With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Hello everyone and welcome to this wonderful April 7th. I may not be posting every day in the future, but I’ll do my best! Today will be pretty much the usual format too. You’re probably all aware of the upcoming Faces reunion, apparently rehearsals are going on at the moment with four original members; Rod Stewart (vocals), Ian McLagan (keyboards), Ronnie Wood (guitar) and Kenney Jones (Drums). The current news seems to be that the late great (l’s and g’s back in the frame!) Ronnie Lane’s place will be taken by none other than Flea off of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Here are the Faces in their heyday with “Stay With Me” live from the rainbow in London in 1972.

Flea was so desperate to play with the Faces that he sold his clothes to raise the money to join Rod, Ronnie, Ian and Kenney

I’m covering just one birthday today, the 62nd birthday of Florian Schneider-Esleben off of Kraftwerk. Although he left the band last year after an association with fellow band member Ralph Hutter that stretches back to the 60s. Florian also had a David Bowie (yes it’s been a little while but here’s another Mr B reference!) tune named after him. It was the largely instrumental “V2-Schneider” from the ‘Heroes’ album in 1977. Schneider was often seen as a perfectionist with Hutter once describing him as a ‘sound fetishist’. And for you fact fans Kraftwerk apparently means ‘Power Plant’ or ‘Power Station’ in German. Here are Kraftwerk with “The Robots”

Kraftwerk often used dummies on stage whereas Robbie Williams.......... well you can probably guess the answer to that one!

On this day in 1956 The CBS Radio Network broadcast the first regularly scheduled rock ‘n’ roll radio show with the premiere of Alan Freed’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Party. Freed saw himself as the father of Rock ‘n’ Roll and although he wasn’t the first to play it on the radio he is credited with coming up with the phrase ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ to describe it. Actually I read many years ago that the phrase was actually black slang words for sex. Does anyone know the correct answer to that one? Freed did an awful lot for race relations too bringing black and white folks together in what was still a heavily segregated country. Many stars including Little Richard have given him due credit for this. However at one point his TV show was canceled after Frankie Lymon was seen to dance with a white girl during the broadcast. You can’t get much more small minded than that, can you? Ultimately Alan Freed’s career was wrecked by the payola scandal. Payola was the name given to a form of bribery where DJs were paid money to broadcast specific records and in some cases even get themselves a writing credit on the song to boost their income. Freed allegedly did this with Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline” Click here for a sound clip of Alan Freed interviewing the late great (twice in a day now huh l’s & g’s?) Buddy Holly

Alan Freed tells his lawyer that perhaps he should have gone to Specsavers!

And finally on this day in 1962 at the Ealing Jazz Club, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met Brian Jones for the first time. At the time Brian was calling himself Elmo Lewis and playing guitar with Paul Jones (no relation) who also went on to bigger things as a vocalist for Manfred Mann amongst others

Mick once again easily wins the annual campest member of the Stones contest