With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

On This Day Stinky Got A Bingo Hand Job! March 14, 2025

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 10:38 pm
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On 14th March 1991 R.E.M. played the first of two nights at London’s Borderline Club under the name of Bingo Hand Job. The group were in the UK to promote their seventh studio album ‘Out Of Time’ and their current single “Losing My Religion”. The single hit number 4 on the US Billboard chart, number 19 in the UK and topped the chart in the Netherlands.

At the 1992 Grammy Awards, “Losing My Religion” won Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Its video won awards for Video of the Year, Best Group Video, Breakthrough Video, Best Art Direction, Best Direction, and Best Editing at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. In 2020, “Losing My Religion” became the first R.E.M. video to reach one billion views on YouTube. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2017, and Rolling Stone ranked it at number 112 in its 2024 list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

The ‘Out Of Time’ album went on to top the charts in the US, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands and the UK. For the “secret” gigs at the Borderline under the previously mentioned pseudonym Bingo Hand Job members of R.E.M. were joined by Billy Bragg, Peter Holsapple and Robyn Hitchcock, who also adopted pseudonyms. The pseudonyms adopted by the band and their mates were The Doc (Berry), Raoul (Buck), Stinky (Stipe) and Ophelia (Mills), along with friends Conrad (Billy Bragg), Violet (Robyn Hitchcock) and Spanish Charlie (Peter Holsapple).

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On This Day Michael And The Boys Didn’t Go Back To Rockville To Do Some Night Gardening! February 8, 2025

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 11:19 pm
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On February 8th 1981 R.E.M. made their first ever-recording sessions at Bombay Studios in Smyrna, Georgia. Not India, obviously! The tracks they recorded that day included “Gardening At Night”, “Radio Free Europe” and “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville.” None of these three recordings were hits. But the band rerecorded “Radio Free Europe” in 1983 and then it reached the heady heights of number 78 in the US Billboard chart.

If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog. You can also follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin.

Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch via EMail.

 

The Mayhem Monthly Top 20 Artist Chart – March 2022 April 6, 2022

Filed under: Mayhem Top 20 Chart — justwilliam1959 @ 9:27 pm
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Here we go with the Mayhem Artist Top 20 chart for March 2022. Many of you know that I am a keen user of a site called Obscurify. It claims to tell you how obscure your listening on Spotify is. Compared to the rest of the UK I achieved a level of 100% more obscure than other users in the UK. Although that has since dropped to 99%. Regular readers will know that it also lists my most obscure artists, (the top two of which have been there since I began doing these posts) which currently are;

Woke Up Dead (One of the two bands that have been ever-present in my obscure list and an excellent band to boot!)

Promethium (This metal bunch continues to fly the flag for great British rock and like Woke Up Dead have been ever-present in this obscure team)

PhonoMatiq – Billy Paul Williams’ a.k.a. Phonomatiq came to be here thanks to a rather strange tune called “Barbara Streisand” which I have listened to quite a lot

Heartsink -One of York’s best young bands and most definitely York’s best pop-punk band!

Muda – cinematic electronic synth-led modern classics from Ireland. I came across them purely by chance and what a find!

As for the March Top 20, only Dame David remains from the last chart, but he has been a bit of a constant from the start. Other classic artists include Barry White, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Vampire Weekend and R.E.M. But there is the first entry, straight in at number one, for the amazing Bang Bang Romeo, a band that I came to quite late. But I am so glad that I found them! They are an incredible rock band from Yorkshire and Anastasia Walker’s voice is in a league of its own! Here is that all-important top 20. There are quite a few appearances from artists that have never appeared before in addition to Bang Bang Romeo. These include Police Car Collective (I saw them at Leeds Fest last year, bloody stunning), Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip, (I was lucky enough to witness Mik in all his live glory in York a few weeks ago), Hattie Briggs (she was discovered by Alfie Boe busking at Paddington Station) and Koffee (new reggae star with great reverence for Robert Nesta Marley). Ukrainian band Antytila are in at number 16. They asked to have a live link slot at a recent Concert For Ukraine in the UK and I heard the organisers turned them down as it would have been too political!!!! WTAF???? There are even a few country artists too, Katy Hurt, Morgan Wade and Leah Blevins. At number 20 you’ll find an incredible York band, Vaquelin, check out their first album, ‘Where Dreams Hurt’! I would love to hear your thoughts on this chart. Oh and keep your eyes open for a new addition to the Mayhem Monthly Artist Chart. Very soon we will bring you the Mayhem Monthly Song Chart, almost like an old school top 20 singles chart! That one includes songs by eight of the artists in the March Artist Chart.

1 Bang Bang Romeo
2 Katy Hurt
3 David Bowie
4 Hattie Briggs
5 Vampire Weekend
6 Barry White
7 Police Car Collective
8 Leah Blevins
9 Koffee
10 Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip
11 Pink Floyd
12 Morgan Wade
13 The Surfing Magazines
14 A Will Away
15 Hard Feelings
16 Antytila
17 Led Zeppelin
18 R.E.M
19 Childcare
20 Vaquelin

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Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Podcast July 20, 2019

Filed under: Podcast — justwilliam1959 @ 10:05 pm
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I have just uploaded another With Just A Hint Of Mayhem podcast. It outlines my views on the Apollo 11 moon landing from 50 years ago. How exciting that was to me and my thoughts on what has happened since, accompanied by a soundtrack of some of my favourite space, moon and Apollo tunes. Click here to check it out. I would love to hear your views too.

 

With Just A Hint Of Mayhem is ten years old! Part 2 February 1, 2019

Filed under: News,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 11:56 pm
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Here we go with part 2/ day 2 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 10th birthday celebrations. Regular readers will know that yesterday I gave you the top ten most viewed posts on the blog since it began back in February 2009 (Click here to view that again). Today I bring you the top ten countries that have given With Just A Hint Of Mayhem the most views. Don’t worry there will be plenty of music in the coming days including things like my top ten favourite singles, albums, bands and more stuff too! Don’t forget that you can also find us on Twitter  and FaceBook .

So on with the countries who have visited the site most often

USA 173,833

UK 116,030

Chile 27,682

Germany 26,344

France 22,616

Canada 19,208

Mexico 15,273

Spain 14,654

Australia 11,828

Brazil 8,475

Incidentally there are a handful of countries that have never visited With Just A Hint Of Mayhem, well at least not yet. If you can make it happen for Svalbard, Western Sahara, Bujumbura, Chad, Turkmenistan, Kosovo, Djibouti and unsurprisingly, North Korea. There are also thirteen countries with only one view each in 10 years.

So to celebrate how about a few world related songs? Don’t mind if I do 🙂

 

 

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

Filed under: Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 11:18 am
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bowiedylandlq0si8j47

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8NZa9wYZ_U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgfmgZ7EPJA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O1v_7T6p8U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6yk9wWNB08

 

“Rock’n’roll with all my friends, hopin’ the music never ends” March 20, 2014

Filed under: Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 9:02 pm
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mr happyI might be a little late with this but today is the United Nations second International Day of Happiness. So let me help you celebrate with a few Happy and Happiness songs. Enjoy them and feel free to contribute some of your own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7YGTyIA6S4

happy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls8t1AcXN_o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCQ0vDAbF7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU5stPus7PA

happiness

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“Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé” – Advent day 9 December 9, 2013

Filed under: Christmas,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 6:11 am
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3d-9-number-like-christmas-toy-7227322It’s day 9 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem Christmas Advent calendar which means it is now December 9th. We haven’t put our decorations up yet and probably won’t put them up until much nearer the big day. Have you put your baubles on your tree yet?

johnsfaceFollowing on from yesterdays post which referenced the anniversary of John Lennon’s murder with a Beatles song today I offer you a song from Lennon’s solo career. In keeping with the numbers theme of this years advent posts it has a number in the title; can you guess which song it is? Well I’ll put you out of your misery, it’s “#9 Dream”. Taken from Lennon’s 1974 album ‘Walls And Bridges’ it only made number 23 in the UK chart but was a top ten hit in the USA. In fact it reached a rather appropriate number 9. May Pang who was Lennon’s partner for much of his ‘lost weekend’ recorded the backing vocals for the song. She has also said that the vocal refrain ‘Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé’ in the lyrics came to John in a dream. In fact the whole song was an interpretation of that dream. It is one of my favourite Lennon songs and has been covered by REM, Andrea Corr and A-Ha.

220px-1969-tempts-cloud9The second song in todays line-up comes from the Temptations. It is their 1968 single “Cloud Nine”. It was the first release to feature Dennis Edwards in place of David Ruffin. The song was written by multi-talented producer Norman Whitfield and former Motown artist Barrett Strong. It stemmed from Whitfield being exposed to a new style of music via Sly and the Family Stone‘s hit “Dance To The Music”. At first he was reluctant to move too far from the hit making formula employed up to now. It was Temptation Otis Williams that convinced him to do it. I for one am glad that he did because it led to some amazing psychedelic funk workouts right into the 70s.

 

“I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon” November 29, 2012

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 8:31 pm
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Based upon information released recently it is alleged that the US Government had planned to blow up the moon in the late 50s as a means of intimidating their nemesis in the Cold War, the Soviet Union. After the Russians effectively took the lead in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 it was apparently believed that a show of strength like blowing up the moon would really scare the Russians. Apparently it was called ‘A Study of Lunar Research Flights’ or ‘Project A119‘. Even that sounds a little James Bond like doesn’t it?

It really does seem like a crackpot scheme and it is unlikely at the time that anyone possessed enough in their nuclear arsenal to actually complete the task. At best it might have left the man in the moon looking more like the elephant Man and the satellite’s surface covered in high levels of radiation. In addition any debris that fell to earth would almost certainly have been radioactive as well.

I wonder if this idea came from the same think tank that thought of the idea of using an explosive cigar to blow up Fidel Castro or to rig the voting in Florida in 2000 in favour of Dubya. Ooops wait a minute that second one was true wasn’t it? had it happened then Neil Armstrong probably wouldn’t have been there to utter his famous ‘one step for man’ line. But then again maybe it did happen and didn’t work very well other than to make the moon radioactive. That would certainly give more credence to those people who believe the moon landings were faked and took place in a film studio directed by Stanley Kubrick.

I’d love to know what you think of this incredibly stupid, yet potentially real plan of  Eisenhower’s government. Bearing in mind that his Vice President was Tricky Dicky Nixon, maybe it isn’t surprising! Anyway as I have said many times before so here are a few songs that may not have happened or certainly wouldn’t have been the same had the moon been blown to smithereens, feel free to add your own moon related songs.

Apologies but there are two kiddie fiddlers for the price of one on this next one!

And finally a special Billy Bonus, my favourite track from Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side Of The Moon’; “Brain Damage”

 

“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane” May 21, 2011

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 9:16 am
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I will try to make this a relatively short post, mostly because it may be the last one I ever do (shades of Bowie’s 1973 Ziggy retirement there don’t you think?). Why might this be my last post? Well today is rapture day of course. A day when 200 million Christian believers will be swept up to heaven, while the rest of us remain down here suffering a hell on earth, which will apparently end on October 21st. An 89 year-old US preacher, Harold Camping, has predicted that Jesus will return to earth at 11pm UK time today. He will apparently be accompanied by earthquakes that roll around the world. Click here to read about the atheist rapture parties in the US.

Try as hard as you like Ermintrude but you won’t be raptured or looked after!

Personally I think this is complete crap, even more so given that Camping actually predicted the end of the world 17 years ago. But he says he wasn’t wrong and that his 1994 prediction was in fact a precursor to the main event. So rather than dwelling on delusional folks like him I thought I’d focus on what I think is a wonderfully amusing aspect of the whole story. it is said that only humans will be drawn up in the rapture, which means that all their pets will be left behind. But don’t fret pet lovers, there is a company called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets who will take care of your pets after you’ve caught the 11pm express service to heaven.

So clearly he cares for animals, just not your pets!

They operate in more than half the states in the US and will take care of your cats, dogs, small birds and small caged mammals for a bargain price of just $135 and an another $20 each for any additional pets that you have. Up to 250 people have already signed up even in the knowledge that no refunds are available. In four states they also offer the service for some larger animals such as horses. perhaps the best thing about this great deal is that it has a ten-year guarantee! So if Mr Camping is wrong again you still have ten years for him to get it right! How do they guarantee that post apocalyptic pet care? Well they guarantee that all their care teams are committed atheists, pet lovers and have no criminal record. Click here to check their website.

As I have said before this is a music blog so please enjoy the following songs before the end of the world. If my internet connection gets washed away with the rapture tonight I may not be able to post again, but I can promise you I will definitely still be on earth tomorrow 🙂