ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NEWS

ROCK ‘n’ ROLL NEWS

Final statistics on the Stones’ Nicaragua benefit. Final gross was $516,810. 1,976 tickets went for $100, 7,439 for $25, 8,079 for $15 and a mere 1,205 for $10. That’s the highest grossing one night in history.

After being banned from appearing in Japan (“because of his marijuana conviction,” the government says, though Jagger denies it) Mick Jagger told Earth News that “governments are building so many barriers around him and other members of the Rolling Stones that ‘they may well beat us down.’ ” That’s what happens if you hang out with people who shoot water rats, we guess.

There’s no rumor like a Stones rumor: reported song titles from the next LP: “You Should Have Seen Her Ass,’* “Four and In,” “Give Us A Break,” “Cornin’ Down Again,” “Angie” and “First Thing.” (ENS)

Full Tilt Boogie Band, the last of the Janis Joplin’s back ups, has reformed and may be out with an LP soon.

According to rumor, the next Nilsson album will feature a healthy dose of big-band music and will be produced by Derek Taylor and Gordon Jenkins. (Son of Schmil went gold, incidentally, so don’t blow it, Harry.) Taylor you will remember, is the publicist extraordinaire who, at various times, boosted the careers of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Byrds ad infinitum. A book of his music biz memoirs will soon appear; watch for it.

Alun Davies has left Cat Stevens’ backing group to join Mark-Almond.

In honor of the “ceasefire” (did they?), Elektra re-released the Doors’ “Unknown Soldier.”

Are the Firesign Theatre together or not? Well, Peter Bergman and Phil Proctor of that group, or late of that group as the case may be, are doing a tour with what they call a “musicale.” And there’ll also be a record: TV or Not TV.

Why haven’t we said anything snotty about John Baldry lately?

Van Morrison and Janet Planet got a divorce. We could be nice, but we have a feeling that it’s better for his music this way.

And We Ran Screaming Into the Night: The latest stage presentation of a rock album: Sgt. Pepper.

Elvis Presley’s 90 minute Hawaii performance is on TV on April 4. It’s slated for 8:30 — 10 p.m. on NBC. Besides the performance, there are some location shots shot around the Hawaiian island of Oahu (which is the one Honolulu is on). Elvis has also nabbed a Grammy nomination for his gospel song, “He Touched Me.”

B.B. King did a guest shot on “What’s My Line.” He fooled ’em, which sort of figures.

Terry Knight won a suit against Grand Funk. God knows which one.

Mick Jagger’s younger brother, Chris, is recording his first solo album, for a new English label, GM.

Bill Graham just bought the most expensive radio ads ever aired. KSAN-FM in S.F. was doing a full weekend without commercials and offered to sell a minute at the beginning and one at the end for $1,000 to help underwrite the cost. Graham snapped ’em up.

The Jefferson Airplane’s new album, Long John Silver, has been banned in Singapore — because of the picture of grass on the inside.

Robert Plant and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin had to hitch to the group’s concert in Sheffield, England recently, when their Bentley broke down. Plant then caught London Flu and had to cancel two dates on their British tour.

Todd Rundgren is going to tour, they say (again and again). But his back up band, if and when he does, is gonna be bizarre. The rhythm section includes Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of Soupy. Hunt’s the one with the platinum racing stripe down the center of his skull while Tony’s coiffure is shocking pink with blond fringe -definitely not a relic of their days as the mini-rockers Tony & the Tigers. An extra added attraction is French synthesizer whiz Jean-Yves Labat, who will play his instrument and texture the sound from his position inside a geodesic dome. On keyboards is Dave Mason, but not THE Dave Mason, who is reputed to be normal.

Additional Todd Rundgren note: while recording the forthcoming Fanny album, Mother's Pride, an unprecedented mid-winter heatwave struck New York, turning Todd’s Secret Studio (secret for reasons which will become apparent) into a furnace. To circumvent this problem as best they could, the sessions were produced and recorded IN THE NUDE. Hot stuff, we’re sure.

Remember Chris Montez’ semi-Latin shlocker, “Call Me?” It’s about to be immortalized as part of Ma Bell’s new multimucho dollar ad campaign for herself.

David Frye, poor boy, had to shelve his LBJ impression.

Keith Moon’s in another kind of janv: he was fined $35 for not having a license for his 12-gauge shotgun. Said Moon to the court, “Do you take American Express cards? I haven’t used money for some years.”'

Bill Withers got married - to Denise Nichols, of “Room 222. ”

New College Professor? Alice Cooper lecturing on Pop Songwriting at Rochester Eastman School of Music. And, after all the hassle, die Secret Service finally said o.k. to the Billion Dollar Babies album cover, so that’s a half million real ones you’re seeing.

Add to the That’ll Be the Day movie (maybe);; Ron Wood, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend. Those three plus Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi were a big hit at Clapton’s return to performing in London a couple weeks ago.

Reuben and the Jets (whoever they are this time) have signed with Mercury, with Zappa producing. Release due this month.

What the World Needs: James I Taylor is now a record producer; he’s doing ex-Jo Mama lead singer Abigail Haness.

French rock star Michael Polnareff is having his revenge on Paris gendarmes, the hard way.

Last m.onth the cops busted Polnareff and fined him $12,000 for the appearance of 6,000 posters (designed to advertise a concert called the “Polnarevolution”) which showed the rock singer’s bare ass.

Now every copy of Michel’s „ new LP (also called PolnarevOlution) has a copy of the banned poster. And there’s no law against distributing them that way.

New Love Affair: Hoyt Axton & Mimi Farina Baez (she had one more, I think)....

Michael Bloomfield’s back in action, and how! Besides the Steelyard Blues soundtrack, there’s an upcoming set with A1 Kooper and Buddy Miles and a shot with John Hammond, Jr. Doctor John heads the backing group on the latter. How much you want to bet there’s another abortive Dylan guest shot on at least one of them?

Capitol is releasing a four album, boxed set called Best of the Beatles. It’s apparently being brought out because of bootlegger problems; there are Best ofs in Europe but none here, for contractual reasons, til now.

The Stones live LP from their last tour will probably — almost certainly — never be released. The problem is that Decca (London) Records and Allan Klein hold some kind of rights to three of the songs, and will not release them. The Stones don’t feel the album would be complete without those tunes, and as a consequence won’t be putting it out. But the Jamaican sessions LP is due out in April. Hold on.

Live album from David Bowie’s American tour? Well, for sure, London has just released a two-record set entitled Images which consists of older Bowie material. There are 21 titles, 12 of which have been released on U.S. Deram eons ago, and 9 “new” (or previously unreleased) sides.

The Who are building their own studio in London’s Battersea neighborhood. Their first release in quad is expected in May or June. Plus, there’s the usual plethora of solo and outside work: Roger Daltrey is working , on his first (Daltrey) with an orchestra (yech!?) and it’s due put in April; also a second solo from Townshend, the debut from John Entwistle’s Rigor Mortis and Keith Moon is working on the new Dave Clark LP, (Daltrey also produced the Ellis album.)

Are the Bonzos reforming yet again? (Melody Maker’s Chris Welch is probably right when he says that if they had stuck together a few more months, they would have been the kings of Glam-rock. That’s the breaks.)

Elton John is the latest to record in Jamaica.

Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show are performing a TV special in Denmark — in the nude. Maybe they should get together with Fanny and Todd Rundgren and do a cover for Rolling Stone that way, (Their hit version of “Cover of Rolling Stone” has been banned in Britain, incidentally — by BBC standards, that’s an ad.)

Steppenwolf has reformed. (P.S. Our Bob Dylan/ John Kay session note a couple issues back was a parody of all the other Bob Dylan session notes. Or so we thought. Seems a lot of people took it seriously. Sorry if you hemorrhaged, Clive.)

More Motown Losess: Gladys. Knight and the Pips have signed with Buddah. The first album is due in April.

Neither Bob Dylan nor Aretha Franklin are going to sing for another label; Bob’s still at Columbia (for a reported $1 | million an album) and Aretha remains with Atlantic. Might have been an interesting trade ... just like baseball, if you see what we mean.

Coming Soon (Maybe): Big Ifs, but there is a chance that there will be three dates of the London Symphony cast of .Tommy here, featuring the standard all-star cast. If that happens, and if Eric Clapton does his tour at the same time (more or less), Ron Wood, the Faces’ guitarist says he’d like to go with E.C. (Rod Stewart, of course, is part of the'Tommy show.) Big Ifs, like we say.

Pete Best has written the theme music for an Australian movie.

Gibson and Stromberg, who do publicity for a lot of the people this magazine writes about, have been signed to represent the Loch Ness monster, which figures. ★