News, Views and Music Issue 120 (Intro)

November 4^th:

Dear all, it’s been a bit of a nothing week as I try to recover from the huge workload of the last six weeks – and yes, my body is really feeling it now (Ow! And that’s not a Michael jackson type ‘ow!’ by the way) The only new to report is that our site has now passed 10,500 hits (that’s 200 visitors a week for the past fortnight!) Our Alan’s Album Archive Artists haven’t exactly been busy either after the onslaught of the past month: just one new item for you this week. (STOP PRESS: Blooming heck there’s five of them now, just a few hours after writing that sentence – how did that happen?!) We do, however, have part two of our – so far – well received list of YouTube rarities for you to enjoy. Nothing to say, but it’s OK.

                                                  

♫ Beatles News: Last minute news – the new George Harrison doc ‘Living In The Material World’ will receive its UK TV premiere in two parts, spread across Saturday and Sunday, Thursday 12^th and 13^th. Running marginally shorter than the DVD version, the two programmes are on at 9.45pm and 9pm respectively on BBC2. Currently I’m halfway through the DVD version and its a curious mixture of genuinely insightful interviews and snippets of film clips along with an awful lot of Anthology soundbites. The home footage of the Beatles larking around on holiday are priceless though and the Harrison family have taken the time to do all sorts of things above and beyond the call of duty, such as cleaning up the Hamburg ‘Star Club’ tapes which is a terrific find! I just wish it was longer and rare – although I haven’t seen the ‘solo years’ doc yet so that could all change! The book, by the way, really is wonderful, with lots of George’s pictures of the Beatle years and holidays, although the best pictures for me are the reproductions of George’s schoolbooks, full of doodling for guitar sets ups (including ‘my mate Paul’ on stage!) next to his homework! There are two other Beatle related docs on as well that week: The first doc is on Saturday at 11.20pm and is a repeat of the Timewatch film about Beatlemania, which is scatterbrained and messy but well worth watching for the snatches of rare footage of the mop tops on tour. Meanwhile Sunday at 11.05pm sees a new documentary called ‘The Beatles on Record’, which hopefully isn’t just a repeat of the doc included in the box sets with yet another new name and sets to analyse how The Beatles matured during their eight year recording career.

♫ Nils Lofgren News: By a nice coincidence, which seems to be becoming a common occurrence here at the AAA, five minutes after finishing my Nils Lofgren review I’ve learnt that Nils will be the special guest appearing on the woefully strung-out Radio 2 celebrations for the Old Grey Whistle Test. Quite why they’ve decided to dedicate a series of radio programmes to a TV show and then got the guests who are still alive to re-record music for it is anyone’s guess, but hey I’ll forgive anything to hear Nils on the radio again. Nils’ episode is on this Wednesday, at 10pm on Radio 2.  

♫ Monkees News: The latest (fifth?) in a series of Monkees specials by Rhino handmade has just been announced – and the selection of the unloved ‘Instant Replay’ has caught everyone by surprise (albeit it’s not actually that bad – see news and views 64 for more). There’s actually a lot of prime unreleased or at least rare Monkees from this period to add to this set – but no, Rhino have gone back to their new tactic of giving us ‘alternate mixes’ of stuff we know several times over already (do we really need four versions of ‘Through The Looking Glass?’ To be honest one was pushing it a bit for what I needed!) There is the first official issue of the TV special ’33 and 1/3^rd Revolutions Per Monkees’ special on CD, true, but ‘Naked Permisson’ and the minute-long ‘String For My Kite’ aside, you don’t really want that either (and why no release for the bluesy ‘I’m A Beliver’ duet with Kulie Driscoll or the 20-minute version of ‘Listen To The Band’?!) Also, the box for the new set  makes a big thing out of having Mike Nesmith’s early Nashville sessions – so why not a) add some of the ones that are still in the vaults (about a third as much again compared to what came out at the time and on the three Missing Links sets) and b) put them all together in one place, instead of spreading them across 3 CDs? Rhino Handmade excelled themselves with the ‘Headquarters Sessions’ box set – lovingly annotated, in strict chronological order and full of two and a half CDs of backing tapes, outtakes, studio chat and alternate takes. But ever since then they’ve been scarping the barrel – and Instant Replay was an album that was already scarping pretty near to the bottom of the barrel in 1969. Just like most fans did the first time round in 1969, give this one a miss.

♫ Oasis News: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds are live in concert on Radio 2 this Thursday, November 3^rd at 8pm – for two whole hours I’m pleased to say! This will be Noel’s first full length concert and fans are intrigued as to what Noel will perform to fill up the time (apparently he does some Oasis songs and not just the usual ones either – expect a review next week!) The concert is also being broadcast on the red button various days this week and next week starting with 4am on Friday, November 4^th.

♫ The Who News: A little addition to last week’s Pete Townshend ‘John Peel lecture’ for you: as well as the radio slot on BBC6 at 7pm on Tuesday, October 31^st, Pete will also be on the BBC red button at the same time – and it will be repeated various times across the next few days before the weekend!

ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday greetings to AAA members born between November 8^th and 14^th: Ian Craig Marsh (synthesiser with the Human League 1979-81) who turns 55 on November 11^th and Neil Young who turns 66 on November 12^th. Anniversaries of events include: The Rolling Stones break the record for the most money earned for a single concert (£108,000) after a gig in Los Angeles, beating the previous record: The Beatles at Shea Stadium (November 8^th 1969); The Human League officially split into two – Phil Oakey keeps the band name and gains two cocktail waitress singers whilst synthesiser experts Ian Craig Marsh and Martin Ware form Heaven 17 (November 8^th 1980); David Crosby officially leaves The Byrds, to be replaced for a matter of weeks by his old colleague Gene Clark and leaving Crosby free to form CSN (November 9^th 1967); The Moody Blues release their seminal single ‘Nights In White Satin’ (November 10^th 1967); The Human League make their live debut in their hometown of Sheffield (November 12^th 1980); The Moody Blues release their ‘other’ big seller ‘Go Now’ (November 13^th 1964); Brian Jones buys the House at Pooh Corners, aka AA Milne’s house Catchford Farm in Sussex where the guitarist will later drown (November 13^th 1967); The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film premieres in America (November 13^th 1968) and finally, Cat Stevens releases his landmark album ‘Teaser and the Firecat’ and Pink Floyd release their landmark album ‘Meddle’ on the same day (November 13^th 1971).

News, Views and Music Issue 51 (Intro)

January 8:

♫ Welcome back, dear reader, to the most monkeynuts musical newsletter this side of...a spin-off series. We hope you had a good xmas with a music-filled stocking and some reading glasses to cope with the strange fonts our computer has decided to give us this year. Sadly it’s becoming clear that with continued CFS troubles in this new year I won’t be able to keep up with all the demands that writing a weekly newsletter entails so I may have put issues back to being fortnightly from now on. Fear not, dear reader, you will still be getting oodles of information for your money every issue (especially given that each issue is free) and all your favourite sections will be still be present as ever (I dare say some of your least favourite sections will still be present as well). So what treasures will 2010 and the new decade have for us? We wait agog with anticipation to find out – but in the meantime this issue and the next will be clearing up a few pointers about the releases that came out at the tail end of 2009. And for that promised alien contact from clandusprods promised in our april 1^st edition last year. Just in case any of you are reading these issues in order of year then let me remind you all that we want to see your ideas on these pages – so drop us a line or comment about what albums you want us to review ( no spice girls requests or anything too modern, please) or email us a review of your own (to pattin82@yahoo.co.uk). And hello to all of you who’ve been joining us over the xmas period – I see our visitor count has jumped up an impressive 115 since the last issue and now rests at 550 so welcome to all of you who have joined us.

                                                             

♫ Nils Lofgren News: The 4^th, last and rarest ‘Grin’ album, ‘Gone Crazy’, is to receive a CD release at last! Scuppered by poor sales on its release, which saw record company A and M ditching the band in favour of recording Lofgren as a solo artist, it remains the hardest to find of all four albums and only one track – ‘You’re The Weight’ – made it to the CD compilation of the four Grin albums. More news if and when. Unusually Nils cropped up for a second time during the xmas hiatus since the last newsletter, appearing no less than twice in BBC 4’s six-part ‘Guitar heroes’ documentary. Both ‘Keith Don’t Go’ (episode 2) and ‘Back It Up’ (episode 6), both taken from an otherwise unavailable 1974 appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Sadly this series was otherwise a lost opportunity with only the usual suspects (The Who doing ‘Long Live Rock’ and the 1111111^th showing of the TOTP version of Won’t Get Fooled Again; The Rolling Stones doing ‘Brown Sugar’ but surprisingly no Neil Young, Beatles, Hollies or Grateful Dead (guitar heroes in all four, surely). We did get two rare Dire Straits tracks at least: a riveting Sultans Of Swing from 1979 and a rather less sparky version of Tunnel Of Love from 1981. 

♫ Neil Young News: Just when my band balance was beginning to recover slightly comes the 4^th release from the Neil Young Archives. ‘Dreamin’ Man’ is a live recording of the complete ‘Harvest Moon’ album in 1992 and apparently includes a 20-minute version of the already epic and majestic ‘Natural Beauty’ that adds a great deal to our appreciation of the album. Unlike the other archive releases, however, this a snapshot of how an album was re-created live rather than sampling a Neil Young concert at a particular time and is also the most modern of all four releases. The cover is also blooming awful – the original of ‘Harvest Moon’ was quietly enticing like the album itself, but ‘Dreamin’ Man features a garish silhouette in, erm, pink (hence the guest colour we’ve been using this issue just to see what all the fuss is all about). Who on earth is designing these Neil Young Archive covers? The Spice Girls?!?

                                      

♫ ANNIVERSARIES: Happy birthday bonanzas to the following AAA musicians (December 26^th-January 1^st): No less than 2 Moody Blueses have birthdays this week – keyboardist Mike Pinder turns 67 on December 27^th and flautist Ray Thomas turns 67 on December 29^th; There’s also two Monkees born on the same day – December 30^th – three years apart (guitarist Mike Nesmith turns 67 and singer Davy Jones turns 64); and finally, happy birthday to Pete Quaife (bassist with The Kinks 1964-68) who turns 66 on December 31^st. Anniversaries of events include: Capitol Records – the American arm of EMI – finally agrees to release a Beatles single in the US after passing up the first four to smaller subsidiary labels (‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, which will be #1 in the States by the end of January); The Beatles’ TV Special ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ is screened for the first time (December 26 1967); The Beatles also played their infamous ‘coming home’ gig at the Cavern in 1960, the show that arguably became the turning point in their career after months honing their craft in Hamburg (December 27^th); Beach Boy Dennis Wilson dies at the age of just 39 after drowning in the sea surrounding his moored boat – according to eye-witnesses he was looking for possessions thrown overboard in a rage years before (December 28^th 1983); The Beach Boys finally drop their original name ‘The Pendletones’ for a New Year’s Eve gig – originally named after a brand of surfing shirt, they adopt their new name after  their first single ‘Surfin’ is mistakenly pressed with that name (1961); It’s the end of an era for music collectors everywhere – Paul McCartney officially files a suit to dissolve The Beatles on December 31^st 1970; Meanwhile it’s the start of an era when, on January 1^st 1962, The Beatles audition for Decca Records – they receive word of their failure later in the year but by then have some interest from EMI...; Legendary music show Top Of The Pops screens for the first time on January 1^st 1964 and finally Bill Graham’s Winterland Arena – the second home of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane - closes on January 1^st 1979.

And on January 2^nd-8^th: Happy Birthdays to three people on January 3^rd: George Martin (Record Producer) who turns 84, ‘Smile’ lyricist Van Dyke Parks who turns 69 and Stephen Stills who turns 65; Happy birthdays also to Syd Barrett (guitarist and so much more with Pink Floyd 1967-68) who would have been 64 on January 6^th; Jerry Garcia (ditto with the Grateful Dead 1965-95) who would have been 67 on January 8^th and Terry Sylvester (rhythm guitarist with The Hollies 1969-80) who turns 63 on January 8^th.Anniversaries of events include: Beach Boy Carl Wilson refuses to acknowledge a letter that drafts him into the American Army – against all odds only him and Davy Jones are ever given the notice during their time in AAA bands (January 3^rd 1967); John and Yoko’s ‘coming out’ album (in more ways than one) ‘Two Virgins’ is released – in brown paper packaging – on January 3^rd 1969; The Beatles attend their last ever recording session (of the original band anyway), taping George’s song ‘I Me Mine’ on January 3^rd 1970 – only John Lennon is missing from the line-up; Mick Jagger’s film ‘Performance’ has it’s premiere on January 4^th 1971; Faithful Beatles roadie Mal Evans is shot by police in peculiar circumstances on January 5^th 1976; the first ever Beatles single is released – no, not ‘Love Me Do’ but the German-only single ‘My Bonnie’ backing Tony Sheridan released on January 5^th 1962; Davy Jones collaborator Charlie Smalls’ musical ‘The Wiz’ opens on Broadway on January 6^th 1972; The fallout from Woodtsock begins when farm owner Max Yasgur is sued for $25,000  for damages by neighbouring farmers (January 7^th 1970) and finally ‘Daylight Again’ becomes the 6^th album by CSN/Y to go platinum on January 7^th 1983 – and to date the last.

For only the second time in the history of this newsletter there are no AAA birthdays for the following week. Anniversaries of events for next week (January 9^th-15^th), however, include: John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’ album goes double platinum a month after his death on January 10^th 1981; The Beatles release their second single – and, possibly, first #1 depending whose chart you read – ‘Please Please Me’ on January 12^th 1963; Aynsley Dunbar officially joins Jefferson Starship on January 12^th 1979 after his predecessor Johnny Barbata hurts his hand in an accident; The second series of Kampuchea benefit concerts, headlined by The Beach Boys and Jefferson Starship, takes place on January 13^th 1980 (see last issue for the 1^st); The Who release their first single under that name with ‘I Can’t Explain’ (January 15^th 1965) and finally The Rolling Stones are infamously censored when appearing on the US Ed Sullivan TV shows, changing the lyrics of their new single to ‘let’s spend some time together’ (January 15^th 1967).