Thursday 4th October 2007

Lets open this week with a bit of light music for us to clear our heads with. I'm sure any of your readers out there who spend any amount of time in front of the goggle box will have seen this brilliant advert on recently, but for those of you who haven't here we go for a little treat...........





Now I'm not sure if that is actually Phil Collins on the drum's or if it's a real gorilla, but he sure can belt out a tune for a small guy. And Phil Collins hasn't been around for ages, so if he hasn't shaved for a bit it could be him, I know I often feel like a gorilla when I haven't shaved for a few days!
On the subject of 'not doing things' it has been passed on to me that certain readers are laughing at my little lists as if they are not 'the real deal' and that they are just a bit of fun, and they may be favourable more to the male side of the relationship than the female, so in the interest of keeping my blog ever the P.C. read, I feel it's only fair that I give you a very beneficial list which will help you all through life's little journey...





THE RULES

1. The female always makes The Rules
2. The Rules are subject to change at any time without prior notice
3. No male can possibly know all the rules
4. If the female suspects a male knows The Rules she must immediately change some or all of The Rules
5. The female is never wrong
6. If the female is wrong it is due to a misunderstanding of something the male said or did
7. The male must apologise for the said misunderstanding
8. The male is always wrong
9. The male may be right if he agrees with the female, unless she wants him to disagree
10. The female may change her mind at any time
11. The male may never change his mind unless written consent has been approved and given in triplicate by the female
12. The female has every right to be angry and upset at any time she chooses
13. The male must remain calm and understanding at all times unless the female gives written consent that has been approved in triplicate for him to be angry and upset
14. The female must under no circumstances let the male know she wants him to be angry and upset
15. The male is expected to mind read at all times

So there you are guys. For those of you who were not quite sure where you were going wrong that little lot should help you all get it right, and I'm sure all my lady readers will agree, or maybe even add to there own set of rule's!!

So on to the songs this week. Five, count em five songs tonight, and four brand spanking new ones to contend with. So to start off with we also had a special moment tonight as the 1000 song of the year was sang tonight and who would get the coveted 1000 spot.....All will be revealed. Tonight's set list was as follows. 1. 1973 by James Blunt 2. The Pretender by The Foo Fighters 3. Spread Your Wings by Queen 4. All Fired Up by Pat Benatar and 5. In The End by Linkin Park.

1973 by James Blunt link to video

1973 is the first single released from James Blunt's second studio album All the Lost Souls. Not usually my cup of tea James Blunt but this song has taken me a little by storm. The song was inspired by the club scene in Ibiza, where Blunt maintains a residence and enjoys the social scene. The song has been remixed by Pete Tong as part of his Ibiza 2007 Remix Project, and Tong started playing the remix in July 2007 when acting as DJ at Pacha, the Ibiza club that inspired the song and opened in 1973. Blunt has stated in a radio interview that the girl from his lyrics "Simona" was indeed based on a real woman whom he met at a club.
Surprisingly James Blunt was actually born in 1974! His debut album Back To Bedlam and especially the single Your Beautiful shot him to fame in 2005.His style is a mix of pop, folk and acoustic rock. Along with vocals, James Blunt plays a wide variety of instruments including the piano, guitar, organ, marimba and mellotron. Blunt won two BRIT Awards and was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2006. Blunt is well known for being the ex soldier who made it big in the pop world. He was a commissioned officer in the Life Guards regiment, a unit of the Household Cavalry of the British Army. He rose to the rank of Captain and served as an armoured reconnaissance officer in the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo. He was put in charge of leading 30,000 troops into Priština as the first British officer to enter the Kosovan capital. It was while on duty in Kosovo that he wrote the song "No Bravery". He also stood guard at the coffin of the Queen Mother during the days of her lying in State and was part of the funeral procession on April 9, 2002.

Within a year of leaving the army, Blunt signed to EMI Music Publishing as a singer/songwriter. He soon caught the eye of former 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry, who had written and produced songs for Pink, Courtney Love and Christina Aguilera. James Blunt's debut single in the UK was High. This song peaked below the Top 100 of the UK Singles Chart. However, the song was chosen to appear in a Vodafone commercial in Italy, and was a Top 10 hit in that country. His second single, Wisemen, peaked at number forty two, and sent the album into the UK's Top 20 chart. A support slot on Elton John's 2004 tour followed. Blunt's third single You're Beautiful was his breakout hit. The song debuted at number twelve in the UK, and demonstrated a rare trend of upward mobility on the UK charts, rising all the way to the number one position six weeks after its debut. The song also received massive airplay in the UK, which helped propel Back to Bedlam to number one on the UK Albums Chart, unseating the record-breaking album X&Y by Coldplay from the pole position. His latest album All The Lost Souls was released in September 2007 and this is the first single from the album. It was a great song to start my little set off tonight. on the night rating 7/10

The Pretender by The Foo Fighters link to video

The Pretender is the first single released from the Foo Fighters latest album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. The single was released on August 7, 2007. MTV premiered the music video on August 20th in the U.S. and it premiered the following Thursday in the UK. The song will be featured in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground on the X-Box 360 and the PS3. The video was directed by Sam Brown. It is presented in letterbox format and heavily employs pans, zooms, and tracking shots. It consists of the band performing the song in a large room, possibly a warehouse or airport hangar, with a white floor and many strip lights on the ceiling. Behind the band is a large red screen, which is thick and solid. The band is then faced by what appears to be a riot police officer, who stands behind a black line on the floor, around 30 feet or so from the band. He has the number 21 on his bullet-proof vest. As the song progresses, he is joined by more riot police officers, and a panning shot shows us that to his left, the numbers on the officers' vests descend all the way to "01". Assuming that there are the same number of officers on the man's right side, it can be extrapolated that there are 41 officers overall. During a quiet part late in the song, the video slows down as the officers charge at the band. Just as the band repeats the song's louder chorus, the screen suddenly erupts and water (which appears to look like a red liquid) is shot forth that overwhelms the police but affects the band to a lesser extent. At the end of the video, Dave Grohl is shown slamming his guitar on the floor as he falls to his knees, his hair plastered to his face. It is again a brilliant video by the band, and for the last few weeks it has appeared as my track of the moment. As I have said in the last few weeks The Foo Fighters have fast become one of my favourite bands of the moment. The band have just announced a U.K. tour and the tickets sold out in a manner of minutes, so if anyone has any spare let me know, but it is heavily rumoured that they will be doing a full U.K. tour next year, and they are also one of the favourites to headline one of the days at the 2008 Download festival at Donnington Park. It is quite a hard to get to grips with, but I think I just about managed to pull it off on the night. on the night rating 7/10

Spread Your Wings by Queen link to video

Spread Your Wings is a song by Queen, from their 1977 album News of the World. It was released as the A side of the single Spread Your Wings/Sheer Heart Attack in 1978. It is a rock ballad, written by bassist John Deacon. It features Deacon on bass and acoustic guitar, Freddie Mercury on piano and vocals, Brian May on guitar and Roger Taylor on drums. This is the first Queen single without backing vocals or harmonies. The song is quite popular among Queen fans, and audiences loved to sing along, as can be heard on the Live Killers live album compilation. In addition to the version on News of the World, Queen recorded another version for the BBC sessions which has a more prominent piano part and a more uptempo finale.

This has long been one of my favourite Queen tracks, and is from the period of their music which had a much more hard rock element about it, but this is a very soulful and powerful rock ballad, with the lyrics describing a bar worker wanting to break away from his mundane life and make himself a better life. The story tells of his boss who tells Sammy, the songs character, that he is just a dreamer who should be happy to be cleaning up after people and no to dream of stardom. Quite relevant today with the Karaoke wannabes on the X-Factor all trying to win evil boss Simon Cowells approval before he tells them quite bluntly they are crap! It is impossible to do Freddie Mercury justice with his vocals on this song, but I gave it by best shot, and the 50 second outro to Brian May's brilliant guitar solo was well worth having a bash at the song for. The video was shot on a cold winters day in Battersea Park, and is a typical Queen video showing the band playing live. Great song from one of the greatest rock bands ever. on the night rating 6/10

All Fired Up by Pat Benatar link to video

A bit of a surprise throw in with this one. Yes its a song by a woman I know that, but the guitar riff on this song is awesome, so I take into account that you can slant the male vocals onto this one with very little problem, and my old friend's in Guns & Oatcakes used to play this one on a regular basis. Pat Benatar is the true American Rock Queen, and has won countless Grammys in her career for Best Solo Female Rock Artist, but I think that is mainly because she was the only one apart from Cher, and lets face it who would of voted for her! She is more well known for her other tracks Love Is A Battlefield, We Belong and her signature tune Hit Me With Your Best Shot. All of her tracks have a true gritty feel about them and that is mainly as she writes her lyrics based on her own tough upbringing in America. She was at one time the hottest property on MTV, with her marketable good looks making her the darling of the channel for a while. You could say she was Americas first Britney Spears, but without all the drugs and bald heads! Benatar still writes and tours with her husband, Neil Giraldo, who she has been married to since 1982, and has two children with, you see the Britney Spears coincidence thing is cropping up again. Oh apart from that she has been with the same guy for over 20 years and not married to a dancer for 20 months, Oh and the no bald and drugs thing again as well. on the night rating 7/10

In The End by Linkin Park link to video

Well what more can I write about Linkin Park that I haven't already done this year. So for all of you that haven't read about them so far on the blog WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN. But of course I could urge you to back track and read the rest of by blog for little snippets, but for those who can't be arsed, here is a little bit on this track. In The End is the eighth track from their debut album Hybrid Theory. It was released as a single in 2001, and was originally written as a poem by the lead vocalist, Chester Bennington, with Christian Petersen and was later established as a sufficient song for the album. The original demo version of this song was labeled Untitled (which may or may not have been an actual title) and contained various different rap verses by Shinoda. In The End is their highest charting single in most countries. It is widely regarded as their most famous song, and the one which best describes their musical style (a melodic interplay between Chester Bennington's singing and Mike Shinoda's rapping).

The music video takes place in a fantasy setting and uses massive CGI animation. The band performs atop a giant statue, which has a 'winged soldier' on top of it, which is similar looking to the 'winged soldier' on the cover artwork of Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory album. The tower itself is in the shape of a woman, and appears to be the left-out portion of the cover of Hybrid Theory EP. The portions where Mike Shinoda raps first take place in a wasteland with thorny vines sprouting out of the ground, surrounding him and shattering into dust (first verse) and then grass and plants sprouting up around him (second verse). During the time Mike raps his verses, Chester stands on top of a platform with gargoyles on the edges. This platform is in front of a door in the shape of a trapezium. Near the end of the video, the skies turn dark and it begins to rain, and the band performs in the downpour until the end of the song, where the rain stops and the camera pans away from the tower, showing the wasteland where Shinoda had rapped in is now a lush Greenland. During the rain the statues on the tower begin to move. The rest of the band appear only during Chester's chorus and during the outro when the camera focus is near to the tower.

A strange-looking whale can be seen flying around the large statue during most of the video, specifically at the end of the video. The whale in the video was band member Joe Hahn's idea. The reasoning behind its inclusion is still unknown. Many fans of the Legend of Zelda video games have noted similarities between the whale in the video and the 'Wind Fish' character from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. However, there is no evidence to support the design of Linkin Park's whale was a tribute to the game, and appears to be coincidental.

This is of course one of mine and Shaunio's signature karaoke tunes, and in my opinion we never fail to give it 100%, and it always sounds spot on, but I am biased. on the night rating 10/10

So there we are folks another week done. Still no word on the New Years Eve fancy dress yet. We are all getting a little worried as with this postal strike being on we may not be able to get our costumes sent through Royal Mail if we require a Borat style swim suit.....

Until next time folks be good and don't forget to write!!!!

" Homer: They turned the Navy into a floating joke. They ruined all our best names like Bruce and Lance and Julian. Those were the toughest names we had! Now they're just...

John: Queer?

Homer: Yeah, and that's another thing! I resent you people using that word. That's our word for making fun of you! We need it! "

Homer J Simpson

Thursday 27th September 2007

Ha Ha me old jimminy firkin crickety type blokey thingy's. How the devil are you. Another week closer to the Karaoke Party of the year on New Years Eve and still no idea's what the Fancy Dress theme will end up being in the Hotel this year. It seems from a bit of jiggery pokery from our underground sources that the choice may be narrowed down to one of two. First candidate seems to be a beach party them. Now me Andy and Shaun being blokes, are all quite up for this. Not because we would get to see loads of scantily clad bar staff/punters etc, but for more practical reasons, such as it gets bloody hot in the Hotel when its busy so shorts and a t-shirt would be very cooling! The other choice appears to be Doctors & Nurses, which seems to be lacking momentum at the moment, luckily! So anyone with fresh ideas feel free to post them in the comments box........all will be appreciated and passed on to the relevant authorities!
It was another week full of wannabe cowboys again this week, with the country bumpkin singers appearing to turn up now on Thursday's rather than Tuesday's. Now I'm all for a bit of 'alternative music' but when the same song is sang week after week it does grate a bit on the old noggin' and it does all sound the same to my ears, but each to their own I suppose, just as long as MarkyG doesn't turn back up again I'm not really bothered what gets sang ( For those who don't know MarkyG is the resident Tuesday night knob who does his very best to murder anything he sings, which he does with ease, while thinking he is the most entertaining person on the planet. To be fair he is about as entertaining as a dose of crabs!In fact if you ever have the misfortune of hearing him sing you'll wish you had them.... Or earplugs anyway!!!)
So the pub was quite busy again this week, and we were all entertained this week by a new guy who looked like a cross between Hitler and the keyboard player out of 80's super group The Sparks. Well it may of actually been him, because he never actually sang in the band, and I he sounded like this guy did, I see why. He was one of those guy's who could note hit a note or sing even Happy Birthday in tune if his life depended on it. But does anyone tell them.....no way why ruin everyones night by stopping the no hoper's from singing! It gives us all something to laugh about on the way home. But it does seem our little corner of the globe has more than it's fair share of 'bad singers' so for all of you planning to visit us for a night of fun, be prepared to bring some earplugs just in case.

So yet again this week I have a little list of funnies to share with you. May not be to everyones taste, but I only sang three songs this week, so this is all just fill! So anyway back to the list. This weeks little laugh lines are all about 20 Ways you know your getting old!

1. Your Houseplants are all alive, and you can't smoke any of them!
2. Having sex in a single bed is out of the question!
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00am is when you get up, not when you get in!
5. Jeans and a jumper no longer qualify as 'dressed up'
6. You're the one calling the police because the kids next door won't turn down their stereo!
7. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you!
8. You don't know what time the local dodgy kebab shop open/shuts at anymore!
9. Your car insurance go down and your car payments go up!
10. You feed your dog a proper diet instead of McDonald leftovers.
11. Sleeping on the settee makes your back hurt!
12. You take naps!
13. Dinner and a movie is the whole night out, not just the start of it!
14. Eating a curry at 3am would severely upset, rather than settle your stomach!
15. You got to the chemist for Ibuprofen and Antacid's rather than condoms and pregnancy test kits
16. A £1.99 bottle of wine is no longer 'pretty good shit'
17. You actually eat breakfast at breakfast time!
18. You drink at home to save money before going out to a pub!
19. "I just can't drink the way I used to" replaces "I'm never drinking that much again"
20. 90% of the time you spend in front of the computer is for real work!!!!

There you are folks, hope it gave you a few little giggles. So on to tonight's short and sweet song list. Tonight's little ditty's were 1. The Reflex by Duran Duran 2. Message In A Bottle by The Police and 3. Hollywood Nights by Bob Seger.

The Reflex by Duran Duran link to video

The Reflex is the eleventh single by 80's Super group, Duran Duran, and their most successful, reaching number 1 in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It was the third and last to be taken from their third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger, released in 1984. At first, this song seems to have a very deep concept, but really the band just recorded it over a couple of bottles of wine. Simon Le Bon himself said he has no clue what it means! The remixes for both the 7" and 12" singles were done by Nile Rodgers, of Chic fame. It was his first work with the band, and he would later go on to produce The Wild Boys single as well as the album Notorious in 1986. The video for was shot during the Sing Blue Silver tour at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada in 1984. Director Russell Mulcahy filmed some of the closeup footage in the indoor arena that afternoon, and the rest was filmed live during that evening's concert. The video accurately portrays Duran Duran's tour performance style. However, in keeping with the band's insistence that their videos "never be ordinary", the video screen above the stage displayed bits of naked models wearing collars and chains illuminated with black light, occasionally interrupted by computerized video white noise. At one point, a waterfall appears to pour out of the video screen above the stage to soak the audience. The computer graphics used to achieve this were cutting edge at the time, but rapid advancement in the field quickly made the effect look dated. Mulcahy found it challenging to edit the video to match the jumpy fast-and-slow edits in the Nile Rodgers remix of the single. For the instrumental break in the middle of the song, he had to do some video scratching with Simon Le Bon's silhouette. This was one of the best video's of it's time and is still well worth a look today, despite the effects looking very dated, but we all loved it in the 80's didn't we! on the night rating 9/10

Message In A Bottle by The Police link to video

Message in a Bottle is an absolute classic track by The Police and was taken from their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, roughly translated as White Reggae. The single was The Police's first number one hit in the United Kingdom, but only reached number 74 in the United States. This song is about a guy stranded on a remote island. One day he finds a bottle, puts a message in it and throws it out to sea in hopes that someone will find it and come save him. The lyrics can be seen as a metaphor for being lonely and realizing there are lots of people just like you. Later on, he sees "a hundred billion bottles" on the shore, finding out that there are more people like him out there.
Message in a Bottle may also be understood to be deal with isolation and loneliness caused by the loss of a loved one ("love can break your heart"): he seeks help but gets no reply, then realises that there are many more people out there like him, suggesting that everyone has to deal with loss and loneliness as part of the human experience. The island and the bottle are metaphors. By reaching out, the protagonist discovers he is not alone, and that other people share his feelings of alienation.
Sting wrote this on the back of a bus with a tape recorder that had a drum machine installed into it. Sting said of the track " I think the lyrics are subtle and well crafted enough to hit people on a different level from something you just sing along to. It's quite a cleverly put together metaphor. It develops and has an artistic shape to it." Guitarist Andy Summers said it was the best track he ever played on. And if you fancy having a blast at the great guitar riff on the track, then look no further than buying yourself a copy of Guitar Hero 2 for the PS2 (Or the X-Box if your a loser!) and you can strum away at it to your heart's content. Yes folks this has been another tedious link to a track off my latest game fad! Even the wife is good at playing this one, although she does play on the easy level where you only have to contend with three frets on the guitar! on the night rating 8/10

Hollywood Nights by Bob Seger link to video

Well Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band to give them their full title. Yet again I bring a song that nobody has heard of in the pub which I cannot believe they haven't heard. They all seem to know this Travis Tritt or Trent Tomlinson or Dave Dudley (Notice a pattern here!) or whatever his from the country scene, but come out with a song from one of the biggest artist's on the planet and it a blank expression from everyone! So for the uninitiated here is a little history of the man himself.
Robert Clark Seger is a singer, songwriter, and musician from Michigan. After years of local Detroit-area success, recording and performing in the mid-1960s, Seger achieved superstar status by the mid-1970s and continuing through the 1980s with the Silver Bullet Band. A roots rocker with a classic raspy, shouting voice, Seger was first inspired by Little Richard and Elvis Presley. He wrote and recorded songs that dealt with the working man. Seger has recorded many rock and roll hits, including Night Moves, We've Got Tonight, Like a Rock, and his iconic signature song Old Time Rock and Roll, named one of the Songs of the Century in 2001. He also co-wrote the Eagles number one hit "Heartache Tonight." Though his last top 40 hit charted in 1991, Seger continues to perform and record today. Seger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. This song was released in 1978 and tells the story on a country boy being taken to L.A. by a beautiful woman and being shown the fantastic way of life and how different it is to his humble background. When she dumps him he is left feeling like he could never go back to how his life was before even though he knows he has too. Like so many big name American stars like Seger, a lot of his music has been used in films down the years. Seger had music in the Tom Cruise film Risky Business and the Eddie Murphy blockbuster Beverley Hill's Cop 2, both films Hollywood and L.A. based, you see a theme is arising again! Shakedown was to become his only number one single to date, and although he has not released a single since that track, he is still recording new material and touring today. This is a song I have wanted to sing for a long time now, and after finally getting around to it, it went down not to badly, even though it was not the most well known of songs. For those of you who get to listen to Radio Two (Showing my age now!), you should of heard it before, as it seems to be played on there and on Planet Rock (That's more like it!) regularly. Ah well your classic rock edufication will have to continue another week folks. on the night rating 7/10

So there we have it folks another week over with and another successful week of karaoke me thinks. Three tracks tonight that I have wanted to sing for some time now, so to finally be able to do them was great. It was a much better week this week, even though we only got three tracks in, mainly because for some unknown reason the pub was giving away FREE MAGNERS!!! Now not to be one to shy away from these types of gimmicks I openly obliged in drinking the said free beers without any complaining about the price! All in all a good night, I mean any night with free Magners being handed out by young maidens in tight fitting tops is OK by me! Captain Jack is not one to complain!
Next week will also see the 1000th song of the year being sang on a Thursday night. We are hoping to do a Captain Jack and Shaunio special to mark the event, but who knows who will get the coveted 1000 spot! Well as long as its not country I'll be happy! Now you know I always like to give you little treats once in a while, and this week I have a brilliant one. Be warned this will get in your head and drive you nut's. The song is all the rage at the moment, and for those of you who don't know it is being championed by Radio One DJ Scott Mills at the moment. It has already gone into the charts at number 27, and with a big push it could find its way into the top ten. If it does it will be the shortest recorded to reach the top spot in the history of music at just 37 seconds long! Its called The Ladies Bra Song and is by Johnny Trunk.....until net time folks enjoy!!



" If you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now, quiet, they're about to announce the lottery numbers! "

Homer J Simpson