News, Views and Music Issue 20 (Intro)

February 2:

♫ Well, well, well, 20 issues young eh? Who’d’ve thought we’d have got here so quick? (Except for the AAA artists who wrote concept albums around time’s ability to pass so fast anyway). In celebration of our anniversary edition we’ve cobbled together all the 20-themed songs we can think of into our latest handy disposable list, but first our news. We are now included in an additional three search engines (we were aiming for 20 but couldn’t quite manage that far) and are quickly heading for 150 hits (that’s hits as in ‘views of our website’ not the top 20 music chart sort. Or indeed the ‘top 20 things you’d like to do to the website creator for taking up so much of your time). While we wallow in that fact for a minute, here’s your weekly and – this time – short round-up of the world’s news:

♫ CSN news: Just a brief addition to the last fortnight’s worth of CSN news; i) The Crosby-Nash ‘In Concert’ recording from November 1970 is set to receive yet another BBC4 screening this week (that’s the fifth in the last 18 months! I know this concert is the best thing yet broadcast in the history of BBC4 but even for me that’s pushing it a bit!) The concert even has a prime-time slot this time, 8.30pm tomorrow (February 3^rd). ii) Be quick if you want to grab some of those Crosby-Nash tour arm-bands we talked about in the last issue, as this is the last week you’ll be able to purchase them (visit ***) iii) Finally, a reminder that the long awaited Graham Nash 3-CD retrospective ‘Reflections’ is due out on Monday, Graham’s 67^th birthday. No doubt there will be a review coming to you sometime soon, but there may be a bit of a delay for us getting hold of it so we just thought we’d remind you all!

Anniversaries: They say it’s your birthday if your name is Graham Nash (Hollies 1963-68, CSN/Y various times, did I really need to tell you that by now?!), who as mentioned above turns 67 on February 2^nd, Skip Battin (bassist with the Byrds 1969-72) would have turned 74 on the same day, Eric Haydock (bassist with the Hollies 1963-65) would have turned 65 on February 3^rd and finally in this long list Dave Davies (guitarist with The Kinks 1963-93) turns 62 on the same day. Happy birthdays all! Anniversaries of events this week include: the release of the first solo record post-split by either Simon or Garfunkel – the former’s ‘Mother and Child Reunion’ which quickly scales up the charts despite the doubts of record company Columbia (Feb 5^th 1972), three Beatles get back together in a recording studio for the first time – no, not ‘Free As A Bird’, but George’s tribute single to John ‘All Those Years Ago’ (find it on the Harrison album ‘Somewhere in England; recorded Feb 6^th 1981), the Kinks make their first television appearance, miming to first single ‘Long Tall Sally’ on much-loved much-missed music programme ‘Ready Steady Go!’ (Feb 7^th 1964), in a forgotten milestone of music history, Stephen Stills becomes the first person ever to record using digital sound, although his recordings have to date never been released (as far back as Feb 7^th 1979) and finally Pink Floyd give their first concert performance of ‘The Wall’ in LA (Feb 7^th 1980)