With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

On This Day Action Eminem Or G.I. Marshall Was Banned! March 26, 2025

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 10:26 pm
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On 26th March 2001 The toy figure of Eminem was banned by some UK shops. Woolworth’s and Hamleys refused to stock the dolls. Psychologists had warned that parents who buy the dolls for children will be inadvertently giving their approval to bad language. Well that sounds like total fucking nonsense to me!

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On This Day Skinny Puppy Charged The US Government For Misuse Of Their Music At Gitmo! February 2, 2025

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 7:51 pm
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On February 2nd 2014 Skinny Puppy sent the US government an invoice after finding out their music was used as a torture device in Guantanamo Bay. They said they had never envisioned their music being used in such a way. They were asked how they felt about their songs allegedly being used in the detention camp for torture, singer cEvin Key replied: “Not too good. We never supported those types of scenarios. … Because we make unsettling music, we can see it being used in a weird way. But it doesn’t sit right with us.” I wonder if the US government had the same complaint from Barney The Dinosaur? Other artists whose music was used in this scenario include Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine, David Gray, Eminem and Metallica.

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The Mayhem Charts – July 2024 August 6, 2024

Filed under: Mayhem Monthly Chart,Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 12:04 pm
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Here is the Mayhem chart for July 2024. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have fallen to 95% more obscure than the rest of the UK! A drop of 1% from last month. Blimey am I becoming mainstream? 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 for last month were David Bowie, Elton John, and Alice Cooper. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to and for July those were PERCY, WREX, and Tercelvoice. 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, Kate Nash, Scene Queen, and Delilah Bon! Delilah has been in the artist charts for eight consecutive months. The only artist to appear in both lists for July is Kate Nash. Female artists and female-fronted bands make up 50% of the artist chart! The number one song is “Everyone Is A C*nt Except Me by Judy Raindrop (actually Judy doesn’t exist, the song was put together by those wonderful and funny people at Laughter Tracks). So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click here for the Spotify song playlist.

Mayhem Artist Chart July 2024

1 Eminem
2 Kate Nash
3 Eels
4 WREX
5 Tercelvoice
6 Bridge City Sinners
7 Millie Manders and the Shutup
8 Childish Gambino
9 Delilah Bon
10 Scene Queen

Mayhem Song Chart July 2024

1 Everyone Is A C*nt Except Me – Judy Raindrop (Laughter Tracks)
2 Collateral Damage – Avalanche Party
3 Typical Fantasy – Pennine Suite
4 So Naïve – Fever Dreams
5 Wasteman – Kate Nash

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Shane Lynch – The Devil Is In The Detail! February 28, 2024

Filed under: News,Observation,Rants — justwilliam1959 @ 9:01 pm
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Shane Lynch Irish 47-year-old former member of Boyzone, alleged singer, and born-again Christian has said that Taylor Swift and many other rock and pop artists perform satanic rituals in their stage performances and send demonic messages in their music. He made the claims in an interview with the Irish newspaper Sunday World. Perhaps Boyzone would have been a tad more exciting if they had dabbled with satanic messages in their songs. How about “Love Me For A Satan”, “Satan And Son” or “Satan Can I Hold You” for starters. Lynch said “I think when you’re looking at a lot of the artists out there, a lot of their stage shows are Satanic rituals live in front of 20,000 people without them realising and recognising,” and “You’ll see a lot of hoods up and masks on and fire ceremonies.” I wear a hoodie and dance around at gigs, do I also worship the devil? Of course not, but then I don’t worship an imaginary friend in the sky either. Shane droned on and on about it, adding “Even down to Taylor Swift – one of the biggest artists in the world – you watch one of her shows and she has two or three different demonic rituals to do with the pentagrams on the ground, to do with all sorts of stuff on her stage. But to a lot of people, it’s just art and that’s how people are seeing it, unfortunately.” He went on to say that this is the reason he’s given up listening to several genres of music, including hip-hop.” Personally, I would be very pleased if he said he was never making music again, although to be fair has he ever made music?

Mr Lynch borrows Lucifer’s pitchfork

The devil has been an ever-present in music for years ever since Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul at the crossroads. So many satan related tunes are out there from the Rolling Stones with “Sympathy For The Devil” to Cliff Richard (yes the Christian Mr. Clean with “Devil Woman”. Is rock and pop an easy way into satanism? Of course not. Does Taylor Swift worship satan? I doubt it. Is Shane Lynch talking utter bollocks? Of course, he is! OK, dear readers I would love to hear your thoughts regarding Satan in rock and pop!

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The Mayhem Monthly Top 20 Artist Chart – July 2022 August 2, 2022

Filed under: Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 2:49 pm
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The Mayhem Artist Top 20 artist chart for July 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 95% more obscure than other users in the UK this month, two points down from last month’s 97%. Although my obscure overall percentage remains at 99%! Regular readers will know that it also lists my most obscure artists, which currently are;

Promethium (The British metal titans returned to this list last month after a short break and they are still here)

Vaquelin (One of York’s finest young bands. You will be hearing more about them on this site soon). Check out the video for their latest single “Broken Window” below, watch it through to the end and you will witness my first acting performance, which I am sure will be winning many awards before long! I play old bloke at the bar with a pint of Guinness!

Hannah Robinson (talented singer who provided haunting vocals for the Last Of The Fallen Angels single “Red Dress”

The Last Of The Fallen Angels – (and speaking of the Last Of The Fallen Angels here they are, Conrad’s lot are firm favourites at Mayhem Towers)

MARQ Electronica – (The Talented Mr. Electronica graced the world with the rather fantastic album ‘Savage Times’ recently)

As for the July Top 20, Dame David and Kate Bush remain from the last chart, but this time Bowie drops from number 1 to number 4 and Kate Bush is up from 16 to 6. Soul music, specifically Motown is represented by the Supremes and Syreeta Wright. Meanwhile, reggae is represented by Burning Spear. Four of the five artists on the obscure list above are also in the top 20; MARQ Electronica (no. 3), The Last Of The Fallen Angels (5), Vaquelin (13), and Hannah Robinson (17). Classic bands and artists include Steely Dan, Nick Cave, Eminem, the Streets, Panic! At The Disco, and Hootie and the Blowfish. I am just preparing a review of Hottie drummer Jim Sonefeld’s autobiography ‘Swimming With The Blowfish. More recent but equally great artists include Captain Ska, The Beths, The Sheratons, and Yard Act. But it is disco music that makes it to the top of the pile this month thanks to the artist that made us feel mighty real, Sylvester! Check out the full chart below. I really would love to hear your thoughts on this chart. Please keep your eyes open for the fifth Mayhem Monthly Song Chart, just like an old-school top 20 singles chart! That one includes songs by eight of the artists featured in the July Artist Chart.

1 Sylvester
2 Hootie and the Blowfish
3 MARQ Electronica
4 David Bowie
5 The Last Of The Fallen Angels
6 Kate Bush
7 Captain Ska
8 Steely Dan
9 Burning Spear
10 Panic! At The Disco
11 The Beths
12 Nick Cave
13 Vaquelin
14 Supremes
15 Syreeta Wright
16 Eminem
17 Hannah Robinson
18 The Streets
19 The Sheratons
20 Yard Act

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My 2020 On Spotify And Some Deeper Listening Stats! January 17, 2021

Filed under: Observation,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 1:54 pm
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I thought I would share some of my Spotify listening habits. Apparently I listened to Spotify for more than 12 days last year, I wish I knew how much time I listened to vinyl, CDs, MP3s, radio and other on line sources too. I discovered 577 new artists, wow! My most listened to song was David Bowie’s version of “Wild Is The Wind” and unsurprisingly Bowie was my most listened to artist once again (996 minutes, nearly 6% of my total Spotify listening time) I was also in the top 0.5% of Bowie listeners. The other artists in my top 5 were Biffy Clyro, the Streets, Ella Fitzgerald and Woke Up Dead. I listened to 1,286 artists. My top decade was the 1970s, again no surprise there. Top genres were Rock, Soul and Dance Rock. Rather fascinatingly my music is more obscure than 80% of UK users, what on earth does that mean? I also found a few rather amusing, to me anyway, graphs and charts to accompany this post!

Since starting on this post I have also discovered a few sites on which you can regularly update your Spotify statistics split between artists and tracks and then last 4 weeks/ current, Last six months and all time within that. My favourites among these sites so far are Favourite Music Guru, Obscurify Music and Stats For Spotify. Have you used any of these or can you recommend others?

In case you’re interested in my warped eclectic taste these are my top artists on Spotify (Current, Medium Term and all time) The top songs follow those lists. Incidentally the Kunts and Jarvis Cocker feaure strongly on the tracks lists simply because I did my bit to get them to be the Christmas number one in the UK these last two years!

Top Artists — Short Term (4 weeks)

  1. The Beatles
  2. Yusuf / Cat Stevens
  3. Eagles
  4. London Symphony Orchestra
  5. Evie Sands
  6. Rumer
  7. Jackson Browne
  8. David Bowie
  9. Bobbie Gentry
  10. Harry Styles

Top Artists — Medium Term (6 months)

  1. David Bowie
  2. Biffy Clyro
  3. Gregory Porter
  4. The Avalanches
  5. John Lennon
  6. Eminem
  7. Stevie Wonder
  8. Stephen EvEns
  9. Ella Fitzgerald
  10. The Beatles

Top Artists — Long Term (years)

  1. David Bowie
  2. Bob Marley & The Wailers
  3. Biffy Clyro
  4. Frank Turner
  5. Bruce Springsteen
  6. Four Tops
  7. Eminem
  8. Johnny Nash
  9. Elton John
  10. The Streets

Top Tracks — Short Term (4 weeks)

  1. Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
  2. Billy the Kid, Ballet Suite: I. The Open Prairie — Aaron Copland, London Symphony Orchestra
  3. True Faith ’94 — New Order
  4. Jamaica Say You Will — Jackson Browne
  5. Everybody Used to Love You — Silverjet
  6. Raison D’Être — Stolen Dead Music
  7. Wear A Mask — Sing Sing Rabbit
  8. Three Points on a Compass — Martin Rossiter
  9. Drag Me to the Light — Miles and the Chain Gang
  10. Alfred – Intro — Eminem

Top Tracks — Medium Term (6 months)

  1. Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
  2. Taking It Slow — Heartsink
  3. Concorde — Gregory Porter
  4. Freakin’ At the Freaker’s Ball — Dr. Hook
  5. Pepper — Butthole Surfers
  6. Career Criminal — Stephen EvEns
  7. Close — The Islas
  8. Belladonna — Spunsugar
  9. Make Us Eat — The Shining Tongues
  10. Smiling — Alanis Morissette

Top Tracks — Long Term (years)

  1. Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt – Single Edit — The Kunts
  2. Running the World — Jarvis Cocker
  3. Star Treatment — Arctic Monkeys
  4. (red, white, and blue) Cheerfulness — Perry Farrell
  5. Balance, Not Symmetry — Biffy Clyro
  6. Future Legend – 2016 Remaster — David Bowie
  7. Deep Sea Dreaming — Ocean Flaws
  8. Loser of the Year — Woke Up Dead
  9. Three Points on a Compass — Martin Rossiter
  10. Wild Is the Wind – 2016 Remaster — David Bowie

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Catherine Rocks The Cleveland Way Part 2 June 7, 2018

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 8:59 pm
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Regular readers and people who know me will by now be aware that my wonderful wife Catherine has embarked on a mammoth 109 mile charity walk on the Cleveland Way in the North East of England. I posted about it recently click here for part 1. Why is she doing this? Well four years ago Catherine and I were totally devastated by the loss of two children as a result of an adoption disruption. It was clear to us that the support needed by vulnerable children was just not available. There was no money and no urgency to the long-term support that was needed. It is incredibly important to both of us that the children and young people in our community have access to the support they need to thrive and to grow into happy and resilient adults. We know that we are unable to do anything now for the children we lost, but we want to try to make a difference to the lives of other children and young people. We want to do whatever we can to try to prevent what happened to our children from happening again. Please feel free to contribute toward Catherine’s target of £10,000. Her efforts so far means that she is already at 85% of that total. Click here for the link to donate.

Anything you can add to that will be invaluable to the two charities we are supporting. Those charities are The Island (Enhancing the quality of life for vulnerable children and young people in York) and SASH (Working to prevent homelessness in young people aged 16-25 in York, North Yorkshire & East Yorkshire).

The Island offers support to vulnerable 8-13 year-olds in York who are struggling to cope at home, at school, or in the wider community, or who are experiencing difficult transitions in their lives. The Island links these young people with volunteer mentors with whom they meet on a weekly basis over the course of a year (or longer if required). This allows them to develop supportive, ongoing relationships, whilst also providing them with the undivided attention and the ‘islands of space and time’ they need to increase their confidence and self-esteem, participate in worthwhile recreational activities, and move forward in their lives.

SASH run supported lodgings schemes which help young people develop the skills they need to live on their own. They provide an emergency nightstop service that makes a difference to young people’s lives when most needed.

The final leg of her journey is tomorrow, Friday 8th June where she is due to take the final step of those 109 miles at around 5:30 pm. I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of this very special lady. I love her down to her bones and apparently those bones are aching like hell at the moment! So dig deep and contribute whatever you can 🙂 To spur you on here are a few walking related songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2fPkzJsMU8

 

Leeds Festival Day 3 Sunday 27th August 2017 August 30, 2017

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:13 pm
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Click here to read my review of day 3 of the 2017 Leeds Festival on the Hype Media site. I would like to thank the lovely gang at the Hype Media for giving me the opportunity to be there! Words by me and pictures by rock photographer extraordinaire John Hayhurst of snapagig. Except for the Marshall Mathers picture, that one was a lucky find.

 

Black Lagoons, Broken Skulls, Mall Rats & Blind Eye – The Crescent, York – Friday 22nd January 2016 January 23, 2016

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 1:47 am
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I once again had the pleasure of attending a gig set up by the fabulous Northern Radar a.k.a Simon Pattinson. It was at the Crescent in York a new community venue that I have not been to before. As usual with Simon’s shows the quality was top-notch. I have been to many gigs arranged by Simon and so far there has not been a bad one. No pressure for next time then Simon! Tonight’s bill featured two bands that I have seen before and two that were new to me. Incidentally it was great to catch up with Jordan Bell off of Avalanche Party, Mike Harrison, Joe Alexander and obviously Mr Pattinson himself.

blindeye

The proceedings were kicked off by the majestic power trio known as Blind Eye who I have seen before, the boys were fresh from recording their EP at a studio in Manchester. They gave us a couple of new songs that in a few years I am sure will be seen as Blind Eye classics; “Stained Glass Windows” and “Vultures”. Along with some of their older songs they also performed one of their customary covers, this time it was a thunderous run through of the Beatles classic “Come Together”. They even managed to incorporate a few lines of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” into the song. This band is truly fucking awesome, their EP I am sure will be off the scale good.

mallrats

OK now I want you to imagine a band that is a cross between the Velvet Underground with all of Andy Warhol’s arty-farty stuff removed and then crossed with Nirvana. Can you picture that? Good now think of that band’s drummer being a reincarnated John Bonham (not because they look the same but that they share the same pounding power. Do you have the picture in your mind? Can you imagine the sound that such a band would make? Excellent because that band Ladies and Gentlemen is the Mall Rats. A brilliant band whose closing song “Plunge Pool” was one of the most moshtastic of the whole evening.

broken skulls

The third act on tonight was another York band that I have seen before, the truly stupendous Broken Skulls. These two brothers come across like the Kings Of Leon genetically spliced with Royal Blood and then injected with a massive testosterone booster. How can two people make such a loud but beautiful noise? I really don’t know but they do. Maybe we need to ask them how they do it. Anyway it would be fair to say that they really owned the stage during their set.

blacklagoons

I have not had the pleasure of witnessing a show by the Black Lagoons before tonight so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Even more so when I cast my eyes on the band for the first time. The majority of them have probably never seen a razor. Not because they are hirsute with resplendent facial hair but because I don’t believe that some of them have started shaving yet. But don’t let that put you off, for whatever age they are, and frankly I don’t care, they are a stunning live act. What do they sound like? That is a difficult question to answer, but it is almost as though they have invented a new genre of music which I will call Prog Punk (or possibly Punk Prog). These lads can only get better in my opinion and they are very damned good already. I tried to imagine the Queens Of The Stone Age as a school band and that captured a degree of what the Black Lagoons are. On top of that they have a reborn Keith Moon on drums and the coolest, most serious faced bass player since John Entwistle. I recommend that you check out all of tonight’s bands. No wait I don’t recommend that you do it, I order you to do it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raKie1rU2Fc

Public Service announcement all the pictures were taken by me and the videos are courtesy of YouTube. However I couldn’t find a Mall Rats video, so if you can send me the link to one then feel free to do so 🙂

 

 

Brit Awards 2014 – Wednesday February 19th 2014 February 19, 2014

Filed under: Observation,Review — justwilliam1959 @ 10:27 pm
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brits 2014The Brits has kicked off well with a storming “R U Mine” from those Sheffield scallywags the Arctic Monkeys. Will it all go downhill from here? Let’s find out shall we? Well at least James Corden was finally on fire for the first time hosting this show. Well the sleeve of his jacket was to set up a lame joke about the Arctic Monkey‘s pyrotechnics. Thankfully this will be his last Brits. The British Female Brit award was presented the shortest man in music Prince Rogers Nelson accompanied by his new band. Corden interrupted for a selfie with the purple one. Ellie Goulding won it and given the nominees deservedly so in my opinion. She was somewhat awed by meeting Prince too.

Katy Perry was next on stage and she went a bit Stargate Cleopatra on us. She sang “Dark Horse” from her new album ‘Prism’. I presume it’s not a George Harrison tribute. Kylie and Pharrell Williams presented the International Male solo Artist award after more inane and unfunny shite from Corden. It was won by Bruno Mars; personally I expected it to go to Justin Timberlake although I would have voted for Eminem.

Tinie Tempah and Fearne Cotton rocked up to present the British Breakthrough Act Award. It was well won by the rather excellent Bastille. I love the ‘Bad Blood’ album. Sadly Corden was back after that with a dreadful interview with One Direction which included some pathetic jokes about Justin Bieber in prison. Then we were subjected to Bruno Mars with “Treasure”. But to be fair I judged him too soon, that was a good performance. Really classy modern R & B.

Next up a welcome return from Lily Allen to present the award for Best British Group. Thank fuck it wasn’t won by Wand Erection. It went to a proper band instead. The marvellous Arctic Monkeys. The previously known winner of the newcomer award was the understated but talented Sam Smith.

Now we have the Global Success Award presented by Rosie double-barreled surname. Who the fuck is she? Was this Award manufactured for the ultimate manufactured band One Direction? Can’t we just sell them to the USA? Is Harry Styles having a wee the most controversial act of this years show? Sadly it probably is. The revolution doesn’t start here!

Beyonce live, now that was bloody good in my opinion. But was she lip syncing “XO”? The nest award was for best British single, presented by Katy Perry. Was she trying an English accent? Won by the fabulous Rudimental which thankfully beat Olly Murs and Wand Erection.

The first collaboration of this years show was Disclosure and Lorde with a really cool and funky take on Lorde’s “Royals”. Followed by a brilliant live rendition of “White Noise” with Aluna. The International Group award was presented by Cesc Fabregas (WTF?) and Nicole Scherzinger. The winners were Daft Punk. Could it really have been anyone else? The legend that is Nile Rodgers collected the award on their behalf.

Ellie Goulding was next to perform. She did “I Need Your Love” and “Burn”. I loved the massed percussion during “Burn”. I have really grown to like Ellie’s music. Noel Gallagher was there to present the best male solo artist award. Let’s hope he has a new album out soon. Fuck me Bowie’s only gone and won it! Kate Moss accepted it on Bowie’s behalf at his personal behest. A brilliant speech written by the Dame too. This has made my night!

Nick Grimshaw that bloke from Radio One who is moderately more talented than Chris Moyles stepped up to present the International Female solo artist award. Lorde was the winner and a bloody good choice too.  Bowie is a Lorde fan. Then we had yet another shite interview by Corden with Nile Rodgers and Pharrell Williams. The British Video award was voted for live on Twitter during the show and was presented by Jimmy Carr. Sadly it was won by Wand Erection with “Best Song Ever”, but it isn’t is it?

Rudimental and Bastille combined on stage to become Bastimental for the night. It certainly made up for a second 1D award for the night. Blimey just how sexy is Ella Eyre? Now we are onto the final award of the night, it’s the one that everyone wants. It’s best album and it was presented by Emilie Sande. It went to the Arctic Monkeys. It is a great album, but I was hoping for a second Brit of the night for David Robert Jones. But well done to Alex and the boys, although their acceptance speech was largely bollocks wasn’t it?

The show was closed by Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. What a barnstorming performance from two music masters. “Get Lucky”, “Good Times”, “Happy” the hits just kept coming. Overall I think this years show was an improvement on last year. Some marks out of ten from me; James Corden 1/10, Bowie winning a Brit 10/10 and for the overall show 5/10 could do better.

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