With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

On This Day The Fabs Won And Failed To Turn Up While Elvis’ Dad Drank Lemonade! March 23, 2025

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 3:02 pm
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On 23rd March 1967 at a ceremony held at the Playhouse Theatre in London, The Beatles were awarded three Ivor Novello awards. These were for 1966: Best-selling British single “Yellow Submarine”,(Effectively the ‘A’ Side of the Record Issued in 1966 Which Achieved the Highest Certified British Sales) most-performed song “Michelle”, and next-most-performed song “Yesterday”. Incidentally fact fans, the most covered Beatles song is “Yesterday,” with over 2,200 covers, according to Guinness World Records, and is also considered the most covered song of all time. Meanwhile the band’s most played song is “Here Comes the Sun” it has racked up over a billion streams on Spotify, making it the only Beatles track to reach that milestone.

None of the Beatles attended the Ivor Novello ceremony back in ’67 and the winning songs were played by Joe Loss and his Orchestra. The lead vocal for “Michelle” was sung by Ross MacManus, whose son would go on to become the professional musician Elvis Costello. In 1970, Ross MacManus recorded a version of The Beatles’ song “The Long And Winding Road” under the pseudonym of Day Costello, which spent 17 weeks in the Australian chart, peaking at number 16. He was also the man responsible for the music and vocals from the R. White’s Lemonade television advertisement theme song “Secret Lemonade Drinker”, on which MacManus Junior (a.k.a. Elvis Costello) sang backing vocals.

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The Mayhem Charts – December 2023 January 6, 2024

Filed under: Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 5:43 pm
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Here is the Mayhem chart for December 2023. Regular readers will know the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month. The chart remains contemporary-ish, rather than just an oldies chart However, the top three “Legacy” artists are Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, and Bobby Darin, and surprisingly David Bowie is not in the top 3. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including three who were in the top ten last month (ALT BLK ERA, Delilah Bon, and tiLLie). In fact, this is now the fifth month in a row that ALT BLK ERA has featured in the artist’s top ten. Only two of the top five songs are by artists which feature in the top ten artist chart. Those two are Rebecca Ferguson and Jazmin Bean. girli and UGLY CLUB remain in the song top five from last month with UGLY CLUB moving up from 5 to 2 and girli moving from 3 to the summit! In case you are interested the top three Christmas tunes for December were “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love, “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)” by the Darkness, and “Proper Christmas” by the Krackpots. So without further ado here are those charts! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.

MAYHEM ARTIST CHART DECEMBER 2023

1 Jazmin Bean
2 Rebecca Ferguson
3 Poppy
4 100 gecs
5 Yussef Dayes
6 tiLLie
7 HANDSHAKE IN SPACE
8 Scott Bradlee’s Post-Modern Jukebox
9 Delilah Bon
10 ALT BLK ERA

MAYHEM SONG CHART DECEMBER 2023

1 Nothing Hurts Like A Girl – girli
2 What’s Wrong – UGLY CLUB
3 Digging For Gold – Rebecca Ferguson
4 Terrified – Jazmin Bean
5 SAOKO – Rosalía

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The Mayhem Monthly Top 20 Artist Chart – May 2022 June 7, 2022

Filed under: Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 9:47 pm
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The Mayhem Artist Top 20 artist chart for May 2022 is here. Many of you know that I am a keen user of a site called Obscurify. It claims to tell you how obscure your listening on Spotify is. Compared to the rest of the UK I achieved a level of only 96% more obscure than other users in the UK this month, one point up from last month’s 95%. Regular readers will know that it also lists my most obscure artists, (two of which had been there since I began doing these posts, although for the first time ever Woke Up Dead and Promethium are not on that list! Sorry chaps) which currently are;

Gene (The best British band of the Britpop era in my opinion, back for a second month)

Har Mar Superstar (American modern disco maestro and supremely good live act)

Astoria (A fine young band from Leeds who were recently featured in our Mayhem Virgins series)

Vaquelin (One of York’s finest young bands. They will definitely be in the Mayhem Song chart for May 2022 when it is posted soon. Check out their latest video below too)

Matty Groove (An incredibly talented beatboxer who I recently saw supporting Professor Elemental)

As for the May Top 20, only Dame David remains from the last chart, but he drops from number one to number six. Other classic artists include Sex Pistols (at number one), Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, John Lennon, and The Clash. A few would giants make an appearance too including Bill Withers and the Four Tops. I learned in Uncut magazine this month that somewhere out there is an unreleased album that the Tops recorded with Norman Whitfield. Who do we need to speak to about getting that released? There is quite an eclectic mix here for May: Father John Misty, OMD, Steve Earle, Professor Elemental, and The The. Harry Styles rocked up at number 14 in April and hits number two in May. I am most definitely a Harry Styles fan, he is a hugely talented artist and I bloody love his music! I would love to hear your thoughts on this chart. Oh and keep your eyes open for the third Mayhem Monthly Song Chart, just like an old-school top 20 singles chart! That one includes songs by a few of the artists featured in the April Artist Chart. Will one of this month’s obscure artists get the coveted number one in the song chart? Maybe, but you will find out soon!

1 Sex Pistols
2 Harry Styles
3 Pink Floyd
4 Bill Withers
5 Four Tops
6 David Bowie
7 Father John Misty
8 The Institutes
9 Steve Earle
10 Arcade Fire
11 Lou Reed
12 Daryl Hall & John Oates
13 Elvis Costello
14 The Clash
15 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
16 John Lennon
17 Yelawolf
18 The The
19 Professor Elemental
20 Linda Ronstadt

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‘How To Be A Thousandaire’ – Catherine Adamson November 20, 2019

Filed under: Book — justwilliam1959 @ 9:10 pm
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I am so very proud of my very talented wife Catherine, her book ‘How To Be A Thousandaire’ was published on 20th September this year and she is leading a book launch event for it tomorrow in York. It is the perfect book for you if you are a micro-business owner, are planning to become a micro-business owner or if you know a micro-business owner. The book details Catherine’s business journey and how she overcame adversity to build an incredibly resilient business. The book is available now from Amazon across the world. At only £14.99 in the UK, it is a great investment. Click here and order your copy now, and feel free to share this!

Yes this is a music blog so please enjoy a few book-related tunes while you place your order for ‘How To Be A Thousandaire’

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“The trial was a pig circus, he never had a chance” February 3, 2016

Filed under: Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 11:18 am
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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

 

Elvis Costello “Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink” – Book reading and signing – Royal Court Theatre Liverpool, Monday 26th October 2015 November 6, 2015

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:42 pm
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I have worked in the fantastic city of Liverpool for a few months and I recently had the opportunity to attend a book signing by someone who technically might be described as a newly published author. He is known as Declan McManus by many but as the magnificent Elvis Costello by most! He has recently launched his memoirs; “Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink”. The book runs to just shy of 700 pages and when I have read it I will no doubt be posting a review of it in this very blog.

However I wanted to just give you a brief review of what was a fabulous night at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool last month. Elvis was interviewed about the book, his life and his career by author Mark Billingham who is also very clearly a Costello fan. Elvis himself used a tablet linked to a couple of large screens on the stage to show us some wonderful pictures of himself and some great ones from his family history. There was also a brilliant video of his Dad Ross McManus singing “If I Had A Hammer” with the Joe Loss Orchestra in the 1960s.

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It was quite an intimate setting and Elvis came across as a really decent bloke. He is articulate, humorous and polite. He read a few passages from the book and told a number of anecdotes that were a mix of the emotional and the amusing. I think that many of us in what looked like a sell out crowd had our fingers crossed that he might sing a few songs and we were not disappointed. At the end he took up his acoustic guitar and played a great version of “Stranger In The House” and a supremely powerful showing of the timeless classic “Shipbuilding”. The latter was preceded by a story about the evacuation of British children overseas during World War 2. In particular the tale of a ship transporting many of these children to Canada that was sunk. For me it’s a moving song in the first place, this made it even more so.

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I was happy to queue up for forty minutes afterwards to get my copy of the book signed by the great man himself. In fact I sneakily got him to sign the latest copy of Mojo which had a picture of Mr Costello on the cover. Finally let me say a big thank you to Elvis Costello, Mark Billingham and Waterstones for putting on such and excellent night’s entertainment.

 

“I’ve been breaking up Dirty dishes and throwing them away” July 4, 2015

Filed under: News — justwilliam1959 @ 9:08 am
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Former mop top and wings man Sir Paul McCartney was given a special gift when he played in Amsterdam recently. A Tulip that has been developed and grown in his honour. It took twenty years to create the red and white bloom. It’s botanical name is Tulipa Paul McCartney. I wonder if they tried to grow one in ebony and ivory colours?

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“And on the jukebox Johnny sang about a thing called love” December 18, 2013

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 12:30 am
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The+Pogues+-+Rum+Sodomy+&+The+Lash+-+CD+ALBUM-421027Did you know that the title of the Pogues second album ‘Rum, Sodomy And The Lash‘ released in 1985 supposedly took its title from a Winston Churchill quote. Apparently when asked about seafaring traditions Churchill said “Naval tradition? Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash. The band’s drummer Andrew Ranken found the quote and suggested it for the album title. The album was produced by Elvis Costello who married band member Cait O’Riordan the following year. The LP reached number 13 in the UK album charts.

 

“When the ink starts to itch, then the black will turn to red” – Advent day 13 December 13, 2013

Filed under: Christmas,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 10:45 am
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13-StarWarsFriday 13th December, one step closer to Christmas and a fabulous day unless you are triskaidekaphobic. So on with the show and today that show comes to you courtesy of two iconic music legends. One from the US and one from the UK. One is sadly no longer with us and the other is very much alive.

johnny-cash-022112-doubleFirst up it’s the now departed Man In Black, Johnny Cash. The track I have chosen comes from the first of the albums that Cash recorded with Rick Rubin; ‘American Recordings‘ released in 1994. The song was written for Johnny by Glenn Danzig and it is called “Thirteen”. It took Danzig just twenty minutes to write the song. The album won a Best Contemporary Folk Album award at the 1994 Grammys. Cash joined the US Air Force in 1950 and for a time his role was to intercept morse code messages made by the Russian military. Apparently he was the first US radio operator to learn of the death of Joseph Stalin. The Cash family line could be traced back to 11th century Scotland.

Oct-Mir 33The second song for today comes from that spikey, scouse minstrel Declan McManus who most of you know as Elvis Costello. The title of that song is “Thirteen Steps Lead Down” it is taken from 1994′ s ‘Brutal Youth‘ album. This was the first album that Elvis had recorded with the Attractions for eight years. The song was released as the lead track of an EP; the “Thirteen Steps Lead Down EP” which included three other tracks. Those were, “We Despise You”, “Basement Kiss” and “Puppet Girl”. Did you know that the backing band on Costello’s first album ‘My Aim Is True’ were called Clover and that they went on to form the nucleus of Huey Lewis and the News? Well you do now. I had the pleasure of seeing Mr Costello play live in June this year and he was brilliant.

 

“Lately I’ve been thinking if you wanna get tough, then let’s play rough” September 5, 2013

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 11:14 pm
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Disclosure_faces_2_RESIZED_credit_edwige_hambenBritish dance duo Disclosure chose their name by selecting a random word on a car insurance form. The band is made up of brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence who were born in 1991 and 1994 respectively. They come from a musical family. Their dad was in a covers band and their Mum sang on cruise ships and provided the vocal for a number of TV advert jingles. Most notably for ‘Shake ‘n’ Vac‘. So there is a tenuous link with Elvis Costello was the writer and voice for the R White’s Lemonade Secret Lemonade Drinker campaign.

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The band’s debut album ‘Settle’ was released earlier this year and has so far spawned four UK top 20 singles, the biggest of which was “White Noise” a collaboration with the magnificent Alunageorge whiched reached number 2 earlier this year. The other singles from the album were “Latch” which features Sam Smith, “You And Me” which features Eliza Doolittle and “F For You” Sadly I missed Disclosure at the Reading Festival last month, but I did get to see Alunageorge perform “White Noise” live. If you haven’t done it already I reckon you ought to check out Disclosure’s album ‘Settle’ along with Alunageorge’s ‘Body Music’.

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