News, Views and Music Issue 103 (Intro)

June 24:

Dear reader, here we are again for our second issue after our unexpected break. How are you getting on with our new look? Do you think it looks a bit better – and do you think it could be better still? Please keep leaving your comments anywhere you like, whether on our forum, our ‘chat’ page or by emailing us (at pattin82@yahoo.co.uk). In the meantime it’s business as usual as study an overlooked gem from Neil Young (his last great album to date in fact, although a case could be made for ‘Prairie Wind’), AAA musicians before they found fame and more birthdays than you can shake a rhythm stick at! In other news, we don’t often side with Archbishops but full marks to Mr Williams for kicking the Coalition and their policies: we didn’t vote for them or their changes (which are going to cost us more money despite the deficit we keep hearing about) and the hatred it’s causing between the haves and have-nots of this world is getting way out of control. Also, what right does an unelected prime minister have for criticising dads who leave single mums – Cameron hasn’t been a father for more than a few years already and he hasn’t had the scars of unemployment, poverty and hopelessness to get in the way of his family life (as you’ll be reading in our Neil Young review below...) How dare you criticise what you can’t and won’t understand from your ivory tower, you faceless puppet. I mean, do we really want such a bunch of incompetents with a back history of scandal and jail sentences telling us all how to live our lives? And should we really put missing dads for whatever reason on the same level as ‘drunk drivers’ as he suggests? So here’s to David Cameron doing the sensible thing and stopping his evil charade sometime soon! 

Talking of evil - who burnt my sims mansion down! Was it you Ringo? (I saw you looking shifty at that last talent show!) Or was it Neil Young getting his own back after last week? Or was it Crosby assuming he knew how to cook better than the chef we hired specially again?!? Either way - *sob* all those Stills paintings, they cost a fortune! At the moment it's back to the old house, but at least Crosby's 'discussion' rate is going well, everyone keeps talking about that fire! Not why I wanted them to be in the news, but hey...All publicity is good publicity, right?! (Now I need a Sim Andrew Loog Oldham!)


Erm, moving swiftly on to our news section...

                                                                

♫ Beatles News: Macca’s back at it again. We’ve already reported in these pages that the Fab one keeps having auctions of works associated with him withdrawn from sale at auction because of his involvement (the widow of Beatle roadie Mal Evans being a case in point), even though most of his fellow musicians (even Ringo, amazingly!) turn a blind eye. This time around its the daughter of animator Eric Wylam, who worked with Paul in the 1970s on a series of projects - including what became ‘Rupert and the Frog Song’ in 1984 – who has been prevented from selling early drawings and sketches on the basis that as the series was partly Paul’s idea he owns the copyright. AS of going to press, the sketches have had to be removed from sale. In happier news, though, there’s been a bit more info about Macca’s impending wedding to Nancy Shevell. It looks like Macca’s brother Mike (once of the Scaffold and a friend of AAA member Graham Nash to boot) will be ‘best man’ for a third time, just as he was back in 1969 when Paul married Linda Eastman!  

♫ Oasis News: Back when I was 12, I despaired of hearing anything remotely half-decent in modern music. Little did I know that two bands were going to come along who were every bit as important in my collection as all the great bands of the 1960s and unbelievably they both came along in 1994: Belle and Sebastian and Oasis (though it took me a few years to find out about the latter I must admit!) There were two things that made me think that Oasis were going to be big before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon: hearing a tuneless cover of ‘Live Forever’ by a school band and thinking it was so timeless that it surely must have been around before 1994 and hearing the last two parts of the Radio One documentary ‘What’s The Story?’, broadcast to co-incide with the release of second album ‘Morning Glory’ (which even then was seen as something of a semi-big event). All the stories we talk about today concerning Oasis were mostly learnt from that documentary – and for years I’ve been dying to hear what the first two parts sounded like. Well now, thanks to the increasingly impressive BBC6 schedule, I can – all four parts are being broadcast in the 12midnight shift starting this Tuesday, June 28th at 00:00 and running until Friday, July 1^st. Hurrah! 

♫ Simon and Garfunkel News: Just as I was beginning to despair of hearing anything about it at all, the publicity department for Paul Simon’s latest album ‘So Beautiful, Or So What?’ seems to have gone into hyper-drive this month. There’s lots of reviews in lots of publications but the best is probably a lengthy and revealing interview published in the Telegraph which is the most revealing yet about the ups and downs of Simon and Garfunkel’s idea (Simon says that he hates the idea that he or Arty might die when the duo are having one of their ‘funny turns’ and that the other will never get over their disagreement). Paul’s album, released in April in America for some reason but only this week in most of Europe, was also promoted with a Johnnie Walker radio interview ‘You Can Call Me Paul’, broadcast on Radio 2 while we were ‘off the air’. For those who missed it (me included, actually, thanks to a dodgy timer) it’s being repeated on BBC6 this coming Monday, June 27^th at 3am. Oh and we also pass our condolences to Art Garfunkel whose just revealed that he is suffering from major problems with his throat and will be out of action for some time to come – get better soon Art!

ANNIVERSARIES: it’s that birthday feeling once again for those AAA members born between June 26^th and July 2^nd: John Illsey (bassist with Dire Straits 1983-93) who turns 62 on June 26^th, Bruce Johnston (keyboardist and bassist with The Beach Boys 1965-71 and 1979-present) who turns 67 on June 27^th and Adrian Wright (synthesiser with The Human League 1981-86) who turns 55 on June 30^th. Anniversaries of events include: Arguably the most successful EP of all time – The Beatles’ ‘Twist And Shout’ made up of songs from 1^st album ‘Please Please Me’ – is released (June 26^th 1963); The Rolling Stones score their first of many UK #1s with ‘It’s All Over Now’ (June 26^th 1964); The Stones are also busy the next day, June 25^th 1964, filling up the whole panel of Juke Box Jury – the TV company receives several complaints for their ‘monosyllabic’ responses (just as well they never saw Big Brother in the 1960s!); The Denver Pop Festival – a largely forgotten precursor to Woodstock – takes place on June 27^th 1969 featuring CSNY; The Fillmore East – home to the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane among others – closes its doors on June 27^th 1971; four rather special #1s on June 28^th in various years – CSN’s 1^st eponymous record is #1 in America in 1969, Wings are at #1 with their ‘Venus and Mars’ record in 1976, 10cc are at #1 in the singles chart in 1975 with ‘I’m Not In Love’ and Paul McCartney is #1 with ‘Coming Up’ in 1980; the first ever Lennon/McCartney song to enter the US charts peaks at #77: Del Shannon’s cover of ‘From Me To You’ (June 29^th 1963); Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are in Brixton Prison on drug possession charges and are facing three months and a year respectively (June 29^th 1967); The first Hyde Park concert takes place starring Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull (June 29^th 1968); The Beatles record ‘She Loves You’ (July 1^st 1963); three years later on that date The Beatles play a memorable set in Tokyo’s Budokan – now re-created for the middle of the ‘Beatles Rock Band’ game (July 1^st 1966) and finally, John and Yoko’s first joint project – an art exhibition – takes place in London (July 1^st 1968).