I’d like to wish the brilliant nme.com a happy 15th birthday. To celebrate the site now hosts a list of what they consider to be the best tracks of the last 15 years. Not too many surprises, even for someone like me who has been an NME reader since 1971. I am really grown up now and actually subscribe to the printed version. But nme.com along with the BBC and the Guardian are the sites that I check out each day. There must be people out there who have been reading NME for longer than me and equally kids who have only got into music since the launch of nme.com. I would love to hear your NME related stories.
Click here to access the whole top 150. The top 5 in descending order are;
First up today were Dananananaykroyd; they’re wild and they’re from Scotland and it is hard not to like them. next we saw the Original Rude Boys on the BBC Introducing Stage. Three Irish lads who were here because they were messing around at home a few months back and wrote a song which they recorded and put on YouTube and it took off from there. they’re acoustic with some great Irish rapping. They played a great cover of Gnarls Barkley‘s “Crazy”. Back to the NME/ Radio 1 stage next. So tell me a fat bald beardy bloke and a band that looks like students? Sounds fucked up? Well it is Fucked Up and they are fucking amazing! Does he ever get on stage?
The BBC Introducing stage set by Funeral Party was ok and Taking Back Sunday brightened up the rain from the Main Stage. Frank Turner was very possibly the best act of the day for me! Massive sing along opportunities. the Little Comets were good when I saw them at Fibbers in York a while back but now they’re great! Appropriately for a Sunday I saw Chapel Club next. What are they like? Well fuck genres these guys are just fucking good! Enter Shikari were truly earthshaking once again! Friendly Fires are like Enter also from St Albans and very, very funky.
Panic At The Disco; a great set from the boys and as they in the US these guys rock! Death From Above 1979 loud powerful and your Gran probably won’t like them. But as far as I know I’m not your Gran and I like them! It appears by the miracle of sunlight streaming through a gap in the tent stage that 7:30 on Sunday will from now on always be the festival solstice! Why? well I had an illuminated bald head, but not just illuminated, it was like a light Mohican. (There may well be a film from Mr H of that very episode soon).
The Streets; Mike Skinner a true street poet genius. Dry your eyes indeed mate for this is the last ever Streets show. Big respect to Mr Skinner for a superb send off! Caught a couple of songs from Flogging Molly, still Irish, still have a punk attitude and frankly bloody good! 2manydjs OMFG now that is what I call DJing! Definitely worth missing Muse for! (Although I hear they were bloody good once again) Would I have enjoyed that more with some E and a glow stick? I doubt it. Now let me finish with something that Mike Skinner said; “Reading you look like you’ve been rocking for days”. Well we have and we will again next year!
OK I know i's not actually Friday today, but that's not really the point is it?
Just a few morsels of news for you with this post, ok for a couple of these ‘news’ might be stretching it and ‘olds’ might be a more apt description. Especially this first one. Many of you will have no doubt heard of Rebecca Black. She is the young lady who recently released what many consider to be one of the worst songs and worst videos ever. There has been an awful lot of nasty, vicious, vitriolic comment about her song. So other than saying I really don’t think the song or video are very good I will try not to add to what has already been said. The key thing that concerns me about this sad affair is that the poor girl recorded the song for a vanity music label; the Ark Music Factory. So now everyone can be a singer, just pay a few grand, or indeed get your parents to stump up the cash and you will get a song, a guest rapper, a vocoder and a naff video. sounds great doesn’t it? But surely you need talent as well? But in these days of X Factor and Idol that probably isn’t the case. Now that in my opinion is a really sad state of affairs. the one saving grace for Rebecca (apart from the millions of YouTube hits) is that the proceeds from any sales of her song “Friday” will go towards the earthquake relief in Japan. judge for yourself, if you haven’t already, by watching the video below. I would also love to hear your opinions on vanity record labels.
Talking Heads - Digging for Crist!
The BBC reported today that David Byrne off of the Talking Heads has settled his case against former Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist after the politician used the Talking Heads song “Road To Nowhere” to attack his opponent in the race for the senate. personally I am really pleased that Byrne took Crist on. What do you think? Read the story on the Beeb by clicking here.
Bono wonders whether he should have put his $558m in the hotel safe rather than trousered it in the pocket of his Speedos
It has now been confirmed that U2 have achieved the highest grossing tour ever with their 360° tour which began back in 2009. They still have 20 dates to go too, but they have already grossed $558 million. That even allows for missing a few dates, including Glasto last year, due to Mr Hewson’s back problems. Are they really worth it?
Dunc with Dad, Dame Dave
Richard Rich and Max Tannone have put together a brilliant free EP based on mixing hip hop sounds with the soundtrack to Duncan Jones (son of David Robert Jones) excellent movie ‘Moon’. Click here to download all the tracks. It’s called the Selene Project and has nothing to do with song strangler Celine Dion, it’s spelled very differently people!
Finally I was honoured to accompany the delectable Catwoman (aka Catherine Lee, my fiancée) to the studios of Radio York on Saturday where live on air she reviewed the newspapers. Once again she did an excellent job, you can still hear the show for three more days by clicking on Radio York’s Julia Booth’s page here. You can also check out the website for her excellent Virtual Assistant company, Kaleidoscope Business Services by clicking here and she would also love you to comment on her rather spiffing series of blogs.
Did you see the staggering piece of footage on the UK news this week? Where a woman in her 70s saw off six would be jewel thieves in Northampton. She saw a commotion and thought a young lad was being beaten up, so she waded in with her hand bag at which point she realised it was a robbery. It was a while before other members of the public stepped in and held one of the gang. the police later arrested three more of the six.
I’d love to see them explain themselves in prison, they will truly be complete laughing stocks. The three that were arrested were aged between 18 and 39 so all considerably younger than Ann Timson the magnificent lady in question. She said that she recognised that she had put herself in danger but that she would probably do the same again. This lady is my hero of 2011 so far, can anyone top Ann Timson?
Click here to read the story on the BBC site and click here to read it on ITV’s Anglia News
Obviously this is a music blog so I will now give you a few relatively appropriate songs;
“Beat On The Brat” – Ramones. Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy Ramone formed the band in New York in 1974. Despite the apparently shared surname they were not related at all. They chose Ramone after a pen name used by Paul McCartney, which was Paul Ramon. Clem Burke from Blondie once appeared with the band and named himself Elvis Ramone.
“Touch Of Grey” – The Grateful Dead. Fans of the band are often referred to as Dead Heads. The term was used in one of my favourite songs; “The Boys Of Summer” by Don Henley. “Out on the road today I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac, a voice inside my head said don’t look back, you can never look back”
“The Little Old Lady From Pasadena” – Jan and Dean. Many of their hits were written by the Beach Boys, especially Brian Wilson, although this was written by Don Altfeld, Jan Berry and Roger Christian. The Beach Boys did record a live version of the song in the 60s though.
“Get Up, Stand Up” – Bob Marley and the Wailers. This is a classic Marley song and was often his encore. In fact it was the last song he ever played live having used it to close his gig in Pittsburgh in September 1980.
This is quite a difficult post for me. Some months ago I tried to help out a good friend by finding them a job where I was working at the time. You understand, I hope, that giving names may cause them embarrassment and get me into trouble. Actually it is the former that bothers me most. Anyway the lily livered people where I was working decided that as they had seen my friend when she previously worked at the same place via a consulting company that they didn’t like her. Lily livered is a bit strong for one individual for whom I have immense respect, he bothered to tell me personally how he felt about my friend and that he didn’t rate them. Fair enough and to each their own, I didn’t agree with him, but at least he had the balls to voice his opinion to me.
However there was at least one other individual (personally I believe it was more than one) who decided to go straight to the top and say that they didn’t like my friend and that I should not be allowed to appoint them. I was informed of this but the names of the complainants were not given as ‘they had given their views in confidence’. Which obviously gave me no right of reply. so I was persuaded against my better judgement not to employ my friend. I then compounded this by not telling them the whole truth as to why there was no longer a job. I did this to spare their feelings.
What happened next was that my friend went back to the same place with another consulting company whereupon one of the sad two-faced losers that had actually expressed their liking for my friend during that previous debacle once again complained to the ‘powers that be’ that my friend should not be employed. I am not one to seek revenge, but I do believe in karma and if an opportunity presents itself for me to crap on this pathetic two-faced lowlife, believe me, I will. he knows who he is and so do I. He must be aware that what goes around comes around, but then perhaps he’s too much of an arsehole to realise.
Enough said, now enjoy two very appropriate songs;
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.
Well there really isn’t a great deal to say about this fantastic album cover animation other than it is truly brilliant. It’s called Battle Of The Bands and it truly is a fight to the death!
If I have noted it correctly it contains album covers from all the following artists, if you see any I have missed just let me know!
Foreigner, Yazoo, Billy Joel, Shaun Cassidy, Violent Femmes, Rick James, Eminem, Joe Jackson, Beastie Boys, 50 Cent, Roxy Music, King Crimson, Scorpions, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Duran Duran, Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, Rush, Boston, AC/ DC, Def Leppard, Replacements, Jane’s Addiction, Love And Rockets, Depeche Mode, Ozzy Osbourne, Weezer, B 52s, Dead Kennedys, Van Halen, Dio, Iron Maiden, Night Ranger, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, OMD, Nirvana, Asia, David Lee Roth, Black Flag, Cars, Michael Jackson, Beatles, Journey, Green Day, Hermans Hermits, Madness, Phil Collins, Lou Reed, Madonna, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Lionel Richie, Devo, Jimi Hendrix, Quiet Riot and Metallica.
My favourites are Michael Jackson and Roxy Music, what are your favourites? Can you find the hidden Ozzy track?
Here we are on December 2nd and the second day of my Christmas Advent Calendar. As I said yesterday, this year it’s all about UK Christmas number ones, next up is one of my favourite Elvis songs. It may not be classic Sun Records or Elvis or Memphis Sessions Elvis, but it’s definitely not Fat Elvis! It’s a truly classic pop song and it’s “Return To Sender”. It was the UK Christmas number one for 1962, just before my 4th birthday (wow that’s bloody old!) it held the top spot for three weeks. The session player who provided the baritone saxophone sound was in fact Bobby Keys. He has played with the Rolling Stones for years and also played on George Harrison‘s ‘All Things Must Pass’ album.
Elvis clearly didn't trust the US Postal Service so he delivered this one directly to President 'Tricky Dicky' Nixon
and here is an extract from that very letter to Nixon
On January 8th 1993, what would have been Presley’s 58th birthday the US Postal Service released a set of Elvis stamps. Apparently many people bought them and used them to send letters to fictitious addresses in the hope that they would be returned stamped ‘RETURN TO SENDER‘!
Here is Elvis performing the song as Ross Carpenter in the film ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’
Here is a later period (Fat Elvis) with a live version of the song
I’d like to finish with two postal related songs for your further pleasure. Starting with “Blame It On The Pony Express” from Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon. I love that song. After that you’ll get the Box Tops with “The Letter”
Having received the regular newsletter from Man Is Slapped recently I found that for the first time in ages I was able to attend one of his gigs. This would be the second time I have seen him at the York City Screen Basement, but more of him later. When I arrived I was greeted by the wonderful sound of Tom Waits playing over the house PA, including the fabulous “Hoist That Rag”. That just made me feel that this was set to be a good night and for once my instincts weren’t wrong, it was a great night.
First up were Detronik. Imagine a large serving of 80s Sheffield electro a la Human League and a couple of spoonfuls of the Stone Roses and Madchester at it’s 90s peak. Are you there? Well that’s how these guys made me feel. They were bloody good and if they were around in the 80s they would have cleaned up completely. I really loved their set, especially closing number “Death To The Disco”. Check out the band on MySpace and the original lineup on YouTube.
Man Is Slapped
Man Is Slapped was the second of three acts and this will be the third time I have seen him play. If you put down what he does on paper (or perhaps in a blog post) you would surely think that this shouldn’t work. But it does work and it works so very well. He played a few new songs from his new EP; Socially Inept which as a fan I obviously purchased. He also di his usual thing of sampling his own sound and vocals in order to provide backing for his songs. Is there anyone else about that can actually do this? Even if there are I doubt that they would be better than Mr Slapped. he even expanded his sound on a couple of songs by using a guitar. Perhaps the next EP will be ‘Man Is Slapped Goes Punk’? He also played a brief electro interlude advertising his web presence and CD for sale. He should be much, much bigger, make it so dear readers! Check him out on MySpace here and also on YouTube here.
Wolf Gang - but this is clearly not a lion and it's clearly not in a cage!
Finally it was the turn of the headliners, I must confess that until tonight I had never heard them and whilst Detronik and Man Is Slapped were excellent I think Wolf Gang surpassed them. They were truly stupendous and excellent band, especially the drummer. The vocalist was also very, very good. The blurb on the gig poster suggests that they go some way to mashing together Talking Heads and Empire Of The Sun. I wouldn’t disagree with this but I would also add that there was an element of early Simple Minds in there too, back in the days when Jim Kerr‘s boys were actually good. I would certainly pay to see this band again and if they’re playing near you it would be foolish and negligent of you to miss them. The next couple of weeks will see them play Glasgow, Sheffield, Brighton, Birmingham, Southampton, London, Bristol and Manchester. I hope they play at the Reading Festival next year. They finished their set with their new single “Lions In Cages” which is released on 22nd November, buy it and make them a happy band. Then they will then be just like me for I went home a happy man! Check them out on MySpace by clicking here and their own website by clicking here and then enjoy a couple more Wolf Gang videos below;
Is this country finally waking up? Are the downtrodden finally kicking back? Are those that consider themselves middle class no longer ignoring the obvious? Are our students finally in control of their rebellious gene? Let’s hope so! This week saw more than 50,000 people on the streets of London to protest at the raising of student fees. This follows protests about the schools building programme cuts in July, another anti cuts rally in Sheffield last month and the occupation of an RBS bank last week. OK I know the Daily Mail readers out there will be getting all sanctimonious about the violence and to a large extent I agree. (Yep me agreeing with a Daily Mail opinion, fucking hell am I getting old?) I do not condone violence of any kind and I truly believe that this was caused by just a small minority as is often the case.
With Nick Laurel and Dave Hardy at the wheel we can't go wrong....... can we?
Bear in mind that these protests have all taken place before the coalition cuts have begun to bite, so I think things will get much worse before they get better. Just look at the housing benefit plans, sure a great way of saving money in the short-term, but with private rents rising far quicker than the government are predicting a recipe for disaster. If it goes to plan it will lead to an exodus of people from London as they can no longer afford to live there. Where will that exodus take them? Why probably into all the areas in the country where there will be no jobs! Now that really makes sense doesn’t it? I do not disagree that cuts are needed in expenditure but there are far better ways of doing it. Over a longer period, with more considered plans etc.
Cameron prepares to throw the baby out with the bathwater
As for those of you that aspire to be or consider yourselves to be middle class, get over it! There are two classes in this country; the filthy rich and the rest of us! Just remember that the current cabinet contains 18 millionaires among its members. These are the people who believe they are leading the country, a mistake which many politicians make (Thatcher, Blair and more). They do not lead us, they serve us and it would be wise of them to remember this.
Clearly this picture proves that Nick Clegg has been David Cameron's ventriloquist dummy all along
I do not believe that this government will see out its full term and therefore we will have the opportunity to voice our opinions through the ballot box again. When the time comes do not bow to apathy, get off your arse and vote. Let’s show the politicians whose country this really is. Anyway, rant over and let me get back to the music. Obviously I have chosen some appropriate stuff for you!
“White Riot” – The Clash. The song is not about race war as many pundits suggested at the time. According to Joe Strummer it is in fact a call to arms of the white youth of Britain to riot against things that were oppressing them in the same way that black youth in the 70s did.
“Let’s Start A Riot” – Three Days Grace. These guys are an Alternative Canadian band who released their 3rd album, ‘Life Starts Here’ last year.
“Panic” – The Smiths This Morrissey/ Marr composition is not really about social unrest, it’s actually about the poor state of pop music at the time. But frankly it still fits on both levels. It was the first Smiths single to feature new member Craig Gannon.
“Walls Come Tumbling Down” – Style Council This is a superb attack on those that govern and I love it. Weller often gets criticised for the Style Council, but I think they were far better than the press thought they were. This song reached number 7 in the UK charts.
“Another Brick In The Wall” – Roger Waters The Wall album is seen by many as close to being Roger Waters solo album. This video is from his current tour playing The Wall in its entirety.
“Going Underground” – The Jam. This song did not feature on any of the bands studio albums although it has been on most Jam compilations. I almost took the title for this post from the song. The couplet, “their lies let you down and their promises rust” would have worked well. This went straight into the UK charts at number 1.
“I Predict A Riot” – Kaiser Chiefs Formed in Leeds in 1997 the band took their name from a South African football team; the Kaizer Chiefs. The band are Leeds United supporters and former Leeds player Lucas Radebe used to play for the Kaizer Chiefs.
“Fight The Power” – Isley Brothers. Written by Ernie Isley this is a really funky protest song. Public Enemy were inspired by it a few years later.
“You Haven’t Done Nothing” – Stevie Wonder This clip appears to be taken from the Andy Williams show. It’s an excellent piece of protest from Mr Wonder. Did you know that the backing vocals on the original studio version were recorded by Motown stablemates at the time, the Jackson 5.
I do worry sometimes that Jedward may be a little more intelligent than Nivid or Dick
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 