April 14:
Hello one and all. We’re here, back again, with a proper ‘vintage’ album review here for you. Now I’m intrigued to know what fans think of this week’s chosen album ‘Changes’ – despite owning lots of material about The Monkees I’ve never yet read a review of this album (even the superlative ‘Only Solitaire’ site stops after ‘Monkees Present’). Which, of course, is what we’re all about – bringing you titbits about albums you never read about anywhere else. Another thing we’re all about is laughing at the Coalition party. So David Cameron’s apologised for us having an empire has he? Hmm, that’ll be nice to look back on in a few hundred year’s time when we’re busy apologising to Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Oh and what’s with cutting out the great poet Benjamin Zephaniah’s face from their voting slips down South because the ‘white middle class won’t know who he is’ (its sentences like that which reveal why ‘multiculturalism isn’t working’, you middle class white Etonion you). Even the traditionally Tory papers seem fed up with him now. And what a nerve sending me a leaflet full of lies about how the alternative voting system will never work – it’s not for getting for your favourite Governments in, it’s a way of keeping your most feared Governments out, something that seems to frighten Cameron an awful lot. He’s back to doing what he does best this week too – making an ass of himself, picking on the unemployed and disabled (so we’re going to have to fill in another lot of forms and have another lot of check-ups from a doctor less qualified than the specialists we’ve seen about our illnesses already are we? That’ll be nice – what work can you do? How about the prime minister’s job? I can’t mess it up any more than he has already. And thanks to their illegal policy extension we now have to face four more years of this torture?...) Thank God for the music, that’s what I say...On with the news!
♫ Oasis/Beady Eye News: Liam Gallagher’s new group made a second TV appearance on Jools Holland’s ‘Later...’ programme this week(on Tuesdays, BBC2 with an extended version on Fridays if you want to find it on I-player). To be frank, their appearance wasn’t as great as their ‘Abbey Road’ TV gig last month, owing to a combination of strange song choices (the wordy ‘Millionaire’ isn’t a patch on the magnificent ‘Kill For A Dream’ or ‘Wigwam’, however good it is), bodged production (Liam’s vocals were mixed so low you couldn’t hear them) and Jools Holland’s increasingly annoying hammy introductions. I used to look at Ed Sullivan’s role as a show compere and cringe – now he’s beginning to look quite good against Jools’ ridiculous interviews (‘How is your boogie arm today Liam?’ ‘Erm, pardon?’)
More fitting to Beady Eye’s triumph of a debut album is the news that the band joined forces with Paul Weller to create a benefit gig for those hit by the Japanese earthquake in March. This is the first real test for Beady Eye as a live band (although their real live debut was a home gig at Manchester’s 02 Arena that received mixed reviews) and seems to have gone down well, with the band releasing a special charity single – a cover of The Beatles’ own charity contribution ‘Across The Universe’ – to raise money in addition to ticket sales. The band had much to do with this gig, being the driving forces behind it apparently, which is interesting given that Noel always had the reputation for ‘charity gigs’ during the Oasis years – interesting too that Liam should have rung one of Noel’s best mates, Mr Weller, for help with the gig. More news if and when we hear it...
♫ Rolling Stones News: BBC6 did finally repeat their ‘Insight: The Rolling Stones On Tour’ radio programme from 1975 (see last week for the false starts and broken promises). Only trouble was, it turned out to be a slightly different name for exactly the same programme that was on last November listed as ‘The Rolling Stones Story’. Still, it’s well worth hearing if you get a chance to get hold of it on some I-player type thingy as it features the Stones on their first tour with Ronnie Wood (who still thinks of himself as a ‘special guest’ at this point, on loan from The Faces) and has lots of interviews with the Stones backstage at Stafford’s Bingley Hall, plus some interesting statistics for road managers and caterers about the costs and work involved in setting up a tour of such size. The only thing really missing is what the audience thought of it all and whether they got ‘satisfaction’ or not!
♫ ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday wishes to all AAA members born this week (April 16th-22nd): Billy Kreutzmann (drummer with the Grateful Dead 1965-93) turns 65 on April 17th. Anniversaries of events include: British viewers get to see the very weird TV special ‘James Paul McCartney’ on April 16th 1973– screened as part of a deal with publisher Lew Grade to drop a publishing dispute arguing that Paul’s wife Linda couldn’t possibly have had a hand in writing some of the ex-Beatles’ biggest songs; Janis Joplin’s posthumous album ‘Pearl’ becomes a runaway success in the charts after its release on April 17th 1971; The Cavern Club is sold on April 18th 1966 after gradually falling revenue; The first meeting between the Beatles and the Stones during the latter’s gig on home soil at London’s Crawdaddy Club. Despite what you may have read in biogs and press releases of the time the band gets on very well indeed and become firm friends over the next decade (April 21st 1963); Janis Joplin wows the crowds at London’s Royal Albert Hall during her first – and as it turned out only – European tour (April 21st 1969); as part of the conditions of not giving Keith Richards a life sentence for drugs possession, the Stones perform the first of two shows for the blind in Toronto – rumour has it a blind fan Keith had looked after on each of the Stones’ Canadian tours wrote to the judge telling him how kind the guitarist had been to her hence the rather odd court condition (April 22nd 1979) and finally, John Winston Lennon changing his middle name to Ono ‘because she changed her surname and my name now has more O’s in it which is considered lucky’ or something like that; April 22nd 1969).
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