I've never run guest posts on this blog before - in fact, I've actively resisted them in the past, preferring to keep this place as my own personal record.
So why change that now?
Well, sometimes the opportunities present themselves and they're too good to resist. Which is why I already have three weeks' worth of Guest Posts, all because of a couple of half-joking comments I left here and elsewhere.
Our first guest poster is JC, The Vinyl Villain. Now I've guested over a JC's place on a number of occasions, being a semi-regular contributor to his Imaginary Compilation Album series. But I never for the life of me expected him to return the favour. So you can imagine how shocked and awed I was when the post below landed in my in-box as the result of a flippant bon mot I left him last week.
I've been blogging for coming up on 14 years now. My Top Ten started in 2012, but prior to that my original blog, Sunset Over Slawit, had been running for almost six years until I packed it in. When I started blogging, I had no idea what I was doing. Sunset Over Slawit wasn't a music blog - it was all over the place, so I was rather surprised when I ended up with readers from elsewhere in the blogosphere (rather than people I'd known beforehand and invited to drop in). One of the first "professional" bloggers who began to leave comments was JC, and it was probably his original Vinyl Villain blog which steered my own blogging increasingly towards talking about music... and, I guess, led me to carry on with My Top Ten once I'd packed in all the other aspects of blogging that were beginning to bore me.
So it's a great honour that he would find the time to write me a Top Ten (the irony being that I rarely get time to write those things myself these days, and that was the very raison d'etre of this blog in the first place!) Take it away, JC...
THE VINYL VILLAIN'S TOP TEN HAIRCUT SONGS
I've been long amazed at Rol's ability to come up with these lists, especially now that I've got the task currently of compiling a list of 5 songs for a column called 'Music for Our Times' which appears in a digital version of a weekly publication by my favourite football team, Raith Rovers. The publication is designed to keep our small but dedicated fanbase informed of developments at the club during the extended lockdown - my column tries to bring a bit of fun and is related to the fact that I'm the matchday announcer at the club, responsible for selecting and playing the pre-match and half-time tunes.
A couple of weeks back I mentioned that a quick glance across any form of social media will demonstrate that the burning issue of the day for many a person is hair. Barbers and hairdressers have been closed since the lockdown began. Blokes have two options - letting their hair get to a length not seen since the 70s glam rock era or taking the risk of asking a household member to run riot with a set of clippers. I've taken the first option, to the extent that I now look as if I'm an extra in Starsky & Hutch - and with the fashion sense to match.
If anything, it's even worse for women given that a regular trip to the salon tends to form an essential part of social engagement with a friend or confidante, as well as the opportunity to change the natural colour of their hair. Mathematicians are still trying to come up with an accurate formula for doing the calculation, but the number of blondes in the UK over the past two and bit months has dropped by at least 66%.
I offered up five suitable songs, which I'm now doubling in size in the hope it's of use to Rol.
1. Goldblade - Hairstyle
"I like your hairstyle, it is fantastic"
The first line of the chorus of a single by Goldblade, a punk band from Manchester. Lead singer John Robb's hairstyle of choice over the past three decades has been the mohican. He still wears it well, even at the age of 59. Worth also mentioning that the two remixes on the CD single come courtesy of Black Box Recorder, with Sarah Nixey's sultry delivery of 'Why Don't You Rub It In My Face' being every bit as filthy as it sounds.
(Searching for that as I type. - Rol.)
2. Super Furry Animals - Ice Hockey Hair
"She's got ice hockey hair,
It's instamatic and it has such flair
And when the puck hits the back of the cage
She feels the tingle of a quiet rage"
Nope, I have no idea what the meaning is of the opening lines of this typically bonkers number by the Cardiff-based indie-rockers. But that won't stop me dedicating it to female fans of the Fife Flyers (the ice-hockey team who are based in the town of Kirkcaldy, which is also where Raith Rovers FC are based - a lot of folk in the town follow the fortunes of both sides).
3. The Goon Sax - Home Haircuts
"I go to the barber to get shorn
And I leave feeling empty and forlorn"
The Goon Sax are one of the most wonderful indie-pop acts to emerge in recent years. The trio's debut album, Up to Anything, was full of great, quirky and memorable tunes that were accompanied by lyrics which focussed on the most important songs facing the modern-era teenager such as the shame of being on the wrong end of a bad haircut. It must be the only song in existence which manages to namecheck Shane Warne, Roger McGuinn and Edwyn Collins, all of whose haircuts are much desired.
(That is excellent - Rol.)
4. Willow Smith - Whip My Hair
"I whip my hair back and forth" (repeat about a thousand times)
Bit of a cheat this one as it's nothing to do with haircuts as such. This #2 smash hit single by Willow Smith back in 2010 is an anthem celebrating being young and carefree, which is kind of impossible to be just now under the lockdown restrictions. All my articles for the club publication really have to include at least one song that folk will have heard of!
5. Beck - Devil's Haircut
The on-line urban dictionary states that a devil's haircut can be anything that makes someone feel bad, depressed, stressed out, or indeed any sort of mental or physical anguish. As such, COVID-19 = a devil's haircut.
6. Pavement - Cut Your Hair
One of the joys of going to an old fashioned barbershop is the likelihood of some old music/sport/lifestyle magazines lying around that you can read while waiting your turn to be shorn. If you happened to come across the NME from 3 May 2007, you would find that this song was listed as Number 28 in a list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever.
7. Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro
OK, it's not technically about a haircut, but I'm guessing that Shawn Ryder's dad, who was the subject matter of the lyric, had got himself a very dodgy perm in the mid-late 70s. Have a look at a photograph of the Scotland World Cup squad of 1978 for an illustration - it was very briefly the fashion and it looked ridiculous.
8. Beastie Boys - Mullethead
"Number one on the side and don't touch the back
Number six on the top and don't cut it wack, Jack"
The b-side to the vinyl release of the single Sure Shot back in 1994 but later included on the bonus disc of Ill Communication when it was reissued in 2009. It's not a hip-hop or rap number, instead harking back to the hardcore, superfast and noisy stuff that the Beastie Boys were doing when they first formed.
9. Billy Bragg - Greetings To The New Brunette
The re-opening of salons still seems to be a few weeks away. This one goes out to everyone, male or female, who is suffering and possibly even going into hiding for fear of anyone seeing that the colour on top of their head is not natural.
10. The Rakes - The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect
This closed off the original article in the football publication and I dedicated it Ian Davidson, who it could be said is a cut-price version of the famous basketball player, Dennis Rodman, in that throughout his career he has taken to the field with all sorts of strange haircuts and colourings, never caring one ounce what stick he would take from his teammates, opponents or fans on the terraces and in the stands. Indeed, he seemed to encourage it...
So, there you have it. Ten songs associated with haircuts. And, just in case you were wondering, a handful of tunes by Scissors Sisters narrowly missed the cut for inclusion.
Without gushing any further, I'll just say thank you to JC for providing this blog with its first ever guest post. And if you enjoyed that, you'll be glad to know he'll be back in two weeks' time with ANOTHER top ten. Truly I am blessed.
Here's one that would have fit quite nicely in the list above...
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Poodle Rockin'
But that's not all, because next week we have ANOTHER guest contributor. I'll keep their identity as a surprise for now, but regular readers will be very familiar with my attempts to get this particular contributor to join the blogging world.
In the meantime, as I seem to have cracked open this particular Pandora's Box... if anyone else fancies trying their hand at a Top Ten... or a Mid-Life Crisis post... or any of the other long-running features this blog squanders so jubilantly... well, you know where I am.
The door is now open...
