News, Views and Music Issue 15 (Intro)

December 8

♫ Welcome to the latest issue of the AAA, a special wow-we’ve-had-50-views-even-though-at-least-30-of-them-were-me-checking-on-the-site edition. As a result, we’ve been getting philosophical about life and so – as a special treat (for those of you with insomnia) - we will be discussing where the human species is going and where it came from later on in this issue (ha, bet the spice girls have never even given the matter any thought!) We’re still waiting for our site to turn up in some search engines too – maybe after Christmas our site will be famous (or infamous!) and people might actually know what you are talking about when you log on. Like most people/events/new releases just before Christmas, there isn’t much to tell you about this week in terms of AAA groups – perhaps they’re all gearing up for their Christmas parties and haven’t got time to appear in the news. Anyway, here’s a quick (if short) round-up of what there is…

♫ Beatle news: …Err, one item only this week I’m afraid. Despite an announcement last Christmas that the complete Beatles 1960s catalogue would be available for download from I-tunes sometime in 2008, it doesn’t look like its going to happen between now and the new year, thanks to a dispute between I-tunes and the two Beatles’ record labels, Apple and EMI. Apple, of course, is the label started up by the band in 1968 (who released all Beatles goodies and solo records from 1968-74), but even these albums were distributed by EMI who can lay some claim to ‘owning’ the copyright too. The Beatles remain pretty much the only ‘important’ ie major-selling group not to be legally available for downloading somewhere on the net – but I think I’m right in saying that the proposed Beatle I-tunes deal (where all of the Beatles’ works are available for download sale from the site) would be a first, although its not clear whether the ‘Anthology’ , ‘Love’ and ‘Beatles at the BBC’ projects would be included in the downloads. Roll on 2009, that’s what we say – although true Beatlenuts might want to hang on to their Christmas money to buy the Beatles CD re-issues due in batches of four next year (with ‘Please Please Me’ through to ‘Beatles For Sale’ available as soon as Easter, possibly).  

♫ Moving swiftly on, here are this week’s anniversaries of all things bright and beautiful from yesteryear. Happy birthdays this week go to Bobby Elliott (drummer with the Hollies from 1964 right up to the present day), who turns 66 on December 8 and Frank Allen, bass player with The Searchers (also from 1964 to the present interestingly enough) who turns 65 on December 14^th. Anniversaries of events this week: the sad and untimely deaths of two quite different AAA giants – John Lennon on December 8^th 1980 and Otis Redding on December 10^th 1967, tragedies both. On a happier note, this week also saw the first ever release of a Beach Boys single, Surfin’, on December 8^th 1961 (it did well locally in California but never made the American charts as a whole); Pink Floyd play what is generally regarded as their first ‘proper’ concert – an Oxfam charity gig at the Royal Albert Hall on December 12th 1966; the infamous and unscreened (for 33 years at least) Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is filmed during one huge 20-hour marathon at Wembley TV studios, a show also featuring The Who, Jethro Tull and John Lennon taking part in a one-off all-star performance (mainly recorded on December 12^th 1968); exactly a year later Lennon’s hastily convened Plastic Ono Band play their first gig at the Toronto Peace Festival and finally The Who become the first rock and pop act ever to perform at an opera house, suitably performing their ‘rock opera’ Tommy during a well-received gig at the London Colosseum Opera House on December 13^th 1969.