February 24th:
Hello again, dear readers! You may have noticed we’ve been missing for a week – don’t worry, we haven’t stopped, we just took a little ‘pause for the cause’ (to quote Stephen Stills) and had a go at getting to grips with our latest April Fool’s Day edition. Yeah, I know, it’s only February – but April looks like being a busy month and the job centre are being even more of a pain than normal. Thankfully it doesn’t affect me – yet – but keep your eyes open to the latest pointless and excruciating measure ‘workfare’, which is forcing those on benefits for even a short time to work back-breaking shifts for no pay, just benefits (Tesco’s is the first company to go all out and advertise a job for no wage whatsoever and, quite rightly, they’re taking a huge amount of flack for it). This includes people who are dying, people who can’t walk, people who can’t talk, people who can’t be held responsible for their actions because of danger to them or others, people like me who don’t know from one hour to the next whether they’re going to feel vaguely human or spend the rest of the night in bed groaning and pleading with the pain to go away. Quite frankly, its slavery and something that only our reckless, underhanded, devious Governments could stoop to – and something that only our reckless, cowardly, misguided media could allow to happen without a big fuss. So be aware of it and fight it where you can – in these days of strange measures and cuts for no good reason, it could happen to any of us any day without warning. We have to put things right where we can. We have to treat our fellow humans humanely or we forfeit the right to be human and turn the corner towards something darker, it’s that simple.
On a happier note, our april fool’s day edition has now been sent in via a timeloop, black hole and a gap in the space-time continuum vortex and we’ll be publishing it soon! Did anyone see the finale of last year’s Dr Who season where all time fell apart and seemed to exist at the same time? Erm, that might have been our fault as well, so if you suddenly end up seeing your long-dead ancestors peering in through your window or your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren call round to have a look at your record collection that might be our fault too. Oops... Back in this time-zone, though, it’s on with the news...
♫ Beatles News: Shock! Horror! There’s a member of Alan’s Album Archives in the UK top 3 album chart (for the first time in more than five years if you discount the various members of Oasis!) Even more amazingly its Paul McCartney, who last scored a top 10 hit in 1997 (with – yuk – ‘Flaming Awful Pie’) and its with an album full of pre-WW2 cover versions! ‘Kisses On The Bottom’ made it all the way to #3, one place higher than Adele whose ’21’ album has been in the charts for over a year now. If you’re quick you can also hear two Macca radio interviews plugging the album, from Jamie Callum’s surprisingly good chat last Tuesday, March 7th on Radio 2 (he’s so much better as a presenter than a musician!) and Front Row last Thursday, March 9th on R4. Even more amazingly there’s another AAA star in the top 3 of the singles chart – read on to find out who!
♫ Kinks/Lulu News: At long last we can finally mention the three-part re-run of classic TOTP clips on Saturday nights because, in the last part, we finally have not one but two AAA stars. Our bet is either ‘You Really Got Me’ from 1964 or ‘Days’ from new year’s eve 1969 for the former and either ‘Shout’ from 1964 or ‘The Boat That I Row’ from 1967 for the latter...STOP PRESS: Due to our week’s delay I did get to see this compilation before publishing and we were right on the Kinks but wrong on the Lulu clip (it was ‘You Really Got Me’ for the former – when Ray Davies’ cold was still really bad – but *shudder* it was ‘Boom-Bang-A-Bang’ from ‘A Song For Europe 1968’ for Lulu. Horrors...By the way, the best clip in the whole series came right at the end of the third part with a recently-returned-to-BBC-archives clip of The Walker Brothers (never have I seen such a long close up on a singer as at the beginning of this clip!)
♫ Rolling Stone News: The other AAA star in the charts this week is Mick Jagger, who is guest on the latest spin-off single by Black Eyed Peas star Will-i-am and had made it all the way up to 3 in the UK singles chart (strangely enough the same number as Macca in the albums chart – a hint of the old rivalry there?!) Amazingly this is the first time since 1985 that Mick has made the top 10 of a singles chart (and that was for ‘Dancing In The Street’ with David Bowie, raising money for LiveAid – the Stones haven’t had a top 10 hit since ‘Start Me Up‘ in 1981!)
BREAKING NEWS: Thursday March 1st sees The Rolling Stones’ ‘Some Girls’ featured as Johnnie Walker’s classic longplayer (see the news story below), alongside some Rod Stewart rubbish.
♫ Paul Simon/Cat Stevens News: Apologies for the delayed mention (caused by our absence last week) but Johnnie Walker has recently started a documentary series studying two albums by different artists each week. ‘JW’s Longplayers’ sounds similar in style to the great and much missed ‘classic album series’ and can be heard each Thursday on Radio 2 in the 11pm slot. Last week (Thursday, February 16th) featured Paul Simon’s ‘’Still Crazy After All These Years’ (alongside some Lou Reed nonsense) whilst this Thursday features Cat Stevens’ ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ (AAA classic album no 41 dontchaknow!) alongside some David Bowie trash.
♫ Small Faces: Breaking news from record label Universal is that they are going to be re-releasing deluxe 2CD versions of all five Small Faces records for Decca and Immediate (that’s ‘Small Faces’ (1965) ‘Small Faces (1967), Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake’ (1968) and the two compilations ‘From The Beginning’ (1967) and ‘The Autumn Stone’ (1968) this May. Amazon have started taking orders already and have revealed the pictures (the sets look very like the Who and Cat Stevens deluxe sets with ‘fold-out double CD covers and a slipcase reading ‘deluxe edition’), but no one has revealed any track listings yet. Candidates for issue include mono/stereo mixes (so far only ‘Ogden’s and a few of the singles have been available on CD in mono), the various alternate mixes included on the hard-to-find Small Faces box set and various low-budget compilations, the alternate ‘Green Circles’ and rare b-side ‘Understanding’ only available on the ‘Tin Soldier’ Steve Marriott anthology, the handful of oddities, backing tracks, live recordings and backing-for-PP-Arnold songs included in the excellent ‘Darlings of Whapping Wharf Laundrette’ compilation. There’s also two tracks available on Youtube but officially unreleased: ‘Get Ready’ and ‘Jump Back’. We’ll keep you updated if we hear anything else!
ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday greetings to this week’s varied bunch of AAA stars, born between February 14th and 20th: Mick Avory (drummer with The Kinks 1964-85) turns 68 on February 15th, Yoko Ono who turns 79 on February 18th and Alan Hull (singer-songwriter with Lindisfarne 1970-74 and 1978-95) who would have been 67 on February 20th. Anniversaries of events include: The Who play a gig at Leeds University that will go on to be one of the most famous live records of all time when released as ‘Live At Leeds’ (February 14th 1970); JohnandYoko begin a week-long stint as guest hosts on the Mike Douglas show, introducing guests including Chuck Berry (February 14th 1972); ‘Meet The Beatles’ – the first American Beatles album made up of singles and tracks from the band’s first two albums – begins a then-record 11 week stint at the top of the charts (February 14th 1964); The Who play the first of their ill-fated ‘Lifehouse’ shows at London’s New Vic Theatre for a film of the project that will never be released (see ‘news and views 81’ for the full story); The Beatles leave the cold winter weather of Britain to fly out to India to study transcendental meditation under the Maharishi (albeit only John, Cynthia, George and Patti fly out on this day, February 16th 1968); The Beatles release their first recordings after an unprecedented six-month gap, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Penny Lane’ (February 17th 1967); Pink Floyd premiere their new live show ‘Eclipse: Songs for Assorted Lunatics’ which, after a few changes, becomes the album ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ (February 17th 1972); The Beach Boys release their last album for four years ‘Holland’ (February 17th 1972); John Lennon releases his last album before his four-year sabbatical, the covers album ‘Rock and Roll’ (February 17th 1975); The Who release their first single (under that name at least) ‘I Can’t Explain’ (February 18th 1965); David Gilmour officially joins Pink Floyd, appearing alongside an ailing Syd Barrett for a few shows before taking over the role completely (February 18th 1968); Lulu marries Bee Gee Maurice Gibb in a Buckinghamshire Church at the age of just 20! (February 18th 1969); Otis Redding releases his best-selling album ‘Otis Blue’ (AAA album no 4, remember!; February 19th 1966); Paul McCartney and Wings have their single ‘Give Ireland Back To The Irish’ banned by the BBC (February 19th 1972) and finally, George Harrison is found guilty of plagiarising The Chiffons’ ‘He’s So Fine’ on ‘My Sweet Lord’ in one of the silliest court cases that has ever been held (February 19th 1976).
And for week two: Amazingly there are no birthdays for AAA musicians born between February 21st and 27th. Instead here are anniversaries of this week’s events: A busy day in 1964 sees ‘breakthrough’ discs by two AAA bands – The Stones’ first top five hit ‘Not Fade Away’ and the Hollies’ first top five hit ‘Just One Look’ (February 21st); The Beatles start filming for their second film ‘Help!’ following a busy month at Abbey Road recording the first side of the soundtrack album (February 22nd 1965); Lennon’s last pre-retirement hit ‘#9 Dream’ charts – at no 9 very neatly – in America (February 22nd 1974); 10cc sign with Mercury Records after two years with Jonathon King’s UK label (February 22nd 1975); Cat Stevens’ first LP is released: named ‘Matthew and Son’ if you live in Britain and ‘Cats and Dogs’ in most of the rest of the world (February 24th 1967); The Byrds fly away for good after a farewell show at New Jersey’s Capital Theatre on February 24th 1973; The Beatles’ first American single is released – no, not Capitol’s record breaking ‘I want To Hold Your Hand’ but the smaller Vee Jay label with an un-charting ‘Please Please Me’ (February 25th 1963 – the band are infamously mis-spelled as ‘The Beattles’ on the label!); A bill proposing to ban all sale of r and b and rock music is rejected in the American House of Representatives. Thank goodness for that – or this website would be talking about the 101 greatest Garden Gnomes or something equally unlikely (February 26th 1954); Pink Floyd’s first ever recording session takes place at Abbey Road – it results in debut single ‘Arnold Layne’ (February 27th 1967); Paul McCartney releases his first solo single ‘Another Day’ February 27th 1971) and finally, the watershed moment in Rolling Stones history takes place – Keith Richards’ drugs bust in Toronto which came close to seeing him spend the rest of the 70s behind bards – takes place on February 27th 1977.
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