ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Iggy Inked To Columbia. Who’s The Stooge?

Signed to Columbia: James Osterberg (a.k.a.) Iggy Pop). Rest of the band reportedly joining Our Hero in Scotland to reform.

MC5 bassist Michael Davis is no longer with the group, and is probably going back to art school; Five haven’t replaced him yet, either. And they ’re talking about a move to the Continent where they are incredibly popular on the basis of their last tour.

The Beatles Fan Club folded officially at the end of March. Announced Ringo: “We don’t want to keep the Beatles myth going since we are no longer together.” (Starr is great in his latest trash western, Blind Man, incidentally. Like Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo, a little bit.)

The Beach Boys have added five of their old Capitol albums to the Brother/Reprise catalog. Included in the deal which purchased the masters from Capitol were:

Smiley Smile, Pet Sounds, Wild Honey, 20/20, Friends and Smile. The records will be repackaged but will not be re-mixed — mono will be mono, in other words.

First of the records to appear will be the group’s legendary Pet Sounds, as half the new BB release. The other half is a new studio album.

This also gives the label access to all the Boys material which would have comprised their mythic Smile album; there are plans for this record to be released.

The Stones’ former British label, Decca, is about to release yet another collection of old Rolling Stones'tracks. The album, which will be fully-priced, is to be called Milestones, and feature such tunes as “Satisfaction,” “She’s A Rainbow,” “Yesterday’s Papers,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “Out of Time” and “Stray Cat Blues.” All tracks have been previously issued. (The previous British Stones’ collection, Gimme Shelter, sold 60,000 copies in the UK, which is comparatively excellent.) There are no release plans for theTJ.S. at this time.

The Stones are shillyshallying on their new record, even now. All tracks are done (recorded in France, all written by Mick and Keith), but five or six remain to be mixed. They’re also trying to put together a June-July tour of 6-8 weeks duration. They’d like to concentrate on smaller halls this time, playing two or three different places in an area, rather than one huge auditorium.

Cutting Our Own Throats: Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love” was introduced on a San Francisco rock station April 2nd, as a third generation rock song. (This has some validity after all, we suppose; Pat Boone is old enough to be Donny’s father.),

New from Motown: Guess Who’s Coming Home, part of the Black Forum (previous titles include Martin Luther King and Malcolm X) series, which is a recording of disgruntled black vets, talking about doing what they learned in ’Nam in the streets of America.

Jeff Beck and his group have completed their album in Memphis, and it’s due for release this month. It was produced by Steve Cropper.

The Ono-Lennons are said to be ready to jump on the Bangla Desh Bandwagon, following George Harrison’s lucrative footsteps — the British rumor is that Lennon plans a unique International soccer match, with stars on the order of Pele, the Dylan of soccer, followed by a four hour concert by Lennon and friends. This would be staged at a London football stadium, but so far as we know now, it’s only an idea, a rumor, or someone’s particularly clumsy idea of a joke.

The Kinks taped their March 2nd and 3rd Carnegie Hall concerts for possible release as a live album.

The Kinks are also rumored to be doing a tv special, as a pilot for a three-quarter hour BBC television special. The show features Davies and the boys both on and off stage.

Chicago’s sold out another week at Carnegie Hall. Maybe this Xmas, they’ll offer us a complete recording of the whole week huh?

The North Vietnamese government is publishing a report on Richard M. Nixon’s “criminal record.”

Pete Townshend and Keith Moon of the Who both bought themselves minature hovercraft in the U.S. the last time they were over. Pete had actually gotten his as a Christmas gift for his two brothers, but,when testing it on the Thames, got stopped by the local police for speeding! Moon managed to take his apart to see how it worked, and has never been able to put it together again.

Meanwhile, Keith is on an African safari in Mombasa. For the second time . ..

Paul McCartney was reportedly considering taking Wings to South America to tour at one point, but decided that the jungle atmosphere would be too distracting. Reportedly, as they say.

The group was apparently rough but still exciting at their Nottingham University debut in March. The group played free — no admission, also no benefit.

David Peel .was busted March 5 after a benefit performance in Miami Beach. Peel was charged with obscenity. He was released on bond, saying, “I go to court tomorrow for this meatball charge — actually they got angry ’cause I sang songs praising pot and revolution. I never used obscenity in my fuckin’ life, and I only said good things about the police — like ‘they were the best thing to hit Florida since the orange. The cop who busted me took me around to his buddies and said, ‘I busted a star.’ I feel like the Jim Morrison of Apple records.”

Frankie Avalon has announced that he and his wife are expecting a child ... their eighth. And now you know what he’s been doing ever since.

Music Merchants, the new Holland Dozier Holland label, has its own Jackson Five, apparently: Brotherly Love. “Eddie Holland Jr. will be supervising their career,” which might mean almost anything.

Jack Bruce joined Mountain remnants Leslie West and Corky Laing to form a new group, West, Bruce and Laing. No telling what’s happened to ex-Mountaineer Felix Pappalardi — the press release says he is “now free to concentrate on writing, producing and the development of other projects,” which could mean anything.

Meanwhile, WBL have embarked on a 30 city tour, laid down eighteen tracks at a rehearsal in London including an eleven minute version of “Play With Fire,” but don’t have plans for an album yet. They are, however, going to be playing old Cream and Mountain material live, along with some new material.

Ed Sanders and Dutton Books have settled their suit with the Process, the paraMansonoid group of satanic cutthroats Sanders slices in his brilliant bestseller, The Family.

Process has filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the book charging that “false and defamatory material concerning the church and its religious activities” was published therein. Future editions will remove all reference to the Process...

But the unholy ghouls have not gained a real victory after all. The forces of ritual murders and whatnot are to be the subject of Sander’s next book, “on a number of interconnected occult groups including the Process.”

Said Sanders: “For over two years I have had no respite from gathering information about the creepiest people imaginable. Really, I am so bored with gore.The prospect of another year spent in the company of people who groove with satan was not very inspiring. Dutton was willing to struggle to the last drop of dog’s blood, and Avon (the paperback publisher) was willing to go to press with book exactly as it was in hardback, when it came to me that these cultoids were using my book on the Manson family to

pimp their cause, they were leeching on its energy to further their own end. It was then that we decided to deal with the Process separately, in a dry, dispassionate manner that, will depict them for all time for what they are. Hopefully, when the facts are known, these vomit-eyed trolls of satan with their glib catch phrases and black capes and publications of death will get back under the bridge. The pen, remember, is mightier than the cult.”

Oo-ee-oo, indeed.

A second Jimi Hendrix soundtrack is planned from the film, Experience. It’s to be released in Britain as Afore Experience. Neither record has been released in the States, unfortunately. The lp also contains live material from his Feb. 8,1969 concert at Royal Albert Hall in London.

There’s also a new Jimi movie, Hendrix Plays Berkeley. When are we gonna get this stuff in America? Only his heir-dressers know for sure.

Detroit’s local UPS newspaper, the Fifth Estate, was recently approached by Robert Miles, Grand Dragon of the Michigan chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, with a proposal. You’re not gonna believe it.

“Miles asked the Fifth Estate,” said Chris Singer in a page one story in the FE’s March 24th issue, “to co-sponsor a conference of the right and left to discuss the possibilities of jumping together into the middle of certain issues of mutual interest such as opposition to the; FBI.”

The paper, of course, came out with a strongly worded statement about why they’d turned down Miles proposal, entitled A Note on Reality.

Which about sums it up.

Ron Wood drew the new Long John Baldry album cover (Warners): it’s the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with Baldry as the Hatter.

Atlantic Records has prepared a 12 page pamphlet called “A Short History of Atlantic Records” — it’s a 1200 word history of the music and artists on Atlantic since its inception in 1948. Also included is a chronological chart of the label’s million selling singles and lps.

The booklet was compiled by Rob Rolontz Atlantic Vicepresident in charge of publicity and advertising. Sample copies may be obtained by writing “The Atlantic Story” c/o Atlantic Records, 1841 Broadway, New York, NY 10023.

Pink Floyd are reportedly considering doing a ballet for Rudolph Nureyev, on commission.

Three Dog-Night have made a deal with Kable Books for their biography, written by Joel Cohen, entitled Three Dog Night and Me.

Nice British Jefferson Airplane rumor: Grace and Paul are to do a musical version of Nicholas and Alexandra. We just report the news here, don’t ask us.

Holland-Dozier-Holland and Motown have settled their lawsuit, for an undisclosed sum. Now watch the fun begin, as each begins to pick -up the acts the other drops. First off: HDH’s new Music Merchants label has signed Brenda “Every Little Bit Hurts” Holloway.

In April’s Rock and Roll News, we reported that Steve Marriott has left Humble Pie, which, as any idiot knows, he has not. Peter Frampton has left, the Glass Harp item looks like a blind alley (neither Frampton’s management, Humble Pie’s management or Glass Harp’s management knows anything about it) and our apologies to all concerned.