Category: Music

Google Calling

Google has produced a documentary about — huh? — the Clash. Okay, sure, what the heck. Denro saw them live in their prime. I saw the Ramones, but never the Clash. These guys were a full musical generation behind the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Cream, etc., and now they’re old men too. The three surviving band mates, anyway. Strummer’s been gone for over ten years.

The Clash biography that I have is Return of the Last Gang in Town, by Prue Bury’s friend Marcus Gray. To see the Clash as the angry young men they were, there’s the semi-documentary Rude Boy.

Covering the boys before Bieber

Ann Moses was the right girl at the right time in the right place, as an editor for the popular teen magazine Tiger Beat.

DavyJones Ann Moses

Denro says this about Ann.

Her writing was friendly and enthusiastic, fact-based and not sensational, so the readers saw her as a pal who was “on the inside” and gave them access to cool things without playing up her own personality, thereby not generating any hate or envy.

I’ve added I used to be… Ann Moses to my Links list. Her posts confirm what Dennis says about Ann’s writing. I would love to see a complete collection of reprinted Tiger Beat articles by Ann.

TheWho AnnMoses

V-J Day

This year there’s a second V-J Day in August, because today the Beatles expert and author Bruce Spizer has released a digital edition of his groundbreaking book, long out of print, The Beatles Records on Vee-Jay.

BeatlesOnVJ

The e-book is a PDF with almost 500 pages, and there are so many pictures that I can’t believe the file is only 60 MB. This is not a book for the casual Beatles fan. For serious fans it’s been unavailable for years, and a reprinting wasn’t possible because the original plates were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. I couldn’t even look at Denro’s copy, because his was lost in the flood at his house! Used copies have been going for hundreds of bucks, but now, for only $50, here’s an updated version, and it’s a must-have for frustrated fans like myself.