Possibly more fun than doing the post Boxing Day washing up!
Answers will be posted below obver the next hour or so. Thanks for taking part.
Prof Wyngate’s posted-in-a-hurry-quiz : Answers
The 'Spill
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The 'Spill 
1. Which massively popular song is “virtually the Communist Manifesto”?
Imagine. The description is by Lennon himself.
Yes, got that one right away!
2. Terry Lawless has played keyboards for which band for over 20 years?
U2. Not exactly a secret by they don’t really share the limelight with him, rumour has it he sometimes performs from under the stage!
3. Which new wave artist nearly changed his stage name in August 1977 ?
Elvis Costello, following the death of another singer called Elvis.
4. Which artist earlier this year spoke about “the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself. I’m just drawn to that kind of thing – the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring” and what event was he talking about?
Nick Cave talking about the coronation of King Charles which he attended as a representative of Austrailian culture. He was answering a question from an angry fan on his Red Hand Files page, where he is seemingly willing to answer almost any question.
Attending the coronation is certainly a long way from having to flee for your life from a gig because ypou’ve gone a bit mad and started kicking the faces of people in the front row as happened once in his Birthday Party days.
Oh dear, I was thinking about the various wacky celebrations around the country, like the recent solstice festival in Penzance – the real answer did not occur!
I should have known this, because I do read the Red Hand Files, but didn’t twig. I can’t quite adjust to Nick Cave as respected community spokesperson. I loved him when he was more punk.
5. Brian Eno’s track King’s Lead Hat was at least partly inspired by what band (clue in the question)?
Talking Heads – I like anagrams.
6. The first draft of the lyrics to which famous song from the 80s were written while overhearing a conversation in a TV store.
Money For Nothing by Dire Sttraits. Mark Knopfler overheard a store worker’s comments, asked to borrow a pen and paper and the rest is history. I wonder iof the store worker got any royalties.
I knew this one as I heard them talking about it.
7. What didn’t happen 1972-1977, only happened unofficially in 1978, and then has happened most years but not in 1988, 1991, 1996. 2001, 2006, 2012, 2018, or 2020-21?
Glastonbury Festival.
D’oh! Should have had that one.
I thought that was one of the easier ones , but most people didn’t agree
I got 1 and 5 but not the other three. Should really have known number 3 as I read about it at the time. Mind you I read a lot of stuff back then that might not have been true. One writer claimed that Declan had originally considered calling himself Jesus Costello.
8. Whose unlikely recording career included hammering out 2 symphonic metal concept album about the Emperor Charlemagne, and also becoming the second oldest person to have a Top 20 hit on the Billboard Charts?
Christopher Lee! Seems he did quite a lot of dabbling in metal.
I had this. I’ve heard some of his symphonic metal. It is dreadful.
I’m sure it is! I’ve not actually chacked it out.
Knew this, love Christopher Lee, such an interesting life. He was present at the last public execution in France apparently.
Oh you’ve added a couple. I knew 6 but not 7 although it’s another one that should have been obvious.
9. Which post punk band dropped an “e” in the early 90s and why?
Wire , who briefly dropped one letter of their name to become Wir when drummer Robert Gotobed left temporarily. They recorded one album The First Letter under the Wir name. When Bruce Gilbert later left permanently they just carried on as Wire though instead of becoming Wie or something.
10. Who went from being a Master of the Backside to singing on three UK no 1 singles between 1980 and 1995.
Chrissie Hynde was the lead singer of a Malcolm McLaren managed band the Masters of the Backside who never got beyond the rehearsal stage if they even got that far. The rest of the band went on to become The Damned. Chrissie Hynde had no 1s in teh UK with The Pretenders, UB40 and on a charity record with Cher and Neneh Cherry.
Clever question, had no idea about this answer.
11. How did an 1892 photograph of a Wiltshire thatcher become famous?
as the image on teh cover of Led Zepplin IV
Yup. I had that one.
Yup
Also yes.
12. What influence did a Swindon Leisure Centre have on Britpop?
The Oasis Leisure Centre, one of the venues on a tour by Ride, gave Noel Gallgher a lightbulb moment.
Clearly, once I stopped thinking about XTC.
I had a vague image of an album cover of some sort and that’s as far as I got,
13. Who were the Raw Melody Men in the early 90s?
New Model Army – another anagram, this one was used by them as a pseudynom on a secret tour and then as the name of a 1991 live album.
I knew this! I have that album, storming live recording.
14. What song was subject to significant dispute over songwriting royalties between band members despite it widely commented that the disputed section of the song sounded a lot like Bach.
Procul Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale. Organist Matthew Fisher won a landmark law suit for songwriting royalties. It has been commented that the organ part sounds like Bach’s Air On A G String , but musicologists have decponstructed it and said that it isn’t the same , so I’m not going to argue.
Another one for me!
Yes!
Got that one right! Wahey!!
I had 1, 6 and 7. I am terrible at anagrams so didn’t have a chance with 5.
15. What do the following have in common : dolls (the Beatles) ; a dress (Bowie) ; the dog’s bollocks (Bowie again); the Sounds of Sunshine lounge band (Dead Kennedys) ; a toilet (the Mamas and the Papas); Olympic award ceremony (the Skids); a middle finger (Moby Grape)?
Offending images from withdrawn album covers – here goes:
The Beatles – Yesterday And Today – showed the fab four in butcher’s overalls with apparently dismembered dolls. Very collectable I beleive.
David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World – Bowie in a dress, now of course the album is again widely available with this cover.
David Bowie – Diamond Dogs – The original cover had the familiar Bowie/dog hybrid, but on the back cover it’s fishing tackle was visible.
Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables – The back cover featured a photo of a middle of teh road band that guitarist East Bay ray was tickled by when he found it at a garage sale. The Sunshine Lounge Band – for it was they – found out and threatened legal action , so the image was replaced with one with their heads missing.
Mamas and Papas – If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears featured the band in their bathroom with the toilet clearly in shot. As a toilet is obviously offensive it was covered by a block of text on a new version.
Skids – Days In Europa – An image of an Olympic ceremony but in the style of a Nazi propaganda poster. It was replaced by a completely diffderent image but with the original still pfresent as a picture on the wall in the background.
Moby Grape – Moby Grape – One band member was discretely giving the middle finger. When it was spotted it was airbrushed out.
I knew the general answer to this but not all of the examples!
Knew about the Bowie ones so guessed the rest were similar reasons.
16. Who claimed to be “a bisexual man who’d never had a homosexual experience”?
Brett Anderson from Suede according to an infamous and much mocked interview quote
Yup.
I remember that article and the responses well!
Remember reading it too.
I think Matthew Fisher said he was influenced by Bach but it was never a straight copy of anything. and he only got royalties from when his case was finally awarded afaik which was a lot later than 1967!
17. Who released an album in 1986 with the sole purpose of preventing his former bandmates from using a particular band name, which he then never used again?
Andrew Eldritch of Sisters of Mercy released the Gift album under the Sisterhood name to scupper ex-Sisters Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams who had just started gigging under that name. They became The Mission and did okay, so everyone was happy in the end.
He got a single out a few months earlier than the album as the Sisterhood I believe to secure the name.
Yes the single was first . I’m not sure how much longer afterwards the album was, I’ve read the Paint My Name In Black And Gold biog of the early years of the Sisters, and the really surprising thing is how fondly almost everyone involved seems to think of him! I thought they’d all hate him but the reaction is more “We liked him, why did he make everything so difficult for himself?”
Well that book was a rather loving portrayal of Andy wasn’t it? Wayne Hussey’s books were not unkind about him, but maybe focused on the difficulties of working with him.
18. Which band started out as The Warlocks in the mid – 60s and featured a classically trained musician who had started out as a violin player? (one point for one correct answer, two points for two completely different correct answers!)
One point for Grateful Dead (hello Chris) and one point for Velvet Underground, the statement is true for both , with Phil Lesh and John Cale respectively being classically trained violin players.
John Cale is actually a viola player, not a violinist. The two instruments are tuned differently.
I knew this one straightaway.
I had a niggling worry about that. But I got the impression from what I read that John Cale learn violin first before he was in the Velvets. I would have double checked that if I didn’t need to get round to the in-laws, honest!
Got this one wrong – thought the other band was ZZ Top who also started out as Warlocks.
I was going to say no they just looked like Warlocks, but some quick research shows that Dusty Hill and Frank Beard played in a band called the Warlocks, and not only that but Dusty Hill had learned cello . I think I could have made a bit more of this question.
I probably used to know this once upon a time but for some reason I got it into my head that Hawkwind had started off as The Warlocks and as that didn’t fit with the classically trained violinist bit I exited in confusion.
I only thought of the VU.
19. The idea for which romantic ballad that was a big hit in 1989 came from a feature at Graceland that had turned out be a damp squib?
Eternal Flame by The Bangles. They visited Graceland but the “eternal flame” had gone out because of the rain. I wish the song had actually been about that personally.
Never heard that before!
20. Blatantly nicked from a Guardian quiz – who was the only person to sing their name on the original Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Too good not to use! Old Stingo – “the bitter sting of tears”
Racked my poor brain and gave up on that Q.
I remembered that one clearly!
Well I was rubbish!
I did look during yesterday’s match, but didn’t have enough signal to comment back.
(Bandwidth at football league grounds tends to be like that, eh?)
FWIW, turns out I only knew Money For Nothing, Led Zep IV and Whiter Shade Of Pale.
Couldawouldashoulda on three of the others, but otherwise clueless. A timely reminder that in the grand scheme of things, I know nothing, and shouldn’t pretend otherwise to my kids!
A timely reminder that a lot of stuff I know is useless , obscure trivia that most people don’t bother filling their brains with!
Great quiz, thank you. Kicking myself for not getting the Elvis one. I tormented my wife and son with the Band Aid question earlier – they got there in the end, after about 10 minutes of trying to remember the lyrics. Turns out that “Where the only water flowing” is not a good line to get stuck on.
I always think of it as “the bitter tears of Sting”.
Good quiz. I think I did slightly better than usual. No such thing as trivia. As Bunny Warren put it in Porridge “I know knowledge.”
Excellent fun quiz, thanks for doing it again, Wyngate.
Well, it turns out that the two I thought I knew, I actually did (including both 18 answers)!
Excellent work, wyngate. Thanks for the effort.
(Chris)
Thanks for the quiz, got a few.
Keyboard player for U2, must be quite a few hidden players down the years .. Wakeman’s son played for Sabbath for decades and is playing on their final concert .. huge stage .. he’s not visible in any shot… rumour has it Jagger has a harmonica player in the wings. May have been Huey Lewis at some point before he got famous
Thanks, wyngate, for setting the quiz – it was fun, despite my only getting a rather miserable total of 5!
Really enjoyed the quiz, thanks!
I was doing quite well but then then faded badly. Five only. But great reading and lots of lightbulb moments where I remembered too late.
Thank you