An open ambition of mine is to undertake jury service, but I suspect that like my father who also wanted to serve as a juror it will remain an unfulfilled ambition. However I truly believe that I could do a better job than the majority of the jury in the Vicky Pryce (wife of Chris Huhne) speeding points trial. The judge has dismissed them for failing to understand their role. well that is how the press seem to have translated it. For me it just seems that some jurors in this trial are just incredibly stupid.
After 14 hours of deliberation they apparently asked questions such as;
Can a juror come to a verdict based on reasons that were not presented in court or supported by the evidence.
What were Mrs Pryce’s religious convictions? Even though this was not a matter in the trial.
How do you plead for these jurors? Are they stupid, diligent or something else completely? Let’s be fair, Huhne and Pryce have hardly been beacons of intelligence over this speeding debacle either have they?
A retrial begins on Monday. Anyway as I have said many times before this is a music blog so I have chosen some appropriate songs, well they are in my opinion!
I always get a bit of a good feeling when a favourite song, or even one that I recognise is mentioned in a story, do you? My favourite author Stephen King does it quite often. Now there is a regularly updated site called Small Demons that have compiled a list of the songs mentioned most often in works of fiction. Click here to read about it in the NME. Here is the top 20;
1. The Beatles – ‘Hey Jude’
2. Elvis Presley – ‘Heartbreak Hotel’
3. Led Zeppelin – ‘Stairway To Heaven’
4. USA For Africa – ‘We Are The World’
5. Abba – ‘Dancing Queen’
6. Carl Perkins – ‘Blue Suede Shoes‘
7. The Beatles – ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds‘
8. The Beatles – ‘Eleanor Rigby’
9. Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
10. Queen – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
11. Los Del Rio – ‘The Macarena’
12. Michael Jackson – ‘Beat it’
13. Creedence Clearwater Revival – ‘Proud Mary’
14. OneRepublic – ‘Apologize’
15. The Beatles – ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’
16. The Beatles – ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
17. ‘Lili Marleen’ (first recorded by Lale Andersen)
18. Michael Jackson – ‘Billie Jean’
19. Bob Dylan – ‘Like A Rolling Stone’
20. Rolling Stones – ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’
I get why some of these would appear, but USA For Africa, ”Macarena” and “Apologize”? What’s that all about? “Hey Jude” has been mentioned in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. The Beatles have a probably unsurprising five titles in the top 20 with Michael Jackson the only other artist with more than one with his two entries. I suppose an entry for the Fab Four‘s “Paperback Writer” would have been quite apt wouldn’t it? Click here to see a longer and nicely pictorial list.
Way back through the mists of time to the year I was born, that’s 1959, Bobby Vee and his band hired a piano player. That pianist called himself Elston Gunn, presumably to make him seem like a western hero. Anyway it turns out that he didn’t have much in the way of piano skills; he could only play in one key and he didn’t own a piano. So things were never really going to work out.
However it turns out that Elston’s real name was Robert Zimmerman. He may not have been a good pianist but clearly Mr Zimmerman was an ace singer songwriter as he shortly changed his name again. This time to Bob Dylan!
Do you receive a regular selection of random e mails from various groups that you have subscribed to over the years? I get loads and often I can’t be bothered to look at them. But for some reason I took a chance and opened one at random. It contained stacks of old pictures. Mostly of different stars together and not necessarily those that had worked together. Here are a few that I really liked and had never seen before. let me know what you think of them.
Bob Marley & the Wailers and the Jackson 5
George Harrison & Bob Marley
Mick Jagger & Jimi Hendrix
Mick Jagger & James Brown
No more words required just listen to some great music by some of those artists while you enjoy the pictures.
I’d like to thank my friend Stuart O’Hara for suggesting the theme of this post. Edwyn Collins once said ‘too many protest singers, not enough protest songs’. Strangely that was a lyric from his 90s hit “A Girl Like You” which doesn’t seem to be a protest song itself. That dear reader is the thrust of this blog post; where are all the protest singers and protest songs? The world economy is collapsing, riot and revolution is rife, wars and indiscriminate bombings are commonplace and UK politics is at best inept and the USA is trillions of dollars in debt and dancing with the idea of electing an idiotic republican candidate far more stupid than even Dubya was. So where are all the protests from the music world?
Aside from the fact that a legitimate protest song would probably not get played on mainstream radio and would need to ‘go viral’ on-line, where the hell are they? Where are this generation’s Woody Guthries, Pete Seegers, Bob Dylans and Billy Braggs? OK I know there have been a few good attempts since the Specials summed up Britain in song in 1981 with “Ghost Town”. Notably “Killing In The Name Of” from Rage Against The Machine and perhaps “American Idiot” from Green Day. But what happened to the establishment/ ‘the man’ being scared of rock music? It’s all become too corporate and bland.
U2 and Coldplay have tried to use their muscle to protest against various wrongs in the world, but frankly are their hearts really in it? Radiohead have supported the free Tibet campaign amongst others, but could they do more? Dylan is getting too old, Bragg doesn’t have the fanbase size required (but is still flying the flag), Springsteen and Weller have been quiet of late on the protest front and Marvin Gaye, Marley, Lennon and Strummer are sadly no longer with us.
The environment must be right for a new movement to shake up the old order just like punk did in the 70s and rave and grunge did in the 80s and 90s. The charts are stuffed full of manipulated, impresario created pop muppets; Little Mix, Matt Cardle, Olly Murs etc. It is time to stand up and be counted good people of the blogosphere. We need some strong protest songs to unite all those fighting for freedom and change. Let’s shake up that complacent bunch of career politicians in Westminster and political ivory towers across the world. Frank Turner, Show Of Hands, Neil Young you can do this we need you now! Will somebody please step forward?
In the meantime here are some classic protest songs. I would love to hear your opinions of protest songs and singers;
Are music related deaths like buses? There isn’t one for ages and then loads arrive at once? That’s what the last few days seem like anyway; The first one I heard about was the sad death of Andrea True who had a massive 70s disco hit in the 70s with “More More More” under the not so imaginative name Andrea True Connection. Her real name was Andrea Truden and she changed it to True when she began to appear in porn films before her singing career, including ‘Deep Throat 2’. This was apparently so that her parents wouldn’t find out that she was in the porn industry. Sadly her singing career was not a long one, however she did spend time working in a number of jobs after throat surgery cut short club singing. These jobs included being a drug and alcohol counsellor. “More More More” was prominently sampled by Len on their 1999 hit “Steal My Sunshine” and was later covered by former S Clubber Rachel Stevens in 2004.
Barry Llewellyn off of the iconic and influential reggae band the Heptones has died in Jamaica aged 64. The band recorded a number of songs with the infamous Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. They are probably best known for their song in praise of the larger woman; “Fattie Fattie” This is also one of my favourite reggae songs and I used to own the 7 inch vinyl version of the song many years ago.
Perhaps he wasn’t a musician or singer but I couldn’t let the great film producer Ken Russell’s passing go without a mention here. He was responsible for what in my opinion is one of the best rock related movies ever made. He created a magnificent and somewhat weird adaptation of the Who’s ‘Tommy’ for the silver screen in 1975. He also made a movie of the life of Liszt starring Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt and titled ‘Lisztomania’ which was also released in 1975. The soundtrack was provided by Rick Wakeman. In my view these two movies were the pinnacle of Daltrey’s acting career. Russell even tried his hand at the music video format when he directed the video to Elton John’s 1985 hit “Nikita”.
Don DeVito the producer of two of my favourite Bob Dylan albums, ‘Desire’ and ‘Blood On The Tracks’ has also passed away aged 72. He finally lost a 16 year-long battle with prostate cancer. He remained at Columbia records throughout his career where he worked with such luminaries as Aerosmith, Billy Joel and the Boss himself; Mr Springsteen.
Former singer with bands such as the Joe Loss Orchestra Ross McManus has also sadly left us. He was a very good singer in his own right but many people of my generation probably know him better as the father of the former Declan McManus; Elvis Costello. He died on 24th November aged 84 less than two weeks after the death of his second wife Sara. He played trumpet on a few of his son’s recordings. He once recorded a cover of the Beatles “Long And Winding Road” in 1970 under the name Day Costello, which is where young Declan chose his new surname from. He also wrote and recorded the song that accompanied the R White’s Lemonade advertising campaign in the 70s entitled “I’m A Secret Lemonade Drinker” on which backing vocals were provided by the then teenaged Declan.
My thoughts go to the family, friends and fans of Andrea, Barry, Ken, Don and Ross. RIP all of you.
Coincidentally today also marks the 10th anniversary of the death of George Harrison aged just 58. I find it hard to believe that it was so long ago, but it was just a couple of months after my Dad in September 2001. There are a number of events in Liverpool to commemorate the anniversary. In 9 days on December 8th it will also be the 31st anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. Clearly this period of the year hasn’t been great for other rock deaths either; 24th November was the 20th anniversary of the passing of Freddie Mercury and 22nd November saw 14 years since the death of Michael Hutchence off of INXS.
Many of you know that Catwoman (a.k.a. Catherine Lee now Catherine Adamson) and I recently got married. As you might have guessed music did play quite a big part in the day, beyond just the choice of first dance. We chose a small but special group of songs for our guests to listen to while they were waiting for the beautiful bride to arrive and the ceremony to start. Those songs were;
It took us months to choose the song that Catherine would walk up the aisle to and we believe in the end it was the perfect choice. It
was Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World”
Then we had four songs very carefully selected for the signing of the register. Those were;
We even chose the song for us to exit the ceremony room. That simply had to be “This Will Be” from Natalie Cole. We even managed a half decent jig on the way out of the room to that one!
We also chose a selection of swing type songs as background to the serving of champagne and canapés or as I like to say; fizzies n fod! The background music for the wedding breakfast (incidentally why is it called a breakfast when it’s not usually in the morning?) was carefully selected classic soul and Motown love songs. These two sets are included as a list at the end of this post.
Then of course it was time for the first dance, the title of which was also immortalised on my cufflinks for the wedding day. It had to be
the really beautiful Nick Cave ballad, “Into My Arms” Probably the only song I know that includes the phrase ‘interventionist god’ in its lyrics.
We hired a swing band for the evening; the truly excellent and very talented Chris Hilton Little Big Band. They did two sets of around an
hour each combining swing classics and swing arrangements of many other hits too. Their version of “I Wanna Be Like You” from the Jungle Book was a real rocking party tune.
There was also a very special guest appearance after the bands first set. A long overdue set from the superstar DJs of the 70s ‘Bill
& Glen the Disco Men’ this was their first gig in more than 30 years. They had specially designed wigs and costumes. Well ok cheap T Shirts with their pictures on and tacky 70s wigs from the party shop. None the less the boys really rocked the joint with a storming set of pure 70s disco classics, many of which haven’t been aired in years. In case you were wondering, the Bill part of the team is me and the Glen part is my best buddy Glen Voisey. We went to Ryefield Primary School together in Hillingdon in the late 60s. It was my selection that managed to actually clear the dance floor though; personally in my defence I just feel that there was no one with enough class and taste to really appreciate the finer points of Mr Dooley Silverspoon’s amazing “Bump Me Baby” The full Bill and Glen set was;
“Boogie Nights” – Heatwave
“Get Dancin’” - Disco Tex And The Sex-O-Lettes
“Ain’t Gonna Bump No More” - Joe Tex
“Bump Me Baby” – Dooley Silverspoon
“You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” - Sylvester
“Get Down Tonight” - KC & The Sunshine Band
“Rock The Boat” - Hues Corporation
“September” - Earth, Wind & Fire
In addition to all of this there were also two other musical related items on the day; one was a reading of the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Wedding Song” lyrics from the Planet Waves album. This was read by our good friend and wife of my best man, Caron Godbold-Derbyshire. (The other two readings were not music related but were superb none the less, so thank you also to Rachel Vernelle and Ruth Smethurst). The second of these musical pieces was a part of my speech at the end of the wedding breakfast. I wanted to do
something along the lines of what Peter Sellers did in the 60s with George Martin, when he recorded a version of the Beatles “A Hard Days Night” in the style of Laurence Olivier.
It took me ages to come up with the right song. I considered Kylie’s “I Should Be So Lucky” and “Love Is All Around” from the Troggs or Wet Wet Wet. But then the weekend before the wedding I saw Madness at the Reading Festival and I knew what song I was going to try in a Olivier style; it simply had to be “It Must Be Love”, and it was! I introduced that part of the speech as something Shakespearian, using some props; a cape and a skull. I kicked off with “Alas poor Yorrick…….” And then went straight into “It Must Be Love” in my
best Olivier style. I felt it could have worked really well or could have bombed completely. I think it went quite well, but obviously I would appreciate any comments from those of you who were there!
I should also add that my excellent Best Man, Mr John Williams also managed to include a little section from David Bowie’s “Heroes” in his speech!
Thank you for reading this far into what has been a rather self-indulgent post, but I hoped that you have enjoyed the music too. I would
also be interested to hear any stories you have of music used at weddings; be they your own or those of friends and family.
I know he wasn’t a singer, musician or songwriter but Steve Jobs sure as hell left an incredible mark on the music industry. His genius, foresight and innovation has fundamentally changed the way we buy/ obtain our music and indeed how we listen to it. Are there many households, or even people, in the world that don’t have an Apple product that can play music? iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac even if you have none of those you may have iTunes on your pc. I think that names like iPod will become synonymous with portable music players in the same way that ball point pens are mostly called biros and vacuum cleaners are mostly called Hoovers (although Dyson may take that crown in the long run)
Back in my schooldays inventors and innovators were old, dead or probably wearing a white coat in a secret nondescript lab somewhere in the world. This generation of innovators, inventors and geniuses (or should that be genii?) are much more visible. For example are there any of these names that you don’t recognise; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg?
His life is also a lesson for those who focus on a formal qualification being the golden ticket to a successful career. Mr Jobs dropped out of college, did that stop him having a great career? I think not! In addition to the music related innovations that he was responsible for he also put a lot of money, time and effort into Pixar. So you could argue that he also helped to save Disney studios, who frankly would have been on their knees without Pixar.
Steve Jobs will be sadly missed. In my opinion whatever you may think of Apple from a corporate perspective it would be very difficult to argue that this wasn’t a truly great man. RIP Steve Jobs.
I have tried to think of the most appropriate music I could with which to mourn his passing and celebrate his life. I have chosen a few tracks from what the previously available Ping function on iTunes revealed as his favourite albums a few years ago. Enjoy and celebrate the life of a great man.
Hello again people and here is the dispatch from the muddy fields of the Reading festival after day 2. Firstly I have to mention a rather funny comment I made on the way to the main arena today. Which strangely enough for me was said completely innocently. My feet were sticking in the mud quite a lot so I said; “If this mud gets any more sticky my boots will be sucked off”. It made Nick and me laugh and if you’re not laughing then maybe you had to be there or you have a much cleaner mind than ours. Or maybe you’re just too mature!
We only caught Funeral Party’s last song in the NME/ Radio 1 tent they sounded pretty good though. Yuck were in the NME/ Radio 1 tent next and were recommended by my friend John Hayhurst who is usually at the Leeds festival but unfortunately can’t make it this year. It was a bloody good tip as it happens! I would describe them as shoegazers with a young Bob Dylan lookalike as a singer. But a great band I will be downloading their album on Monday night. Oh and I almost forgot also the drummer looked like my old boss Bazza Hutton with added afro. Castrovalva were on the BBC Introducing stage, we didn’t see much of them but they definitely need to look at their audience more.
Next was our first visit to the Main Stage, where we spent most of the day eventually. Joined by a supporting cast of really nice and mad in a nice way people from all over the world; South Africa, Brazil and Brighton at least. It was hard to refuse the offer of a free beer from the South African blokes and even shhhhh…… whisper it; a small toke on one of their spliffs! The Pigeon Detectives were on for me they are just bland identikit indie pop. Although Nick wouldn’t agree with that. In their favour they are very hardworking. Seasick Steve was next up on the Main Stage. What can I say? Well for starters he is a supreme talent with way more charisma and stage presence than Liam Gallagher even when sat down. Amazingly he was joined on stage for most of his set by none other than John Paul Jones off of Led Zeppelin. We saw a couple from Tribes who were pretty good. we then paid our daily visit to the comedy tent to see Michael Fabbri who was very filthy and very funny.
Madness or should that be Mudness (thanks for that one Nick) were next on the Main Stage. When I first read that they were on the bill some months ago I wondered whether they would be able to really pull it off. Well I am happy to report that they did in bucketloads. This was probably the best ever loved up party vibe I have ever seen in 20 odd years of going to this festival at Reading. It even included a mosh conga. Jimmy Eat World were next; they were very good but who could have followed Madness? The National were an excellent chilled out close to the afternoon session and a good precursor to Pulp. If the members of the Doors were born in the 80′s they may have sounded like the National and I will have to download some of their stuff soon too.
Pulp, who were sharing top billing at the Festival with the Strokes were next on the Main Stage; from the simply stated laser phrase show at the start to the brilliant and perfect closer “Common People” they were truly fucking awesome. Jarvis Cocker is a certified genius who has immense stage craft and worked the audience to perfection. Richard Hawley was also on stage with them. The Strokes closed the day and as expected were very, very good, but for me not quite as good as Pulp. Jarvis joined them for a great version of the Cars’ “Just What I Needed”. So sadly only one day to go now but it looks like a good one!
I have a small selection of oddities for you in this post. Starting with the Arctic Monkeys, no I’m not suggesting that the Monkeys are oddities, but a funny little story about what rude boys they are! Apparently their new album will suffer the indignity of having a sticker placed over its title when it goes on sale in a large US supermarket chain. Not because it has nudity, pornography, swearing or anything like that on the cover, but because the title is said to be very suggestive. I don’t agree at all. So what is that offending title? Why it’s a phrase I have often used myself. It’s ‘Suck It And See’ Now I can hear all of you with an honours degree in double entendre sniggering, but frankly what’s the point in stickering (stop sniggering again ok) that? I thought it was pretty stupid when a pretty tasteful naked girl on the cover of the first Darkness album was covered with a sticker in US supermarkets. But the funniest for me was that the todgers on the classic statues on the cover of the Dame’s second Tin Machine album were removed for the US supermarkets. What a pathetic bunch of arseholes! Tipper Gore this is your legacy!
Liam shows just how much he enjoys lay lady lay by laying down
Now for some Gallagher brother news. It would appear that Liam Gallagher is not a big fan of Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan. Liam likes Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” but thinks that Bob is a ‘bit of a miserable c*nt’. He also has a dig at 60s and 70s bands that reform to rake in festival money with greatest hits sets. read what he had to say by clicking here for the NME site. In another piece of Gallagher news it appears that Noel and Liam’s Mum is ready to bang their heads together. She says that the only way she expects Liam to miss Noel’s forthcoming nuptials is if both his legs are broken. If I were Liam I’d be afraid, I’d be very afraid. Read about that in the NME as well by clicking here.
So tell us Gaga, how many Muppets were harmed or killed in the making of this outfit?
It appears that Amazon have had one of the biggest loss leader products in recent years. They have been charging just 99 cents for the download of the new Lady Gaga album ‘Born This Way’, but they have been paying her record label 9 dollars per album downloaded! It is estimated that in about a week they have lost around 3 million dollars. Now is that just pure waste or some kind of reverse greed? Click here to read the story.
And finally, Catwoman and I went to see the new Marvel movie Friday evening; ‘X Men: First Class‘ I won’t be doing a full review as it’s not really a music related movie. But it is an excellent film and for me one of the best Marvel adaptations so far, go and see it if you get the chance. But there is a small music link as the song that is played over the closing credits is the new Take That single “Love Love”. In spite of the fact that Robbie is involved and regular readers will know I really don’t like his stuff, I sadly really like this song. Do I need therapy?
Cand cumperi arta nu cumperi doar ceea ce vezi si pipai cumperi sufletul unui om, sufletul artistului pentru ca el/ artistul s-a uitat in sufletul lui si a scos de acolo ce a gasit
Recent Comments