On This Day
1956 – Elvis Presley made his first appearance on ‘The Ed Sullivan show’, performing ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, ‘Love Me Tender’ and ‘Ready Teddy’ from the CBS TV Studios in Los Angeles.
1965 – US newspaper The Hollywood reporter ran the following advertisement; ‘Madness folk & roll musicians, singers wanted for acting roles in new TV show. Parts for 4 insane boys. The Monkees were born. 437 people applied for the job.
1977 – David Bowie appeared on Marc Bolan’s ITV show, Marc, singing ‘Heroes’ as well as a duet with Bolan, ‘Standing Next To You’, which was prematurely terminated when Bolan fell from the stage, much to Bowie’s amusement. After the show the pair recorded demos together which were never finished because Bolan was killed in a car crash a week later.
1992 – Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic knocked himself unconscious during the MTV music and video awards after being hit on the head with his guitar after throwing it ‘up in the air’.
2005 – Liverpool City Council confirmed it was to demolish Ringo Starr’s birthplace because it had “no historical significance.” The house in Dingle, was one of 460 properties to be demolished for a regeneration project. The council said Madryn Street had no significance because Ringo had spent only three months of his life there.
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Brand New Music
By Jonathan Knox & Craig Clemens
M.I.A. | AIM
Alternative World Pop star M.I.A. has named each of her studio albums after a family member. That said, her latest album (and potentially her last), AIM, is the reverse of her own name, and unfortunately lacks the focus that one might expect from M.I.A. or more specifically an album titled, AIM. The album starts off strong enough with all of the early singles appearing on the first half of the record, but the rest of it seems to be somewhat lost. The Deluxe version adds 5 more songs, which unfortunately only muddles things more. Of course fans will be happy to hear M.I.A. return with her “sound” and some legitimately good new material, but will likely be disappointed that it doesn’t reach the highs previously found on Arular and Kala.
Freedun (featuring ZAYN):
Teenage Fanclub | Here
Anybody familiar with the group know how these things go with Teenage Fanclub – a group of three songwriters with four songs each and a wide gulf between creative outputs. It’s comforting that in this era of political and social upheaval we can still rely on the constants in life. Yes, they’ve dialed back the volume over the last couple records (2000’s Howdy, 2005’s Man-Made, 2010’s Shadows) but what they lack in physical intensity they’ve gained in emotional maturity. It’s easy to ignore a band that might be older than your dad at this point, but that is at our own peril. Teenage Fanclub continues to hold themselves up against their own catalog nicely.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | Skeleton Tree
After losing his son in July 2015 after he tragically fell off a cliff – Nick Cave returns to the studio and produces one of the most heart-wrenching records since 1991s “Tears In Heaven”. The difference between the two is that although Clapton took solace in the ideas of “eternal rest” and the eventual meeting in the great thereafter, Cave makes a stark rejection of God and any notion of easy happy endings. This isn’t the LP of a man greiving, this is the output of someone who has realized that there’s no meaning to “it all” – there’s no easy way to heal from a shock like the one he went through less than a year ago.
