Friday 31 July 2009

News, Views and Music Issue 38 (Intro)


July 31:

Welcome to another weave through the wonderful world of Alan’s Album Archives on the World Wide Web. This week we’ve been going hi-tech as a prelude to developing our site by adding a series of ‘listmania’ lists to online retailers Amazon. So the next time you hunt for one of our AAA accredited albums you should see our name come up on one of our four AAA lists. Several readers have been asking me where they can get their hands on the albums reviewed on this site so, much as I hate helping one conglomerate company over smaller retailers, this seemed the easiest way of giving everybody what they wanted. Please give us a ‘star rating’ if you happen to find one of our lists – it all helps plug this site! Meanwhile, on with the news (what little there is this week)...

                                             



Kinks News: BBC4 are giving us a third repeat of the Blues At The BBC compilation, featuring one of the earliest Kinks television recordings from 1964. The Kinks do a great version of Got Love If You Want It, with Ray Davies aping all the blues legends that had just appeared on the show before the young upstarts did.

Moody Blues/ Pink Floyd News: BBC4 are repeating their nicely detailed jog through prog rock’s finest moments tonight between 9.45pm and 12.30am. As well as a repeat of the ‘prog rock at the BBC’ programme (which I missed first time round) and ‘prog rock Britannia’ (which I didn’t – lots on Jethro Tull I’m pleased to say and small sections on the Moodies and the Floyd) we get a 15 minute ‘sounds of the 70s’ this time around featuring a song by the Moody Blues (‘Question’ , I reckon, as that’s the most common Moodies clip from the series, although it could be the re-issue of ‘Nights In White Satin’ they were plugging in 1972). There’s also a repeat of ‘BBC’ and ‘Britannia’ (though sadly not ‘S.O.T.70s’) on Saturday, August 1st.    

                                      



♫ Anniversaries: Happy birthday bonanzas this week (July 31st-August 6th) go to Jerry Garcia (guitarist with the Grateful Dead 1965-95) who would have been 67 had he not he not died tragically 14 years ago. Anniversaries of events this week include: The Beach Boys feature in the UK charts for the first time with third single ‘Surfin’ USA – in time they become more successful in Britain than they were in their American homeland (August 1st 1963); George Harrison’s much-talked about concert for Bangladesh finally takes place on August 1st 1971; the Beatles become the headline act at Liverpool’s Cavern Club for the first time (August 2nd 1961); The Who buy film lot Shepperton Studios for the sum of £350,000, but only use it for rehearsals and one well-remembered gig (the last with Keith Moon, recorded specially for the ‘Kids Are Alright’ documentary that came out months after his death); Almost two years to the day since their first headline gig, the Beatles play their last session at the Cavern Club, clocking up nearly 300 performances at the venue (amazingly it’s as late as August 3rd 1963 – the same period they released fourth single ‘From Me To You’);  Wings are announced to the press on August 3rd 1971, just before their informal series of concerts up and down the UK’s university campuses; The ‘Beatles are bigger than Jesus’ storms really hits the fab four’s American tours in a big way when six of the countries’ biggest radio stations ban their singles (August 4th 1966); Pink Floyd perform the first of their mammoth concerts to promote ‘The Wall’ album (August 4th 1980); the Beatles release ‘Revolver’, one of the most influential and important records of all time, 43 years ago (August 5th); August 5th is a good day for records in fact – just a year later Pink Floyd release their debut LP ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’; The Small Faces release their debut single, the wonderfully ungrammatical ‘What’cha Gonna Do Bout It?’ (August 6th 1965) and finally Pink Floyd almost celebrate the 2nd anniversary of their ‘Wall’ shows with the premiere of the ‘Wall’ film on August 6th 1982.   

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