Headbang Results - 23 Nov, 2018 - part 1

Our 3rd Headbang of 2018 was held last night and we had a full house of 10 - and a new room at Dave's to watch and listen in. Our thanks as ever go to our host who is always left with a bit of chaos to clear up as the rest of us scarper home in the taxi.

Pre-match drinks were held in the Douglas, where we were briefly joined by Messrs Meany and Sharp, neither of whom were remotely interested in joining the Headbang.

We got through 64 tracks again, spread over 8 separate themes and pretty much finished on schedule at 12:30 am. We started, as usual, with the OBITUARY section where we featured just 6 artistes:

Ed King	Strawberry Alarm Clock/Lynyrd Skynryd	Incense & Peppermints
Lazy Lester	Blues harmonica and guitar; composed I Hear You Knocking etc	I'm a lover not a fighter
Chas Hodges	Heads, Hands & Feet/Chas & Dave	Warming up the band
Marty Balin	Jefferson Airplane/Starship guitar/vocals/songwriter/founder	Volunteers
Otis Rush	Played right handed guitar left handed - before Jimi	I can't quit you baby
Tony Joe White	"The Swamp Fox"	Polk Salad Annie/Rainy Night in Georgia

A show of hands gave the "Most Missed" award to Tony Joe White with 6 votes, whilst Chas Hodges and Otis Rush each garnered 2.

Other musical acts who had passed since the last Headbang were:

Tony Hiller	Songwriter - Brotherhood of Man and countless football teams
Mac Miller	US rapper
Charles Aznavour
Peggy Sue Gerron	Inspiration for Buddy Holly song(s)/ex girlfriend and then wife of Jerry Allison, Crickets' drummer
Geoff Emerick	Beatles' studio engineer
Montserrat Caballé	Spanish operatic soprano - Barcelona duet with Freddie Mercury was the official theme song for the 1992 Olympics
Annapurni Devi	Ex-wife of Ravi Shankar, who became a recluse after marriage breakdown in 1956
Babs Beverley	Twin Teddie now last surviving member of the Beverley Sisters
Francis Lai	French composer who won Oscar for Love Story
Roy Clark	Country guitarist and "Hee Haw" host.

SEPTUAGENARIANS next, where 10 artistes were chosen and the voting from 9 of the Headbangers (Dave abstained) was:

Kenney Jones	I'm losing you	86
Robert Plant	Good times, bad times	77
Jackson Browne	Doctor my eyes	66
Duke Robillard	Anything it takes	54
Peter Hammill	Cat's eye	46
Russell Mael	Amateur Hour	45
David Marks	Barbara Ann	40
Mike Pinera	Ride Captain Ride	34
Don Brewer	We're an American band	24
Tony Bourge	Who do you want for your love?	22

Kenney's fantastic drum solo did it, scoring maximum points from 5 of the Headbangers.

Others who had reached the age of 70 since our last gathering were:

Danny Seraphine	Chicago drummer 67-90
Rudolf Schenker	Scorpions guitar
Dennis Thompson	Drummer MC5
Chuck Panozzo	Styx bass
Olivia Newton-John
Tiran Porter	Doobie Brothers bass/guitar
Russ Kunkel	Session drummer
Mark Farner	Lead singer/guitar Grand Funk Railroad
Cyril Neville	Percussionist/vocalist Meters/Neville Brothers
Chris de Burgh
Patrick Simmons	Doobie Brothers guitar
Lulu
Joe Bouchard	Blue Oyster Cult bass
Robert John "Mutt" Lange	Producer/songwriter

The regular NEW(ISH) ARTISTES section was slightly hijacked this time, featuring 4 purely Scottish acts:

Chvrches	The mother we share
Gerry Cinnamon	Belter
Honeyblood	Killer Bangs
Temperance Movement	Only Friend

Again, a simple show of hands produced a clear result with 9 of our group choosing The Temperance Movement, with just one opting for Chvrches as their favourite track.

Jeb had suggested a theme which he titled LA LA LAND, featuring songs with proper lyrics seemingly in short supply. We all sang along to the "LA LA" bits in the following tunes:

Small Faces	Sha la la la lee
Van Morrison	Brown eyed girl
T. Rex	Hot love
America	Horse with no name
Ronnie Lane	Ooh la la
Simon & Garfunkel	The boxer
Paul McCartney	Ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Iggy Stooge	The passenger

Dave had suggested that we could look back to prior years and revisit some of the tracks we had played "back in the day", so I went through my archives and chose a theme that we played exactly 10 years ago - ROCK CHICKS. On that occasion, I had gathered together as many as 65 tracks featuring female acts and we had played a good number of them before voting took place by the 6 who were present that evening - Andy, Gary, Dave, Colin, Jeb and me. As many as 29 of the acts gathered at least one point in somebody's Top 10 selection. I decided that, on this occasion in 2018, to replay the Top 5, but starting with an appropriate theme tune - The Yardbirds' Happenings 10 Years Time Ago:

Katy Perry	I Kissed a Girl
K T Tunstall	Black Horse and the Cherry Tree
Janis Joplin	Maybe
Debbie Harry/Blondie	Picture This
Patti Smith	Gloria

The clear winner in 2018 for 8 of the Headbangers was KT Tunstall, with Katy Perry and Patti Smith each getting one vote, but Gary correctly pointed out to me that this time the version of I Kissed a Girl that we played was a different one from the last occasion and that would have swayed the vote a bit.

Time was marching on - it was now 10:30 pm and Gary had to leave as he had family arriving, and Malcolm's jet-lag started to kick in (he had just arrived back from China), so he left as well.

(More to follow in part 2).