With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

Rolling Back The Years With Mayhem – 1960 April 10, 2024

Filed under: Rolling Back The Years — justwilliam1959 @ 11:38 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

This is the second in what I hope will be a very long-running series. I have decided to look at the most popular songs from every year I have existed. There will be some artistic licence on my part as I will always seek to include at least a few of my favourites from each year. The format will be a top ten for each year and will cover the music and songs I grew up with, came of age with, and achieved my greatest success alongside music that comforted me in bad times. This second top ten goes back to the year of my first birthday, 1960, I know it is very hard to believe but I really am that old! Obviously, I don’t remember actually hearing these songs back in 1960, but I have heard them all many times over the years. I have focused on the UK charts and this time the US bestseller does feature in my list. It is “Theme From ‘A Summer Place'” by the Percy Faith Orchestra. It is one of my favourite pieces of music. My Dad’s favourite singer Brenda Lee is in the top ten at number 10. So here is the second Rolling Back The Years With Mayhem Chart, for 1960. It has quite a few good tunes I reckon. Please get on board the Time Machine now! If you are too scared to enter the Time Machine, click here for the playlist! The chart for 1961 will follow soon.

1 Apache – The Shadows
2 Running Bear – Johnny Preston
3 Three Steps To Heaven – Eddie Cochran
4 Tell Laura I Love Her – Ricky Valance
5 Shakin’ All Over – Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
6 Only The Lonely – Roy Orbison
7 Theme From ‘A Summer Place’ – Percy Faith
8 When Will I Be Loved – The Everly Brothers
9 Save The Last Dance For Me – The Drifters
10 I’m Sorry – Brenda Lee

If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.

 

Cry Baby at the Crescent, York Friday 14th October 2016 October 18, 2016

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 10:30 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to attend another Northern Radar show put on by good friend, the very talented Mr Simon Pattinson. I have attended many gigs that Simon has either put on or recommended and he has not let me down so far. At four quid for four bands did he let me down for the first time tonight? Well dear reader you will have to read on to find out.

kram

The first band on were Kram with a Grunge-like take on Royal Blood. The singer/ guitarist, knowingly or unknowingly, gave a nod to the late, great Kurt Cobain by taking to the stage in a dressing gown. A bit like Cobain did at the Reading Festival back in 1992 when he came on stage wearing a hospital gown. I was actually there for that too. But enough trivia and comparison, Kram are an excellent band. A versatile and skilled guitarist who possesses a great rock voice more than ably backed up by a drummer who really knows his way around a drum kit.

losttrends

Next up were Lost Trends from my adopted home city of York. How the hell have I not seen these blokes before? This mob sound really well rehearsed and watching them play I felt that they really knew rock history. Chatting to them afterwards about everything from the Beatles to Bowie and the Shadows to Radiohead it is very clear that they do. Lost Trends are very difficult to slot into a specific genre. They have a bit of indie, a touch of classic rock and are most definitely a band that you can dance to. They have the potential to become one of my and I hope your favourite bands. If I had left after their set I would have gone home happy. Oh and their excellent single “DJ” has been featured on racing ads on Channel 4, check it out at the end of this post.

nakedsix

The penultimate band of the evening were the Naked Six. If you like classic rock with a twist of 21st Century then this is definitely a band that you must see. Riffs reminiscent of Jimmy Page and vocals could grace many classic bands. Their songs were all incredibly powerful and the playing was stupendous. Given the right breaks the Naked Six have the potential to surpass the success of two of their famous fathers. Thank you for letting your boys get into a band Biff off of Saxon and Finley Quaye. If I had left home after the Naked Six I would have gone home bloody ecstatic. A mega monster of a band and one that I will definitely pay to see again.

crybaby

I didn’t envy Cry Baby having to follow three very talented and stunning bands. But they did it incredibly well and with great aplomb. The great thing about all of tonights bands is that they are all very different. Cry Baby perform classy indie rock n roll with influences from many sources; the Killers, Razorlight and the Arctic Monkeys. They have some well crafted songs and know how to put on a show. I am sure that I will see this lot again. I suggest that you, dear reader, should check out all the bands that I saw at this gig you will not be disappointed. Talking of disappointment, did Simon let me down tonight? What do you think? Of course he bloody didn’t this was yet another awesome Northern Radar show!

The usual public service announcement, all the pictures were taken using my shitty little Nokia phone and the video is courtesy of YouTube.

 

 

“But I ain’t losing sleep and I ain’t counting sheep” July 18, 2012

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 9:45 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some recent research by Ofcom the UK’s communications industry regulator has provided some really sad news. We now communicate more using text and e mail than we do actually speaking on the phone or face to face. More people interact with each other via texts and social networking sites than speak to each other.

I find that very disappointing. Whilst a lot of my communication at work is via e mail I still regularly use the desk phone or mobile phone. I als prefer to meet someone in person when I can, especially as in most cases they are in the same building as me. Does this news ultimately mean that evolution will lead to human vocal cords shrivelling away and becoming as useful as an appendix?

You can read the news story here on the BBC site. As usual and as I have mentioned many times before this is a music blog so now I need to share some, hopefully appropriate, songs with you. But I should warn you that I have even more sad news……. one of them is by Cliff Richard!

“We Don’t Talk Anymore” – Cliff Richard. This was Sir Cliff‘s tenth UK number one and his first since “Congratulations” his Eurovision entry from 1968. It was produced by the Shadows rhythm guitarist Bruce Welch.

“Don’t Speak” – No Doubt. This was the biggest single taken from the bands 1995 album ‘Tragic Kingdom‘ and was a UK number one early in 1997. It reached number one in at least twelve other countries.

“It’s Oh So Quiet” – Bjork. The song was written in German and the first English version appears to be by betty Hutton in 1951. But in my opinion Bjork has made it her own!

 

“dis regime is racist we know dis regime is bent” January 26, 2012

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 10:18 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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!

 

“Are you ready, are you ready for this, are you hanging on the edge of your seat?” July 18, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 8:45 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello once again dear readers today is the 19th July and it is the 62nd birthday of one Brian Harold May off of Queen. Brian still uses his ‘Red Special’ guitar which he began building in the early sixties with his Dad Harold. It is principally made from an old 18th Century fireplace mantel. Also there are actually two wormholes in the neck of the guitar, at least according to Wikipedia. Presumably not the type of wormholes that Brian would know more about, being an astrophysicist! To learn more about those type of wormholes click here. If your interests are a little more down to earth and you’d like a guitar just like (well ok similar) to Brian’s, then click here.

Brian poses with the famouse fireplace :-)

Brian poses with the famouse fireplace 🙂

Brian auditions Anita Dobson as a lookalike for security purposes

Brian auditions Anita Dobson as a lookalike for security purposes

On this day in 1980 the very band that Brian found fame in, Queen racked up their third UK number one album with ‘The Game’. This album featured the single “Another One Bites The Dust” A great song in my opinion and this was apparently also the opinion of Michael Jackson who was a friend of Freddie Mercury. When Fred played the song to him Jacko insisted that the band release it as a single and the rest as they say is history! And just for fun here is the Weird Al Yankovic parody of the song “Another One Rides The Bus”

Sadly both Michael and Freddie have now bitten the dust... RIP

Sadly both Michael and Freddie have now bitten the dust… RIP

Also on this day in 1958, whilst I was still in the womb, George Treadwell the then manager of the Drifters sacked the entire group. However he simply replaced them with another group, unkown at the time, Ben E King and the Five Crowns! If only someone would do that with the likes of Boyzone and Westlife. Oh I expect they probably have and no one has noticed! Here are Ben and the boys with “This Magic Moment” Incidentally fact fans did you know that the Shadows off of Cliff Richard and the Shadows were once called the Drifters? Well if you didn’t you do now!

By 1959 Ben E King clearly couldn't be bothered to tour. As for Dock Green is he anything to do with Dixon?

By 1959 Ben E King clearly couldn’t be bothered to tour. As for Dock Green is he anything to do with Dixon?

And the final ‘onthisday’ for 19th July is from 1989. Apparently when large amounts of money were found in the late great (those l & g’s are back!) James Brown’s prison cell he was moved from a minimum security prison to a medium security prison. What the hell is the difference between minimum and medium and then presumably maximum security prisons. “Get Up Offa That Thing” indeed! If that had happened these days it would have been the hidden stash of some jailed banker, but wait a minute none of them went to jail did they? They all recieved performance bonuses, how the hell does that work then? Here is James with the late great (back with a vengeance those ‘l & g’s’) Robert Palmer singing “I Feel Good”

James moves from minimum to medium security with his personal banker!

James moves from minimum to medium security with his personal banker!