With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Hello once again dear readers, well unless of course like a few people that I know you just look at the pictures in which case you’re not reading this anyway are you? Are you? Well I’ll take that as a yes than shall I? Shall I?…. oh I give up!

Anyway let’s kick off this post with yet another shameless promotion of my son Luke’s band, they’re called Steal The Smile and they are extremely bloody good. They are headlining a gig in Abingdon, Oxfordshire on 24th April so get yourself down there. Failing that at least check them out on MySpace and tell me what you think, click on the band name to go to their MySpace page.

Steal The Smile rock Abingdon - be there or be square!

Someone sent me a great link earlier this week which I felt I had to share with you, it’s National Lampoon’s “Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head – Time Life”. I thought it was very funny and so true as well. Click here to check it out and let me know whether it made you laugh!

I guess that most of you have by now seen Susan Boyle’s appearance on ITV’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ show in the UK. (Click here if you haven’t seen it yet) I saw it at the weekend when it was initially broadcast and my initial reaction was that here comes another X Factor talentless type who says they want to be the next Whitney or Britney but in fact turn out to be Shitney! I was very pleasantly surprised when Susan began to sing “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables. It’s not my type of music at all but she has certainly got a great voice. What really peeved me was the reaction of the judges after she had completed her song, particularly Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden, both in my opinion were facile, condescending and very shallow. I was reminded of this by Tanya Gold’s excellent piece in the Guardian today, click here to check it out

Dummy, Dippy and Simple three of the lesser known dwarves

On to the usual stuff now and today 16th April is the 62nd birthday of Mr Gerry Rafferty of Stealer’s Wheel and a talented solo performer. Did you know that he was once in a group with Billy Connolly in the 60’s called the Humblebums. His biggest solo hit was “Baker Street” and the saxophone solo on the song has been the subject of an urban myth that it was played by Bob Holness the host of the ‘Blockbuster’s’ TV game show. In fact this came about after then NME journalist Stuart Maconie wrote a spoof piece in the NME’s ‘Believe It Or Not’ column. It was subsequently adopted as fact.It was actually played by Raphael Ravenscroft. Recently Rafferty has had somewhat of a chequered existence with alleged alcohol and drug problems. He also went missing in the last few months and there have been contradictory statements from a few different ‘spokesmen’ It would appear that thankfully he is alive and well and living in either Scotland or Tuscany depending upon which ‘spokesman’ you believe. Gerry if you are unwell I wish you a speedy recovery and look forward to some new material soon.

If they were really "Stuck In The Middle" then clearly someone was missing from this picture!

On this day in 1969 Desmond Dekker along with the Aces was at number one in the UK charts with the fantastic song “The Israelites“. He was the first Jamaican artist to reach number one in the UK. Desmond’s real name is Desmond Adolphus Dacres. he eventually relocated to the UK and sadly died of a heart attack in May 2006 at his home in Thornton Heath. He is allegedly the source of the character name Desmond in the Beatles ska/ reggae influenced “Ob La Di Ob La Da”

Desmond with his dogs, the imaginatively named Spot, Spot, Spot, Spot, Spot and errr .........Rover???

On this day in 1993 David Lee Roth was arrested by an undercover policeman in New York’s Washington Square for allegedly buying a $10 bag of dope. Just $10? He wasn’t going to share that with his band was he? So just why were the police selling drugs anyway eh? We should be told! Roth found fame with Van Halen before embarking on a pretty successful solo career, although he did murder the Beach Boys “California Girls” on route!

Dave used to have a lot of balls, but not after he wore those trousers!

And finally on this day in 1997 Mark Morrison was convicted with threatening a police officer with a 23,000 volt electric stun gun, you may not be surprised to know that this is an illegal weapon. He left Marylebone Magistrates court in London in tears after being warned that he may face a custodial sentence. I can’t believe he was surprised can you? You should have spoken to the same cop that Mr Lee Roth did Mark! Morrison is a British R & B singer who was actually born in Hanover, Germany. He does not own the Morrisons supermarket chain! His biggest hit was “Return Of The Mack” which went to the top of the UK charts in 1996.

Morrison in his 'Only God Can Judge Me' shirt, actually Mark I think you'll find that the courts judged you too!