With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Hello peeps, I feel I have become a somewhat lazy blogger of late, some might say I’m just a lazy bugger, but that’s another story. Anyway first up for this post is a shout for two bands, one of whom regular readers will already have heard a great deal about.

But I’ll start with the band that up until now hasn’t been mentioned in this blog. Their name is Smash Robots and while I haven’t seen them live yet I have listened to their stuff on MySpace and in my humble opinion they are bloody good. Fantastic English rock and regular readers will know that whilst I am not anti-American in any way I have never been comfortable with British rock bands singing in American accents. What’s that all about? Anyway you really should check Smash Robots out, click here to visit their MySpace page and tell them I sent you. How did I come across this combo you may wonder, well I work with Rich who is a member of the band! I’m loving their brilliant song “When Planets Collide” which I just downloaded, that will be on my iPod very soon!

Second shout out goes to a band you will have heard a great deal about on this blog already if you’re a regular reader. The band in question is another fabulous English band, the mighty Steal The Smile. I saw them live in July for the release of their single “Rome Was Built To Burn” and they were superb. (Click here to see a review of that gig) They have an EP coming out later this year so keep your eyes and ears on them and when the EP is released BUY IT OK! Don’t fanny about JUST BUY IT!!!!! If you don’t then just ask yourself……. Do you feel lucky? Well do ya feel lucky punk?” Click here to visit their MySpace page. I am going to see them play again on 1st November when they are supporting the rather talented US band Zebrahead. The gig is at the FaceBar in Reading (click here or here to buy your ticket at just £7 each they’re a bargain!) They also have a few more gigs lined up so check out their MySpace page for news of those. If you do see them live I would love to know what you think, that’s what the blog comments section is for people, so use it! 🙂

Check out Steal the Smile on the Zebrahead poster

I also have some very sad news to impart, the death of Lucy Vodden (nee O’Donnell) aged just 46. She was the inspiration for the classic Beatles song “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” after Julian Lennon Lucy’s school friend brought home a drawing of her. John Lennon asked his son what the picture was and Julian replied “it’s Lucy in the sky, with diamonds” The rest as they say is history. Lucy died after a long battle against the autoimmune disease known as lupus. Julian and his mother Cynthia are said to be shocked and saddened by Lucy’s death. Maybe she really is in the sky with diamonds now, RIP Lucy. To celebrate the life of the inspiration to such a great song click here to see perhaps one of the oddest cover versions ever made of the song, by none other than William Shatner!

For the rest of todays post I thought I would put my iPod on shuffle and see which are the first five songs that come up. My fingers were crossed to ensure that nothing too embarrassing came up (and in my opinion it didn’t, but you can be the judge of that) I was also somewhat surprised that there are no tracks from David Bowie, Kate Bush, KLF or the Clash as I have more songs by these acts than anyone else. So I guess I’ll have to bore you with them another day 🙂

So here we go with the first five songs that came up when I put my iPod onto shuffle along with a wee bit of trivia about each. Incidentally I currently have around 8,500 songs loaded just to give you an idea of how many these came from

“C Moon” – Wings. Paul McCartney got the idea from a song by Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs, the classic “Wooly Bully” where part of the lyric says ‘let’s not be L7’ In this context L7 is 60s slang for someone who is a square or very unhip. Apparently the opposite of someone who is L7 is a C Moon or a circle! To think for years I just assumed this was something to do with mooning! The song was actually a double A Side with “Hi Hi Hi” The latter song was banned by the BBC because of it’s ‘obvious’ drug reference as in getting high, how L7 is that Daddy-O? As a result it was “C Moon” that got all the airplay including McCartney’s missed cue which remains in the released version as “was that the intro? I shoulda been in”

Wings may not have been L7 but they did have bloody enormous fingers

“19”– Paul Hardcastle. The song was a massive hit in 1985. Basically it was a classy electronic dance track with cut ups of US journalist Peter Thomas speaking about the post traumatic stress suffered by the majority of US soldiers in Vietnam. Hardcastle also lost a court case against Mike Oldfield who successfully claimed that the tunes melody owed a great deal to his own Tubular Bells. personally I can’t see it, what do you think? Simon Fuller who went on to even greater success with the Spice Girls was Paul’s manager in 1985 and it was that very tune that he named his company after, hence the origin of 19 Entertainment!

paul may not have suffered from post traumatic stress disorder but judging from this look he clearly suffered from post traumatic fashion victim syndrome

“I Was Watching You” – Rosanne Cash. This is one of the handful of songs that regularly makes me cry (not much of a tough guy am I?) It is also one of my favourite songs. Rosanne is the eldest daughter of the late, great Johnny Cash. Her mother was his first wife, the rather exotically named Vivian Liberto Cash Distin. The song is from her wonderful album ‘Black Cadillac’ from 2006, if you haven’t heard it I recommend that you check it out. There are religious overtones in the song but there is a line in it which gets to me every time; “I didn’t know it but you were always there, until September when you slipped away” I think this hits me mostly because my Dad died in September 2001 just a couple of weeks after his 70th birthday and I never stop missing him. If you have lost a parent you’ll probably know exactly how I feel. So feel free to open up and tell the other readers if there is “one damned song, that makes you break down and cry” (to slightly  paraphrase Mr Bowie)

Rosanne had an innate ability to control UFOs with just her fingers

“Life’s What You Make It” – Talk Talk. This song was a big hit across the whole of Europe it can be found on the band’s album ‘The Colour Of Spring’. It was released as a single in 1986 and was recently covered by Weezer on their 2008 album the eponymously titled ‘Weezer’ aka the Red Album.

You can also find Talk Talk's "Life's What You Make It" on Grand Theft Auto Vice City

“Strawberry Letter 23” – Brothers Johnson. This song is without any shadow of a doubt one of my favourite songs ever. It was written and first recorded for his album ‘Freedom Flight’ by Shuggie Otis. It was inspired by a girlfriend of his who used to write to him using strawberry scented note paper. Click here for Shuggie’s version. It was recorded and released by George and Louis Johnson in 1977 and was quite succesful in the US but did hardly anything in the UK. I was so disappointed that the record buying public in the UK didn’t buy it. So if you are in the UK and you don’t own this, it’s not too late to make up for it, go and download it now! this song also goes out to my good friend Fraser Matthews who has the great taste to include it in among his all time favourites, Fraser for that I’ll forgive you Joe Satriani

The Brothers Johnson were once again shocked to learn that their guitar roadie hadn't earthed their guitars

So come on folks, put your iPod on shuffle and tell me what comes up, be honest now 🙂

I am also working hard on producing a list of my 100 favourite songs in readiness for my 100th post, which isn’t too far away, this one is 96!!!!