News, Views and Music Issue 28 (Intro)

♫ Welcome fellow archive alumni to issue 28 of ‘news, views and music’. What a hilarious piece of witty banter poking fun at all the moral holes in modern society we had planned for you this issue…before we decided we’d better log off from ‘spice girls’ official site and start writing about Alan’s Album Archives legends instead. In terms of website news…well, there isn’t really anything of note happening there. I’ve exhausted my first batch of link posting and I’m waiting for some results to filter through before I start on batch two. I’ve noticed an alarming drop off in the amount of visitors we’ve had recently too – come on guys and visit us; now that half of the interesting videos have been deleted from ‘youtube’ and ‘facebook’ has been ‘developed’ to the point of extinction there really aren’t many other places to go (though CSNY forum ‘4waysite’ is still worth a look). Oh and before I move on to the ‘news’ section, I must say a special big HELLO to Linda and lots of hugs to her now that she’s out of hospital – all the album archives have been missing you!

♫ Beatles News: First up are two Beatle bulletins. Firstly the long-awaited Beatles ‘Rock Band’ game has now officially been given a release date of September 9^th and the game on its own will cost £40. In line with other ‘rockband’ spin-offs, however, there will be a limited edition set of Beatle instruments to play along with including Ringo’s ‘Beatles’ drum kit and a McCartney-ish Hoffner bass! This deluxe set is set to retail at £190 so we’re told, so better get saving now! (That’s ridiculous - I could build my own yellow submarine with that much money!)

Also, Macca celebrated the 11^th anniversary of first wife Linda’s death from breast cancer by playing a special set at the Coachela Music Festival in California on Saturday. Macca played a two-and-a-half-hour set to 75,000 music fans who had turned out for the multi-day event and dedicated the songs ‘My Love’ and ‘Long and Winding Road’ to Linda.   

♫ Paul Simon News: A bit of belated news this week, but the second series of Sesame Street that was released in the UK at the end of March (‘Old School Volume Two 1974-79’) includes a hilarious two-minute bit of footage of Paul from 1976. Performing ‘Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard’, Paul is completely upstaged by the eight-year-old girl sitting next to him who starts improvising her own lyrics to the song (some of which are better than the original, actually!) Where is that girl now? Did they ever work together again?! Why on earth did Paul choose to re-record one of his most risqué lyrics for a programme dedicated to the under-fives?!? And why isn’t the legendary footage of Paul singing ‘St Judy’s Comet’ from the same season not included in the DVD?!? (Let’s hope the mid-80s set includes the footage of Paul performing the alphabet with Ladysmith Black Mambazo that seemed to on each episode without fail when I was young; thanks for teaching me my ABC’s Paul Simon - this site is now officially your fault!). This latest Sesame set is still worth getting though despite my gripe – where else you can find footage of Helen Reddy, Victor Borge, the catchiest game of pinball in history set to mathematics and a lot of cute furry monsters in one place?)

♫ Anniversaries: Many happy returns of the boomerang to AAA artists and associates Jack Nitzsche (Neil Young producer and briefly a member of Crazy Horse) who turns 72 on April 22 and Pete Ham (of Badfinger) would have been 62 on April 26^th. Anniversaries of events this week include: the legendary first  meeting between the Beatles (who were riding high with ‘She Loves You’) and the Rolling Stones (whose career had temporarily stalled after first single ‘Come On’) at London’s Crawdaddy Club on April 21^st 1963; Janis Joplin performs in England for the first time with a fondly remembered set at the Royal Albert Hall (April 21 1969); the official dissolution of Wings 18 months after their last recordings (April 25^th 1981); the Rolling Stones release their first LP imaginatively titled ‘Rolling Stones’ (April 26^th 1964) and finally Ringo Starr performs in the memorable but rarely seen TV special ‘Ognir Rrats’, with a plot based on the tale of the ‘Prince and the Pauper and songs taken from the drummer’s then-current LP ‘Bad Boy’ (April 26^th 1978; if you’re wondering about the weird title try spelling it backwards!)