It was with great sadness that I heard of the death of keyboard supremo Ian McLagan today aged just 69. His death was caused by complications from a stroke that he suffered earlier this week. Ian or Mac was keyboard player for the Small Faces and the Faces. He also played sessions for the Rolling Stones among others.
His playing of the Hammond Organ was a major part of the Small Faces sound. He also received co-writing credits for some excellent songs. The Faces “Cindy Incidentally” was my favourite of his cowrites. He wrote that song with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart. He also played on one of my favourite Rolling Stones songs, “Miss You“.
My thoughts are with Ian’s family, friends and fans. RIP Ian McLagan
Don’t you just love Elton John’s “Bennie And The Jets” from his 1973 double album ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road‘? I certainly do. I knew that it wasn’t a live recording but the applause included on the track makes it sound as though it is. Did you know that the applause wasn’t even recorded at an Elton gig? In fact it is drawn from recordings of the audience clapping and shouting at Jimi Hendrix’sIsle Of Wight festival set in 1970.
I know of another occasion where that kind of thing has happened too. The sound of the crowd used on the title track of David Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs‘ album is actually the applause taken from a live album by the Faces! Can any of you offer any similar gems?
The chart topping double was always seen as a great achievement when I was a teenager. I seem to recall Rod Stewart taking it a step further by having the number one single and album in both the UK and the USA at one point. Has that ever been done since? I’m not sure. Anyway the singles and album chart double is back with a bang in the UK. Last week Robbie Williams hit the top of the singles chart with a song that reluctantly I have to admit to liking; “Candy”. He then doubled up by sitting on the album chart peak with his new album ‘Take The Crown‘.
Robbie when he was still on the throne
He may have taken the crown but his time on the throne was short-lived, the single is down to number six and the album to number five. But a new pretender has taken the throne, sadly it’s One Direction or Wand erection as an acquaintance of mine called them. Are the charts as important now after 60 years of existence. I think they are and I am bloody disappointed that this band of five pop muppets has achieved this feat. Particularly as it seems to me that only one of them has a halfway decent voice. That’ll be you Harry Styles.
Their album is called ‘Take Me Home’ and I do wish that someone would. The single is called “Little Things” and on another sad note it’s an insipid cover of an Ed Sheeran song. But I guess Ed has to pay the bills. A previous One Direction single “Live While We’re Young” is still in the top 30 at number 26. While their first album ‘Up All Night’ continues to hang around the album chart at number 25. The pensioners are still hanging in there in the album charts though. Rod Stewart is at number two and the Rolling Stones are at number three, albeit with a Christmas album and yet another hits compilation respectively.
Today, September 19th, would have been my Dad’s 81st birthday. But sadly he died in 2001 shortly after his 70th birthday just 5 days out of his 60s. I still miss him a lot and I often wonder what he would think about where my life has gone since he died. For my whole life there were always two Bill Adamsons in my family; me and my Dad, yes we shared exactly the same name. But since 24th September 2001 I have been the only one. But then I do see my Dad every morning when I shave and I hear him in the way I laugh. I sometimes wonder if I am in fact turning into him and frankly that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I was and always will be proud of my dad as both a father and a man. Time may heal, but that gap in your life after you lose a parent always remains. I’m sure that many of you who have lost a parent will have similar memories too and if it would help you to share them feel free to add a comment with your own feelings about sadly departed parents.
Obviously I have to include some music in this post, this is a music blog after all. So I have chosen four songs; Rod Stewart‘s version of “Sailing” as that was his favourite song ever. “The Living Years” from Mike and the Mechanics as that song made me reflect a lot after dad died and yes I cried a few times at that one. Next is the song that my Mum chose to have played at his funeral, “I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Ray Charles. Finally I felt that I had to include Mike Skinner‘s fabulous Streets track “Never Went To Church” as that is all about coming to terms with the loss of his own father and provides the title for this post. In the words of Roland in Stephen King’sDark Tower series ‘do you remember the face of your father?’ Well i do and I always will. Enjoy the music Dad, these are for you.
I am half Scottish so I feel I am at least partly qualified to make a comment about bagpipes. That comment being that I really can’t stand the bloody things. In a traditional music and dance sense there is only one thing that I dislike more and that is Morris Dancing. I think I would generally find nailing my head to the floor a more pleasurable pursuit than watching Morris Dancing.
So based on my view of the Bagpipes just how shocked and horrified do you think I was when I realised that you are able to purchase the game ‘Bagpipe Star’ on DVD. What the hell is that all about then? I was hoping it was a spoof but it doesn’t look like it. Click here to check the site yourself.
I got me thinking about are there any rock songs that actually use the bagpipes in a reasonably good way. Thankfully I think there are and here is my bagpipes in rock choice just for you! Remember it is really a musical instrument and not an instrument of torture!
I can hardly believe it really. I started this blog because I was as they say ‘between contracts’ and frankly I was a little bored. But now it’s probably my favourite hobby. Why am I telling you all this? Well the blog is three years old today, 9th February 2012. I have loved every moment and I have met some wonderful people through it too. The most amazing thing is that I would have been knocked out if my viewing figures went into double figures on a weekly basis but now the total for three years is an incredible 1.04 million. I’d like to thank each and every one of you; especially the 51 who have subscribed and the 180 who are following it on Twitter.
I have made close to 450 posts and there have been nearly 530 comments. Some of the more amusing things are the search terms that have landed people here. The top 10 search items for the 12 months to 9th February 2012 are;
lady gaga 10,670
street signs 3,923
esthera sarita 3,555
rod stewart 2,910
imelda may 2,561
bjork 2,019
spencer elden 1,828
michael jackson 1,649
kate bush 1,625
dream catcher 1,385
The Lily Allen Naked experiment clearly still has some residual interest with 368 hits for Ms Allen naked. The naked thing is quite weird; many of you have searched for a favourite celeb naked including; Lady Gaga, Rage Against the Machine, Take That, Bono, Rod Stewart, Kate Bush, Simon Cowell & Louis Walsh. I mean come on people, first it’s not kind of site and second who really wants to see some of those naked? Louis Walsh naked bloody hell that’s perverse!
The largest referrals outside of search engines this year came from;
A big thanks to all of those. The Will Young one came about after I said some nice things about him in another of my anti X Factor posts.
The most viewed YouTube video from my blog in the past 12 months has been Wyclef Jean‘s “Stripper Song”. It’s a great song but there is no stripper in the clip, it’s just audio!
As for the most downloaded pictures from the blog in the last 12 months, that tells a similar story to the naked searches and the Stripper Song. Here they are in order of popularity;
the most downloaded picture on my blog Feb 2011 to Feb 2012
Number 4 and 5 take things to another place entirely!
Who do you think you're kidding Mr Hitler? That bus doesn't go to Poland
Back in the days when he was a laughing-stock.
And finally I also had the audacity to start three new blogs in the last 12 months. Feel free to check them out, rate them, comment on them and stuff.
this man is a Knight of the Realm................ no seriously, he is!
I think it would be fair to say that there is one area of my life that my Mother may be disappointed in me. That is my dislike of the institution of the British Royal family and all condescending pomposity it has. Yes in case you hadn’t noticed I am very much a Republican (not in the US political sense obviously) and most definitely not a Royalist. Having posted recently about Mick Jagger (aka Sir Michael Philip Jagger) turning down afternoon tea with ‘Call Me Dave’ Cameron and Boris Johnson it’s strangely appropriate that a story about those who turned down Royal Honours appeared in the news today. Following a freedom of information request by the BBC a list of those now deceased who have turned down various Royal Honours form 1951 and 1999 has been published. There are 277 people on the list including artists Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and LS Lowry and authors Roald Dahl and Aldous Huxley. There are no rock or pop stars on the list. Read the full story on the BBC site by clicking here.
Sir Tom shows off his first house
However it got me thinking about those rock and pop stars who have accepted honours and those that haven’t. The obvious list of those who have are the rock and pop ‘Sirs’ Paul McCartney, Cliff Richard, Elton John, Mick Jagger, Tom Jones and Bono and Bob Geldof who as Irish citizens are Honorary Knights of the British Empire (KBE). Add to that list Dame Shirley Bassey. A large number of British musicians have received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), which is the highest honour a British subject can receive below a knighthood or damehood. Those include: Annie Lennox, Roger Daltrey, Eric Clapton, Sting, Robert Plant the Bee Gees and Rod Stewart. It was alleged that at the time of Elton receiving his knighthood Rod was just a little jealous.
Macca ponders his failure to win top score in Rate My Mullet
What really interests me though are those rock and pop stars who turned down Royal honours. David Bowie turned down a CBE in 2000 and a knighthood in 2003 and was quoted as saying that “was not what he spent his life working for”. George Melly and Paul Weller also turned down the offer of a CBE in 2001 and 2007 respectively. Thankfully Keith Richards also turned down a CBE; I’d have been gutted if he had accepted! His comment on Jagger’s knighthood was that he felt it was ludicrous. Influential guitarist and stalwart of the Shadows Hank Marvin turned down an OBE as did Dub Poet Benjamin Zephaniah. At the time Zephaniah publicly stated ‘I get angry when I hear the word ’empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised’ An MBE was offered to John Lydon who turned it down. I’m pretty amazed that they offered him one really.
Never a Knight of the realm but the only one who came close to looking the part as opposed to looking like an anagram of part
The four Beatles all received the MBE in 1965. John Lennon later returned his to the Queen in 1969 accompanied by a note which read ‘I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts’. It has been alleged that his Aunt Mimi who brought him up and upon whose mantelpiece the award lived was not amused!
Dobie Gray has drifted away aged just 71, just slightly older than my own father when he passed away. Dobie had a great voice and in my opinion should have been far more succesful. Even if you’re not familiar with the music of Dobie Gray I am sure there are a couple of his songs that you will have heard. Those are “The In-Crowd” from 1965 (US number 13 and UK number 25) and “Drift Away” from 1973. “Drift Away” reached number 5 in the US charts and sold more than a million copies. Sadly it never charted in the UK, which frankly is a travesty!
The song was written by Mentor Williams and has been covered by many artists, but for me Dobie’s version reigns supreme by a long way. Artists such as Rod Stewart, Ray Charles and the Heptones have all recorded the song. There is also believed to be a cover by the Rolling Stones recorded in 1973 which as yet remains unreleased. For me it is such an uplifting song, I challenge you to listen to it and try to resist the urge to smile and sing along. I am definitely unable to resist that! Uncle Kracker covered the song in 2003 and incorporated one verse by Dobie himself. This version was number one in the US Adult Contemporary chart, but again failed to chart in the UK.
“The In-Crowd” has also been the subject of many cover versions from Mike Flowers and Ramsey Lewis to Bryan Ferry. Personally I think Ferry’s version is an excellent much more rock interpretation of the tune. Dobie’s 1966 recording “Out On The Floor” is seen as a classic Northern Soul track in the UK and reached number 42 in the British charts in 1975. This would have been driven by the amount of airplay it got at such iconic clubs as the Wigan Casino. Dobie was also one of the first artists to play to a non-segregated audience in what was then still an apartheid South Africa. I’m pretty sure that my singles collection used to include an imported copy of Dobie’s “Find ‘Em, Fool ‘Em and Forget ‘Em” from 1976. That song scraped into the Billboard top 100 in the US and failed to chart in the UK.
My thoughts go out to Dobie’s family, friends and fans. Dobie Gray RIP.
Vinyl records are on the increase in the UK. Sales of vinyl albums this year have already reached 240,000 compared with 234,000 for the whole of last year. Whilst this is good news for many of us the treasured vinyl album format is unlikely to ever come near its 1975 peak when 91.6 million vinyl albums were sold. To be fair there were no MP3s or CDs, just vinyl, cassettes and a few 8-Tracks. To put that into perspective this years sales are just 0.26% of the total for 1975.
The top 5 vinyl albums sold in the UK this year so far are;
Strangely I do have all the top 5 in either electronic or CD format, but I have none of them in vinyl. Read the rest of the story and see the full top 10 by clicking here.Radiohead have also announced that they will be touring next year, although no details have been given yet. Will they be a surprise guest support act on the Stone Roses bill? Somehow I don’t think so! But joking aside I will certainly be trying to get tickets for Radiohead. It would become the fourth time I had seen them.
The best-selling UK album in 1975, depending upon your source, was either ‘The Best Of The Stylistics’ by, strangely enough, the Stylistics or ‘Elvis Presley’s 40 Greatest Hits’ unsurprisingly by Elvis Presley. However the best-selling album that wasn’t a greatest hits package was Rod Stewart’s ‘Atlantic Crossing’. I have focussed just on the albums released during that year. That Rod album featured my Dad’s favourite song of all time; “Sailing”. We played it at his funeral back in 2001 and it’s only recently that I have been able to listen to it without getting rather emotional. But whenever I hear it I always get a great picture in my head of my Dad singing along to it. So Dad if you are reading this (I like to keep my options open on the afterlife) then I hope your singing is more in tune now!
This post just contains some random bits of news of the good, bad and ugly variety. Starting with someone I haven’t posted about for a while Ms. Lily Allen. Lily recently had her traditional pre-nuptial event, the Hen Night on May 20th. Maybe that was to make sure she had a great night before the end of the world. But wait a minute it was supposed to end yesterday and clearly it hasn’t! Anyway she had a very special guest at her Hen Do, none other than Gordon ‘F-Word’ Ramsay. Who gave her and her friends some cookery lessons. I know someone else who would probably love that; Catwoman. Regular readers may know that Catwoman and I will be getting all matrimonial in September and our respective Hen and Stag nights will be in August at top-secret locations so there will be no tabloid interference!
Geri we can see that there's a big white space in your life, but do you have to fill it with a bloody album?
Now for some rather terrible news. Geri Halliwell is back in the studio recording a new album. Now I’ve thought about this quite seriously for a moment and maybe, just maybe, the portent for the end of the world wasn’t earthquakes but a new Geri Halliwell album. What do you think? Anyway the album will apparently be called ‘Putting On The Bling’ and will feature a cover of the old standard “Putting On The Ritz”. Oh boy I can hardly wait I am so overcome with disinterest.
ooooh two middle fingers how very shocking and offensive......NOT!
Corey Taylor off of Slipknot has been invited to speak at Oxford University. Now for me that is either an inspired choice or a big mistake, but I’m looking forward to it. Corey says that he expects to swear and sweat a lot. So perhaps you wouldn’t want to be sitting at the front! I wonder if he’ll do it in full stage mask or not?
Paul McCartney has announced that he will be releasing a covers album consisting of pre-rock songs that were admired by his Dad. He said that he has wanted to do it for ages but decided to wait after ‘Rod Stewart went mad on covers’ with his American Songbook series. McCartney has also said that the new Foo Fighters album has inspired him to record a heavy rock album, of original songs not covers! Rod Stewart is also recording a new album with Jeff Beck which along with some covers will also have some new material.
WARNING! Please do not look at this picture immediately after eating. It may cause vomiting!
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 