News, Views and Music Issue 22 (Intro)

February 20:

♫ Welcome to our slightly delayed issue of the AAA this week. You’re getting this ‘double bill’ edition slightly out of order this week, partly because there’s just so much going on we haven’t had time to write anything and partly because we’ve been engrossed in the new Graham Nash box set. Although we missed our valentine’s special last week (and very, err, ‘lovely’ it was too), we’re helping you get prepared for next year with our handy guide to the five best AAA songs about love you might not already know about! (no obvious choices for us because we’re assuming that if you’re reading our site you’ll already know about ‘Yesterday’, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, ‘Nights IN White satin’ etc !) No, we’re not talking about the spice girls and their bank balances, not even George Bush and oil, but love in all its forms.  So while the love birds circling round your head appear to be singing, why not get them to hum along with our latest top five. So even if everyone else seems to have forgotten you and your postman has delivered you yet more bills instead of valentines, remember this site loves you, dear readers! Now where are my cards and chocolates? (Heck, when did this date get so commercialised?)

Now, where was I? Oh yes, the website. We’re well past the 100 mark in terms of ‘hits’ to our site now (we’re probably not far off 100 hits in other senses as well in terms of what spice girls fanatics want to do to us…) and alphabet-wise I’m right up to the ‘rolling stones’ in my adding-our-site-to-every-possible-AAA-related-website-that-has-links efforts. ‘Hello’ to all our new members, ‘How are you?’ to all our old members and ‘Where have you been all my life?!’ to those who haven’t discovered us yet! That’s all for this week/ fortnight/ whatever it is – now onto the news…

♫ Johnny Cash news: Not much news to report this week, so imagine my excitement when I opened my latest non-AAA purchase – the first proper DVD dedicated to the early days of the fantastic children’s series of Sesame Street – and discovered a rare Johnny Trash, err, sorry, Johnny Cash duet with Oscar the Grouch. For the Johnny Cash completists out there (and the under-fives) (or, quite possibly both) you might be interested to know that Johnny sings the rare folk song about the rotten and sneaky ‘Nasty Dan’ who falls in life with ‘Nasty Pearl’ and has a family of nasty children. Not quite sure what the moral of the song is (and, let’s face it, there’s a moral in every Sesame Street segment somewhere – although its usually along the lines of ‘don’t hit Big Bird with a spade’ or ‘stop annoying Bert, Ernie!’) – but so relaxed and consequence-free is this version that the man in black even gets to wish Oscar the Grouch a ‘very rotten day’. As for the performance, the song isn’t ‘trash’ at all and features the man in black only slightly past his top form (it was shown as part of the 1974 season and can be found on the ‘bonus features’ part of disc three of ‘Sesame Street – The Old School, Part One’).

♫ Lindisfarne News:  The fourth and final Jack The Lad album ‘Jackpot’ will be back on catalogue in mid-March this year. Missing on CD for years and years, this last album by the Lindisfarne spin-off group dates from 1975 and is set to include several unreleased tracks. Although by this stage only Ray Laidlaw remains from the original Lindisfarne band, the band retain more of the group’s old sound than the ‘Lindisfarne Mark Two’ line-up, as anyone who has read our review of the first Jack The Lad album (see review no 61) will know. The full track listing is as follows: Eight Ton Crazy (Fairweather-Low)/ Amsterdam (Mitchell)/ Steamboat Whistle Blues (Hartford)/ Walter’s Drop (Jack The Lad)/ We’ll Give You The Roll (Mitchell)/ Trinidad (Mitchell)/ You, You, You (Mitchell)/ Let It Be Me (Mitchell)/ The Tender (Trad)/ Take Some Time (Mitchell)/ Trinidad (alternate version)/ See How They Run (Cowe)/ Eight Ton Crazy (alternate version)/ Amsterdam (alternate version)/ Buy Broom Buzzems > The Tender > The Marquis Of Tullybardine (live medley)/ Will You Miss Me? (Guthrie)/ Hungry For Love (Mills).

Anniversaries #1: Many happy returns of the day to  Yoko Ono, who turns 76 on February 18^th and Alan Hull (Lindisfarne 1969-95) who would have been 64 on February 20^th. Anniversaries of events this week include: the live premier of the seminal Pink Floyd epic ‘Dark Side Of the Moon’ (February 17^th 1972), the release of The Who’s debut single ‘I Can’t Explain’ (February 18^th 1965), Lulu gets married to Bee Gee Maurice Gibb (February 18^th 1969), Wings’ ‘protest’ single ‘Give Ireland Back To The Irish’ is banned by the BBC (February 19^th 1972) and Simon and Garfunkel finally release their last and much-talked about LP ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (February 21^st 1970). 

As for the following week, many hippy hippy happy birthday shakes to George Harrison who would have been 66 on February 25^th, Johnny Cash who would have been 79 on February 26^th, Brian Jones (Rolling Stones 1962-69) who would have been 67 on February 28^th and Roger Daltrey (The Who 1965-83 plus several re-unions) who turns 65 on March 1^st. Anniversaries of events this week include: the Byrds fly away after a farewell performance in New Jersey on February 24^th 1973, the first Beatles single is released in America by Vee Jay Records (‘Please Please Me’ on February 25^th 1963, with the band mis-spelled ‘The Beattles’ on the sleeve), the original Cavern Club in Matthew Street, Liverpool closes on February 28^th 1966 with debts of £70,000 and The Moody Blues release their first album with the ‘classic’ line-up – ‘Days Of Future Passed’ (March 1^st 1967).