Before they settled on the, in my opinion rather excellent name, the Manic Street Preachers the Welsh rockers briefly considered calling themselves Betty Blue. Nope, that wouldn’t have worked for me, how about you?
“Our love is unconditional our hate is yours to feed upon” June 16, 2014
“What say you put on that exercise video and I’ll watch you sweat” May 7, 2012
Goldie Lookin’ Chain are back in the news, but probably not for any reason that you might be thinking. Rhys Hutchings aka Zardoz, P.Xain & Dwain Xain Zedong (well they are his personas in the band), has been elected as a local councillor in the St Julians ward of Newport in Wales.
He was announced the winner after three recounts having polled more than 900 votes. His comments were quoted on the NME as “It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do since my Duke of Edinburgh Award when I was fifteen years old. I’m chuffed to have won and it comes after hard work by my supporters and I’ve got to thank them for that. I can’t wait to help those people that trusted me and voted for me.” I wonder where he will stand on gun law, because as we all know “Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do”
Enjoy some classic cuts from GLC to celebrate Councillor Hutchings win.
“Our thumping hearts hold the ravens in, and keep the tower from tumbling” August 21, 2011
As many of you know I have a real issue with the fact us English do not have our own passport nor our own national anthem. The other home nations; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may also have to have a British passport like us in England, but at least they have their own national anthem. What do we use? The bloody British national anthem, “God Save The Queen”. It’s like a damned funeral march and holds no inspiration whatsoever for me.
Regular readers will know that I have posted about this subject before, click here to read it. Anyway another blogger has gone somewhat further than me and has set up a UK government e-petition entitled ‘Make Kate Bush‘s “Oh England My Lionheart” the new English National Anthem’. That song was one of the choices on my original post. So I would like you to go to the petition site and sign it. Click here to do so. Unless of course you like the British national anthem? Surely you don’t do you? Anyway only 100, 000 signatures are needed before the government have to consider it, so what are you waiting for? You know what you need to do; England expects and all that.
If you’d like to check out Steve’s original post on the subject click here. The rest of his blog is pretty damned good too, frankly anyone who is a Kate Bush fan and a comic fan is someone I couldn’t fail to like. Here is Kate with said song. Listen and sign people, you know it makes sense!
“If I could reach the stars I’d give them all to you” January 16, 2011
Upon reaching the ripe old age of 50 a couple of years back I made myself a short list of things I wanted to do before I pop my clogs. There were five things; Ride a motorbike, learn to play the guitar, have something I’ve written actually published, spend a couple of hours in a flotation tank and be hypnotised for some past life regression. Thanks to my delectable fiancée, who most of you know as Catwoman, I have now achieved three of them, all birthday presents in fact. I spent a day at the Harley Davidson Centre in Wales in 2009, but I won’t be taking up riding! I took an initial few guitar lessons in early 2010, but work got in the way as I could never get home in time for my lessons. But I do have a very rudimentary skill. This weekend I underwent past life regression hypnosis. Now in many things I am quite cynical, but with things like reincarnation I do have an open mind.
The experience, given to me by Catwoman for my birthday, surpassed all my expectations. I wasn’t put into a deep trance, but some of the things I experienced were incredible. Were they actual past lives or were they part of my imagination driven by the vastness of my unconscious mind (I’m not bragging here, everyone has one!). I don’t know, but I do know it was an amazingly thought-provoking and exciting experience. I am still an atheist with no-balls, which is how an old boss of mine described agnostics! Anyway I won’t go into too much detail about it here, but feel free to get in touch if you’d like to hear more. But I am happy to say that I wasn’t Napoleon or Caesar!
But apart from the guitar lessons none of this is about music so I thought I’d add a few past life related songs. I hope you enjoy them.
“R is for the reindeer prancing by the window pane” December 1, 2010
Before X factor the race for the UK Christmas number one was often quite exciting, well at least it was for a teenager like me. Well ok I’m not a teenager anymore, but I was…… honest! So to follow-up my Facebook experiment last year I will be undertaking a post a day until Christmas and whereas last years were all about cover versions, this years advent calendar from me is all about UK Christmas number ones over the years. There have been nearly 60 and I promise you that some you will love and frankly there will be some that you won’t.
So to kick things off by opening the little cardboard door on my advent calendar for Decemebr 1st and behind that door is…….. “Christmas Alphabet” by Dickie Valentine. This was Christmas number one in the UK in 1955 and stayed at the summit for three weeks. Dickie’s parents name him Richard Bryce when he was born in Marylebone in London. This song was the first actual Christmas song to reach number one in the UK. It was also his second number one of the year and a further three top ten hits. Being a crooner it was probably the advent of rock n roll that stilted Dickie’s career. Sadly he died in a car crash in Wales in 1971 aged just 41.
Here is Dickie with his Christmas Alphabet
And now a cover of the song from the first Carpenters Christmas Special TV show, sung by Karen Carpenter and Kristy McNichol
And finally here is Dickie once again with “Mister Sandman” hmmmmmmm………I wonder if there is a mash-up out there of this song and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman“?
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 