With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

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

” The eagle picks my eye the worm he licks my bones” October 24, 2010

Filed under: News — justwilliam1959 @ 6:31 pm
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Hello once again regular readers and welcome to any new readers, I would love to hear from you via the comments function and also feel free to utilise the ‘rate’ option for each post.

A blue plaque not a blue meanie

A few more bits of music related news for you today. Firstly the house that John and Yoko lived in during 1968 finally gets an English Heritage blue plaque. The Marylebone property (basement and ground floor) was purchased by Ringo Starr in 1965 and before the Lennon’s moved in it was rented out to Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix. Read the story on the BBC.

Yoko thanked the builders for converting her former home into the leaning tower of Marylebone

To celebrate take a  listen to “Yer Blues” from the Beatles ‘White Album’

Nick Clegg steals food from children as his contribution to the governments spending cuts

Now for some rather disappointing news, well in my opinion anyway. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat Leader and Tory Party muppet appeared on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs show this weekend and chose a book, a luxury item and 8 records (actually it’s 8 pieces of music. Why is that bad news? Well he’s only gone and chosen a David Bowie song hasn’t he. I just feel bad when people I don’t like happen to like people who I do like, does anyone else feel like that? The Bowie song he chose was “Life On Mars”, he also selected songs by Prince, Johnny Cash, Radiohead and Shakira. So begrudgingly I might have to credit him with some taste, I’d still never vote for him again though. Click here to read the report on the BBC. You can watch Mr Bowie performing the song below at the Yahoo Internet Life Music Awards in New York City in 2000, very ably supported by Mike Garson on piano.

Nick Clegg contemplates another luxury item to take to his desert island. Let's hope the cuts aren't too sharp eh Nick? Don't want any problems with inflation do we?

In another piece of Bowie related news Cheery Vanilla his one time squeeze from the 70’s has published her memoirs and the book is enticingly titled ‘Lick Me’, which is actually quite appropriate given her name. She is quoted as saying that if you’re given the chance to sleep with David Bowie you do it, even if you have giant carbuncles on your thighs. I’m not sure whether she did have those carbuncles though. Read about the book by clicking here.

Cherry Vanilla chooses a novel way of promoting her new book

A week or so back Take That revealed the cover to their new album, ‘Progress’. It is yet another take on the Ascent Of Man idea. The worrying thing about it for me is why Gary Barlow is looking up Mark Owen’s backside. Robbie is right in the middle and Jason Orange seems to have been given a real surprise. One which made him leap high. The Guardian analyses the picture here. What do you think of it?

It's a bit camp and a bit yellow isn't it?

Click here to read a list of 10 things that British Sea Power wished they hadn’t done from the drowned in sound website. My favourites are the fans dressed as 10 foot teddy bears and one of the band dressing as some kind of Geordie/ zebra hybrid to commemorate Kevin Keegan‘s appointment as Newcastle United manager.

The British Sea Power Teddy Bear was a bit grizzly that night!

 

“Got your lipstick mark still on your coffee cup” July 18, 2010

Filed under: News — justwilliam1959 @ 10:15 pm
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In spite of popular opinion it was now clear that Gary was even shorter than Mark. But now at least he’ll be able to stand on Robbie’s Rudebox

I’m not a big Robbie Williams fan as any regular readers will know, but I couldn’t let the news of him rejoining Take That go without a mention. So rather than simply just mention it I thought I’d have some fun with it. Back in my school days at Bishopshalt in the early 70s myself and a friend (stand up Chris Skinner!) often made up short paragraphs using song titles and some simple words to link them. So that is something I have done here to represent an imaginary conversation between Robbie and Take That. The twist is that Robbie is only allowed to speak using his own hits and Take That with theirs, titles are all in CAPS. Let me know what you think. By my count there should be 20 Robbie songs and 14 from Take That, I’d love to see your versions as well

After Robbie had left the band the cheap arse tattoos didn’t seem such a good idea, for a period they were known as TAKE THA, what a bummer!

Robbie said to Take That “I was MISUNDERSTOOD and I said SOMETHIN’ STUPID. I want to make SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL with you so shine a LOVELIGHT on my RUDEBOX and let’s get SEXED UP.”

The Take That boys replied “SURE, BABE let’s have some PATIENCE and PRAY that you can SHINE and RELIGHT MY FIRE. Let’s sit down and write A MILLION LOVE SONGS, IT ONLY TAKES A MINUTE doesn’t it?

The boys were upset that Robbie hadn’t mentioned his sex change to them before he rejoined

“Ok let’s get some ADVERTISING SPACE” said Robbie. “We’ll have some LAZY DAYS TRIPPING with the KIDS. I’ll be OLD BEFORE I DIE and go to meet the ANGELS. I’ll give up my FREEDOM and be STRONG and I won’t COME UNDONE. I FEEL NO REGRETS so let’s go on the RADIO and become the SUPREME ROCK DJs of the MILLENNIUM”

Take That finished by saying “NEVER FORGET that EVERYTHING CHANGES and you’re BACK FOR GOOD. COULD IT BE MAGIC? We don’t know, but it is our GREATEST DAY so let’s go and RULE THE WORLD”

Robbie would remain eternally grateful that the rest of the boys had rescued his drowning career

Let me close with a conspiracy theory, because I know you love them! The lyrics to Back For Good were written by Gary Barlow. The question is though were they written about Robbie, especially the line about a lipstick mark on a coffee cup. Was Gary having an affair with a cross dressing Robbie? I think the world needs to know. (Please note that this last part is complete garbage that I just made up for fun, but even with this statement I suspect someone out there might actually believe it!)

 

“My feet is my only carriage, so I’ve got to push on through” July 16, 2009

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 9:24 pm
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Hello good people and thank you for reading my blog, however you got here 🙂

I’ll kick off this post with yet another shameless plug for my son Luke’s band, Steal The Smile. They are playing at the SweatBox in Wantage tonight (17th July) and then on Friday 18th July they are playing at TheNet in Abingdon. Check out their MySpace page here. You will not be disappointed, these boys are bloody good!

And now on with the usual crap, a few ‘onthisdays’ for July 17th. Starting with those old fellas the Rolling Stones. On this day in 1972 a bomb exploded under their equipment van in Montreal, Canada. It was alleged to be the work of French Separatists. Presumably nothing to do with Mick’s alleged relationship with Pierre Trudeau’s wife then, but hey maybe that allegation came later! In addition to the bomb many angry fans rioted and threw bottles and bricks after it was discovered that there were around 3,000 forged tickets in circulation. Can’t get no satisfaction indeed! In the meantime check out the Stones with the classic “Angie”

Well no wonder they were bombed, insulting a moose like this was the catalyst!

Well no wonder they were bombed, insulting a moose like this was the catalyst!

This day in 1975 was in my opinion highly historic as it was one of the nights that one of the greatest albums ever was recorded, well certainly the greatest live album anyway! Bob Marley and the Wailers played the firs of two nights at the Lyceum in good old London Town. Both shows were recorded and later released as the classic Marley album ‘Live’ later that year. For me it contains the definitive version of the undeniably brilliant “No Woman No Cry“, which is easily my favourite Marley song. I have worn out three copies of that album over the years, one on cassette and two on vinyl. I have t on CD now though!

“No Woman No Cry” was originally included on the excellent ‘Natty Dread’ album and many people assumed it was not written by Mr Marley, largely because the song is credited to a ‘V. Ford’. This is in fact one Vincent Ford who ran a soup kitchen in Trenchtown, Jamaica. He was a good friend of Bob’s and the royalties he  received enabled him to continue running that same soup kitchen for man years. I think that is a great gift to give, what do you think? Ford died a few months ago, click here for the BBC report of his death.

Bob was supposedly a talented footballer, but I bet he wouldn't have taken the Manchester City silver dollar!

Bob was supposedly a talented footballer, but I bet he wouldn’t have taken the Manchester City silver dollar!

The cover of my favourite Bob Marley album, go out and buy it now! That's an order!

The cover of my favourite Bob Marley album, go out and buy it now! That’s an order!

And finally for today I will feature someone who my regular readers will know that I don’t rate very highly at all……… Robbie Williams! On this day in 1995 he left Take That, bucket loads of tears were shed and the story even made all the main TV news shows. I mean come on it was hardly the Beatles breaking up or even Geri leaving the Spice Girls was it? Well ok maybe it was on a par with Geri’s departure. Robbie obviously went on to great success for a while and Take That eventually broke up. Now that Take That are back though our darling tabloids would have us believe that Robbie wants to rejoin. You know what? This is a big admission but I believe them for once 🙂 Anyway it does seem like they’re “Back For Good” doesn’t it?

See I always said that Robbie and the boys were just pants!

See I always said that Robbie and the boys were just pants!

 

Brits Special – “The future needs a big kiss” February 18, 2009

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:42 pm
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Here’s a one off Brits special for you live from Earls Court in London, well ok you’ve found me out, live in front of the telly in York! Compared to the usual posts this one will be mercifully brief…….. I promise!

The whole proceedings were opened by the magnificent U2 with their new single “Get On Your Boots” which took some while to grow on me, but now it has. The gorgeous Kylie was the hostess along with the two dudes from ‘Gavin and Stacey’

Duffy won 3 awards and the Kings Of Leon won two. Both sang live too, Kings of Leon were superb. Duffy was good but I reckon the lighting man was trashed, her face was in shadow for most of her song. Let’s not forget the debt that Duffy owes to the former Suede guitar maestro Bernard Butler, who produced her album.

Then of course there was Katy Perry, she won best international female and by gosh someone must have painted those leggings on!

Girls Aloud won the most viewers votes to claim the best British single prize, which they also performed earlier in the evening with dancers in white and loads of pink feathers. A bit like burlesque for the under 18s.

Coldplay didn’t win anything but did perform live, Mr Paltrow was on excellent form. But was that Brian Blessed on drums? We should be told!

Paul Weller won the best British male gong, I would have been gutted if he didn’t. He wasn’t there but his acceptance video with Adele was quite amusing.

David Hasselhoff presented the Best British group to Elbow and to be fair they certainly didn’t hassle the Hoff and to be even more fair he didn’t sing!

Take That put on an excellent performance, but Catwoman thinks they might have been miming. Their shirts were simply, well, wrong! As for the NHS glasses they all wore, were they sponsored by Specsavers? They looked like four Clark Kent clones when they were lowered onto the stage in their open topped UFO. Was the UFO a dig at Robbie perhaps? See it’s not only me that does that to him!

Florence and the Machine had already been announced as the winner of the Critics Choice award but what we’d like to know is why the audio was muted when she arrived on stage and also why was it just Florence, I wanted to see the machine!

Kanye West accepted his Best International Male award by video and seemed to be dressed like a black Richie Cunningham. He also seized the opportunity to ‘big up’ what a catch he would be to all the laydeez!

Estelle duetted with the Ting Tings in what was a pretty poor mash up of “Shut Up And Let Me Go” and “American Boy”. But were Estelle’s leggings done by the same painter that did Katy Perry’s?

Tom Jones looked incredibly orange when he presented Duffy with her third award of the night for best British Album.

The Pet Shop Boys as we already knew were awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Music award this year. The award was humbly presented by Brandon Flowers of the Killers. The boys also played the show out with an excellent 15 minute medley of their hits. Neil Tennant wearing a puffed up shiny overcoat, bowler hat and shades and Chris Lowe wearing jeans, puffer jacket, shades and a brilliant Andy Warhol style pink wig (That’s my style for my next mobile disco gig sorted then!)

They were ably supported by both Lady GaGa and Brandon Flowers for a few songs as well as a massive troupe of dancers. All in all for me the Pet Shop Boys were the best performance of the night. What was the worst? For me it was the hapless interviewers Nicola Appleton and Melanie Blatt off of All Saints, crap doesn’t do it justice

I also had great fun Twittering with Coldplays crew and Scott Mills team during the show.

What did you folks think of it all?

Check out the winners and news here – Brits Winners and also here in the Telegraph or the Sun