The Year,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 8:29 pm
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Here it is, we are finally ready to reveal Mayhem’s Top 20 Albums Of 2024. This is part 1 which covers positions 11 through to 20. Have your favourite albums made the Mayhem cut? Check out the list below and check out part two which will reveal the top 10 very soon! I had the list almost complete and then just to make life difficult Not Now Norman and Carol Hodge both released new albums and they appear at number 16 and 20 respectively. Are you looking forward to part 2? There will be a 20 song play list when Part 2 arrives!

11 Cartoon Darkness – Amyl and the Sniffers – Perfectly crafted cartoon punk.
12 What Now – Brittany Howard – What a fucking voice!
13 POST HUMAN: NeX Gen – Bring Me The Horizon – They have evolved into something very special!
14 Where’s My Utopia? – Yard Act – A stunning sophomore release.
15 The Past is Still Alive – Hurray For The Riff Raff – This captures the simplistic beauty of great music!
16 Go HARD or Go HOME – Not Now Norman – They went very hard and we didn’t go home!
17 EELS TIME! – Eels – Mr E once again produces a sublime collection.
18 66 – Paul Weller – He is my age and can still turn out a great album, unlike me!
19 Another Nice Mess – Curtis Eller’s American Circus – A gorgeous slice of American music.
20 EffortLess InSecurity – Carol Hodge – The Hodge pulls off yet another towering album.

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Wow That’s What I Call Mayhem – Volume 3 September 17, 2024

Filed under: Now That's What I Call Mayhem! — justwilliam1959 @ 8:38 pm
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With humble apologies to the creators of the iconic NOW series of compilations that began in 1983, I posted and compiled the first WOW That’s What I Call Mayhem collection back in March, with volume 2 following just a few weeks ago. So are you ready for volume 3? I certainly hope so, because here it is! This includes the third 20 singles we reviewed in 2024 in another maniacal eclectic playlist for your listening pleasure! With 70 minutes of music, click here and lose yourself in the music!

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‘Sledgehammer Songs’ – Joe Solo May 10, 2024

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 8:16 pm
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Everyone knows Napoleon Solo and Han Solo, right? A lot of people also know Joe Solo, the supremely talented folk-punk troubadour, raconteur, agitator, and educator. Although, until very recently I knew hardly anything about Joe Solo until Dan Lucas a.k.a. Boss Caine introduced me to him. I was lucky enough to interview Joe a few weeks ago, click here to check that out. Given all that I thought that I should review his current album ‘Sledgehammer Songs’ which is something like his 20th, yes that is how long it has taken me to find his fabulous music!

The album finds Joe in great form channeling his anger and frustration with the world into song. The collection opens with “This Guitar Refuses To Apologise” which I believe Woody Guthrie would be proud of. “Raise Your Voices And Sing” featuring the People’s Chorus and “A Better Way” featuring the Commoners Choir are stunning and heartfelt songs that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The choir voices add a huge level of emotion to each of those tracks. There is a great ode to musical nostalgia called “On A 45” which is perhaps one of the best tunes ever written about the seven-inch 45 rpm record. Joe is supported by some great artists on some of these tunes. Jess Silk, Carol Hodge, and Boss Caine all feature on one song each while Rebekah Findlay appears on seven tracks! Carol adds some great keys and harmony vocals (along with Rebekah Findlay) to the gorgeous “Tie ‘Em To A Brick” a song about dealing with those darker feelings and how to move towards positivity. Boss Caine adds his “Barry White Of Country” (copyright Ginger Wildheart) style to the title track, another song that has support from Rebekah Findlay. All twelve tracks (fifteen if you add the three bonus tracks on the CD release) are perfect, but I still have a favourite, “The Last Miner” which features Rebekah Findlay and the Hatfield Brigade. It is a song about the sunset on the UK mining industry and doing everything possible to keep the sun and the spirit of those people alive. It is full of pathos, hope and so much emotion. The children’s choral voices at the end make it heavenly and ethereal. Get some Joe Solo in your life, you won’t regret it!

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The Mayhem Charts – April 2024 May 6, 2024

Filed under: Mayhem Monthly Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 5:35 am
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Here is the Mayhem chart for April 2024. Regular readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered together by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes are 99% more obscure than the rest of the UK! The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, the top three “Legacy” artists are David Bowie, the KLF, and Public Image Ltd. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to and for March those are Liz Davinci, The Apocalypse Disco, and Kindelan. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including just one that was in the top ten last month, Delilah Bon! Delilah is one of only two artists to feature in the artist chart and the song chart for April, the other is the Blackheart Orchestra. Delilah Bon has been in the artist charts for five consecutive months and after topping the March song chart with “Maverick” she sits at number two with her new single, “Finally See Me”. Joe Solo, who we interviewed recently, tops the artist chart and Everything After Midnight takes the top spot on the song chart with their cracking new single “Little Hints” So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.

MAYHEM ARTIST CHART APRIL 2024

1 Joe Solo
2 Grace Potter
3 Ian Hunter
4 Frank Turner
5 English Teacher
6 Julia Othmer
7 The Blackheart Orchestra
8 Delilah Bon
9 Avalanche Party
10 Paraorchestra

MAYHEM SONG CHART APRIL 2024

1 Little Hints – Everything After Midnight
2 Finally See Me – Delilah Bon
3 Cinderhaze – Stumbleine
4 The Tide – The Blackheart Orchestra
5 Manoeuvres – Carol Hodge

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“Manoeuvres” – Carol Hodge April 13, 2024

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 10:52 pm
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Carol Hodge’s new single has a magnificent heavy and dark feel with some incredible and relentless guitar riffs that are impossible to ignore and I believe made by Dave Draper. I love the way she uses the organ sound briefly at times during the song. Her voice oozes passion, and anger in equal amounts. Is there some sarcasm in there too? I was reminded of Toyah, Siousxe, and Amy Lee (Evanescence) Carol has a fine canon of songs and this sits up there with some of her best, I bloody love it! The video was filmed and edited by Rob Heilig and made on location at Nathans Cottages, Huddersfield. It is delightfully dark and disturbing. This is the first single from Carol’s next album, ‘EffortLess InSecurity’ which is planned for September 2024.

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Mayhem Albums Of The Year 2023 December 10, 2023

Filed under: Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 9:29 pm
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I know a lot of people don’t like the end-of-the-year list craze, but I do, so the Mayhem Albums Of The Year feature is back for 2023! I tried to keep it to a top ten, but I failed miserably, so it is a top twenty. Is your favourite included, or conversely, is your least favourite one of my favourites? There are a lot of big artists on the list, because whilst I focus on newer and smaller artists, I still listen to the big ones, what can I say, I just bloody love good music! I am not going to write a piece on every album and artist included, but I would love to hear your choices for 2023. So here it comes, the Mayhem top 20 albums of 2023!

  1. Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd – Lana Del Rey
  2. Black Rainbows – Corinne Bailey Rae
  3. Heavy Heavy – Young Fathers
  4. Chaos For The Fly – Grian Chatten
  5. Drop Cherries – Billie Marten
  6. The Ballad of Darren – Blur
  7. Seven Psalms – Paul Simon
  8. UK GRIM – Sleaford Mods
  9. Smile – Skindred
  10. Fata Morgan – Liz Davinci
  11. The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons – The Hives
  12. Vertiginous Drops – Carol Hodge
  13. Venom – WARGASM
  14. Chronicles of a Diamond – Black Pumas
  15. Black Classical Music – Yussef Dayes
  16.  1989 (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift
  17. Things Lost – Suncharms
  18. Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart – Lucinda Williams
  19. CACTI – Billy Nomates
  20. 10,000 gecs – 100 gecs

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The WJAHOM Interview Podcast – Carol Hodge! March 27, 2023

Filed under: Interview,Podcast — justwilliam1959 @ 7:29 pm
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I had a great deal of fun interviewing the supremely talented and all-round decent human being Carol Hodge. She released her fourth album just a short while ago and it is damned good. Click here to check out the interview to hear Carol talk about the album, what she is currently listening to, and what it is like playing with artists such as Ginger Wildheart and Steve Ignorant.

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‘Vertiginous Drops’ – Carol Hodge March 6, 2023

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 9:57 pm
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Carol Hodge, who has been featured on these pages quite a few times has a new album, her fourth, out on 10th March. I have been lucky enough to have been listening to it for a week or two and I can tell you that it is a fine collection of classy future classic songs. The album is called ‘Vertiginous Drops’ and it opens with a full-on production on “Best Will In The Word”. It is a song of good advice, common sense and perhaps most importantly hope. On top of all that it has some magnificent hooks and an uplifting brass refrain. “The Price” has a feel of Depeche Mode in its dark,bass-laden synth opening, but then it turns into an epic synthed-up power ballad when Carol’s vocals kick in. This tune made me think that an album of 80s covers by Carol Hodge would be rather good. “Grayson (Things Could Always Be Worse)” is a fabulous choice for first single from the album. It also has a darkness to it, but once again a vein of hope. Carol’s voice evokes huge emotion in this song. In a parallel universe “Grayson” would top the charts everywhere. I felt peak Human League, but far better vocals than that Oakey fella, when listening to “Never Run Out Of Things To Worry About” and if any track on this record was selected for a dance remix it should be this one. The multi-tracked vocals are ethereal, heavenly, and ravishingly luscious. “Clean The Slate” opens with a gorgeous choral vocal sound and builds to something that is stygian in its darkness with a heavy guitar onslaught, well at least I thought that was a massed guitar attack. Some of Carol’s best music has come from just her and a piano and while this album has immense scope and reach, “Giving It Up Now” is mostly Carol and her piano to the fore, the band is just a little more subtle here, at least until about two minutes in when the song takes off into the musical stratosphere and showcases the strength and range of Carol’s sumptuous voice. The song closes with the very clever coda of “all I can say with certainty is there will be uncertainty“. It sounds obvious, but not many have said it, have they?

If you love Carol’s ballads then you will adore “Oh, Amanda!”. The circus sideshow piano riff part way through adds a delightful eerie tone. I can imagine this track featuring on the soundtrack to one of Neil Gaiman’s darker tales. The next track, “Bitch, Don’t Break My Serenity” has a feel of someone digging through Brian Wilson’s brain and finding the stuff he was never allowed to record. In fact, a Beach Boys cover of this eldritchian style masterpiece would be very special indeed, perhaps with backing vocals by Carol herself and maybe Siouxsie Sioux as well. The harmonics and soft synth drone on “Wrong Side Of The Glass” got me thinking of ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’. I know that isn’t the subject matter, but just a feeling the song gave me. It certainly sums up someone possibly reaching the end of their time, deep down a very sad and yet sublime song. The album closes with what I consider to be Carol’s finest song to date. It evokes a derelict cabaret theatre in 1930s Berlin in the way it feels musically. But lyrically it is staggeringly deep and suggests the underlying futility in this life of ours and maybe how small a part of the universe we are. A true masterpiece of an album on which Carol proves just how big her talent is.

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Ginger Wildheart – Fulford Arms, York – Friday August 26th 2022 September 3, 2022

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 1:53 pm
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Regular readers will know that I left day 1 of the Leeds Festival early to come to this show, was it worth it? read on to find out! This was the last date in a four-date spin around the country titled “Ginger Wildheart Presents Summer Lovin'”. They also played Hastings, Birmingham, and Wigan. First to take the stage was one of York’s finest musical talents, Mr. Boss Caine, the Barry White of Country (thanks to Ginger for that description, yes Daniel Lucas! The new songs Dan played bode very well for his next release, there are some gems there. I would say the highlight for me, and there were plenty to choose from, was “Ghosts And Drunks”. It was also great to hear Dan dedicate a tune to “the pricks in Westminster”. This was a sublime solo acoustic set from Mr. Lucas which has made me look forward even more to the next Boss Caine (or solo?) release. Carol Hodge was up next and what a great performance it was. She has the voice of an angelic demon with the purity of tone of a Karen Carpenter for the 21st Century. It was like she was playing a small intimate show in your living room. This was the first time that I had seen Carol live and it definitely won’t be the last!

Ginger Wildheart was joined on stage by Jon Poole and the aforementioned Carol Hodge. There was some great delving into Ginger’s huge canon of stunningly good tunes, including some Wildhearts songs. “Boxes”, “Geordie In Wonderland” and “Why Aye (Oh You)” were superb, but the song that stood out in this marvellous set was “Paying It Forward” which is an absolute classic. But I can’t let this go without mentioning the beautifully eclectic range of cover versions performed. “Summer Nights” was there, but given the title of the mini tour/ 4 date extravaganza, I guess that was no surprise. “How I Survived The Punk Wars” (Hey! Hello!) was ace and “Run For Home” (Lindisfarne) gave us all the opportunity for a great singalong, as we did for the opening song which was a cover of the theme from Cheers a.k.a “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”. The most fascinating cover for me though was Focus’ “Hocus Pocus”, including the yodelling. Acoustic prog anyone? On paper that should not have worked, but on stage it certainly did! What I loved so much about this set was the intimacy, it was like we were all sat around a huge campfire (it certainly felt that hot!) listing to Ginger, Jon and Carol entertain us.

All pictures, except the gig poster, were taken by me using my very cheap Chinese Android phone. The videos were found on YouTube. If the video is yours and you would like a credit or for it to be removed please let me know.

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