With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

Rolling Back The Years With Mayhem – 1963 October 23, 2024

Filed under: Rolling Back The Years — justwilliam1959 @ 9:39 pm
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This is the fifth in what I hope will be a very long-running series, just like my long-running life, so far at least! I have decided to look at the most popular songs from every year that I have existed. There will be some artistic licence on my part as I will always seek to include at least a few of my favourites from each year. The format will be a top ten for each year and will cover the music and songs I grew up with, came of age with, and achieved my greatest success alongside music that comforted me in bad times. This fifth top ten goes back to the year that I turned 4 years old, 1963. I don’t remember actually hearing these songs back then, but I have listened to them many times over the years. I have once again focused on the UK charts. the Beatles make their first appearance in the series, debuting at the top of the pile with “Please Please Me”. As a special time travel gift I have added a bonus track, the best-selling US single of 1963, “Sugar Shack” by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs. This is definitely my favourite Rolling Back The Years Top 10 so far. Please get on board the Time Machine now, it will be a rough journey so bring a sick bag or two! Check out the playlist below if you are too chicken to enter the Time Machine. The chart for 1964 will follow soon. The chart listing is below!

1 Please Please Me – The Beatles
2 Foot Tapper – The Shadows
3 Do You Want To Know A Secret? – Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas
4 Take These Chains From My Heart – Ray Charles
5 Then He Kissed Me – The Crystals
6 Can’t Get Used To Losing You – Andy Williams
7 Da Doo Ron Ron – The Crystals
8 Memphis Tennessee – Chuck Berry
9 I Only Want To Be With You – Dusty Springfield
10 Sweets For My Sweet – The Searchers

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On This Day Billie Joe Gets Cheeky And Chuck Plays With His Bell (Well It Goes Ding A Ling Anyway!) October 21, 2024

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 8:34 pm
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On 21st October 1995, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong was arrested and fined $141 after mooning at the audience during a gig in Milwaukee. So does that mean he sang what made Milwaukee famous made a mooner out of me?

On 21st October 1972, Chuck Berry started a two-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with “My Ding-A-Ling,” his first and only US and UK No.1, 17 years after his first chart hit. All those great songs and Berry will be remembered for playing with his ding-a-ling—well, that and the sex offences!

If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.

 

“He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack” March 23, 2017

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 11:12 pm
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The Voyager space probe has a golden disc which features sounds of the earth from nature, speech and music to enable  an alien race somewhere else in the universe to find out a little about us if they come across the probe. There is classical music from Mozart, traditional Bulgarian music from Valya Balkanska, Blues from Blind Willie Johnson and on top of all that there is the late, great Chuck Berry with “Johnny B Goode“. Apparently Chuck was included after EMI refused permission for the Beatles “Here Comes The Sun” to be a part of Voyager. Seriously EMI why would you do that? Amazingly Voyager 1 is now more than ten billion miles from earth, I wonder what our alien friends will make of Mr Berry?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM

 

“Well, early in the mornin’ I’m a givin’ you a warnin’ don’t you step on my blue suede shoes” March 19, 2017

Filed under: Obituary — justwilliam1959 @ 12:15 am
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It is with great sadness that I report the death of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry, he was 90 years old so that certainly is a life lived. Sure Chuck had issues and he paid his debt for those. But he was truly a pioneer, would rock ‘n’ roll have been the same without Chuck Berry? Somehow I doubt it. Given his legacy it’s a shame that his biggest hit was “My Ding-A -Ling” in 1972 which went to number one in the US, the UK and Canada. he did have a few US R & B number ones though. But you know what we need to consider whether the Beatles and the Stones would have existed without Charles Edward Anderson Berry, as his parents knew him. My thoughts are with his friends, family and all his fans across the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoDPPgWbfXY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3kCVFFLNg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1oyvAMtFsk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XSaKQlBZuE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myPzYiTLvK0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b2w_nJLuvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ComyNCcYPvg

 

“Everybody hazy shell-shocked and crazy screaming for the face at the window” November 16, 2016

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 2:50 am
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normal_joeguy1

Mick Jones was also a big Mott fan

Guy Steven’s is seen by many as some kind of rock evangelist. he had an incredibly broad R& B record collection and he was also the man who ran Chuck Berry’s UK fan club. He was also a bit of a bad boy who served eight months in Wormwood Scrubs for drug possession. It was during his incarceration that he formed the idea for his next master-plan. He had a vision of a band who could mix the Rolling Stones raunchiness with Bob Dylan’s electric folk take on life with a hint of the wild path taken by Jerry Lee Lewis. While he was in the infamous ‘The Scrubs’ he even thought of a name for this up to now mythical band. It would be called Mott The Hoople after the Willard Manus novel about a ‘Hoople’  (effectively an eccentric loser) called Norman Mott. On his release he met various future Mott members and the rest my friends is history!

Mott The Hoople

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“Sweet Cousin Cocaine, lay your cool cool hand on my head” July 7, 2015

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 3:19 pm
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RSSF71

We are all familiar with the Andy Warhol designed cover for the Rolling Stones 1971 album ‘Sticky Fingers‘ I presume? If you bought the album in Spain when it originally came out then you might not be too familiar with the good old zipper cover. The original cover was censored by the Franco regime, presumably as it depicted the groin area. The track listing was also deemed inappropriate on the Spanish release of the album on which “Sister Morphine” was replaced by a live version of Chuck Berry’s “Let It Rock”. That was originally available on the B-Side of the classic Stones single “Brown Sugar“.

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The zipper cover for which Andy Warhol was allegedly paid £15,000 was replaced in Spain by the one above which shows some sticky fingers rising from a tin of Fowlers West India Treacle. Is it just me or is that likely to just as offensive to anyone offended by the original album cover?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRb6v_nChJ0

 

“Robin Hood and William Tell And Ivanhoe and Lancelot” Blog Advent Calendar Day 5 December 5, 2014

Filed under: Christmas,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 1:30 am
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elo-band

December 5th has arrived and it’s therefore day 5 of this years advent blog posts. As you know this years theme is the ABC of British bands, which means today we arrive at the fifth letter of the alphabet; ‘E’. My choice for today is the Electric Light Orchestra a.k.a ELO. The band was initially an offshoot of the Move and they set out to combine orchestral sounds with rock music. It may well have been Roy Wood‘s idea but he left early on to form Wizzard. Meanwhile Jeff Lynne made ELO into a world straddling colossus.

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The band’s first UK hit was “10538 Overture“. The song was originally a b-side for the Move. Wood, Lynne and Bev Bevan (also off of the Move) added orchestral strings to it. After John Lennon heard one of my favourite ELO songs, “Showdown” he began referring to them as Beatles Junior. The band had number one singles across the world; and “Turn To Stone” and “Shine A Little Love” were number one in Canada and “Living Thing” topped the charts in South Africa. Sadly, in my opinion at least, there only UK number one was the rather dreadful “Xanadu” which also featured Olivia Newton John. That song was also a number one in the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland. The band had 15 UK top ten hits in the UK between 1972 and 1981. This was only bettered by their eighteen top ten hits in France from 1972 to 1986.

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So now it’s time for you to enjoy a selection of ELO songs, apologies but I have not included the aforementioned “Xanadu”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZB-DUCrhVQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENK9UNn56DM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LnPnbhyjGc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ompra3HctgQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAYOAHz-N08

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“The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget” June 3, 2012

Filed under: News,Observation,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 5:41 pm
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I couldn’t let the 40th anniversary of the release of Bowie‘s classic 1972 album ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars‘ go unmentioned could I? It will be 40 years old on June 6th and of course being the Bowie fanatic that I am the vinyl reissue which comes with a DVD including some unreleased mixes is winging its way to me as I type. Bowie has said in the early 70s that the Ziggy album was a concept album, personally I don’t really see that, but that doesn’t make it any less of an album.

How many of you own at least one version of Bowie’s Ziggy album? lots of you I hope and if you don’t own it what’s keeping you, go out and buy it, download it, borrow it or steal it now! The album took just no more than 10 days to record, which by todays standards is faster than the speed of sound and light, or perhaps sound and vision, (get it?) combined.

So, as I’m sure you have heard the album many times I thought I’d present it in a slightly different way, by giving you all the tracks in their original order but performed by different artists. Some whom you may have heard of and others you may not have. But just to make sure you don’t miss out on the Dame himself I have tagged on two cover versions that might have made it onto the album but didn’t. The covers track listing is shown below. PLAY LOUD and Enjoy!

“Five Years” – Polyphonic Spree

“Soul Love” – Tim Kasher

“Moonage Daydream” – Killers

“Starman” – Culture Club

“It Ain’t Easy” -Raconteurs

“Lady Stardust” – Seu Jorge

“Star” – System Noise

“Hang On To Yourself” – Charles De Goal

“Ziggy Stardust” – Balzac

“Suffragette City” – Turbonegro

“Rock n Roll Suicide” – Black Box Recorder

Now it’s time for Dave does Chuck and Jacques or Bowie does Berry and Brel!

Bowie has a message for MC Hammer about big trousers……”U can’t touch these!”

 

“I begged you not to go but you said goodbye, now your telling me all your lies” December 15, 2010

Filed under: Christmas,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 12:02 am
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It’s now December 15th and just 10 days until the big fat bloke in red breaks into your house and leaves you presents! It’s also day 15 of my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar and I have a true delight behind the door for you today. It was number one at Christmas 1970 and stayed at the top for 6 weeks. people of the blog universe I give you Dave Edmunds with his version of “I Hear You Knocking” I was such a teenybopper in those days (well actually I was not quite 12 years old) I bought that single with my milkround tips.

It looks like Dave celebrates Christmas the same way that I do!

The song was written by Dave Bartholomew and Pearl King and first published as far back as 1955. The first hit version was by Smiley Lewis and he reached number two in the US R & B charts. In fact Welshman Edmunds name checks Smiley Lewis and also Chuck Berry in his version of the song. Many people have covered this timeless classic including; Bryan Adams, Canned Heat, Bruce Springsteen, Fats Domino and Connie Francis. Edmunds version also hit the top 5 in the US, Canada and Australia.

Tonight Matthew, Nick and myself will be the Everly Brothers!

During the 60s Dave Edmunds was a member of the wonderfully named Human Beans. The nucleus of that group went on to form Love Sculpture who had a massive hit in 1968 with “Sabre Dance” based on a classical composition by Aram Khachaturian. The single was championed by none other than the greatest DJ that ever lived, Mr John Peel.

 

“I’ll be your clown or your puppet or your April Fool, cut my hair I’ll even wear a mask” December 7, 2010

Filed under: Christmas,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 12:04 am
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December 7th and just 18 days to go now until the big bearded bloke in red arrives on your roof. It’s strange isn’t it that we spend much of our lives telling our children not to speak to strangers but come Christmas we effectively tell them a fat, old, loudly dressed bloke is going to break into their house and leave them presents. It seems a bit strange when you look at it that way doesn’t it? Anyway enough of that nonsense, let’s open the door for december 7th on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calender. Forgive me but this one really is a steaming pile of number twos, but I bet if you listen to it just once you won’t get it out of your head for ages.

Little Jimmy

It still holds the record for the youngest artist ever to have a UK number one, he was just 9 years and 8 months. Laydeez and Gennermen I give you….. LITTLE…… JIMMY……..OSMOND!!! Yes it is time to dust off that bloody awful song (well in my opinion anyway) “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool”. The song was number one at Christmas 1972 and stayed there for 5 weeks and sold just short of 1 million copies. I hope all 998,000 of you still feel guilty! Sadly it went to number one on December 23rd 1972 thus preventing Chuck Berry‘s “My Ding-A-Ling” from staying on top for Christmas!

Big Jimmy

Little Jimmy rode the successful wave of his siblings success, along with the Jackson 5 the Osmonds were one of the biggest pop bands on the planet in the early part of the 70s. In fact the Osmonds first big hit in the UK was “One Bad Apple” which is a very good song, but in my opinion is very much identikit Jackson 5. What do you think?

See You Jimmy

James Arthur Osmond, (for that is Little Jimmy’s real name) went on to become quite a good friend of Michael Jackson. He went on to work for the King Of Pop during the ‘Bad’ Tour in the 80s. The Japanese leg of the tour was sponsored by Pepsi and the Japanese TV Company Nippon TV. It was Jimmy that negotiated the sponsorship deal with Nippon TV.

Here is Master Osmond with that bloody song!

And if you thought that was annoying how about his cover of the Connie Francis song “Tweedle Dee”?