Saturday Snapshots #361

Looking for this week's quiz? You're Justin time!

Can I make a Belieber out of you?

Identify the ten artists below... and figure out how their songs might be connected?

10. Pee Wee zeroes in on the answer.

9. When the still sea conspires an armour, and her sullen and aborted currents breed tiny monsters, true sailing is dead!

8. They're new, but they've been around long enough to be considered outstanding.

7. More than half of Genesis were pretty good.

6. A dreamer, in the Caribbean.  

5. We're all going together, on the bus.

4. What connects Christopher Cross, Utopia, Octopus and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine? 

3. Furtive canine inquiry. 

2. Oz, Raleigh, Pidgeon.

1. By...! What Cat's In The Cradle is about.

Answers tomorrow morning!

Snapshots Spillover: More Sitcom Songs

As promised, here are a few more songs that share their names with sitcoms. Let's start with that extra clue I gave you all on Saturday morning...

Cliff Richard & The Shadows - The Young Ones

...which naturally leads us to this...

Beyond that? How about these?

The Rah Band - Porridge

Pet Shop Boys - Absolutely Fabulous

Splodgenessabounds - Two Pints Of Lager & A Packet Of Crisps

Martyn Joseph - Please Sir

The Mekons - Rosanne

Lucky Jim - The Honeymooners

You may have some other suggestions. If so, please share them with the group.

But to close, a different Harry from the one we started with...

Namesakes #102: Cream

Sometimes I start a Namesakes investigation with high expectations... only to spend the rest of the day wading waist-deep through the sewers of non-hit hell. Often, I spare you (and George) the horror of those excursions. Many's the Namesake abandoned to the NEVER POST file. 

This week though, I was running short on time when I realised this particular edition was going nowhere fast. So I figured I'd share the pain.

Unless you're George, I wouldn't bother wasting your Tuesday with any of this lot. The cream of the crop, they are not.

CREAM #1

Perhaps (?) the only exception to my opening comments...

Ginger Bake. Jack Bruce. That other bloke. Together, they made some pretty decent songs. That other bloke got a bit annoying, smug and racist in later years, but we'll try to forget that, shall we?

Cream - I Feel Free

CREAM #2

90s dance dudes from Spain.

Cream - It's Brutal

Yes. It is.

CREAM #3

Israeli techno from 1997.

Cream - Why?

Why, indeed.

CREAM #4

Memphis gangsta rapper from 2000.

Cream - Big Man

CREAM #5

South African hip hop, also from the turn of the century.

Cream - Kwasa Kwasa

CREEM #6

American hardcore punks from 2011. Naturally, they can't spell.

Creem - Good Riddance

Indeed.

CREAM #7

Thai girl band from about ten years ago.

Cream - องศาเดียว

Apparently the cream rises to the top. But then, so does something else I can think of...

I promise to do better next week.

Neverending Top Ten #7.1: Eleven

Out of nowhere recently, Sam announced that he was 4000 days old. He'd done the maths himself.

Today though, he's 4015. (I'm believing what it says on the card, I can't be bothered to check the leap years.)

Happy birthday, buddy. You're still my Number One reason for getting out of bed. Although I might like a lie in every now and then...

The Smittens - 11:11

Lifter Puller - 11th Avenue Freeze Out

The 5th Dimension - The Eleventh Song (What A Groovy Day) 

Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension

The Wondermints - Project 11

Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Song Eleven Could Take Forever

Snapshots #360: A Top Twelve Sitcom Songs

This week's Snapshots involved songs that share their name* with sitcoms.

But who had the last laugh...?

(*Or almost share their name, if you're a pedant.)

12. Marti lied? It's not clear.

"Marti lied" was an anagram...

Del Amitri - Some Mothers Do Have Them

(Strictly speaking, Frank Spencer's show was called Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.)

11. Midnight Rider definitely has a favourite Indiana Jones movie.

Paul Revere was famous for his midnight ride. Raiders is the first, and arguably best, Indiana Jones movie.

Paul Revere & The Raiders - Birds Of A Feather

10. Robert's purple sweets.

Robert Palmer loved his violets.

Palma Violets - Last Of The Summer Wine

9. Abba's fourth.

Abba's fourth album was Arrival.

Arrival - Friends

8. No morals.

The Libertines - What Became of the Likely Lads?

(Strictly speaking, Bewes and Bolam returned in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?)

7. As long as the groom's other half isn't sick, she can take this cab. 

The Bridewell Taxis - Just Good Friends

6. Super Nice Monks!

Super Nice brothers.

The Pernice Brothers - One Foot In The Grave

5. The real Marilyn is keen on getting bronzed in the sun.

Marilyn's real name was Norma Jean. This lady is eager for a tan...

Norma Tanega - Bread

4. Hexed by a Hawaiian god.

Lono is the Hawaiian god of fertility, agriculture, rainfall, music and peace.

Curse Of Lono - Man Down 

3. E=Man in Crown².

Albert Einstein came up with E=MC². A man in a crown might be a king.

Albert King - I Love Lucy

2. Kim / Ann / Nancy supergroup.

Kim is Wilde, Ann and Nancy are in Heart.

The Wildhearts - Cheers

(That's the only song on this list - I think - which is an actual TV theme tune reworked into a song. Although actually it's two... the first 50 seconds are the theme from Taxi.)

1. Affleck catches a theatre award. 

Ben Affleck catches a Tony in his net.

Tony Bennett - The Good Life

Twelve sitcom songs... and I'll be back with a few more later in the week.

Saturday Snapshots #360

As the Shadows of Autumn grow longer, please be more careful near Cliffs. 

Stay in instead, and see if you can identify the pop acts below. What might connect their songs?

12. Marti lied? It's not clear.

11. Midnight Rider definitely has a favourite Indiana Jones movie.

10. Robert's purple sweets.

9. Abba's fourth.

8. No morals.

7. As long as the groom's other half isn't sick, she can take this cab. 

6. Super Nice Monks!

5. The real Marilyn is keen on getting bronzed in the sun.

4. Hexed by a Hawaiian god.

3. E=Man in Crown².

2. Kim / Ann / Nancy supergroup.

1. Affleck catches a theatre award. 

Answers tomorrow!

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #113: Daddy's Speeding

"I am not a blogger - I am a free man!"

I must apologise for being largely absent from the blogosphere over the summer, beyond Snapshots and Namesakes. I've been busy, and even now that I'm back in the normal routine, I'm not sure I have the energy. Bit of an existential blogging crisis. We have them from time to time, don't we? 

Last week, we were in Wales, where I received my first speeding ticket in 34 years of driving. This was for going 26 mph in a 20 zone that appeared out of nowhere (the road went from 60mph to 20mph on a country lane with no buildings or pedestrians, just fields on either side of the road). It seems that the Welsh police are out to raise as much money as possible from unsuspecting incomers... but I'm not sure what this will do to the tourism economy. I doubt I'll be speeding to get back there any time soon. 

Did have a nice visit to Portmeirion though...  

Normal service may or may not be resumed, but in the meantime, here's a few songs about speed...

Suede - Daddy's Speeding

Alabama 3 - Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

Bran Van 3000 - Speed

V2 - Speed Freak

Autograph - Built For Speed

Jason Isbell - Speed Trap Town

Namesakes #101: Tiger Lily

It's time to say it with flowers: Lilium lancifolium, to be specific.

TIGER LILY #1

Before John Foxx formed Ultravox, he was in Tiger Lily. Here they are in 1975 with a cover of the Fats Waller song, sounding like Roxt Music doing Noel coward. Vienna, it is not. 

Tiger Lily - Ain't Misbehavin'

TIGER LILY #2

1977 disco tune that owes a huge debt to Car Wash. Can't find the A Side, Hopeahope, but the B Side is more than adequate...

Tiger Lily - Flying

TIGER LILY #3

All-female LA power-pop band who formed in 1981 and supported the Ramones and the Bangles, among others.

Tiger Lily - Die Laughing

TIGERLILY #4

21st Century Japanese rockabilly band...

Tigerlily - My Boy Elvis

TIGERLILY #5

Nordic folk-jazz from 2003...

Tigerlily - Lucky Jim

TIGER LILY #6

Danish singer and rapper who doesn't appear to have released any solo material (according to discogs) but is featured on a bunch of other people's songs. Here she is in 2007 with Delicious...

Delicious feat. Tiger Lily - Yours

TIGER LILY #7

Fresno doom-merchants from 2013 who need to spend more time looking at the flowers.

Tiger Lily - The Devil

TIGER LILY #8

If this is what passed for punk (even pop punk!) in 2014 Oklahoma, they've clearly never heard of the Ramones...  

Tiger Lily - Seventeen

TIGER LILY #9

He's called Anthony and he comes from Sacramento. This is his jam. 

And his camera needs a new flash.

Tiger Lily - A Sky Full Of Ghosts

TIGER LILLY #10

Apparently, Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates's daughter was called Tiger Lily. Quite a few people on youtube seem put out that this isn't her. Instead it's a contemporary UK pop rock singer whose singles are "a consistent mainstay in the UK’s Top 40 Unsigned Chart". Whatever that is.

Tiger Lilly - Affair

TIGERLILY #11

Aussie DJ and producer from the now.

Tigerlily - Feel The Love

TIGERLILY #12

The interweb has tried to convince me that this singer of nice lo fi acoustic tunes is the same Tigerlily as the one above. I find that hard to believe.

Tigerlily - Sleepyhead

Twelve Tiger Lillies to pick... but which is the tiger and which just silly?