How can you go wrong with a ticket price of £5 (£7 on the door) for four bands? Well you can’t really can you? At Fibbers too. This was another gig recommended to me by the talented Mr Simon Pattinson, pity our poor communication meant he didn’t make it though because it was a proper pedal to the metal, balls to the wall rock night.
Violet Contours
Up first were Violet Contours with their jangly indie pop that carries a great northern edge. At times they channel Kings Of Leon and Orange Juice. “Electric Bodies” is a phenomenal début release. It is rich, vibrant and hangs around in your brain much longer than lesser songs.
Naked 6
Now Naked 6 is a band that I first saw a few months ago at the Crescent in York and I thought they were darned good then. I bought my ticket from the band’s bass player extraordinaire Caleb tonight. What a top bloke! Do you like your rock hard? Do you like some funk in your rock? Do you love a band that knows how to rock out and I mean really rock out? Well look no further than the mighty, magnificent music machine that is Naked 6. This is the 21st century Led Zep. How the fuck do three people make so much noise? They made my ears bleed, but in the best possible way. To top it all off I swear that their very metal version of “I Wanna Be Like You” is like nothing that you have ever heard before.
The Howl and the Hum
I must confess that I have never come across the Howl and the Hum before. What are they like? Think Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, the Doors without Manzarek and maybe the Villagers then you are part way to understanding this complex band with simple songs that sound like stunning and sharp icicles of left-field rock. They know how to build a song from a soft, laid back start into a pile driving crescendo. I reckon this lot could be the house band in David Lynch‘s ‘Twin Peaks‘.
The Strawberries
Now for the main attraction, how on earth could the Strawberries follow such a powerful line up? With aplomb, power, guts, swagger and some pretty tasty tunes. They are clearly one of the finest bands from Leeds at the moment. I’m gutted that I missed them on the Jack Rocks stage at the Leeds Festival last year, let’s hope they will be there again this year. They draw on the most psychedelic aspects of Primal Scream and they take the audience by the scruff of their dirty necks and slap them into submission with some amazing tunes. “Caramel Eyes” was a particular favourite of mine. This is the band that Oasis might have become had they not blown it after the first two albums. I bought the Strawberries EP with its individually hand crafted cover and it is a super charged 15 minutes from a band with a great future.
You really need to get out and catch any of these four bands playing live. You will not be disappointed whichever one you choose!
A public service announcement – all the pictures are from my nifty little Chinese phone and the videos are all courtesy of YouTube.
Regular readers of this blog will know by now that I am a big fan of one of Middlesbrough’s finest bands and indeed a great British band, hell just a great band anyway you look at them; I’m talking the magnificent Avalanche Party. Well the boys have a rather spiffing new single out called “Money”. It’s stunning video was launched earlier today. The film was produced by Jodie Canwell. I don’t know much about Jodie but I felt there were elements of David Lynch in her work on this video. It was all shot on the North Yorkshire Moors and when I say it’s weird I mean that as a big compliment. Can I be in the next video please?
But not only is it a brilliant video the song is bloody good too. I hope there are vinyl copies of it available next time I see the boys (which hopefully will be on 23rd May at Fibbers in York). If this song is an indicator of future direction for this wonderful band then roll on more releases. EPs, singles an album anything will do me. The song was produced by Fred Purser who has worked with a wide range of artists including the Futureheads and Tom Jones. Have you downloaded “Money” yet? If not then why not? It’s bloody well free people! Click here and download it immediately! Anyway never mind “one for the money” I give this 9 out of 10. Why not 10 I hear you ask, well because I’m saving that for the Avalanche Party album! Jordan, Owen, Kane and Joe – keep on rocking! Sadly my wife Catherine (aka Catwoman) isn’t keen on the song…. but I’m working on her!
An US Research Scientist recently claimed that science is not very far away from being able to record dreams. His name is Dr Moran Cerf which sounds made up to me. You can probably get some good anagrams from it, I tried and came up with DREAM FOR SNR which I interpreted as dream for senior, i.e. dream for older people, i.e. me!
I’m not sure it would be a good thing, it might reveal your innermost thoughts to everyone and frankly it could destroy the porn industry too, everyone could just record their own personal fantasies! It really does take science way into the realms of science fiction. He does however state that the first step is to visualise dreams by a combination of recollection and brain activity. The actual recording is quite some way off. I’m pleased about that, I’m not sure I’d want my dreams available to all! What do you folks think?
On a bizarre footnote as I was typing this WordPress showed the following proposed tags based upon what I had written; Dream, BBC, Neuron, Science Fiction and Brain. All of which make logical sense, but it also added Marilyn Monroe and the Eiffel Tower. Is it reaching into my dreams? I have certainly dreamt about Marilyn before, mostly in my teens! Anyway I deliberately haven’t added them as tags to this post.
As always this is at heart a music blog so please enjoy the following dream related songs and feel free to add your own via the comments facility. I started out expecting to put a top 10 together and appear to have ended up with 20, not all of which I like incidentally, but I’m sure there is at least one person out there that likes them! There is also one hidden dream song, the first person to tell me what it is and where it is in the post via the comments facility may win a prize!
“All I Have To Do Is Dream” – Everly Brothers. Written by famous husband and wife songwriting team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant in 1958, Don and Phil’s version is probably the most well known although it has been covered by many acts. It was most recently used in the 2010 remake of ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street‘ where of course all Freddie Krueger has to do is dream to be able to kill
“Dreaming” – Blondie – Taken from the ‘Eat To The Beat’ album and released in 1979 and reached number 2 in the UK. As with many of Blondie’s hits it was written by Deborah Harry and Chris Stein. It has been covered by the Smashing Pumpkins, the Posies, Yo La Tengo and Jeff Tweedy off of Wilco amongst others.
“Dreaming” – Cliff Richard – The same title as the Blondie song but definitely not the same song! Cliff was never massively succesful in the US. “Devil Woman was a big hit and “Dreaming” also made number 10. Cliff is the only artist to have had UK number one hits in every decade since the UK charts began (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s). None in the 10s yet though, but I reckon a Christmas team up with an X Factor winner would probably swing it.
“Teenage Dream” – T Rex. Bolan’s chart success had started to wane by the time this was released in 1974, it still made UK number 2 though. It was also the first release that was credited to Marc Bolan and T Rex. It was taken from the wonderfully titled album ‘Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow‘
“Dream Kid” – Sutherland Brothers and Quiver – Gavin and Ian Sutherland started life as a folk rock duo in the late 60s, they joined with Quiver in 1972 and sadly didn’t have massive chart success. But this song from 1973 remains one of my all time favourites.
“Don’t Dream It’s Over” – Crowded House – It was recorded in LA in 1986 and released in January 1987. The song was written by Neil Finn and was the first of the bands two US Top 40 hits. The song featured in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’. It has been covered by quite a few artists. The Sixpence None The Richer version was very good, the Paul Young version was frankly…..crap!
“Dreams” – Fleetwood Mac – This one’s a true classic from the ‘Rumours’ album and was written by Stevie Nicks. The song was most famously covered by the Corrs and none other than Mick Fleetwood joined them to sing it at the Royal Albert Hall with them in 1998
“Silver Dream Machine” – David Essex – This was recorded for David’s 1980 film ‘Silver Dream Racer‘. Not one of his better hits in my opinion. What do you folks think? (Especially you Ms Topsom!)
“Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” – Green Day – This was taken from the bands excellent ‘American Idiot’ album. Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the song and was rather amusingly criticised by Noel Gallagher off of Oasis for ripping off one of his songs (the chord progression is very similar to “Wonderwall”)
“Dreamer” – Supertramp. This was from the ‘Crime Of The Century’ album and was released in 1975. The B Side was another brilliant song; “Bloody Well Right” which was released as a single in its own right later that year.
“In A Broken Dream” – Python Lee Jackson – Python Lee Jackson were an Australian band during the late 60s. They had a brief stay in the UK where they recorded this song with a then unknown vocalist, Rod Stewart. The single was a flop when it was released in 1968 but became a big success when it was rereleased in 1972.
“I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) – Electric Prunes – Perhaps one of the most fondly remembered psychedelic bands from the 60s. They had a song, “Kyrie Eleison” included on the ‘Easy Rider’ soundtrack. The band reformed in 2001 and are still touring.
“Daydream Believer” – Monkees – The song was written by John Stewart and the lead vocal was sung by Davy Jones. It was an US number 1 but only managed number 5 in the UK. Despite being effectively a manufactured boy band all four members actually played or sang on this song.
“In Dreams” – Roy Orbison – The song was written by Orbison himself and he was able to demonstrate his amazing vocal range, he sings across two octaves. Roy said that the song came to him while he was a sleep and presumably while he was dreaming. David Lynch used the song in his film, ‘Blue Velvet’
“Never Had A Dream Come True” – Stevie Wonder – The song was released in 1970 before Stevie was able to take control of his own career, so it was not one of his own compositions. It was however a co-composition written along with Motown staff writers Henry Cosby and Sylvia Moy. The song was covered by the Jackson 5 for their first album.
“Island Of Dreams” – Springfields – The group formed in 1960 when Mary ‘Dusty’ O’Brien and her brother Dion O’Brien teamed up with Tim Field. They all took on the Springfield. And that dear readers is how Dusty Springfield came to be!
“Teenage Dream” – Katy Perry – The same title as the T Rex song, but not the same at all. It was the second single taken from her 2010 album of the same name, following the worldwide smash that was “California Gurls”. I wonder if she’ll use her married name in future? Actually Katy Brand doesn’t sound bad does it?
“Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) – Eurythmics – This gave the band their only US number one when it was released in 1983. Marilyn Manson recorded an excellent cover of the song in which he changed some of the lyrics, adding lines like “I wanna use you and abuse you/I wanna know what’s inside you.”
“Any Dream Will Do” – Jason Donovan – The song was written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber for their 1968 musical ‘Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat‘ which has gone on to massive success on stages all over the world. At various times it has been sung by everyone from Philip Schofield to Donny Osmond.
“Dreaming Of Me” – Depeche Mode – This was the bands first single and was released in the UK in February 1981, strangely it was never commercially released in the US. It was written by Vince Clarke who went on to form Yazoo and Erasure.
Hello again everyone how are well all then? I hope that you’re all ok because I have some very sad, bad, bleak news to impart. You really should be sitting down when you read this. Trust me it is the worst music news I’ve had to deliver since I started blogging, I know that’s only six weeks ago but this is really dreadful. So are you sitting comfortably? This is a bit like ‘Watch With Mother’ now isn’t it? Right I’ve been putting it off for long enough, now I have to tell you, stay in your seats. “Agadoo” by Black Lace is going to be reissued soon. See I told you it was awful news. It will be a 2009 remix and the video has been directed by Kevin Kennedy who used to play Curly Watts in Coronation Street, he also appears in it. He must need the money because this is a crime against music. The song was originally released in 1984 and made it to number 2 in the UK charts, held off the top spot by George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”. Click here to see just how bad it is, but be warned click at your own peril!
They should be arrested for those haircuts alone never mind that bloody song!
I have some other news too, not as bad as the first piece though. Apparently Ozzy Osbourne has had a premonition of his death. This is the quoted comment from Ozzy, “Some bird with some very rare virus is going to fly over my head. It’s going to shit on me and I’m going to melt on the floor” I presume he means a bird of the feathered variety. Can we also assume that it has nothing to do with drumming up publicity for the new series of ‘The Osbournes’ which will be called “The Osbournes Reloaded”. Reviews so far have completely panned it. perhaps he could do a deal with Satan and get that bird to shit on Black Lace instead?
Will it be the lesser spotted Sharon Bird that shits on Ozzy's head?
Have you been following the coverage of the G20 summit? There is actually a music link here too, not the fact that Bob Geldof was pontificating as usual either. the Queen usually gives visiting world leaders and dignitaries a signed framed photograph of her and Prince Phillip, she receives a wide range of gifts in return. This week she received a video iPod from the Obama’s. It was preloaded with photos of the Queen’s state visits to the US in 1957 and 2007, some video and audio of Barack Obama’s speeches including the inauguration and 40 great show tunes. The Queen loves musicals apparently and the gift also came with a rare songbook which was signed by Rodgers off of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
And finally on the news front the two remaining Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will be taking part in a live public webcast later today, April 3rd (12 noon EST). The pair will be helping promote the David Lynch Foundation’s initiative to teach at least one million ‘at-risk’ youths to meditate. perhaps they’re seeking “Instant Karma” The pair along with many other rock luminaries have been practising Transcendental meditation for years. To take part in the conference visit davidlynchfoundation.org Later this evening McCartney and Starr will be joined by a cast of many at new York’s Radio City for a benefit concert to raise money for the David Lynch Foundation. Performers include Eddie Vedder (off of Pearl Jam), Moby, Sheryl Crow, Ben Harper, Paul Horn, Bettye La Vette, Mike Love (off of the Beach Boys) and Jim James (off of My Morning Jacket).
David is ready to release his chicken over Ozzy's head
Have any of you seen the BBC documentary ‘The Queens Of British Pop’? I saw part 1 this week and it was rather good. It featured Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Suzi Quatro, Siouxse Sioux and the mighty Kate Bush. Click here for the link. yes I know Suzi is American but she did have her biggest success in the UK. As for Kate well on this day in 1979 she made her live debut at the Liverpool Empire. Kate is also the number one search term used which arrived at this very blog. More than 700 searches for Kate have found their way here. The next two are Pink Floyd with over 600 and Lily Allen with nearly 200 plus another 10 for Lily Allen Naked!
Kate has just released a Falcon towards Ozzy, perhaps it would have been easier to unleash the Hounds Of Love!
Here comes another blatantly shameless plug for my son Luke’s band Steal The Smile. They are playing at the Face Bar in Reading this evening so go and check them out. If you can’t make it get yourself over to their MySpace page by clicking here and let me know what you think of them.
I’ll end todays post with a couple of ‘onthisdays’ and the birthdays will return another time! Firstly on this day in 1975 Steve Miller was charged with setting fire to the clothes of a friend, Benita Diorio. Presumably not a close friend or perhaps he had the hots for her! Police arrived at Miller’s house to find Benita trying to put out the flames. Miller began fighting with some of the policemen and was eventually charged with resisting arrest.
Steve plays on despite the fact that his friend's wardrobe is on fire behind him
And finally on this day in 1993 the Bluebells were at number one in the UK with “Young At Heart” The song had originally been released some ten years earlier. But this time around it was the beneficiary of a Volkswagen TV advertising campaign. Here’s one for you fact fans too, the song was co written by Siobhan Fahey off of Shakespears Sister and Bananarama!
The Bluebells contemplate drowning themselves after hearing that Agadoo is about to be released again!
hello everybody, well I have some interesting news on our recent ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment. As you may recall we were trying to see whether anyone would arrive at the blog using ‘Lily Allen Naked’ as a search term. It seems that there are millions of sites allegedly offering pictures of Lily in the buff. So the experiment didn’t work, but strangely enough, there was a search term used Thursday which led someone to my blog. Don’t worry guys it doesn’t tell me who it was but I’ll guess it was Tom or Jes. The search term was ‘Chris Allen naked’ Does anyone know who Chris Allen is? I certainly don’t, there are plenty of Chris Allens that show up when you Google the name but I don’t know which one someone wanted to see naked. So any insights from you dear readers will be much appreciated.
Anyway if you have arrived at this blog with a desperate desire to view the talented Miss Allen naked, just so you’re not too disappointed here is Lily…….errr…… in the pink!
we'll drink a drink a drink to Lily in pink in pink in pink!
And as a special bonus here is Lily with “The Fear“. Check out her new album too, it is rather good!
Another piece of hot news (well perhaps just lukewarm by the time that you read it) Damon Albarn has confirmed that Blur will be headlining one night at Glastonbury this year. I’ve seen them live twice and they were great both times although so much better with Graham Coxon. It’s great to see Mr C back in the fold.
Graham really hoped the photoshoot would be over soon, he was busting for a pee.
Anyway lets’ get back to todays trivia megamix starting with the birthdays. First of those is Cindy Wilson from the B-52’s who was born on 28th February 1957 and is 52 today. Cindy was born in Athens, Georgia in the US, this fact fans is also where REM came from. Cindy’s older brother Ricky is also in the band. I guess most people assume that the band named themselves after the B-52 bomber (like U2 naming themselves after the U2 spy plane). However this is not the case, B-52 was also the nickname in the southern states for the ‘Beehive‘ hairdo and Cindy and Kate Pierson of the band sported that style of hair. But I suppose as the hairstyle is named after the nose of the plane they were indirectly named after the plane after all! Incidentally the bands hairstylist La-Verne was even among the credits on their first eponymously titled first album in 1979. Cindy left the band in 1992 (although she rejoined in 1998) and for their US tour that year was replaced by Julee Cruise (whose biggest hit was the theme to the stupendous ‘Twin Peaks’ TV series from David Lynch). Although somewhat strangely for a one off fundraiser for the Democrat presidential candidate Jerry Brown Cindy’s place was taken by Kim Basinger. As a reminder of just how good they were (indeed still are) here are the B-52’s with “Rock Lobster”
Cindy and Kate thought they'd been stung by their hairdresser, $50 and nowhere near as high as Marge Simpsons hair
The last of the birthdays is that of King Monkey Ian Brown, former front man of the Stone Roses and now a very talented solo star. Ian is 46 today. He is just a few months younger than Roses guitarist John Squire and they were brought up just a couple of doors apart and went to Altrincham Grammar School together. They had been called ‘English Rose’ after a track on the Jam’s ‘Setting Sons’ album. They were booked for some Swedish gigs after Brown befriended a Swedish promoter while hitching around Europe and wanted a new name. Apparently they considered the name ‘Angry Young Teddy Bears’ before settling on the ‘Stone Roses’ a combination of their previous name and part of the name of one of their favourite bands the Rolling Stones. Somehow I don’t think their acclaimed status would have been the same had they adopted the ‘Angry Young Teddy Bears’ moniker. What do you think? While you’re pondering that one here are the boys with “I Wanna Be Adored”
The Angry Young Teddy Bears all received Painting By Numbers sets that Christmas. What a load of Pollocks!
On this day in 1968 Frankie Lymon was found dead at his mothers house of a suspected drugs overdose. He was just 25. As the lead singer with ‘Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ he became the youngest UK chart topper in 1957 aged just 13, when they reached the summit “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” He then became the youngest headliner at the London Palladium in 1958 aged just 14 while promoting their UK hit (which I believe failed to chart in the US) “I’m Not A Juvenile Delinquent“. Frankie retained the youngest UK chart topper record until 1972 when ‘Little’ Jimmy Osmond went to number one with the dreadful “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool” aged 9.
Frankie and the boys were looking forward to their appearance on Sesame Street to teach everyone about the letter 'T'
On this day in 1970 Led Zeppelin played a gig as the Nobs in Copenhagen after Eva Von Zeppelin, a relative of the Airship designer Ferdinand Von Zeppelin threatened to sue if the family name was used in Denmark. Later that same year Led Zep were voted Best Group in the New Musical Express (NME) readers poll, which broke a run of eight successive wins for the Beatles.
the hotel hairdryer was never strong enough for those Led boys
This day in 1998 saw ‘Cornershop’ sitting at the top of the UK singles chart with the excellent ‘Fatboy Slim’ remix of their superb song “Brimful Of Asha“. the Fatboy loved the song so much that he did the remix for free. The Asha in the song’s title is Asha Bhosle a Bollywood Playback singer. Indian films have relied heavily on song-and-dance numbers attributable to Broadway musicals. Almost always, the singing was performed by background singers while the actors and actresses mimed. Bhosle has sung more than 12.000 of these songs. Two other Playback singers, Lata Mangeshkar (Asha Bhosle’s sister) and Mohammed Rafi are also name-checked in the lyrics.
Once again Tjinder had fallen asleep at the mic
The next two aren’t strictly ‘onthisdays’ for February 28th, but it’s not a leap year so here are a couple from 29th February. Firstly on 29th February 1980 the glasses that Buddy Holly had been wearing when he died were discovered in a police file in Iowa where they had been for 21 years. The Beatles name is in part an homage to Buddy Holly and the Crickets and in one of lifes full circles Paul McCartney now owns the publishing rights to Buddy’s song catalogue.
The Invisible Man felt stupid for getting himself stuck in the Hall of Mirrors at the Fun Fair
Also on 29th February 2000 Eric Clapton received a 6 month driving ban in the UK for driving at 45mph in a 30 mph zone. So not such much of a slowhand after all are you Mr C? What’s your favourite Clapton song? This is mine, it’s “Layla” from his days as Derek and the Dominoes, although I really don’t like the unplugged version of it. Contrary to popular belief the signature guitar riff on that song came from Duane Allman and not Mr Clapton.
Eric was pleased that he had a friend like JJ to help him get to his gigs while he was banned from driving
So dear reader if you have read this far, you have reached the end of todays post and I salute you! 🙂
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 