News, Views and Music Issue 167 (Intro)

Hello friends! We’re here, you’re there and the world turns all around us. Like a ginormous groove inside a mammoth record player on top of a giant gramophone on the back of a terrapin. Sorry, I think my brain must be clouding over, an occupational hazard in a job that’s seen me watch Magical Mystery Tour twice in the past week (once for work, once for fun) and a review of an album that must be one of our strangest (if sweetest) yet. It’s been one of those type weeks where my mind aches (and my day breaks) and the only thing that makes any sense is this site and the music I listen to. Even if this introduction makes no sense whatsoever. We’ve now past 29,000 hits by the way {pause for a quick cheer} and reckon we’ll easily have past 30,000 by year’s end (and possibly world’s end; I haven’t forgotten the Mayans yet and nor should you, especially with our troubles in the East as I write). Talking of which I saw the headline ‘Cameron really cross with Serbia’ printed on a paper last week so I’d just like to add the headline ‘Serbia absolutely livid with David Cameron’ to keep things fair. Honestly, what is he doing apart from ‘playing’ at being prime minister?!
As normal we’re directing you to our mock newspaper for this week’s news stories (Please click on the link)...:

http://paper.li/f-1347835090

♫ Beatles News: ...But in the meantime look out for yet more interesting radio programmes about the fab four. Friday, October 26th sees the broadcast of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, a sister programme to the disappointing TV Arena one about the making of the Beatles’ TV special (45 years old this Boxing Day) at 10pm. Even more interesting is what follows: ‘Paul McCartney at the BBC’, an archive special featuring Macca talking from his Beatles years to date and featuring some audio footage un-broadcast since the 1970s! This programme follows at 11pm. In the meantime BBC6 repeated their ‘Seven Days That Shook The Rock World’ programme on the Beatles break-up last week (Friday, October 19th if you want to find it on I-player) as well as the new ‘John Lennon In New York’ two-parter we mentioned last week that was broadcast at 4am last Tuesday and Wednesday.
♫ Pink Floyd News: Pink Floyd also shocked us all by obtaining the rights to Pink Floyd’s Wembley show, only recently made available on the deluxe box set version of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. The concert features a complete performance of that very album which was enjoying its last performance in full that very day (until the ‘Division Bell’ tour in the 1990s at least!) This will be on Saturday, October 27th at 2AM in the ‘Classic Concert’ slot.


ANNIVERSARIES: Birthday cheer this time of year goes to those AAA persons born between October 24th and 30th: Bill Wyman (bassist with the Rolling Stones 1962-89) who turns 75 on October 24th and Denny Laine (guitarist with The Moody Blues 1964-66 and Wings 1972-79) who turns 68 on October 29th. Anniversaries of events include: Paul McCartney is given a special ‘rhodium’ disc by the Guinness Book Of World Records in honour of his long list of achievements with the Beatles, Wings and solo (October 24th 1980 – the first idea of metal is rejected when someone points out how poisonous it is!), Dire Straits release their second album ‘Makin’ Movies’ (October 25th 1980); The Beatles sell out by accepting MBEs from the German-ancestor Queen Elizabeth II (October 26th 1964); A young record buyer named Raymond Jones (who may or may not be our own columnist Nelson sent back in time from the future – see this year’s April fool’s day special) asks Brian Epstein for a record by The Beatles – My Bonnie – alerting the NEMS Liverpool store manager to his future career (October 28th 1961); The Who release their break-through single ‘My Generation’ a year after being rejected by EMI (October 28th 1965); John Lennon and wife Cynthia officially divorce (October 28th 1968); ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ breaks the record for longest stay on the album top 200 when it charts for a staggering 491st week! (October 29th 1983) and finally, Hotlegs – soon to become 10cc by adding Graham Gouldmann to the line-up the following year – make their live debut supporting The Moody Blues (October 30th 1970).

News, Views and Music Issue 157 (Intro)

My dear AAA brethren, my apologies if this issue isn’t quite up to scratch. You see, Mondays are my sacred writing days and always have been since starting this project. They could drop the atom bomb at midnight Sunday and you’d still find me sitting in my chair come Monday Afternoon struggling to condense all of my thoughts onto the page. It makes me feel as if I’ve actually got something done with my week, even if I have a chronic fatigue relapse and can’t write again till the following Monday and I do everything in my power to make sure I’m well enough to hit my laptop and write on that day. Only this week the jobcentre, who have no reason to see my anyway, have insisted on seeing me on a Monday – preventing me from doing my ‘proper’ work in other words in order to make me nod, go ‘hmm’ every so often and then remind them for the umpteempth time that as I’ve been found ‘fit for work’ I don’t actually have to do anything they tell me (I still have to turn up, though, or else apparently. Yeah because threats are great for people recovering from illness). So, to cut a long story semi-short, I’ve had to write two reviews this week – and boy am I feeling it now. Never mind, though, because it looks like I have a whole new bunch of AAA followers out there to talk to. I think I’ve mentioned before in these pages (certainly the links page of our www.alansalbumarchives.moonfruit.com site) how great the ‘Kinda Kinks’ site at www.kindakinks.net is, full of every snippet and factual nugget about what the various members of the band are up to (its proved invaluable when our AAA groups are having a slow news week). I sent the link for our review of ‘Kinda Kinks’ off to the site last week and I’ve never seen such a hive of activity! We actually peaked at 350 views in 48 hours, a record for us, and it looks as if readers have been hanging around to view our other reviews (including several Kinks ones, naturally). A big welcome to you all! Please keep visiting us whenever you can – I can already feel another Kinks review coming on! Finally, whether you’re a new reader or an old faithful one whose followed us from the start (way back in 2008, how young we all were!), if you have enjoyed my writing then please please please will you nominate me for inclusion for a new book that’s coming out? ‘Best Music Writing’ has been published every year for 12 years and has always featured the best of the ‘official’ music magazines and websites out there. A new switch to independent publishers means they can now include submissions from fan sites like mine. You can nominate up to five articles by any music writer you enjoy reading (it doesn’t have t be me, though obviously I’d be thrilled to be included) and can do so here: http://www.feedbackpress.org/best-music-writing-ballot/ We desperately need the publicity that being featured in a ‘proper’ tome would give us, so please if we’ve done anything to help you navigate your way through your record collection then please help us out now! Thankyou! Now on with the news... ♫ Beatles/Beady Eye/The Kinks/Pink Floyd/The Who News: The London Olympics closing ceremony was a good mixture of the talent and incompetence we’ve seen throughout the rest of the Olympics. If the opening ceremony was a frustratingly missed opportunity (full of confusing hard-to-follow bits about the industrial revolution that seemed to hop around the centuries like a natterjack toad and some awful shtick about the Queen parachuting in with James Bond – with her ma the only actress around wooden enough to compete with Daniel Craig – thunderbirds puppets would have been more entertaining!), the ending promised much for the closing ceremony (a huge cauldron on fire, the sensible concept of skipping the celebs to give some promising teenagers a chance to light the flame and Paul McCartney to finish!) Which it half delivered on. Officially the closing ceremony was meant to represent ‘every era’ – something which must have disappointed every 50s, 70s and oos fan as hardly anyone from those eras turned up (Bowie on a screen, Kate Bush on a radio and two members of Queen hardly compensated). But us 60s (and even us 90s) kids were well catered for, centring around the great old battle between the Kinks and The Who for supremacy as London’s best (sadly the Stones were a no-show – I’m surprised we had no one covering ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ anywhere, but perhaps that’s just the message I wanted to sum up the olympics!) Ray Davies arrived by taxi and looked a little frail but considering he had just a guitar and (at the end) a booming choir for accompaniment his ‘Waterloo Sunset’ was goosepimplingly intimate. Rumours of a Pink Floyd reunion were, sadly, unfounded but we did get to see drummer Nick Mason performing ‘Wish You Were Here’ as part of a supergroup featuring various members of Genesis and the Stranglers plus new kid Ed Sheeran. It was a great performance, actually, though I got a bit lost what the tightrope walking was all about (non-Floyd fans must have been even more confused as to why the dummy at the end of the tightrope caught fire – its the front cover for Floyd album ‘Wish You Were Here’, folks, although I’d still rather have had a flying pig. The Beatles had already been covered by Macca’s fine (if acoustically flawed) performance of ‘Hey Jude’ in the opening ceremony, but there was a neat on-screen tribute to John Lennon, accompanied by a signing choir from Liverpool performing ‘Imagine’ which was far more moving than the song usually is (Lennon would surely have hated it though!) Hopes were high for an Oasis reunion after a ‘Beady Eye’ drum kit was spotted in the arena but alas Noel Gallagher was a no-show and we got a rather subdued Liam and co instead. That said I think most of the crowd probably missed the significance: after ‘resting’ the song during the last couple of Oasis tours and the band going their own ways this meant that last weeks’ performance of ‘Wonderwall’ was the first in a decade. Best of all, though, were the ‘Orrible ‘Oo, who followed up a pretty decent cover of ‘Pinball Wizard’ by the Kaiser Chiefs with a storming closing set that had more passion and energy within 10 minutes than the past rather dragging three hours. Great performances of ‘Baba O’Riley’ ‘Listening To You’ and an emphatic ‘ My Generation’ almost made up for having to sit through an interminable 10 minute set from the Spice Girls who performed on top of five taxis (presumably so when the crowd started throwing things they could make a quick getaway. Joke of the night: ‘I know why the Spice Girls were on late. Posh got mistaken for a javelin and locked away in a cupboard by accident’! ‘Wannabe’ is a song that really hasn’t gotten better with age and the crowd looked sick to be honest, as the commentators tried to explain how ‘girl power’ among teenagers was all the rage in the 1990s and still powerful and significant, despite the fact the song was written by a 50 year old male for money. At least the girls (or should that be OAPS?) didn’t kung-fu kick anyone this time around! So then, pretty mixed, with some highlights but nothing as great as the highlight of the whole Olympics: Boris Johnson getting stuck on a zip-wire a week into the games for a full quarter of an hour! ♫ Monkees News: Shock announcement this week is that the band are reuniting for a series of shows in the States. This is a shock a) because sadly Davy Jones died in February and all previous reunions were at least partly at his suggestion and b) because this means Mike Nesmith will be back in the band for the first time since 1997. The news was announced on Mike’s ever entertaining facebook page where, in typical Nesmith style, he announced ‘Amazing News!...I’ve made a gazpacho!...Oh and Micky and Peter and I are going to be doing 12 concerts here in the States!’ News reports say that the band will be playing their own instruments on stage, just as they did in 1967 on tour, and that Davy will be represented by multimedia of him singing and playing with the band in true Monkees style, backed by the others playing live. The other exciting news is that much of the set will be derived from our classic AAA Monkees album ‘Headquarters’, an album never played much on tour (see review no 10). The tour is due to start in November. Hopefully the tour will extend to other cities and countries but that’s all the news we have right now. ANNIVERSARIES: The only birthday boy this week (August 15th-21st) is Carl Wayne (vocalist with The Hollies from 1999 to his death in 2003) who would have been 68 on August 18th. Anniversaries of events include: The Beatles play their record-breaking show at New York’s Shea Stadium, with 56,000 screaming fans –an attendance record that won’t be beaten until CSNY in 1974 (August 15th 1965); the first day of Woodstock, an anniversary we covered in detail a year ago in these very pages (August 15th 1969); George Harrison publishes the closest we’ve yet had to a Beatle autobiography, the frustratingly short and originally expensive ‘I Me Mine’ (August 15th 1980); Paul Simon plays to his biggest crowd for his ‘Concert In Central Park’ (August 15th 1991); The Beatles’ still mysterious sacking of their most popular member Pete Best and replacing him with...Ringo (think about that for a minute) who plays his first gig with the band two days later (August 16th 1962); The Beatles’ first performance in Hamburg at the Indra Club (August 17th 1960); The second of two records featuring Jagger, Richards, Lennon and McCartney from the summer of love is released – the Stones’ best single (as far as my tastes are concerned) ‘We Love You’ (August 18th 1967 – the other record is the Beatles’ ‘All You Need Is Love’); Mick Jagger accidentally hurts his hand in a pistol fight staged for the seemingly cursed movie ‘Ned Kelly’ (August 18th 1969); The Moody Blues begin their highest grossing UK tour, some nine years after their original split (August 18th 1981); The Beatles begin their first American tour, playing to much bigger crowds than they are used to in England (August 19th 1964); American radio station KNOW ban all Beatles tracks from the air after hearing that the ‘Sgt Peppers’ LP may contain drugs references – thankfully most of the other stations simply ban that LP (August 19th 1967); The Rolling Stones release one of their most famous songs ‘Satisfaction’ (August 20th 1965); Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham creates Immediate Records with The Small Faces, lured from Decca, one of their first signings (August 20th 1965) and finally, The Rolling Stones and 10cc co-headline a prestigious gig at London’s Knebworth (August 21st 1976).

News, Views and Music Issue 147 (Intro)

June 9^th:

Dear all, what do you think of our new look site? So far we’ve had 46 visitors, including 10 from the US and one from Germany and hopefully our Google Ads should kick in any minute...now! Yes, there they go, twinkling away. For those of you still on our first ‘moonfruit’ site feel free to go and give it a look (at http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk) and for those of you on our second ‘Blogspot’ site go and visit www.alansalbumarchives.moonfruit.com to see our graphics and Amazon ads! By the way we beat our record on Monday for the most hits within 24 hours on our ‘first’ site : an amazing 210! And we even followed that up three days later with another 180! (Before this our average was 30!) A special big ‘hello’ to all our new readers – and a big hug to all our old ones who are still returning after all these issues. I’ve noticed that we have a lot of readers in Russia on our new home at Blogspot and that our review of Otis Redding’s ‘Soul Ballads’ album is the most popular article. I wasn’t expecting that I have to say! Welcome one and all!

In other news, the Coalition has u-turned on the pasty tax and caravan tax and yet has revived their slavery laws (sorry workfare scheme) under a new name and on an even bigger scale. We’re also celebrating a pointless jubilee with lots of money that would do so much good in so many other places, have missiles ready to welcome our guests to the most embarrassing Olympics since Hitler’s and the division between rich and poor gets ever bigger. I’ve read books about our supposedly uncivilised barbarous past that shows more humanity and justice than that! Oh and in some other news an old biddy from Germany stood on a boat for five and a half hours waving at people. Apparently she’s from a family that used to be Royal but of course all democratic countries got rid of theirs a long time ago...wait? They’re still in power 400 years after executing Charles 1st? No way!

 Talking of going back into the past, Neil’s been busy revisiting his past with another of his ‘archive’ releases. We don’t normally cover them on our site because till now they’ve been made up of previously released material – however we haven’t covered any of the songs on this ‘Treasure’ album yet and there’s oodles of officially unreleased tracks for fans to enjoy. We’re also celebrating the life and works of the much missed Robin Gibb with a look back at his greatest moments with The Bee Gees and the seven moments where AAA members were directly inspired by disco and ‘Saturday Night Fever’. Till next issue, enjoy!

                                        

♫ Beatles News: The George Harrison outtakes CD ‘Early Takes Volume One’, available with some deluxe editions of the ‘Living In The Material World’ DVD is now available separately. The set features early versions of several Harrison solo songs, mainly in demo acoustic guitar form and before the overdubs are added. There are only 10 songs alas (six of them from AAA classic album ‘All Things Must Pass’) but a second set has been mooted by George’s widow Olivia Harrison (who says there’s enough good quality material for a whole series of outtakes sets in the works).

♫ Pink Floyd News: What a curious documentary BBC4’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ was. Focussing on the album of the same name (weirdly reviewed by us the week before despite the fact the set came out last August!), it was half the usual tired story (Syd’s decline, the success of ‘Dark Side’ and the apathy of the later Floyd years) and part riveting stuff (Syd’s last recordings – sadly only about 10 seconds’ worth, the ‘mixing desk’ bits where vocal and instrumental tracks are isolated, the video screens shown to certain songs on stage in the 1975 tour). Shockingly it took a whole half hour before Rick Wright – who died in 2006 – to even get a mention despite being a key part of the album’s success and Gilmour was on particularly grumpy form (yes, even more than Roger Waters!) Worth looking for for Floyd fanatics (it was on BBC4 on Friday, May 25^th and still available on I-player for a bit), it’ll probably leave newcomers scratching their heads.

♫ Rolling Stones: Back in 1984 a new Stones book was mooted by acclaimed rock journalist Stanley Booth, who’d travelled with the band on most tours since 1969. Alas the book never surfaced – until now, when ‘The True Adventures Of The Rolling Stones’ is finally being released and claimed by Mojo, at least, to be a five star classic. It certainly sounds different to the usual Stones tome, being ‘part new journalism hip-thrust, part medieval mystery play’ with the usual tales of Brian Jones’ death, for instance, being viewed as a ‘necessary sacrifice’ to the Stones cult. More news if and when...

♫ Who News: There was another shock TOTp2 clip lurking in between the usual mixture of boyband naffness and dated 80s disco pop, a clip of the ‘orrible ‘oo performing ‘You Better You Bet’ from the very end of their career in 1981. The clip featured Roger Daltrey singing live while the rest mimed from what I could tell and to the best of my knowledge the video hasn’t been seen since first broadcast. After last week’s Hollies clip they’re really finding some gems lurking at the back of the TOTP cupboard! If you want to see The Who then look on I-player for last Tuesday, May 29^th’s episode, screened on BBC2 at 6.30pm.

♫ Neil Young News: ‘Americana’, the new album by Neil and Crazy Horse of American standards and traditional songs, is now out in record quick time even for Neil – the project was only conceived around February. I haven’t heard it yet (expect a full review when I do) but at first glance it doesn’t look very promising. Remember the film soundtrack Neil did in the 80s for ‘Where The Buffalo Roam’ that consists of lots and lots (and lots!) of versions of ‘Home On The Range’? This sounds similar, only with ‘Clementine’ ‘Oh! Susannah’ (it will be interesting to see how his version compares to The Byrds) and, erm, ‘God Save The Queen’ (what’s American about that?)

ANNIVERSARIES: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear AAA members born between June 6^th and 12^th (Clarence White (guitarist with The Byrds 1969-72) who would have been 68 on June 7^th, Billy Kreutzmann (drummer with The Grateful Dead 1965-95) who turns 66 on June 7^th), happy birthday to you. Anniversaries of events include: The Silver Beatles and The Pacemakers, the two leading groups in Liverpool along with The Searchers, share their first gig together at the Grosvenor Ballroom (June 6^th 1960); The Beatles have their first session at Abbey Road Studios – band, manager and critics still disagree other whether this second meeting between the fab four and George Martin is a recording date or an audition (June 6^th 1962); John and Yoko team up with Frank Zappa for a gig at the Fillmore East, later released by both partnerships under separate names (June 6^th 1971); The Rolling Stones release their debut single ‘C’mon’ and make their first British TV appearance on Thank Your Lucky Stars on the same day (June 7^th 1963); John and Yoko appear on David Frost’s TV show (June 7^th 1969); Brian Jones officially leaves The Rolling Stones less than a month before his death (June 8^th 1969); Oz Magazine release their ‘school kids’ magazine and get charged under obscenity laws – John Lennon is among celebrities who help out with the fine (June 8^th 1969); The Beatles’ legend reaches a new level when the band play their first post-Hamburg gig in Liverpool – just weeks before the band looked finished with three of the four members deported from Germany (and amazingly John Lennon is the one who stayed legal!; June 9^th 1962); The Rolling Stones visit Chess Records where many of their favourite blues records were made – they add to the long list of hits with ‘It’s All Over Now’ (recorded June 10^th 1964); The Beatles release a single and an LP with the same name – A Hard Day’s Night – and both make #1 (June 10^th 1964), Janis Joplin plays her first gig with Big Brother and the Holding Company (June 10^th 1966), The Rolling Stones, taking a break from recording ‘Beggars Banquet’ at London’s Olympic Studios, return to find the building on fire, nearly losing all their hard-earned work to the flames! (June 11^th 1968) and The Beatles receive their MBEs from the Queen at her ‘keen pad’ Buckingham Palace (June 12^th 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).