With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

“Here I am a million miles away from home” August 11, 2017


How many Trekkies are there among my readers? How many of you are music lovers?. If you are a Trekkie and you love music you probably know this already, but a number of pop and rock stars have made appearances on Star Trek at some time. If you know of any that I have missed from this post please let me know. Iggy Pop played the Vorta overseer working for the Dominion in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode The Magnificent Ferengi.

Iggy Pop contemplates the Captain’s Log

Tom Morello off of Rage Against The Machine played  Son’a Officer / Crewman Mitchell in the 1998 movie Insurrection, and later in the Voyager episode Good Shepherd respectively.

Tom Morello – Trekking In The Name Of

Jane Wiedlin off of 80s girl band the Go-Go’s, played Trillya in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

One time Miss America and later very successful singer and actress Vanessa Williams played Arandis in the 1996 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Let He Who Is Without Sin…

Vanessa Williams – looks a bit alien for a Miss America

David Soul played Makora in the Original Series episode The Apple in 1967, which was only his third television role and before his big break in Starsky and Hutch.

David Soul – looking for his Silver Lady (btw that is him on the left)

Fleetwood Mac’s drummer and huge Star Trek fan, appeared as the Antedian Dignitary in the The New Generation episode Manhunt. You could be forgiven for not recognising him in it though!

The Rumours are true, Mick Fleetwood is an alien

 

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


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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

 

“Well I’m just outa school Like I’m real real cool” January 10, 2014


jerry allisonI haven’t been a regular McDonalds customer for many, many years but I do think that their choice of music for the recent TV ad for ‘Spicy Chicken McBites’ was inspired. It is a version of ‘Real Wild Child’ by Ivan Allison. Who is Ivan I can hear you ask? OK so you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway. He is none other than the drummer from the Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Allison’s full name was Jerry Ivan Allison and he was more than just a great drummer; he also co-wrote some of the bands biggest hits with Holly. Those included “Peggy Sue” and “That’ll Be The Day”. The first release of the song came from Australian rocker Johnny O’Keefe back in 1958. The song has been covered by many artists from Jerry Lee Lewis to Jet Harris before James Osterberg a.k.a Iggy Pop took his version into the UK top ten in 1986.

crickets

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“I watched it for a little while I love to watch things on TV” October 27, 2013


lou-reed-sized

I am sure that many of you have now heard of the sad passing of music icon Lou Reed aged 71. The Associated Press have said that he died of a ‘liver related ailment’ following a liver transplant earlier this year. Two of my favourite albums of all time are Lou Reed related. Firstly ‘The Velvet Underground And Nico‘ and the classic solo album ‘Transformer‘ from 1972.

Lou+Reed+lou2

Being a Bowie fan I came across Lou Reed after Mr Bowie mentioned him often in interviews and then went on to produce ‘Transformer’ along with Mick Ronson. Lou has always in my opinion been very much his own man and often refused to play the music industry game. Personally I think he should be commended for that.

lovesongs-lou-reed-590x350

Brian Eno once said ‘The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band’ to try to describe the wide influence that Lou Reed had on many fellow musicians. My thoughts go to Lou’s wife Laurie Anderson, his family, friends and fans. RIP Lou Reed you will be greatly missed.

 

“We’ll see the city’s ripped backsides” February 18, 2013


iggy-popUSE

If I was to ask you the question what do Mick Fleetwood (off of Fleetwood Mac), David Soul and Iggy Pop have in common what would you say? personally I would have said nothing apart from maybe appearing in the charts at the same time. But the thing they have in common has nothing to do with music. Have you made your guess yet?

Mick-Fleetwood

The answer is that they have all appeared in an episode of Star Trek. David Soul appeared in an episode called ‘The Apple’ from series two of the original TV show. Iggy Pop appeared as a character called Yelgrun in a Star Trek: deep Space Nine episode called ‘The Magnificent Ferengi‘. Mick Fleetwood was a guest alien in a Star Trek: The Next Generation called ‘Manhunt’. Have any other rock and pop stars appeared in the show? I’d like to hear of any more that you might be aware of.

The pilot for Starsky and Hutch seemed a little strange

The pilot for Starsky and Hutch seemed a little strange

 

“In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch” November 13, 2012


According to the Mail OnLine (so let’s treat the information cautiously) dogs prefer classical music to heavy metal and they don’t seem to like those cheap relaxing music for your canine friend CDs either. I wonder if that has anything to do with the location of their sub woofer? Click here to read the full article.

Anyway I thought that I’d like to try a little experiment about how true this is. So here are a few dog related songs that I would like you to play to your mutt and tell me what reaction you get. Unfortunately I can’t do that as I only have cats.

 

“Ev’rybody’s talkin’ ’bout Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters, Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes” October 9, 2010


Yet another smorgasbord of random stuff today, starting with a link to a rather spiffing website; Animated Albums. Most of them are quite subtle and many are very funny, especially a few of the Morrissey ones. I’d love to know what you think of them.

The NME has a report that Slash is moving into making horror movies. The former Guns ‘n’ Roses and Velvet Revolver Axe Hero is moving into Axeman territory. He says he wants to make horror movies as scary and thrilling as those of the 70s and 80s. I guess working with Axl Rose must have been like being in a horror movie at times. I hope he succeeds. Read the story here.

 

Slash has tea with Ozzy, that's not very rock n roll is it? But wait, who's that in the maids outfit? It's certainly not Sharon is it!

 

As part of the celebrations for what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday his widow Yoko Ono has done a number of things to mark the occasion. Firstly courting controversy among some Beatles purists by allowing Lady Gaga to pose next to Lennon’s white piano. She also held two concerts in LA billed as We Are Plastic Ono Band and including appearances by the following; Perry Farrell off of Jane’s Addiction, Japanese electronic auteur Cornelius, Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, Tune-Yards, RZA off of the Wu-Tang Clan, Iggy Pop, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Sean Lennon, Carrie Fisher, Joseph Gordon-Levitt,Vincent Gallo and of course Lady Gaga. Yoko was joined by Gaga for a number of songs, including a version of Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance”. Read the NME report here

 

Lady Gaga decided to try microphone swallowing before she committed to sword swallowing

 

 

Gaga sings Lennon.........what a cheek (or two!)

 

 

“Leaving just your picture behind and I’ve kissed it a thousand times” October 8, 2009


Hello people and welcome to another post from me, in fact this is the 98th post which means that my mega 100th post which will list my top 100 songs is not too far away now, how exciting is that eh?

I have some news for the regular readers amongst you; back in May I asked if you could guess where I was going to be starting work that month. The link to that post is here if you wish to try and guess again! So don’t read on at this point if you are a second guesser! Why? Well that’s easy because I have now left that job and will be starting another soon. OK if you’re not a second guesser I’ll put you out of your misery, I have been working at BP! Where am I working next? OK let me give you a few clues; Prince Charles off of the Royal Family, Prince off of Purple Rain, Henry VIII off of Herman’s Hermits 60s hit “I’m Henry the VIII I am” What do they all have in common? What are they? Answer that and you will have guessed where I’ll be working next! As usual there may well be a prize if anyone can be bothered to enter and if I can be bothered to sort through my crap at home for a prize!

OK onto the news. David Bowie along with James Osterberg (that’ll be Iggy Pop to the non anoraks) is to be immortalised in Lego for a new Lego version of the Rock Band game. Click here to see Lego Bowie performing “Let’s Dance”I wonder if they’ll do the same to Robbie Williams. I’ve always thought he was a bit of a brick (errrrrrr did I spell that right?)

Taken from the 1983 Serious Moonlight image, I'm not sure it looks much like him. What do you think?

Taken from the 1983 Serious Moonlight image, I'm not sure it looks much like him. What do you think?

Now this one looks much more like the real thing

Now this one looks much more like the real thing

OK this next piece is not strictly music, but I just wanted to say something about it. I personally have a big issue with the piles of ‘self help’ books that clutter our book stores these days. For me the term ‘self help book’ is a complete oxymoron. You either help yourself or perhaps read a book where effectively someone else is trying to help you. (or they’re trying to make a fortune from gullible people by publishing stream of consciousness psychobabble bollocks. Apparently self help books are the only literary genre to have increased sales (by 25%) during the recession. Or to use the more snappy name of ‘The Credit Crunch’ bestowed by one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Which one was it; Pestilence, Plague, Flood or Marketing? I’ll bet that you can’t guess. As a follow on I read on Tuesday that sales of Sarah Ferguson’s self help books have plummeted, they must be worse than awful then! Anyway the article can be found by clicking here. There is one quote which I believe sums up my opinions of this awful genre and it was from the Guardian’s medical correspondent. When asked if he would read another book of this type he said “I would rather slam my cock in the door” So as I have said before this is a music post, so let’s get back to that with a combination of songs about books and help!

Paperback Writer – Beatles. This may have been the most obvious choice for the book part of the list. It was the first of the Beatles UK singles that wasn’t a love song

Story Of The Blues– Wah! I have always loved this song, it has a great, almost Phil Spectorish, production and certainly on record Pete Wylie’s voice is superb. I’m not sure about the sailors hat in the video though, but don’t worry, things become even more camp later in this post! Wylie started his career in Liverpool in 1977 in a short-lived band called the Crucial Three along with none other than Ian McCulloch (off of Echo And The Bunnymen) and Julian Cope (off of the Teardrop Explodes)

Book Of Love – Monotones A classic one hit wonder group. Charles Patrick one of the singers wrote the words after hearing a Pepsodent jingle which carried the refrain “You’ll wonder where the yellow went”

Help– Beatles. This, as the astute readers will have spotted is the second song from the MopTops in this list, an obvious choice I suppose but a great song nonetheless. Lead vocals come from John Lennon on this song which he wrote about his feelings of insecurity following the bands rapid rise to global fame. Incidentally on the album cover the Beatles semaphore stance was originally intended to spell HELP, but apparently it didn’t look aesthetically pleasing, so it actually spells NUVJ. Which on reflection wouldn’t have been a great album title would it?

Help Yourself – Tom Jones This video is taken from the first edition of Tom’s UK TV show ‘This Is Tom Jones’ in February 1969. Is it me or are those dancers the campest in the entire history of the universe?

I Can’t Help Myself  (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)– Four Tops. Some excellent Motown formation dancing from the guys in this one, which if you haven’t viewed the previous Tom Jones clip you might have considered somewhat camp, after that it is downright butch! The Tops were originally known as the Four Aims back in the 50s, but there was another vocal group known as the Four Ames (Ames being a family name) so to avoid confusion they became the Four Tops. They were one of my favourite groups when I began to get into music and in my opinion Levi Stubbs voice may never be surpassed. However there does exist another rather good version of this song from the talented but hardly mentioned these days, Mr Donnie Elbert, click here to hear it. Still on the subject of camp who is Music Mike and what is Flashback Favourites? (you’ll have to check out the Donnie video to understand

 

“It shakes all over like a jelly fish, I kinda like it” July 24, 2009


Hello dear readers I’m back with another post and firstly I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read any of my blog posts. The total number of views reached 100,000 yesterday. Now that gives no clue as to how many ‘regulars’ there are out there so if you are a regular reader I would love to hear from you. (Mickey G you’re welcome to respond to this, but I know you’re a regular!)

Anyway as the number of views has hit six digits for the first time I thought I’d include a few statistics, wow how exciting does that sound……..NOT! But I’m going to do it anyway. Firstly the artists that most people have searched for and found there way to my blog are;

kate is in fact top of the class and definitely not a dunce. She is just borrowing Robbie Williams' hat :-)

Kate is in fact top of the class and definitely not a dunce. She is just borrowing Robbie Williams' hat 🙂

1 Kate Bush, 2 Pink Floyd, 3 Lily Allen, 4 Jackson Five, 5 Slipknot, 6 Iggy Pop, 7 Beatles, 8 Catwoman, 9 Michael Jackson and 10 Green Day This ranges from more than 10,000 hits for Kate and the Floyd and 1,400 for Green Day

Lily uses her new eco friendly banana microphone

Lily uses her new eco friendly banana microphone

Of course some of you may be familiar with the ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment we undertook here (if you’re not then check out the tags). The principle was not to lower the tone far enough to show any tabloid style naked pictures of the wonderfully talented Miss Allen, but simply to see how many people arrived here by using Lily Allen Naked as a search term. I can confirm that 220 people have done that. In a couple of strangely related incidents though 253 have searched for Ronan Keating Naked and a further 205 people for Eminem naked. There were also a handful of searches for Kate Bush naked and perhaps I shouldn’t mention the 4 people who searched for Meatloaf naked! (But for those who did search for Meatloaf Naked check the picture below, it’s just for you 😉

Meatloaf Naked, well there's no gravy on it is there?

Meatloaf Naked, well there's no gravy on it is there?

And finally for the stats the most viewed links from the blog have been Steal The Smile (my son’s excellent band – click their name to check them out!), Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” video and Wyclef’s “Stripper Song” video with 34, 26 and 19 views respectively. Catwoman asked me to point out that she loves statistics or maybe she said that she didn’t 😉

OK I’ve bored you enough withnumbers so let’s move on to some hopefully more interesting stuff. Firstly an item from yesterdays newspapers in the UK. A 46 year old Alice Cooper fan was fined £250 and also received a suspended jail term and a 3 month curfew order. He apparently removed his prosthetic leg and waved it around at Alice’s gig in the Southampton Guildhall. One member of the audience tried to stop him and was beaten up. To me this almost sounds like it could have been part of the one time Vincent Furnier’s act. Here is the link to the story in the Daily Telegraph. Let me know what you think of it.

Alice warns the unruly fan that if he hit's anyone esle with his false leg he'll cut the other one off too!

Alice warns the unruly fan that if he hits anyone else with his false leg he'll cut the other one off too!

Also in the news yesterday was the legendary (in my opinion) Mick Jones off of the Clash. He has opened a library/ exhibition of a stacks of his Clash memorabilia, clothing  and various other personal items. He calls it ‘one big living artwork’ Read about it here on Spinner.com. I would love to visit but I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it

Either Mick now runs a newspaper stand or this is some of his collection

Either Mick now runs a newspaper stand or this is some of his collection

Morrissey played at the Brixton Academy a few days ago and this is the film and music he played before he came on stage, bloody brilliant in my opinion! Did you guess the music? It’s “Lighten Up Morrissey” by Sparks! And for the hell of it here are the excellent Flaming Lips with a wonderful cover version of Madonna’s “Borderline” I would like to thank those wonderful folks at Mojo Magazine for pointing me to those two

Here’s a great blog for you, I know it’s not music related but I thought it was bloody funny it’s called Kemp Folds and features pictures of Ross Kemp off of Eastenders (aka Grant Mitchell) that have been folded. OK I know that sounds stupid but check it out by clicking here

Let’s finish today July 24th with a few ‘onthisdays’. firstly on this very day in 1967 all four of the Beatles and their then manager the late great (l’s & g’s are back ra ra ra) Brian Epstein signed a petition printed in The Times newspaper which called for the legalisation of cannabis. Well it seems like no one listened doesn’t it? Where can you use marijuana legally now apart from Amsterdam Coffee Shops?

On this day in 1997 Liam Gallagher off of Oasis was given a caution by police after admitting he had caused criminal damage following an altercation with a cyclist in Camden, London. Liam was travelling in a chauffeur-driven car (it’s a tough life being a rock star isn’t it?) when he grabbed the cyclist through the car window and broke his Ray Bans. Do you remember when Ray Bans were THE fashion item? There not as big these days are they? Anyway sticking with Oasis, when Noel Gallagher was the guitar tech for the Inspiral Carpets. The Carpets used to call him “Cot Death” because he slept so much.

I thought this was quite amusing. Thank you to Snipes.com

I thought this was quite amusing. Thank you to Snipes.com

And finally for the ‘onthisdays’ today we go back to 2002. A garden centre was sued by the late great (l & g’sback with a vengeance) Freddie Mercury’s former partner Mary Austin. the law suit accused Clifton Nurseries of killing a collection of Freddie’s prized Koi Fish. Austin had inherited the collection on his death. The claim was that 84 fish died when a the electricity which supplied power to the fishes environment (a temporary pond apparently) was accidentally turned off by a worker at the Garden Centre in Maida Vale, London. Apparently by the time he died Freddie had built up one of the biggest Koi collections in the UK. These are not the sort of fish you’d find in your local fish and chip shop, one Koi can be worth as much as £250,000.

Imagine that Battered Koi, Large Chips and Mushy Peas ...... mmmmmmmm :-)

Imagine that Battered Koi, Large Chips and Mushy Peas ...... mmmmmmmm 🙂

To finish let me say thank you once again to everyone who has stopped at this blog occasionally, visited regularly, read it, commented, clicked on the links or simply looked at the pictures! And as this has been a statistics lead numbers post here is a link to the wonderful “Living By Numbers” from New Musik

 

“She wears them micro mini dresses, hair hanging down her back” March 21, 2009


It’s Saturday 21st March and I’m back with even more delightful crap for you today. But before that here is some of the recent music news. Leon Jackson winner of X Factor 2007 has been dropped by his record label after just one album. Now I wonder if it’s down to the ‘Credit Crunch’ or simply because he’s crap. I bet you can’t guess which one I think it is! So I suppose he’ll be working in McDonalds with Gareth Gates before long. The Arctic Monkeys have put some new material on YouTube, including a cover of Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face” Click here for an update from their current rehearsals. And in a final piece of news Justin Timberlake is launching his own brand Tequila called 901. Not a very imaginative name is it? How about “I’m bringing Tequila Back”? or “Cry Me A Bottle” Anyway I suppose that it is a true AlcoPOP drink!

Leon Jackson

Let’s kick off with a few birthdays. Firstly Ray Dorset off of Mungo Jerry is 63 today. The band took their name from a poem in T.S Eliot’s ‘Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats’. The poem is called ‘mungojerrie and rumpelteazer’ The band are still around today with Mr Dorset being the ever present original member. To most people these days the band are probably sen as one hit wonders following the success of “In The Summertime” which went to number one in more than 20 countries in 1970. They reached the UK top 20 six times in the early 70’s and in addition to “In The Summertime” they also hit the top with “Baby Jump“. A Ray Dorset song reached number 1 in the UK in 1980, it was “Feels Like I’m In Love” by Kellie Marie. Dorset originally wrote the song for Elvis Presley although he never recorded it.

ray' dastardly plan to take over the world with his sideburns was in its early stages

ray' dastardly plan to take over the world with his sideburns was in its early stages

Meanwhile Russel Thompkins Jr off of the Stylistics is 58 today. Russell was the falsetto voiced lead singer until he left the group in 2000. Their biggest UK hit was “I Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love)” which was produced by the late great (here they come again those ‘ole l’s & g’s) Van McCoy. Most of their earlier hits were produced by the equally talented Thom Bell and often co written with Linda Creed. Although they never appeared on the famous Philadelpia International record label the group hailed from the city and were one of the most talented proponents of the soft sound of Philly Soul. Some might say that nowadays their biggest hits come across as somewhat cheesy, does that make them Philadelphia Cheese?

Meet Austin Powers' style advisory team

Meet Austin Powers' style advisory team

The new lead singer of the Stylistics was very happy with the groups new, more cheesy direction! Well if Isaac Hayes can do Hot Buttered Soul then why not?

The new lead singer of the Stylistics was very happy with the groups new, more cheesy direction! Well if Isaac Hayes can do Hot Buttered Soul then why not?

And finally for the birthdays Deryck “Bizzy D” Whibley off of Sum 41 is todays young whippersnapper at just 29. Sum 41 come from a rather clean sounding town in Ontario, Canada. It’s name is Ajax! Although Whibley was actually born in Scarborough, Ontario. On July 16 2006 he married Canadian Punk Popstrel Avril Lavigne. Deryck has been guest guitarist on releases from Tommy Lee off of Motley Crue and also the legendary Iggy Pop. Sum 41’s download only single ‘March Of The Dogs” stirred up enough controversy among supporters of Dubya that Whibley was allegedly facing deportation from the US back to Canada. This came about because the opening couplet in the song was “Ladies and gentlemen of the underclass/The president of the United States of America is dead” Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Watch out for a new Sum 41 album later this year. In the meantime here are Sum 41 with “Fat Lip

Avril preferred hobbits

Avril preferred hobbits

On this day in 2001 Eminem was ordered $476,000 as part of his divorce agreement with his wife Kimberly ‘Kim’ Anne Scott. Also as part of the agreement Eminem would keep the US Mansion and the couple would share custody of their daughter Hailie Jade. The couple married for a second time in 2006 but were divorced again around three months later. Here is Em with his current single “Crack A Bottle” which also features 50 Cent and G Unit.

Mr Mathers gives us a comment on his divorce settlement

Mr Mathers gives us a comment on his divorce settlement

And finally on this day in 2001 Michael Jackson’s Interior Designer was interviewed by the Times newspaper and claimed that Jacko kept 17 life size dolls, of both adult and child sizes in his bedroom for…….. errrrrrrr……….company!!!!!! What’s that all about then?

It was strange how all the dolls appeared to look like Jacko too and how much easier would it be to perform plastic surgery on something made from plastic!

It was strange how all the dolls appeared to look like Jacko too and how much easier would it be to perform plastic surgery on something made from plastic!

 

 
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