Snapshots #406: Songs About Weapons

Yesterday, we had Britney SPEARS at the top of the page... today, it's Bruce Lee, whose whole body was a weapon.

And here are 15 more weapons for Your Arsenal...

15. Packed.

The missing faces belong to The Jam.

The Jam - The Eton Rifles 

Or...

The Jam - A Bomb In Wardour Street

14. Go on, go on, voice of Russia.

Sigue means go on. Sputnik was the voice of Russia.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile F1-11

13. Pop art from Indiana (Robert).

This is Robert Indiana's LOVE sculpture...

Love Sculpture - Sabre Dance

12. Enjoy heavy metal in the café with a Friendly waiter.

Gunther was the waiter in the Friends café... not the Hard Rock Café.

Hardrock Gunter - Rifle, Belt and Bayonet

11. Barry Judd in negative.

Barry Judd was the character in Hi Fidelity played by Jack Black. In negative, he would be...

Jack White - Blunderbuss

10. Did you know that Henry VIII wanted to form an Eastern European football team, but he didn't have quite enough players?

If you have to explain the joke, it stops being funny...

Ten Pole Tudor - Swords Of A Thousand Men

9. Ian thought he was sweet.

Ian Dury sang about Sweet Gene Vincent.

Gene Vincent - Pistol Packin' Mama

8. Italian brothers.

Fratelli is brother in Italian...

The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger

7. Myanmar Tower of Strength.

Tower of Strength was a song by The Mission. Myanmar is Burma.

Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach for My Revolver

6. Oh, Tony, tax is such a mess, isn't it?

"Oh, Tony, tax" was an anagram.

Hoyt Axton - Torpedo

5. Paddy's Omen.

Paddy fields produce rice. Damien was in The Omen.

Damien Rice - Cannonball

4. You can't beat these nuns.

The Rhythm Sisters - Pocket Hand Grenade

3. Marvin gets jumpy.

Lee Marvin, that is.

Leapy Lee - Little Arrows

2. Stretch and massage...

Ways to relieve the cramps...

The Cramps - Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

1. He'll happily adjust any dam bras you give him.

"Any dam bras" was an anagram too.

Bryan Adams - Cuts Like A Knife

A much less threatening edition of Snapshots next Saturday...

One Final Halloween Snapshots Spillover

As it's Halloween, here's a final batch of horror film-inspired songs, starting with the Scream Queen herself. No, not Jamie Lee Curtis...

Kate Bush - The Fog

Next up, a track from the new Nick Lowe album, his first in eleven years. Apparently, he's spent the time catching up on movies like this...

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets - A Quiet Place

I couldn't let this series close without mentioning "the most amazing motion picture of our time", starring Michael Landon, presumably before he found God in Highway To Heaven...

The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf

Up into the hills next, for an encounter with some inbred yokels... have you ever been to Holmfirth?

The Meteors - The Hills Have Eyes

Irena Dubrovna discovered she was descended from an ancient tribe of Cat People who metamorphose into black panthers when aroused. Just like Manimal!

The original version of Cat People was released in 1942. Forty years later, a saucy remake roped this guy in to contribute to the soundtrack... 

David Bowie - Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was banned during the video nasties scare of the 80s, so it became something of a holy grail to teenage horror fans like myself, desperate to see it. When it was finally re-released in 1998, I rushed out to see it. The film does contain one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen... yet it's nothing to do with the infamous chainsaw, or even Leatherface himself. Instead, the bit that got me was the dinner party scene when they fetch Grandpa down from the attic...

The Tyla Gang formed in 1975 following the dissolution of Sean Tyla's previous band, Ducks Deluxe. I suspect there's more than a whiff of bandwagonary going on here... 

Tyla Gang - Texas Chainsaw Massacre Boogie

The other classic horror film banned throughout my adolescent video shop days was Mark Kermode's favourite: The Exorcist. Hard to believe it's 25 years since the censors finally allowed me to watch that...

Curtis Mayfield - Sweet Exorcist

Redd Kross - Linda Blair

The less said about the 2005 remake of House of Wax, starring Paris Hilton, the better. The 1953 original though, with Vincent Price, was one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies to be filmed in 3D. I generally hate 3D movies, but I reckon it'd be worth seeing this one again with the glasses on.

I found a whole bunch of songs named after this flick. Here's a smattering of wax on wax...

Miss Destiny - House of Wax

The Alderman - House of Wax

Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club - House of Wax

Paul McCartney - House of Wax

Nothing beats a good haunted house story for me though. And that one to beat in that genre is the 1963 version of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, known simply as The Haunting.

Whatever you do, do NOT watch the 1999 version with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones. It's one of the worst films I've ever seen. 

Here are some post-Shane Pogues... so no way as scary as they used to be.

The Pogues - Haunting

And here's some Shane, in case you're missing him, along with Sinéad. I'm missing them both.

Shane MacGowan with Sinéad O'Connor - Haunted

Sadly, I couldn't find any songs named after the best haunted house movies of the 21st Century, the Paranormal Activity flicks, but I'm closing today with the film that got me hooked on horror movies back when I was a kid. I was obsessed with the Amityville Horror, reading all the books, watching all the films, and even looking favourably upon Lovebug Starski... 

Happy Halloween to you all. Hoohahahahahaaaa!

Snapshots #316: A Top Ten Werewolf Songs

I always like to indulge in a Halloween themed top ten at this time of year... and this time, it has really big teeth! (Bob Seger gave you an extra clue yesterday, with his Silver Bullet Band.)

I used to be a werewolf, you know. But I'm alright no-ooooooooooow!

I'm here all week.

10. Found in the basic ramp structure.

Found in the basiC ramp structure.

The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf

9. The main point of this quiz.

All you have to do is Guess Who...

The Guess Who - Clap For The Wolfman

8. Holy circles, cylinders and spheres, Batman!

They're all round, Robin.

Round Robin - I'm The Wolfman

7. Gremlins.

If you've seen Gremlins, you know. If you haven't... do yourself a favour. It's got Hoyt Axton in!

Mogwai - How To Be A Werewolf

6. Fine girl from Cumbria.

Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) from Carlisle...

Brandi Carlile - Mama Werewolf

5. Sparks fly over this male quintet.

Five Man Electrical Band - Werewolf

4. Thankfully Ripoll. 

Shakira means "thankful" in Arabic. Ripoll is her rarely used surnamed.

Shakira - She Wolf

Shakira - She Wolf

3. Sounds like an Australian to me.

He's not an Aussie, but he is...

Ozzy Osbourne - Bark At The Moon

Video of the week.

2. In today's race, Xanadu ran and Gorgonzola Fondu ran, but all the other horses fell at the first hurdle. 

In today's race, Xanadu ran and Gorgonzola Fondu ran,

Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf

Simon Le Bon almost turns into a werewolf in that. Ozzy still has the better video.

1. Zen raver now confused.

Anagram.

There was no other choice for Number One.

Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London

More Halloween based shenanigans in this week's Namesakes. 

Snapshots should be less scary next Saturday...

Snapshots #256: A Top Ten Chicken Songs

Ten clucking songs about chickens... or chicks, at least.

They all taste like chicken to me...

10. Head of the Family.

Charles Manson was the leader of the cult known as The Family.

Mansun - Take It Easy, Chicken

9. Join arms with Charles and Sugar.

He links arms with Ray Charles and Sugar Ray.

Link Wray - Run, Chicken, Run

8. When you go back in time forty years, head straight for the toy car catastrophe. 

Matchbox Cars have a disaster in the 80s... and you must make a beeline to it.

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - Chicken

(Look, you come up with a clue for that tosh.)

7. Monthly confusion in the springtime.

April March - Chick Habit

6. Take Prozac for your Monobrow now! And find the answer within.

Take Prozac for your Monobrow now!

The Zac Brown Band - Chicken Fried

5. First lady of the Bread family.

Eve was the first lady. And, as discussed on Wednesday, the sitcom Bread, created by Carla Lane, featured the Boswell Family.

Eve Boswell - Pickin' A Chicken 

4. Protect the Queen!

Bees protect their queen.

The Bees - Chicken Payback

One for RadMac listeners.

3. A small accomplishment.

Little Feat - Dixie Chicken

2. The Wizard Who travelled from there to Brighton.

From The Who's Pinball Wizard...

From Soho down to Brighton

I must have played them all

Soho - Hippy Chick

Even after 31 years, I'm still not sure what I think about that. But I'm more forgiving now than I was in 1991.

1. Stomach pains.

If you're going to sing about a chicken, at least have the decency to do a proper chicken impression...

The Cramps - Chicken

Unless I chicken out, there'll be more of this nonsense next Saturday.

Elvis Fridays #4: Let's Have A Party

Welcome to the end of the week. Time for a bit more Elvii.

Will Elvis Perkins make an appearance at some stage? asked Charity Chic.

Undoubtedly.



If you have room for "A Date With Elvis" by The Cramps give "What's Inside a Girl?" a listen, said Lynchie.



And there's the poet Elvis McGonagall & his band The Resurrectors, described as "an unholy marriage of radical stand-up poetry and Caledonian punkabilly rock ‘n roll"...

OK.

Here's his reaction to the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis...




Which brings us to the other two guys.

Last week, Brian commended my choice from Punch The Clock by revealing that it was the first Costello album he bought as a new release, after spending some time previous relishing the delights of his back catalogue.

Well, here's a track from the first Costello album I bought on release. It could have been Spike, but I know my copy of that has a little chip in the black plastic on the side of the CD case which represents that it was a promo copy or a reject. Probably I scrounged that out of the chuck outs box at work. But I remember buying the following album in a shop, and the lead single is still one of my favourite Costello tracks.

I know Mighty Like A Rose is the album where many fans became a little disillusioned with Elvis, but I love it still. It's an odd record (the "weirdy beardy" one) that pushes the boundaries musically and lyrically in places, but I played it to death at the time.

Here's that single, an anti-Beach Boys record in the very best sense... and it seems appropriate now that we're in July and the traditional British summer has finally arrived. All those beautiful sunny days at the start of lockdown seem but a distant memory now...

Was it a millionaire who said "imagine no possessions"?

A poor little schoolboy who said "we don't need no lessons"?

The rabid rebel dogs ransack the shampoo shop

The pop princess is downtown shooting up

And if that goddess is fit for burning

The sun will struggle up, the world will still keep turning

 


So finally then, to the King. And a story I've probably told before, but when has that ever stopped me?

In the first year of 6th Form, I appeared in the school panto. A comedic version of Robin Hood. My mate Simon, who always played the lead, was Robin. I was Little John. (I'm probably an inch taller than him, but always the sidekick...) He got the girl (Maid Marian), both on stage and off. I... got to "sing" the song that closed the first half. Well, not really sing, but mime and dance along to the track below, belting out of a backstage ghetto plaster. I did sing... you just couldn't hear me for the real deal. Which is probably for the best. Whenever I hear this track, I'm on that stage, gyrating my knees and hips, waiting for the curtain to fall one more time...

Saturday Snapshots #57 - The Answers

That's Marilyn Manson, someone I considered scary enough to illustrate the answers of our Halloween special. I'm not going to pretend to be a big expert on his discography though, so no scary puns today... just the answers.

Well done to C who won yesterday's Early Bird prize, though it was a hard-fought contest by everyone else. Well done to Lynchie and Martin for getting the hard ones (9 & 5).


10. PC Wilson Spassky prefers this to chips.

PC = Police Constable... or Bobby.

Boris Spassky was a famous chess player.

Wilson Picket was Wilson Pickett.

If you don't like chips, you may prefer your potatoes mashed.

Bobby Boris Pickett & The Crypt Kickers - Monster Mash

It was a graveyard smash!

9. Three monsters and a superhero... are forever.

Tough one, but Diamonds are Forever.

The Diamonds - Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein or Dracula

8. Where Jan & Dean found dead men with scary faces.

Jan & Dean sang about Dead Man's Curve.

Curve - Horror Head

7. Adolescents need to start shaving... or their muscles will seize up.

The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf

6. Incomparable lady and arse-kisser get possessed.

Nothing compares to Sinead O'Connor.

Shane MacGowan was in the Pogues, short for Pogue Mahone, which is Irish for Kiss My Arse.

Sinead O'Connor & Shan MacGowan - Haunted

5. Terrified of being hit one more time, baby? Play a show on the day your record comes out.

Britney Spears sang ...Hit Me Baby, One More Time.

If you played a show on the day your record came out, you would be Live On Release.

Live On Release - I'm Afraid of Britney Spears

4. Send out the invitations for a free racket.

You send out invitations to your birthday party.

If you freed your racket, you would be releasing your bat.

The Birthday Party - Release The Bats

3. It's bad manners to sing spooky songs, says the beaming butler from Southfork.

Bad Manners' lead singer was Buster Bloodvessel.

Rays beam.

Parker was the butler in Thunderbirds.

Southfork is where J.R. lived.

Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters

2. A new Rover ZN? Or an American...?

A new Rover ZN is an anagram.

An American... Werewolf In London.

I saw Lon Chaney dancing with the Queen...

Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London

1. Not Richard or Karen, but perfect for this time of year.

Richard & Karen were The Carpenters. Obviously.


Be afraid. Be very afraid. Saturday Snapshots will be back next week.