With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

hello again people, I’ve been away for a long weekend in west Burton, Yorkshire. So I guess you could say I’ve “Gone For A Burton!” If you’re not sure where that phrase comes from just click on it and you probably still won’t know as there are so many possibilities (for me this weekend it probably relates more closely to the Burtons Ale option). I can also report a modicum of success with our Lily Allen Naked experiment, three people arrived at this very blog over the weekend by using the Lily Allen naked phrase to search! It’s ok Tom and Jes you can stop now! So once again to those of you who have arrived here to see an unclothed Lily, I’m sorry you’ve been disappointed, now wash your hands! Now click here to see Lily with Alan Carr in a great spoof of the current Cadbury advert

A kind of normal service will be resumed with this post with a birthday and a couple of onthisdays. Coming up this week in addition to the usual stuff will be a post about the first five songs to appear on my iPod when I use the shuffle function, will there be something embarrassing, possibly, but you’ll find out soon enough. Anyway for now let’s go on with the show!

I’d like you all to wish a very happy 34th birthday to Edie Brickell off of Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. Edie and the New Bohemians had a hit in 1988 with “What I Am“. (UK 31, US 7) The song was also a hit for Emma Bunton (aka Baby Spice off of the Spice Girls) in 1999. Edie married Paul Simon in 1992 after the couple met when Edie was performing on Saturday Night Live on US TV. She is his third wife and for a brief period in the 80s (11 months in fact) Simon was married to none other than Princess Leia from Star Wars (well ok Carrie Fisher!). Incidentally when Windows 1995 was released in August 1995 the disc contained a few videos, notably “Buddy Holly” by Weezer and also “Good Times” by Edie Brickell. The song even has a cameo voice over from the late great (can’t keep those l’s & g’s down!) Barry White. That was truly a wonderful song, although I’m not sure of the relevance to Windows 1995. Maybe it was the songs hook line, “good times, bad times, give me some of that” users of ’95 will know what I’m talking about I hope!

Edie and the gang try, apparently unsuccessfully, to recreate the Simpsons opening credits sofa scene

On this day in 1977 the Sex Pistols famously signed their contract with A & M records on a trestle table outside Buckingham Palace in London at 7 am in the morning. The contract lasted just 6 days! After signing the band went to A & M’s London offices for a party. This resulted in the Managing Director’s office being trashed and Sid allegedly vomiting on said MD’s desk. Strangely enough there are no confirmed reports of any diced carrots! Here are the boys on their first live TV appearance with “Anarchy For The UK” on the late great (they’re back) Tony Wilson’s UK show ‘So It Goes’. As you will see this was pre Sid and also a few months in advance of the now infamous appearance on teatime UK TV with Bill Grundy

Malcolm McLaren always thought he was the 5th Pistol, but as this picture shows it was clearly Sting off of the Police!

On this day in 1979 Gloria Gaynor started a 3 week run at the top of the UK singles chart with what many see as a classic disco song, “I Will Survive” Personally as a mobile DJ I really dislike that song, largely because I’ve had to play it hundreds of times! The song was originally a B-Side to a cover of a Righteous Brothers song, “Substitute” That song was also a big hit for a South African band called Clout in 1978. OK to those of you too young to understand the concept of a B Side, well back in the day our music used to arrive on a not so compact 7 inch plastic disc with a groove cut on each side. Usually there was one song on each side, the main song was the ‘A Side’ and the supposedly lesser song (i.e. something that was banged out really quickly in the studio) was the ‘B- Side’. Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing’ was also originally a B Side to a song called “Blue Night”. How do I know that? Well I actually bought “Blue Night” during my Hot Chocolate fixation in 1975! Anyway let’s get back to Glo shall we? Firstly
click here to see the classic alien video version of “I Will Survive”. Then click here to see Glo herself perform the song. Why’s there a roller skater in the video, what’s that all about then?

Gloria didn't know how to tell George (off of George McCrae) that most of his eyebrows had fallen onto his top lip

And finally on this day in 2004 Corey Taylor from Slipknot married his girlfriend Scarlett. He has since divorced. He is the singer with Slipknot and also Stone Sour, he is allegedly recording solo material at the moment, some of which may even have a country feel to them! Slipknot famously wear masks on stage, I guess this may help avoid being mobbed in public in a similar manner to the whole Kiss make-up thing, although to be fair, Gene Simmons certainly seemed to invite publicity with or without makeup. I saw Slipknot at the Reading Festival a few years ago having wondered just how good a band who seemed to sell more hoodies and other merchandise than any other band was! I was somewhat disappointed, actually I thought they were bloody awful, however I listened to their last album and was very pleasantly surprised, it was pretty damned good! So to finished here are those crazy masked chaps Slipknot with “The Heretic Anthem” live in London.

The Slipknot boys were a little suspicious that their new masks were somewhat like the emperors new clothes