October 28th 2008:
♫ Welcome one and all, be your collections big or small, (is anyone out there
at all?!?), to the latest issue of the AAA (also known as the Album Alcoholics
Anonymous). This looks like being the first issue of our ‘news and
views’-letter since arriving at our new home at t35.net and what a home it is
too. Unlike certain other free web hosts I could mention (that either crashed,
logged me out permanently one review from the end or filled the site with bewildering
adverts for prunes), this one seems like home sweet home. So come join our
housewarming party, put your feet up, stick your headphones on and get reading
the latest miraculous happenings in the world of our Album Archive groups...
♫ First up is our now traditional slot for Beatles news. Paul McCartney’s new
album is now out under his pseudonym of ’The Fireman’ (shush, we’re not meant
to know it’s him!) and is entitled ‘Electric Arguments’. Like ‘Strawberries,
Ships, Ocean, Forest’ and ‘Liverpool Collage’, its another joint work with
Martin Glover (of the band ‘Youth’), although this time around the long and
spacey ambience instrumentals are meant to be sandwiched between some Macca
Vocals (unlike the last album which simply featured Macca and Super Furry
Animals eating vegetables). The album’s been causing a small bit of fuss in the
music world recently, due to the track ‘Nothing Too Much, Just Out Of Sight’,
which is alleged to be the first official dig at Heather Mills’ fixation with
Macca’s money. It’s also caused more than one reviewer to comment that Macca
should give up his reguylar albums and work on albums like this one full
time—nearly everybody seems to have preferred this record to his last two sets.
In
other Beatles news, there’s a surprisingly timed release this week. When Cirque
De Soleil produced their Beatles-inspired dance piece ‘Love’ in 2006, their own
show understandably got rather overshadowed by the release of a soundtrack
album, complete with re-mixed Beatles tracks stuck together wildly like
fillings in a (yellow) submarine sandwich. As the show a) cost a fortune and b)
never really made it to these shores for very long (did it even make it all? I
heard a rumour of a London
♫ CSN/Y news: I never dreamed for a minute when I started this site that the
likes of Crosby , Stills and Nash were going to
dominate the news section, but here they are again with another interesting
titbit. Not many fans of either artist seem to know much about Stephen Stills’
work with Jimi Hendrix, but in actual fact the two guitar legends were ‘soul
brothers’ who played together in bands as early as 1965, before either man was
famous. So far the only release featuring the two of them has been the track
’Old Times, Good Times’ from the acclaimed ‘Stephen Stills’ album of 1970, the
last professional recording that Hendrix ever made and which was released
barely a fortnight after his sad death. However, bootleg wise, we’ve always
known that there were more recordings out there from these 1970 sessions and at
last, 38 years after Jimi’s death, the Hendrix estate has expressed an interest
in releasing them soon. Information about the record is still sketchy, but it
is set to include the famous Stills/ Hendrix out-take ’White Nigger’, the jokey
twin sister of Stephen’s anti-racism classic ‘Word Game’, a song partly
inspired by the racist injustice Stills felt on Jimi’s behalf in Southern
America. The other musicians taking part in the jamathon include Hendrix’s
’Electric Ladyland’ regulars Mitch Mitchell and Rocky Dijon, plus Stills’
friends and allies Calvin ’Fuzzy’ Samuels (who later joined Stills’ Manassas
Band) and Conrad Isodor.
♫ Kinks news: While release date and track listing have still to be released,
we do know a bit more about the forthcoming Kinks box-set this week. It’s to be
called ‘Music Box’, will span six CDs and will feature unreleased recordings in
between previously released singles, album tracks and BBC recordings. The
highlight of the set is said to be the earliest known recording of the band
when they were still known as ‘The Ravens’. In other Kinks news, we’ve been
here before (the past five or so years in fact) but talk of a Kinks reunion is
surfacing yet again. To recap on the past 15 years of the Kinks history: both
Davies brothers unofficially called a halt on the band in 1993 after poor sales
of last album ’Phobia’. The two Davies brothers then started slagging each
other in their autobiographies, both released weeks apart by different
publishers out of pure co-incidence (neither brother knew the other one was
writing a book!) Both ex-Kinks forged successful solo careers but began to talk
warmly about each other again in the late 1990s (well, warmly for the Davies
brothers anyway!) Alas, just as a Kinks reunion seems to be on the cards, Dave
Davies suffered a stroke in 2004 and the reunion got placed on hold. Rumours of
a Kinks reunion never quite went away though, with Ray mentioning on stage in
his 2006 tour how sure he was that the band would get together soon. However,
in a typically Davies brothers’ type move, no one seems to have asked Dave
about the reunion back then and its his health that might prevent the Kinks
appearing live again (a new single might not be too unlikely though!) The two
other original members, bassist Pete Quaife and drummer Mick Avory, are up for
the idea too apparently, even though Avory hasn’t played much since leaving the
band in 1985 and Avory hasn’t performed professionally since becoming a graphic
artist in the late 60s.
♫ Grateful
Dead news: A new photo-book on the band is due out some time this month, the
latest in the ‘365 days’ series by publisher Abrams which takes a cultural icon
and studies their history in pictures.
♫ Moody Blues News: A couple
of years back, when Polydor re-issued deluxe sets of the first seven ‘proper’
(ie pre-break up) albums, I spent half my time jumping up and down at the fact
these records were being properly re-mixed for the first time (and very
delicious they sound too) and half my time banging on crossly about how these
albums were on their fourth re-issue when certain other Moodies albums hadn’t
even gained a first CD release. Well, now my prayers have been answered. Deluxe
re-issues of the albums ‘Octave’ (1978), ‘Long Distance Voyager’ (1981) and
‘The Present’ (1983) are all due for release this month in digi-paks similar to
those of the first seven albums and are each set to contain a handful of
rarities. Alas, the only ’rarity’ actually mentioned in the publicity for them
is the 12” version of ’Sitting At The Wheel’, which isn’t an auspicious start
given that the song is generally reckoned to be one of the worst Moodies
records ever made and the 12” isn’t particularly different, it just (rather
annoyingly) runs for longer! Still, it’s great to have these under-rated albums
back out on our shelves in any form and all three are worthy purchases for all
my fellow Moody people.
All
three albums will no doubt be reviewed here in more detail when they finally
come out, but for now: ‘Octave’ is the last album to feature the Moodies’
traditional sound of Mellotron, the last to feature original member Mike Pinder
and is chock-full of glorious ballads. It’s not quite up to the standard of the
‘original’ seven classics and lacks variety, but it’s an under-rated gem
nevertheless with all five Moodies offering up at least one impressive song.
Classic hits: Justin Hayward’s dreamy ballad ‘Driftwood’ and John Lodge’s noisy
‘Steppin’ In A Slide Zone’. Forgotten highlight: Graeme Edge’s troubled warning
of life’s pitfalls written for his newly-born children, ‘I’ll Be Level With
You’. ‘Long Distance Voyager’ was the Moodies’ best-selling comeback album,
courtesy of a suddenly very 1980s-sound and a surprise hit single in the
repetitive but ear-catching ’Gemini Dream’. It’s probably the weakest of these
three sets, but welcome nonetheless. Forgotten highlight: Hayward Hayward Hayward
♫ Oasis news: Whoops, we
forgot to mention last week that Oasis were appearing at the grand finale of
the BBC’s ‘Electric Proms’ on October 26th, but then again the site wasn’t up
then so you couldn’t have read about it anyway! Mighty fine it was too, as Oasis
delved back into their past for some surprise new versions of old songs.
‘Morning Glory’, not heard since 1996, was easily the highlight of the set for
me, although a fine acoustic version of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ ran it
close. Even the tracks selected from the new LP (‘Dig Out Your Soul’) were the
ones we raved about in our review and sounded pretty nifty live (‘Shock Of the
Lightning’, ‘I’m Outta Time’ and ‘Falling Down’). Did we really need yet
another version of ‘I Am The Walrus’ though?! (What happened to the fine cover
of ‘Helter Skelter’ the band were doing a few years back? That song was much
more their style than ‘Walrus’!)
♫ Rolling Stones news: Martin Scorcese’s film of the Rolling Stones’ 2006-07
tour, ‘Shine A Light’, is now out on DVD. The 90-minute film includes lots of
backstage footage and vintage interviews in-between the 18-song set, which
includes such (fairly) rare live tracks as the title song, ‘Loving Cup’ and
‘Faraway Eyes’, as well as the usual Stones hits.
♫ Anniversaries:
Happy Birthdays this week include Denny Laine (Moody Blues 1964-66 and Wings
1972-80) who turns 64 on October 29th, plus Bert Jansch (Pentangle 1968-73 and
most 1980s albums) and Lulu, folk rock luminaries who were both born on the
same day (November 3rd) and turn 65 and 60 this week respectively. Important
musical milestones this week include the famous day that a record-buyer called
Raymond Jones walks into Brian Epstein’s NEMS record shop in Liverpool and
asked him if he had the new German single by an unknown band called the
Beatles, kick-starting a discussion that changed the face of popular music
forever (October 28th 1961); The Who release classic single ‘My Generation’ in
1965 (also October 28th); the beginnings of what will become 10cc make their
first live appearance as the trio ‘Hotlegs’, supporting the Moody Blues at the
Royal Festival Hall (1970); and George Harrison becomes the first Beatle to
issue a solo LP with the soundtrack album ‘Wonderwall’, released this week in
1968 (November 1).
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