Monday 12 November 2012

News, Views and Music Issue 170 (Intro)


November 14th:

Phew. That was a worry there for a while wasn’t it? But common sense prevailed and Obama won his second term in office, with a slightly strengthened senate which should give him a good chance at putting right the problems caused by the Bush years. Not that I hated Mitt Romney the way I have other Republican candidates and I actually felt quite sorry for him when things first appeared to be working out against him – it’s just that when David Cameron goes out of his way to announce who he’d like to work with six months before an election then you know that candidates in trouble! Would that the UK could have as fair and democratic an election, but no – we end up with a coalition that isn’t working together, put themselves back into power four whole years longer than our constitution allowed (till they changed the law) and despite being unelected (ie they were the greatest losers) they still keep pushing forward principles that weren’t in their election speeches that do the greatest harm. I’m so pleased that one Western country at least now has civilisation at its core again – I really did fear what irreparable damage Cameron and Romney might have done together.

As for our site, we’ve had loads of hits this week – especially in Ireland I notice, so top of the morning to you! – and have now reached the grand figure of 32,200. Not bad eh???

As ever we point you in the direction of our newspaper style site for this week’s news reviews:
http://paper.li/f-1347835090


ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday greetings our AAA brethren if you’re born between November 14th and 20th and your name is Gene Clark (Mr Tambourine Man with the Byrds 1965-66) would have been 71 on November 17th and Rod Clements (bassist with Lindisfarne 1970-72 and 1978-2002) who turns 65 on the same day (November 17th). Anniversaries of events include: The Rolling Stones make their US TV debut, singing ‘Get Off My Cloud’ on the ‘Hullabaloo’ show (November 15th 1965); Janis Joplin is arrested for using ‘vulgar’ language onstage during a gig in Tampa, Florida – the charges are later dropped; Dire Straits’ ‘Brothers In Arms’ breaks the then-record sales for Great Britain – three million sales – just two years after release (November 15th 1987); Small Face Ronnie Lane releases his first and most successful solo single ‘How Come?’ (November 16th 1973); The Beatles receive their first ‘silver’ disc – for high sales of only their second single ‘Please Please Me’ (November 18th 1963); Danny Whitten, guitarist with the first line-up of Crazy Horse, overdoses on drugs bought with the travel money band leader Neil Young has given him to fly back home, inspiring Neil’s ‘doom trilogy’ (November 18th 1972); The Rolling Stones enjoy their first UK #1 with ‘Little Red Rooster’ (November 19th 1964); Ray Davies interrupts a Kinks American tour for the second time to re-record a single line in one of the band’s singles to prevent it being banned from the airwaves (the ‘foggin’ line in ‘Apeman’, following a ban on the brand-name ‘coca-cola’ in ‘Lola’; November 19th 1970) and finally, Scott Haldin, a 19-year-old Who fan learning to play the drums, gets the shock of his life when Keith Moon collapses at a gig full of animal tranquilisers and the band sheepishly ask for any drummers in the audience to fill in for him – only Scott responds (November 20th 1973).

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