News, Views and Music Issue 156 (Intro)

August 10: Dear friends, you may have noticed our last issue on www.alansalbumarcvhives.blogspot.co.uk doesn’t look quite right. Presumably this one won’t either but we’re not quite sure why – apparently we can only post in ‘html’ format that takes all the colour and font differences away, making it rather a hard Dear friends, you may have noticed our last issue on www.alansalbumarcvhives.blogspot.co.uk doesn’t look quite right. Presumably this one won’t either but we’re not quite sure why – apparently we can only post in ‘html’ format that takes all the colour and font differences away, making it rather a slog to read. Sorry about this – if we can ever work out what’s wrong we can re-post everything but in the meantime you can always read exactly the same posts via our ‘old’ site at www.alansalbumarchives.moonfruit.com Perhaps we’ve just written so much that we’ve crashed another site! In other news – if you didn’t get to see either the BBC ‘Panorama’ programme or the Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ special about the horrors of the benefits system then, please, look out for them on Youtube or Iplayer now. Both programmes try their best to be neutral but the sheer scale of the ineptitude and downright evilness of the Coalition and ATOS creators needs to be seen to be believed and has been creating quite a stir amongst the UK national papers, despite both programmes being hidden away in the beginning of a week of Olympics. Everyone everywhere has been saying ‘shame on you ATOS’ and both documentaries laughably expose the Government’s claims that there are no targets for ATOS to reach as an outright lie thanks to undercover filming. The fact that the only Government minister they could find to speak out in defence was Chrius Grayling speaks volumes – this bastard, who claimed that doctors ‘should look beyond the first appearance’ and force thousands back to work claimed £10,000 last month of taxpayer’s money to have his house re-decorated. You’d think after such a growing scandal the Coalition would back off, but no – professor Harrington, hired to come up with an independent inquiry into the ATOS benefits system has basically just been sacked. Oh and which two companies do you think have just been hired to control the PIP benefits system due in 2014 which will be even more ridiculously over-bearing than the current one? ATOS again and G4S, the very same company who couldn’t be arsed to turn up to do the security at the Olympic games and got a stiff telling off from the nation. How absurd, how stupid, how very Coalition. Pass the news on if you can – we need to get them out before even more harm is done. As if that wasn’t enough we pass our sympathies on to our brave brethren who took the Government to court rather than face months of unpaid slave labour on a workfare scheme. Corectly arguing that as a graduate with high grades there was nothing she could gain from working shifts at Poundland, she had been arguing that the decision was a breach of her human rights – sadly her case was thrown out of court. Let’s hope all that publicity got her a decent job offer and that next time around the judges will realise how poor the empoloyment market is at the moment and how making people work for nothing is not good for businesses or employees. End of rant (till next week!) There’s not much other news for you this week. Our site hits seem to have slowed down a tad recently, although we’ve still rocketed past 22,000 hits total for both sites. Anyway, it’s on with the news... ♫ CSN News: There’s a fascinating Graham Nash interview just posted at the excellent CSNY fansite 4 Way Site (link here: http://4waysite.com/news_rumors/2012.htm) The most interesting concrete news is that the Stills box set is due out in October (it will be like the Crosby and Nash solo sets already out). The most interesting emotional news is how hurt Stills was when Neil Young cancelled the planned Buffalo Springfield gigs and how Crosby and Nash rallied round, cancelling their own tours to go out on the road as CSN to make up for the loss of money (and loss of face). In case you think that’s a bit too pally for CSN then Nash goes on to talk about how angry he was 33 years ago to the day when Stills’ solo set over-ran by three songs (in his attempts to impress Bob Dylan sitting in the audience). Dead fans might be interested to hear about Nash sharing a studio with Jerry Garcia while working on his ‘Songs For Beginners’ album and getting him to play pedal steel for the first time on ‘Teach Your Children’ and Airplane fans might be surprised to learn about Nash getting the hots for a visiting Grace Slick in a metallic dress! ♫ Monkees News: ITV documentary ‘We Love The Monkees’ was surprisingly good given that it’s a record 4th time a documentary has attempted to tell the Monkees’ tale in an hour. Both Micky and Peter took part, offering up some new nuggets about the band’s early and later days and there was some fantastic unseen footage of Davy returning home to Manchester and looking round his old neighbourhood in the early 70s. Perhaps the greatest thing, though, was that Davy’s family talked to us for the first time, offering their insights into the pop star as an ordinary man at home rather than the celebrity he was on stage. I would have liked more details about The Monkees’ revolt on ‘Headquarters’ and their next two records which all passed by in a bit of a blur, but at least this documentary spoke to more of those who mattered than normal, with third album producer Chip Douglas, engineer Hank Cicalo and even some of the episode writers giving their first interviews for quite a long time. It’s a shame there wasn’t a new interview with Mike Nesmith, though, or that the producers failed to use his comments in archive footage, the way they got round the hole that was usually filled by Davy’s comments. ♫ The Who News: The Telegraph have this week published perhaps the most controversial music-related letter since the Beatles took over the Times to campaign for the legalisation of marijuana in 1967. Pete Townshend is among several dozen British musical stars protesting against the unfair arrest of the Russian girl band Pussy Riot (who were thrown into prison for calling on the Virgin Mary to ‘arrest president Putin’ live on stage). Putin is visiting London for the Olympics the day the paper is released and the stars hope that the Russian President will listen to their pleas and give the girl band a fair trial. The wording reads: "Dissent is a right in any democracy and it is entirely disproportionate that they face seven years in jail for what we consider a preposterous charge of 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred'. We are especially concerned about recent reports that food is being withheld from them and that they have appeared in court in a cage. We believe firmly that it is the role of the artist to make legitimate political protest and fight for freedom of speech.” More news if and when we hear it. ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday bashes are happening at the houses of AAA members born between August 8th and 14th: Mark Knopfler (guitarist, singer and pretty much everything with the Dire Straits 1979-93) who turns 63 on August 12th and David Crosby (singer and guitarist with The Byrds 1965-68 and with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young various dates between 1969 and present) who turns 71 on August 14th. Anniversaries of events include: August 8th 1964 saw the release of perhaps the greatest AAA spin-off single of all time: ‘Ringo For President’ by the Young World Singers’. ‘It would be nice but I don’t have the time right now’ quipped Ringo when asked it!; Ready! Steady! Go! for perennial TV favourite Ready! Steady! Go! which premieres on August 9th 1963 and runs for three years and four months; the infamous Charlie Manson murders take place in Laurel Canyon, relevant to this site as Manson is a close friend of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, quotes various songs from The Beatles’ White Album at the crime scenes and causes several AAA members living in California’s Laurel Canyon to emigrate elsewhere (August 9th 1969); Paul McCartney is arrested on his first ever drugs charge, several years after John and George, although conversations later suggest he actually carried the rap for wife Linda who is pregnant with daughter Stella at the time. Ironically, this drug conviction means Macca is not allowed to visit the States for any length of time and Lennon’s drug conviction means he can’t leave there – this is pretty much the only thing stopping a Beatles reunion at this point in time (August 10th 1972); the first of the annual Richmond Jazz Festivals takes place on August 11th 1963, with those well known jazz musos The, umm, Rolling Stones headlining; The Beatles announce the formation of Apple Records barely a week after first mentioning their plans for their new company – the first release is the band’s ‘Hey Jude’ (August 11th 1968); A tearful John Lennon gets as close to an apology as middle America will ever get over his ‘Beatles bigger than Jesus’ remarks (August 12th 1966); The now sadly forgotten ‘Festival Of Hope’ takes place, the first to be designed from the outset to raise money for charity (that decision came late in the day at Woodstock). Headlining are AAA men Jefferson Airplane (one of their last gigs) and Stephen Stills, but despite the talent on offer the festival ends up making a loss (August 12th 1972); The Kinks’ first charting entry ‘You Really Got Me’ is released this week (August 13th 1964) and finally, Jefferson Airplane make their debut performance at San Francisco’s Matrix Club, a venue that just happens to be owned by vocalist Marty Balin (August 13th 1965).

News, Views and Music Issue 145 (Intro)

May 26^th:

Dear friends – get this for how out of touch our beloved Prime Minister is. David Cameron used a speech last week to praise the modern UK record industry for their innovation and inspiration. He’s clearly talking out of his top hat again because even modern music fans agree that the current music scene in B retain is stagnant and repetitive. Cameron clearly offered the praise because the record industry grew infinitesimally in 2011 according to new figures – what the Camermoron forgot to check was that a) that growth was all because of Adele’s ‘21’ record (the biggest seller in Britain since last week’s review album ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ and b) the UK had its worse year by some margin in 2010 and things really could only have got better. This raises a whole debate of course – is an industry successful simply because it makes money or is it something bigger? After all, the Spice Girls were prime leaders in the huge record sales in Britain in the mid 90s, even outselling Oasis, and yet not even their biggest fans would claim the Old Spices had any claim to music making talent. What we dearly need is a new sound from a new band with a new direction, one that’s able to write about a pretty grim time in our history without shirking away from it or simply offering ‘escapism’ (though there’s a place for that too). Talking of ‘Dark Side’, when put on the spot Cameron named this as his ‘favourite album’ and yet when asked to comment about his favourite tracks went ‘umm err umm’ and went on to the next question (is it just me or is the UK’s most famous and best known albums simply a safe option?) Assuming for the moment that Cameron wasn’t lying (erm, it wouldn’t be the first time) let’s hope Cameron digs out his old album and listens to the track ‘Us and Them’ next time he wants to criticise disenfranchised youth who’ve been left with nothing (‘With, without...and after all, isn’t that what the fighting’s all about?’) As I’m writing this news is breaking that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt really has been a naughty boy re donations from media moguls and yet still Cameron is sticking by him (I have no evidence whatsoever to support this but doesn’t that seem a bit, well, strange to you? Is there another bigger scandal Cameron doesn’t want getting out?!...)

In other news, I’ve just heard our Eurovision entry for this year – and we’re going to get hammered. I’m all in favour of the complaints of the British press that our last few entries have been trying too hard to go for the youth vote – but surely getting in the 75-year-old crooner Englebert Humperdinck in to sing is going too far the other way? AAA fans know him best as the man who stopped The Beatles getting a record breaking 20-odd run of unbroken #1 singles, but the real reason to hate him is his music (‘Release Me’ and ‘The Last Waltz’ are two of the worst – certainly the slowest – songs to come out of the 60s. The fact that the former song is the best selling song from the whole of 1967 is a depressing statistic that I’ve pondered on many a time). Bring back Frances Rufelle or Lulu, that’s what I say...

Alas other breaking news is that Bee Gee Robin Gibb has died at the age of 62, shortly after being released home from hospital, leaving Barry as the only surviving Gibb brother (4^th son Andy often gets forgotten but not by me – or anyone else who knows of his sterling work on Stephen Stills’ under-rated ‘Thoroughfare Gap’ album). Robin was a true pioneer who never got the credit he deserved, either for his amazing voice or his ability to write heartbreaking timeless songs that voices what so many people are thinking. He will be truly missed and there might well be a Bee Gees top five coming your way sometime soon...

In the meantime, it’s on with the news...

                                      

♫ CSN News: There’s yet another new CSN-related DVD out, this time featuring all three of the trio (we reviewed last year’s Crosby-Nash In Concert’ in last issue’s top five). There still isn’t a title for the set yet and not much news but we do know that it’s been recorded on the band’s current (ie 2012) tour and will feature at least three news songs (in addition, perhaps, to the two that appeared on the C-N DVD). The trio still don’t have a record contract so it’s frustrating to hear so many songs of such quality thrown away amongst ‘hits’ set like these – please, somebody reading this, CSN are too important and too good to have to reduce their talent this way, hire them now!!! By the way, the set also comes with a double CD of the audio soundtrack and new interviews with David, Stephen and Graham. More news if and when!

♫ Pentangle News: Following on from the recent flurry of Bert Jansch BBC sessions, BBC6 are now repeating a set by his Pentangle colleague John Renbourn. The show will be part of the ‘Live Music Hour’ slot on Thursday, May 24^th at 3am and was originally recorded at the Paris Theatre in London in 1980.

♫ Pink Floyd News: Dear readers, you may have heard me point to some sort of strange synergy before on this site that leads documentary makers to start or broadcast projects mere weeks after I’ve reviewed an album at random. Well, despite the fact that the re-issue came out nearly a year ago BBC4 are only now showing their documentary behind the making of Pink Floyd album ‘Wish You Were Here’ (one of the three box sets we reviewed last week!) The programme will be shown at 8pm on Friday, May 25^th and again at 1am that night and will be followed by a repeat of the excellent ‘Floyd Miscellany’ collection of music videos compiled to celebrate the re-release of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ last Easter.

♫ Otis Redding News: We’re sad to report the news that Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, the bassist with Booker T and the M Gs has died at the age of 70. The bassist – who played on all of Otis’ six records and backed him in concert – also played with AAA star Neil Young when the MGs backed him in concert in the 1990s. Dunn had been ill health for some time but his death in his sleep from unknown causes was unexpected (he played a gig in Tokyo just hours before his death). A cancer scare led to the cancellation of a planned collaboration with Young, although bootlegs of the concerts still exist and may well be issued in the future as part of the ‘Young Archives’ series. It’s for his work with the STAX label, though, and especially his recordings with Otis than the bassist will be forever remembered. His death is a sad loss to music lovers all over the world. More news if and when we hear it.

♫ Rolling Stones News: The event in Stones history nicknamed ‘World War 3’ by fans only ever had an uneasy truce, with Mick and Keef’s arguments over solo records versus commitment to the band still festering today if interviews and autobiographies are to be believed. Fan hopes were high that the Stones might still patch up their differences for a conciliatory tour in this, their 50^th anniversary year, but alas the omens don’t look good. Mick Jagger’s been promoting his recent flop ‘supergroup’ with Bob Marley’s son and the Eurhythmic’s Dave Stewart a lot recently and booked an appearance on the acerbic American skit show ‘Saturday Night Live’. The Stones often appeared on the show as both guests and hosts in the 1970s and 80s and hopes were high that this might be the case again when Keef revealed he wanted to appear alongside his old partner. Alas, his appearance has been axed and Mick will be going solo – a fact that might well have repercussions for some time to come. More news if and when we hear it...

♫ The Who News: Finally, another BBC6 repeat which was on last Saturday, May 19^th) in the Live Music Hour slot (and still available on I-player). It lasted for all of nine minutes but what we had was amazing: four songs from The Who at the very beginnings of their career and playing songs like ‘Good Lovin’ (which they never played on record – the Grateful Dead also did this one) and ‘Just You and Me’ (unreleased till the 1990s) plus the rather more obvious ‘Anyway Anyhow Anywhere’ and ‘Leaving Here’. Well worth a listen.

ANNIVERSARIES: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear AAA members born between May 23^rd and 29^th (Pete Sears (bassist/keyboardist with the Jefferson Starship/Starship 1973-86) who turns 64 on May 27^th; Papa John Creach (violinist with Jefferson Airplane/Starship 1970-75) would have been 95 on May 28^th and Ray Laidlaw (drummer with Lindisfarne 1970-72 and 1978-2002, plus drummer with Jack The Lad 1973-78) turns 64 on May 28^th), happy birthday to you. Happy 30^th birthday also to Rob Jones, Who Stones and Small Faces collector and all round top guy. Anniversaries of events include: The Beach Boys release their ‘response’ to Beatlemania with ‘I Get Around’ (May 23^rd 1964); Another legendary release – The Who’s double album ‘Tommy’ turns 41 on May 23^rd; The Beatles’ posthumous album Let It Be’ sets a then-record amount for pre-order sales (3.7 million – May 23^rd 1970); the Grateful Dead play their first ever date in the UK in Newcastle some five years after their debut despite their cult following in Britain (May 23^rd 1970); Jefferson Starship find that their planned free concert in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park – a venue they made their own 10 years before – has now been outlawed after authorities ban the use of electronic instruments at outdoor events. The ban inspires the #1 Starship hit ‘We Built This City’ some eight years later (May 23^rd 1977);  milestone ‘comeback’ single ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash restores the Rolling Stones to the top of the charts for the first time in three years (May 24^th 1968); Simon and Garfunkel become the first artist since The Beatles to replace themselves at the top of the album charts when ‘Bookends’ replaces ‘The Graduate Soundtrack’ (May 25^th 1968); The Who perform a secret gig to a handful of fans to end the rockumentary film ‘The Kids Are Alright’  - it will be the last time Keith Moon plays with the band (May 25^th 1978), John and Yoko begin their second bed-in at a hotel in Montreal (May 26^th 1970), Ronnie Lane becomes the first member to leave The Faces to form his own band ‘Slim Chance’ (May 28^th 1973) and finally, Roger McGuinn plays his first solo gig after the break-up of The Byrds (May 29^th 1973).

News, Views and Music Issue 123 (Intro)

November 25^th:

Well, that was an interesting week. I’ve never felt as ‘ahead’ of myself as I have with last week’s newsletter (which seemed to arrive out of nowhere before I’d quite planned to write it!) and after filling in a load of heavy benefit forms was looking forward to some much-delayed rest and recuperation for my chronic fatigue and a chance to gte cracking on the next one. Only - no – two days after sending in my forms (three weeks early) I’ve already been given the date for a medical (‘because we need more information’ - oh the irony of that sentence after writing 14,000 words on my illness, longer than some novels!) and its not easy preparing for it given all the ways they try to ‘trip you up’ and make assumptions you don’[t get a chance to correct. To boot, I’ve also had two unexpected additional forms to fill in all in the same space of time and asking for virtually the same information and including a long list of hideous consequences if I don’t get it back to them ‘in a few days’ – why can’t these departments talk to each other?! And why should I bust my poorly body pushing it past its limits because they can’t be arsed to do their job? Surely its easier for them to log onto one computer in the same building than it is for poorly me to look up all this info again and write it? And why should it be any of their business if  - as on one question - I’ve been abroad or not since starting my claim – luckily I haven’t, but why should they care?I’d have thought ill people were more likely to need holidays than anyone else and are more likely to be looked after if travelling with people who have time off work to look after them. Thank goodness I’m used to writing long realms of information (see below and every other issue on this website!) otherwise I’d go mad. Perhaps I am already? What would anyone in power actually care about what their forms do to me?

Just to add to my grievances I also temporarily lost my password to my nice new site at Windows Live (where all these articles are stored) and couldn’t get them to send me a new one - thankfully I got it sorted (by adding another account and sending myself a ‘friend request’ under the old system which took an age to be accepted which was quite funny – honestly, if you can’t be friends with yourself, who can you be friends with?!).

Now that I’ve got most things cleared I feel too fired up to rest, like everyone who knows anything about this illness tell me I should be doing, so here’s another newsletter earlier than anticipated in the hope that next week might be calmer. I mkight well be delayed writing the next one, so please bear with me and rest assured I will be back writing some time, even if its not for a few weeks. In the meantime, I’m glad to hear from some of you that you’re enjoying both my own composed music (even if it is a decade old now – oh hang on, that still makes it quite modern for this site, ahem!) and posting your top album links on ‘Best Ever Albums’ (please keep emailing your posts to me at pattin82@yahoo.co.uk or adding your links to our forum, even if they’re nothing like the reviews we post I always find my readers’ thoughts fascinating!) Perhaps one day, if I get enough entries, I’ll give you a top five all of your own! We’ve also hit 11,000 views earlier than expected too – this looked like it was going to be a good week till I got that phone-call and all hell broke loose...

                                                     

♫ Beatles News: Macca’s honeymoon has taken him to Abu Dhabi, where Macca performed a free concert on the Sunday and attended his first ever formula one grand prix on the Saturday! An emotional Macca spoke to the BBC f1 team about how it felt really strange to be in a grand prix on (give or take a week) the tenth anniversary of George Harrison’s death, enjoying for the first time something his friend and colleague had enjoyed all his life. Former team boss Eddie Jordan added a rare anecdote about George attending the grand prix in disguise as a mechanic during Damon Hill’s two years at the team (for those who don’t know, George funded Damon’s career at a time when dad Graham’s death in an microlight accident held the family up in litigation for years and they had no money coming in – George paid for Damon to get into f1 on the basis that he never revealed who his mystery benefactor was till after his death, something an emotional Damon did in 2002).  

In other Macca news, there’s a new DVD out to mark the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 concerts he helped organised. The documentary, titled ‘The Love We Make’ after a line from the Beatles’ Abbey Road medley, will be released on November 28^th and features clips from the show as well as unseen backstage footage.

In other Beatles news –what’s all this about yet another Lennon documentary, released in October, titled ‘Lennon NYC’? I haven’t read a thing about it anywhere (the music mags are all full of George this month so it seems a strange time to put it out) but I presume its a belated release for the TV version of a similar name that was on earlier in the year. This DVD looks at Lennon’s life 1972-1980, when he first moved to America in the wake of the ‘Imagine’ album and takes in the green card scandal, Lennon’s house-husband phase and his sudden death. The audio soundtrack features rare outtakes, some of which have been heard officially but some only on bootlegs and features interviews with a better class of subject than most similar docs. Alas there are no extras on the DVD, although if you haven’t seen it the 90 minute playing time is pretty generous. 

Finally, look out for a repeat of Michael Palin’s sensitive tribute to George Harrison, ‘What Is Life?’ (which dates back to 2003 or so) which is repeated on BBC6 on Tuesday, November 29^th at 3am (as part of the ‘documentary’ slot). It’s not up to the new George Harrison film (well, the second part at least) but covers a lot of ground well within the hour playing time and Palin makes for a good mix of good friend and dispassionate observer.

♫ CSN News: Word has it that Graham Nash is busy working on the long awaited third installment of his CSN box sets dedicated to his longtime partner Stephen Stills. Despite the hefty prices both the David Crosby set ‘Voyage’ and Nash’s own set ‘Reflections’ (see news and views no 22) were superb, full of unreleased gems from the vaults, stunning booklets full of photos and backgrounds to each and every song and a pretty fair pick of recordings. Let’s hope the Stills set is just as fine – it certainly sounds that way as Nash has admitted he has so much more material to cover than in the other two sets, especially given Stills’ reputation for abandoning tracks and sometimes whole albums unfinished. The set, as yet untitled, is tentatively due for early next year (two years on from the Nash set) but seeing as we’ve already had so many CSN projects postponed or cancelled in the past two years anything could happen (and knowing CSN probably will...)

♫ Hollies News: At last my copy of the new Hollies documentary ‘Look Through Any Window’ has arrived – the first real documentary the Hollies have ever been given outside Germany. And generally speaking its fabulous, even if it doesn’t quite match up to Reelin’ In The Years’ earlier Small Faces set (still one of the best DVDs in my collection). New interviews with Clarke, Hicks, Eliott and an especially chatty Nash are interspersed with some fabulously rare footage and there are some tales to tell we haven’t heard before (eg Jennifer Clarke and Rose Nash nee’ Eccles didn’t just inspire Jennifer Eccles, they helped write it; Bobby Elliott came up with the double-time ending of ‘I’m Alive’, etc). We’ve mentioned some of the vintage performances on our recent ‘Youtube’ top 60, little knowing these clips were about to get their first official releases but its fantastic to see properly: ‘Little Lover’ where the band look about 12 and a lot of middle-aged shoppers look down on the band disdainfully while they play; an especially rocking ‘Rockin’ Robin’ from a 1964 NME pollwinners concert that knocks spots off The Hollies’ studio version; a fascinating promo for ‘King Midas’ where Nash writes on a tree and the band stage a swordfight using flowers (well, it was 1967!), a rare promo for ‘Wings’ that I never knew existed and a concert from Yugoslavia right near the end of Nash’s time in the band with the group on cracking witty form. To be fair this DVD is still missing a lot (especially given that we took the liberty of compiling a ‘Hollies’ listing ourserlves way back on news and views 69) such as a classy live reading of ‘Curly Billy’ on a 1972 TOTP, a 1970 mimed TOTP Gasoline Alley Bred, Tony Hicks’ appearance on Blue Peter advertising a new wireless guitar, a Croatia and a BBC concert both from 1969, anything from the two German-only docs we never got to see in the 80s and 90s and, most puzzling of all because I think I read that it was being included, the clip of the band playing ‘Now’s The Time’ in the middle of Willie Rushton film It’s All About Town’ for no apparent reason! What we get is, by and large, just the Hollies hits over and over again and whilst that’s not a bad thing this set could have been perfection with just another hour’s worth of material added (and we know the makers got the rights to some TOTP and BBC clips at least as two are on this release). Still, £11 for two hours worth of previously unreleased or at least rare material is still very very good – let’s hope the ‘British Invasion’ series copies our other four suggestions for DVDs (The Beatles, Stones, Kinks and Who) and I shall be one happy reviewer!

♫ Oasis News: Just as I was dispairing of the inanities on the latest series of ‘Later...With Jools Holland’ along comes Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds to brighten up the last episode, shown on Tuesday, November 22^nd at 10pm and given an ‘extended repeat’ (Its a live programme for goodness sake!) on Friday, November 25^th at 11.50pm, BBC One. To be honest Noel will be lucky to get one song in given the amount of stars stuffed into this show (did Jools expect half of them to cancel?!)

♫ Rolling Stones News: BBC6 have a repeat of last December’s R2 ‘Altamont’ documentary, about the Stones/CSN/Airplane/Dead/Flying Burritos gig that went badly wrong when a) the Airplane’s Marty Balin got beaten up by Hells Angels security men after telling them to ‘cool it’  b) The Dead refused to play and fled the scene in terror and c) infamously that audience member Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death while the Stones played ‘Under My Thumb’. The documentary was fascinating, albeit less interesting than the ‘Gimme Shelter’ film the Stones bravely released in 1971 and given the unfortunate and needlessly provocative title ‘Shedding Hippie Blood’. You can hear it on BBC6 this Friday (November 18^th) at 3am. Another Stones repeat the following week is 2009’s ‘In Exile’, a slightly disappointing doc that came out to publicise the re-issue of ‘Exile On Main Street’ that year. Now that we know the new songs well from the record (and surprisngly good they are too, some better than the album highlights) we really don’t need this doc so badly.   

♫ The Who News: BBC6 are repeating two Keith Moon items this coming week. First up, there’s a repeat for Radio 2’s delightfully titled two-part biography ‘I’m Keith Moon – What’s Your Excuse?’ this Tuesday and Wednesday, November 22^nd and 23^rd at midnight. One of the highlights of that documentary, presented by Phil Daniels (Jimmy from The Who film Quadrophenia) was a rare outing for Keith Moon’s short-lived radio show ‘Life With The Moons’ (which ran for a week in 1976 when John Peel was on holiday). A cross between the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band and Kenny Everett, its a bizarre surreal take on what Keith’s life is really like – and twice as weird as you think even if you know what Keith Moon really was like and try to think really really hard what a bizarre programme would sound like. Parts of it were released on the otherwise disappointing Who box ’30 Years Of Maximum R and B’, but otherwise you never get to hear it – until now, when BBC6 have put together an hour’s compilation for broadcast on Wednesday, November 23^rd at 3am.

ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday parties are in order for this week’s crop of AAA anniversaries (those born between November 29^th and December 5^th): Gilbert O’Sullivan who turns 65 on December 1^st and Chris Hillman (bassist with The Byrds 1965-68) who turns 69 on December 4^th. Anniversaries of events include: Lennon is busted for possession of cannabis on the same day he and Yoko release their experimental LP ‘Two Virgins’ (November 29^th 1968); The Beatles top the NME ‘favourite group’ poll for the first time – with the exception of 1966 when The Beach Boys win it, The Beatles will hold the title right up until their dissolution in 1970 (November 30^th 1963); Wings release their second band single which is, incidentally, their second banned single – the controversial drug taking ode ‘Hi Hi Hi’ (most fans will probably know the B-side ‘C Moon’ better) (November 30^th 1972); John Lennon and Yoko Ono release ‘Happy Xmas’ (War Is Over) on December 1^st 1971, a date so close to Christmas that the single flops badly on first release before becoming a mainstay of the charts in the festive season of 1972; The Monkees score a record that has still to be broken when fourth album ‘Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones’ becomes their fourth non-compilation #1 record of 1967 (December 2^nd); The Moody Blues release the last of their ‘original’ pre-split albums ‘Seventh Sojourn’ (December 2^nd 1972); Members of The Who and associates are jailed overnight for causing $6000 of damage to a hotel in Montreal. John Entwistle is not amused – he slept through all the destruction and has no idea why there are policemen knocking on his door! (December 2^nd 1973); Pink Floyd’s inflatable pig flying over Battersea Power Station (as seen on the front cover of the band’s 1977 LP ‘Animals’) breaks free from its moorings and disrupts airspace for a good few hours, confusing several pilots and getting the band a great deal of free publicity (December 3^rd 1976); Eleven audience members are killed and dozens are hurt during a rush for seats to see The Who in Cincinatti on December 3^rd 1979, an event that contributes to the band’s eventual split in 1982 and finally, The Rolling Stones publicise their new album with a fondly remembered ‘Beggar’s Banquet’ with the world’s music press which degenerates into a food fight! (December 5^th 1968).