With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

“No sitting down on your butt, the world don’t owe you” October 2, 2009


So after all those rumours from Blogland that Mr Bowie would come out of retirement and headline New Zealand’s Big Day Out Festival next year it has finally been announced that he was apparently ‘never really an option’. In other Bowie news I can report that his has a new album released in January 2010, well you can guess how excited I was when I read that only to find that it is not a new album but a double CD compilation drawn from shows on the Reality Tour from 2003………. Oh well one can always hope! Incidentally if you’re interested in the line up for the Big Day Out here is a summary of the biggies; Muse, Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, Kasabian, The Mars Volta, Rise Against, Peaches, Horrors, Girl Talk and Mastodon.

Lily Allen follows the advice of this blog or probably not!

Lily Allen follows the advice of this blog or probably not!

On the subject of Lily Allen those regular readers among you will be familiar with this blogs ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment. The objective of which was to expand the number of blog views by attracting people who were searching for ‘Lily Allen Naked’. Obviously I have felt guilty about this for some time as there were never any naked Lily Allen pictures here, despite the fact that more than 600 people had arrived here seeking them. Although of course it might have been one person arriving 600 times, come on Tom own up! So if you’re among that group or you are that person or if it was you Tom then please accept my apologies and let me also give you some good news. Lily was clearly influenced by our experiment because she recently completed a rather tasteful nude photo shoot for GQ magazine. Click here to see a selection of those, rather good, pictures. I would also like to mention the countless other searches for naked pictures of; Eminem, Sting, Kate Bush, Katy Perry, Ronan Keating, Bryan Ferry among others and perhaps most bizarrely of all a handful of people arrived here while searching for Meatloaf naked…………….I mean COME ON! That is so wrong in many ways…………..WHY????? So in my humble opinion that brings the ‘Lily Allen Naked’ experiment to a close. So now all we need to do is think of what the next experiment will be. Any suggestions? I have a few on my mind;

1) Calvin Harris Underpants (Acceptable In The 80s)

2) Sugababes lingerie (Get Sexy)

3) Mick Jaggers Athletic Support (Let’s Work)

Mick Jagger, very much in touch with his camp side

Mick Jagger, very much in touch with his camp side

4) George Michael flashing (I Want Your Sex)

George flashes his ring ;-)

George flashes his ring 😉

Although to be fair the last one has probably been done to death already! Anyway I do look forward to receiving your own ideas. I would also like to state categorically that I really haven’t been thinking about these for long. While you ponder them why don’t you enjoy the fabulous Lily Allen with “It’s Not Fair” Lily I know you have some very strong and indeed valid views abot downloading, but whatever your thoughts I and many others would rather you carried on recording!

As this is somewhat of a random post let me continue with a jolly good link that was passed to me by my good friend Nick H from the parish of Marlow. It’s a piece that the NME are running on line about the best gig you ever saw. Now that’s a really tough one for me. Obviously I would select at least one Bowie gig (probably 1976 at Wembley) plus Radiohead (at Lancashire County Cricket ground in 2008), Suede at the Reading Rivermead (hmmmmm when was that? Late 90’s methinks), Gene (the Old Trout in Windsor 1994). But if my life depended upon it I would have to say Parliament/ Funkadelic at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1978 a truly unforgettable concert experience! George Clinton and Bootsy Collins two cast iron geniuses in my opinion! Anyway to check out the NME link click here. What was the greatest gig you ever saw, I think we’d all like to know, wouldn’t we?

And finally for today I must draw your attention to the rather excellent C’Mon Son posts, if you click here you can see number 4 and boy does he deal brilliantly with uber twat Mr Kanye West for barging into into Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech recently! What do you think?

 

Brits Special – “The future needs a big kiss” February 18, 2009


Here’s a one off Brits special for you live from Earls Court in London, well ok you’ve found me out, live in front of the telly in York! Compared to the usual posts this one will be mercifully brief…….. I promise!

The whole proceedings were opened by the magnificent U2 with their new single “Get On Your Boots” which took some while to grow on me, but now it has. The gorgeous Kylie was the hostess along with the two dudes from ‘Gavin and Stacey’

Duffy won 3 awards and the Kings Of Leon won two. Both sang live too, Kings of Leon were superb. Duffy was good but I reckon the lighting man was trashed, her face was in shadow for most of her song. Let’s not forget the debt that Duffy owes to the former Suede guitar maestro Bernard Butler, who produced her album.

Then of course there was Katy Perry, she won best international female and by gosh someone must have painted those leggings on!

Girls Aloud won the most viewers votes to claim the best British single prize, which they also performed earlier in the evening with dancers in white and loads of pink feathers. A bit like burlesque for the under 18s.

Coldplay didn’t win anything but did perform live, Mr Paltrow was on excellent form. But was that Brian Blessed on drums? We should be told!

Paul Weller won the best British male gong, I would have been gutted if he didn’t. He wasn’t there but his acceptance video with Adele was quite amusing.

David Hasselhoff presented the Best British group to Elbow and to be fair they certainly didn’t hassle the Hoff and to be even more fair he didn’t sing!

Take That put on an excellent performance, but Catwoman thinks they might have been miming. Their shirts were simply, well, wrong! As for the NHS glasses they all wore, were they sponsored by Specsavers? They looked like four Clark Kent clones when they were lowered onto the stage in their open topped UFO. Was the UFO a dig at Robbie perhaps? See it’s not only me that does that to him!

Florence and the Machine had already been announced as the winner of the Critics Choice award but what we’d like to know is why the audio was muted when she arrived on stage and also why was it just Florence, I wanted to see the machine!

Kanye West accepted his Best International Male award by video and seemed to be dressed like a black Richie Cunningham. He also seized the opportunity to ‘big up’ what a catch he would be to all the laydeez!

Estelle duetted with the Ting Tings in what was a pretty poor mash up of “Shut Up And Let Me Go” and “American Boy”. But were Estelle’s leggings done by the same painter that did Katy Perry’s?

Tom Jones looked incredibly orange when he presented Duffy with her third award of the night for best British Album.

The Pet Shop Boys as we already knew were awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Music award this year. The award was humbly presented by Brandon Flowers of the Killers. The boys also played the show out with an excellent 15 minute medley of their hits. Neil Tennant wearing a puffed up shiny overcoat, bowler hat and shades and Chris Lowe wearing jeans, puffer jacket, shades and a brilliant Andy Warhol style pink wig (That’s my style for my next mobile disco gig sorted then!)

They were ably supported by both Lady GaGa and Brandon Flowers for a few songs as well as a massive troupe of dancers. All in all for me the Pet Shop Boys were the best performance of the night. What was the worst? For me it was the hapless interviewers Nicola Appleton and Melanie Blatt off of All Saints, crap doesn’t do it justice

I also had great fun Twittering with Coldplays crew and Scott Mills team during the show.

What did you folks think of it all?

Check out the winners and news here – Brits Winners and also here in the Telegraph or the Sun