A random selection of news for you in this post dear readers. In a follow-up to one of my earlier posts about a number of music stars playing some very rich gigs at private parties for the Gaddafi family it has been reported that Nelly Furtado will be given the money she by playing for the Gaddafi’s in 2007 to charity. Top marks to Nelly in my opinion. Click here to read the story.
It was announced recently that the 100 Club has a saviour so it won’t have to close. That saviour, who is now the venues sponsor is Converse. Personally I think that is a great move, I have possessed a pair of Converse All Stars for most of the last thirty or so years. As a teenager I went through a white pair, a blue pair and a red pair. I have now settled on a very safe black pair, which I replace annually. I feel I’m in good company as the All Star was worn by such luminaries as Kurt Cobain and the Ramones.
Lady Gaga meets and eats Baby Gaga
I recently discovered a great clip collection of 101 bad covers of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance“. Click here to see it. In other Gaga news a London company has started to produce ice cream made from human breast milk. Click here to read the story. It has been named Baby Gaga. How many of you Little Britain fans just said or thought ‘bitty’?
Syd's psychedelic Baby Gaga 99 with flake caused his feet to grow incredibly large
Just how big a fan of Syd Barrett are you? Big enough to own the Syd Barrett Colouring Book perhaps? Well they are already extremely rare along with the first in the series which was the Joy Division Colouring Book. Click here to see the Syd book.
First a haunting, now levitation. What next? Exorcist style head spinning and green vomit?
Apparently Pete Townshend off of the Who has had a ghostly visit comparable with Dickens ghosts in ‘A Christmas Carol’. He claims that Les Paul appeared to him in a hotel recently telling him to rethink his guitar smashing which showed he had no respect for the instrument. The ghost of Les told him that if he didn’t do this he would suffer for the remainder of his life. Click here to read the story.
Today, February 9th 2011 I would like to say a very big thank you to all my regular readers and all those of you who have just stopped by a couple of times. Also to those of you who comment, regularly or otherwise, I salute you! Why all this fuss I hear you say? Well simply because it is now the second birthday of my little blog. It has now surpassed any ambitions that I might have for it. I have made more than 260 posts and received more than 860,000 visits. If I’m honest 20 hits a week in the early days blew me away, but this level, well I can only imagine you search for something and luck brings you to this blog.
A picture of Lady Gaga’s rear end has been downloaded more than any other picture or file, to date 919 people have downloaded it, or one of you has downloaded it 919 times! Check it out below. The post that has been viewed the most times, with more than 68,000 views was published in the blogs first week back in February 2009. You can relive it by clicking here.
The most popular search terms that have arrived here are;
So finally a big thank you once again for your support and encouragement, I have also made friends of many other bloggers, check out my blog roll for many of them. So rather than the traditional happy birthday please enjoy Lady Gaga with “Love Game”
I was reading an article in last weeks NME in which they listed their view of the 50 druggiest albums ever recorded. Most of the usual suspects are included with Primal Scream‘s ‘Screamadelica’ making it to the top of the pile (or the bottom of this reverse order listing of course). The article also included a number of great little pieces of trivia. The one that really amused me was Fleetwood Mac, included at number 29 with their 1979 album ‘Tusk’. Apparently they were so full of coke they agreed that the album title would be the nickname that drummer and founder Mick Fleetwood called his todger. Whilst most normal people use simple terms like willy or cock, Mr Fleetwood prefers to call his manhood Tusk. Is it made of ivory with a sharp point? You have to hope not for any of his girlfriends or wives. So, and I may well regret this, what do you call yours?
As for the list, I’d like to know why the Eagles aren’t included, notably ‘Hotel California’
50 The Libertines – The Libertines
49 Oasis – Be Here Now
48 MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
47 Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks
46 Dr Dre – The Chronic
45 Klaxons – Surfing The Void
44 The Doors – The Doors
43 Brian Jonestown Massacre – Methodrone
42 Missy Elliott – Miss E…So Addictive
41 Guns ‘N’ Roses – Appetite For Destruction
40 Royal Trux – Twin Infinitives
39 Tricky – Maxinquaye
38 Jane’s Addiction – Ritual De Lo Habitual
37 The Birthday Party – Junk Yard
36 Pavement – Wowee Zowee
35 13th Floor Elevators – Easter Everywhere
34 Black Sabbath – Master of Reality
33 Neil Young – On the Beach
32 Babyshambles – Down In Albion
31 Bardo Pond – Bufo Alvarius
30 The Chemical Brothers – Exit Planet Dust
29 Fleetwood Mac – Tusk
28 Snoop Doggy Dogg – Doggystyle
27 Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music
26 Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician
25 Jefferson Airplane – Surrealistic Pillow
24 Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Nigga Please
23 Spacemen 3 – Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To
22 Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers – L.A.M.F
21 David Bowie – Station To Station
20 Factory Floor – Untitled
19 Happy Mondays – Yes Please!
18 My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
17 Elton John – Madman Across The Water
16 Suede – Dog Man Star
15 The Stooges – Raw Power
14 Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
13 The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
12 Cypress Hill – Black Sunday
11 Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar
10 Pink Floyd – The Piper At The Gates of Dawn
09 The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced?
08 Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
07 Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
06 The Beatles – Revolver
05 Nirvana – In Utero
04 Sly and the Family Stone – There’s A Riot Goin’ On
03 The Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat
02 The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main St
01 Primal Scream – Screamadelica
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 490,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 21 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 143 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 245 posts. There were 402 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 45mb. That’s about 1 pictures per day.
The busiest day of the year was September 13th with 6,362 views. The most popular post that day was Janie Jones.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were alphainventions.com, search.aol.com, 74.125.67.100, facebook.com, and en.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for lady gaga, eminem, pink floyd, kate bush, and pink.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Well there really isn’t a great deal to say about this fantastic album cover animation other than it is truly brilliant. It’s called Battle Of The Bands and it truly is a fight to the death!
If I have noted it correctly it contains album covers from all the following artists, if you see any I have missed just let me know!
Foreigner, Yazoo, Billy Joel, Shaun Cassidy, Violent Femmes, Rick James, Eminem, Joe Jackson, Beastie Boys, 50 Cent, Roxy Music, King Crimson, Scorpions, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Duran Duran, Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, Rush, Boston, AC/ DC, Def Leppard, Replacements, Jane’s Addiction, Love And Rockets, Depeche Mode, Ozzy Osbourne, Weezer, B 52s, Dead Kennedys, Van Halen, Dio, Iron Maiden, Night Ranger, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, OMD, Nirvana, Asia, David Lee Roth, Black Flag, Cars, Michael Jackson, Beatles, Journey, Green Day, Hermans Hermits, Madness, Phil Collins, Lou Reed, Madonna, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Lionel Richie, Devo, Jimi Hendrix, Quiet Riot and Metallica.
My favourites are Michael Jackson and Roxy Music, what are your favourites? Can you find the hidden Ozzy track?
Purely another opportunity for me to show this picture, nothing else!
December 14th. Are you getting excited yet? Maybe you will when you help me open todays little cardboard door on my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar. It’s a real doozie. It was number one at Christmas 1979 and stayed at the top for 5 weeks. It was the bands only official post Syd Barrett UK single as well. It was the mighty Pink Floyd with “Another Brick In the Wall – part 2” taken from the album ‘The Wall’ which was pretty close to a Roger Waters solo album, allegedly. In my opinion it is truly a brilliant album and to give the Floyd their only UK singles number one, well that is amazing!
This is certainly how I felt at school, how about you?
The song is a protest song against the rigid education system, mostly from a private schools perspective. But when I was was at school in the 70s I must admit it was a very rigid system, certainly in the sense that no one really explained what my purpose was. Why did I have to sit these exams, why did I have to go to 6th form and why was I supposed to go to University? At the time I never really understood and actually left school aged 16. I was however a little lucky as I went to Grammar School, this meant that I took (and passed) my ‘O’ Levels in Maths and English a year early! But after that I dropped out and bunked off most days. I managed to fail 7 ‘O’ Levels in the 5th Form, largely because I didn’t try and didn’t attend. However I was gutted that I failed Art as I really did turn up and put a lot of work into it! Anyway it’s all done now and luckily it did me no harm.
In the end I felt I was able to walk away from the mincer by leaving school at 16
In 1980 the apartheid regime banned the song in South Africa as it was used by people protesting against the racist education system. the Islington Green School Choir appeared on the song at the behest of producer Bob Ezrin. The school was not far from Britannia Studios where ‘The Wall’ was recorded. The song also hit the top of the US charts and was number one in many European countries as well.
As a footnote I just had to mention this. Many of you will be aware of the recent student riots in the UK in protest against University fees. Well it seems that Dave Gilmour’s son Charlie was a naughty boy during the protests. Well more of a total twat really, he swung off the flag on the Cenotaph thus denigrating the memories of millions of war dead. Charlie you twat! Anyway there was a letter to the Guardian today from a Mr Alan Cripps of London and it goes like this ‘ David Gilmour‘s son In University fees protest? Surely he don’t need no education? Top man Mr Cripps, I loved that letter. Read the Charlie Gilmour story in the Guardian by clicking here.
Is this country finally waking up? Are the downtrodden finally kicking back? Are those that consider themselves middle class no longer ignoring the obvious? Are our students finally in control of their rebellious gene? Let’s hope so! This week saw more than 50,000 people on the streets of London to protest at the raising of student fees. This follows protests about the schools building programme cuts in July, another anti cuts rally in Sheffield last month and the occupation of an RBS bank last week. OK I know the Daily Mail readers out there will be getting all sanctimonious about the violence and to a large extent I agree. (Yep me agreeing with a Daily Mail opinion, fucking hell am I getting old?) I do not condone violence of any kind and I truly believe that this was caused by just a small minority as is often the case.
With Nick Laurel and Dave Hardy at the wheel we can't go wrong....... can we?
Bear in mind that these protests have all taken place before the coalition cuts have begun to bite, so I think things will get much worse before they get better. Just look at the housing benefit plans, sure a great way of saving money in the short-term, but with private rents rising far quicker than the government are predicting a recipe for disaster. If it goes to plan it will lead to an exodus of people from London as they can no longer afford to live there. Where will that exodus take them? Why probably into all the areas in the country where there will be no jobs! Now that really makes sense doesn’t it? I do not disagree that cuts are needed in expenditure but there are far better ways of doing it. Over a longer period, with more considered plans etc.
Cameron prepares to throw the baby out with the bathwater
As for those of you that aspire to be or consider yourselves to be middle class, get over it! There are two classes in this country; the filthy rich and the rest of us! Just remember that the current cabinet contains 18 millionaires among its members. These are the people who believe they are leading the country, a mistake which many politicians make (Thatcher, Blair and more). They do not lead us, they serve us and it would be wise of them to remember this.
Clearly this picture proves that Nick Clegg has been David Cameron's ventriloquist dummy all along
I do not believe that this government will see out its full term and therefore we will have the opportunity to voice our opinions through the ballot box again. When the time comes do not bow to apathy, get off your arse and vote. Let’s show the politicians whose country this really is. Anyway, rant over and let me get back to the music. Obviously I have chosen some appropriate stuff for you!
“White Riot” – The Clash. The song is not about race war as many pundits suggested at the time. According to Joe Strummer it is in fact a call to arms of the white youth of Britain to riot against things that were oppressing them in the same way that black youth in the 70s did.
“Let’s Start A Riot” – Three Days Grace. These guys are an Alternative Canadian band who released their 3rd album, ‘Life Starts Here’ last year.
“Panic” – The Smiths This Morrissey/ Marr composition is not really about social unrest, it’s actually about the poor state of pop music at the time. But frankly it still fits on both levels. It was the first Smiths single to feature new member Craig Gannon.
“Walls Come Tumbling Down” – Style Council This is a superb attack on those that govern and I love it. Weller often gets criticised for the Style Council, but I think they were far better than the press thought they were. This song reached number 7 in the UK charts.
“Another Brick In The Wall” – Roger Waters The Wall album is seen by many as close to being Roger Waters solo album. This video is from his current tour playing The Wall in its entirety.
“Going Underground” – The Jam. This song did not feature on any of the bands studio albums although it has been on most Jam compilations. I almost took the title for this post from the song. The couplet, “their lies let you down and their promises rust” would have worked well. This went straight into the UK charts at number 1.
“I Predict A Riot” – Kaiser Chiefs Formed in Leeds in 1997 the band took their name from a South African football team; the Kaizer Chiefs. The band are Leeds United supporters and former Leeds player Lucas Radebe used to play for the Kaizer Chiefs.
“Fight The Power” – Isley Brothers. Written by Ernie Isley this is a really funky protest song. Public Enemy were inspired by it a few years later.
“You Haven’t Done Nothing” – Stevie Wonder This clip appears to be taken from the Andy Williams show. It’s an excellent piece of protest from Mr Wonder. Did you know that the backing vocals on the original studio version were recorded by Motown stablemates at the time, the Jackson 5.
I do worry sometimes that Jedward may be a little more intelligent than Nivid or Dick
This is all that's left of the last person who did a bad cover version of one of my songs, so take heed Cowell!
Travesty hardly does it justice in my opinion, but frankly I am both saddened and angered that the X Factor Finalists charity single this year will be their version of David Bowie’s “Heroes”. OK I haven’t heard it yet, but I really can’t imagine it will be anything better than mediocre at best. The only redeeming feature is that it will be raising money for the Help For Heroes charity. Incidentally I do find it sad that the soldiers who get injured in pointless wars like the one in Iraq have to rely on our charity for a better life. I don’t begrudge them that at all, I just think that the government should do much more for them. By the way, just because I don’t support the war in Iraq and other places doesn’t mean I don’t support our soldiers that are out there risking their lives. Anyway rant over for now. read about this awful cover version at the NME and the BBC.
The Division Bell goes Lego
In some more encouraging news Nick Mason, sticksman for the Floyd has said that charity could lure the band back on stage together at some point in the future. Their last appearance on stage together was at Live 8 in 2005. But Roger Waters and David Gilmour did play together in Oxfordshire in July this year in aid of the Hoping Foundation which supports Palestinian children. Let’s hope Mr Mason is correct and that it happens soon. How about Pink Floyd at Glastonbury? Read all about it here on the BBC and NME.
Rob Dickins former boss of Warner Records for 15 years up to 1998 has claimed the way to save the industry and really hit back at piracy is to reduce album prices to just £1. Personally I totally agree with him. I believe that there is no greater reason for people to illegally download than the current price of music, particularly downloads which require no physical product to support them. Here is the story on the BBC. What do you folks think? What percentage of your downloads are illegal?
The Inbetweeners boys raid the NME
Finally for this post, this week’s NME was taken over and edited by the boys from superb British comedy the Inbetweeners. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for? I also understand that the rights have been sold to the US, I really cannot imagine how the hell it will translate for a US audience. Click here for pictures of their takeover of the NME.
Today dear readers it is 10th October 2010. On the surface quite an insignificant date, however if you represent it as 101010 it becomes the binary number that equates to the number 42. If you have read Douglas Adams‘ excellent ‘The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy‘ you will understand the meaning and importance of this number, if you haven’t read it, well why not? But fear not you still have time to read it before the day is out!
It is a day to celebrate all that is 42; ride the number 42 bus, buy the song that is number 42 in the chart, eat 42 biscuits, kiss your loved ones 42 times, drink 42 gin & tonics, run 42 yards, undertake 42 random acts of kindness, (I should thank Danny Wallace for that one), herd 42 cats and basically any other 42 related activity you can think of. Perhaps at 10 minutes and 10 seconds past 10 o’clock in our respective time zones we should all shout 42. To learn more of this wondrous day and become enlightened as to the answer to the ultimate question as to what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything visit the 42Day website. For those of you with a cynical or nervous disposition I should point out that this is not a cult nor is it Scientology (personally I think Scientology is a cult, but Tom Cruise and John Travolta say it’s not, so who am I to argue?)
Obviously as I’ve said 42 times now, this is a music blog so let’s get on with that bit now. Douglas Adams was a music fan and there is a fictional band called Disaster Area included in the Hitchhikers Guide, he describes them as “not only the loudest rock band in the galaxy, but in fact the loudest noise of any kind”. The finale of their act involved sending a spaceship into the sun, which may have taken it’s influence from Pink Floyd‘s “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” Adams actually appeared on stage with the Floyd on his 42nd birthday!
To finish here are a couple of Hitchikers related things;
“Something About You” – Level 42 – An obvious one this as the band were named directly after the importance of 42 in the book.
“Paranoid Android” – Radiohead – Marvin The Paranoid Android was one of the main characters in the book.
Hello good people of the blogosphere, this is a quick post to say a big thank you. After 14 months my blog has now surpassed 500,000 hits, I am truly blown away. In that time there have been 125 posts from me and there have also been 268 comments and I must confess it’s the comments that I love most! So keep ’em coming folks!
Now listen folks, you don't have to come to my house to read my blog, just do it on line, it's much easier!
The top search terms that directed people to this blog in that period have been; Pink Floyd, Lily Allen, Kate Bush, Slipknot, Catwoman, Beatles, Pink, Michael Jackson Thriller, Bjork and Creed. Strangely of all the tags I have added the top five are David Bowie, The Beatles, Steal The Smile, BBC and Kate Bush of which only the Beatles and Kate Bush feature in the most searched list
Steal The Smile are also among the top 3 links made from my blog, with a large number of people heading to their MySpace page, click here to take that journey yourself!
I would also like to thank some other bloggers who have direct plenty of traffic my way and I recommend that you check them out;
As usual I would like to mark this occasion with a song, can any of you guess why I chose this particular song? Incidentally it is Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” performed below by Matthews Southern Comfort
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 