The way I alphabetically see it, this toppermost Beatles parody falls not under R for the Rutles but A for ‘All You Need Is Cash,’ as that’s the actual title of the mockumentary that premiered on NBC and then BBC2 five days apart in March ’78. Just as easily could file under B, however — for bloody brilliant.
[What a groovy time they were having.]
Revisiting A&M Records No. 18
Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart: ‘Test Patterns’ (Sept ’67)
Thought you’d encountered the worst movie musical ever when Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees starred as ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in ’78? You ain’t seen nothin’, Billy Shears — a pronouncement applicable to this misbegotten mishmash in myriad ways, considering it was pulled from theaters after two weeks in late ’76, rarely to be witnessed since.
There was a time, so soon after their ascendency to superstar status, when the most enduring incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was on such good terms with former frontman Bob Welch that it remains baffling why he was left out of their Hall of Fame induction and acrimony ensured for decades.
Ok, yes, the fact that he sued them in ’94 for unpaid royalties probably had lots to do with that snub. Rewind to November 1981, however, when this star-studded set was captured at West Hollywood’s world-famous Roxy Theatre, and you’ll find they were rarely chummier.
The keen eyes and ears of @all.the.records summed up this phase of my already-leagues-deep dive into Christine McVie’s discography in a comment on the previous installment in this series: ‘The takeaway I’m getting from these most recent … posts is the members [of Fleetwood Mac] worked on a lot of songs or records during some downtime in FM in the early ‘80s.’
I’d go a step further, actually: non-Mac downtime work became the band’s new standard operating procedure post-Tusk.
For reasons I really ought to turn into a memoir, I maintain a deeply abiding and psychologically unhealthy passion for music and movies from 1979-80, my 10th year on this mostly blue marble.
Time again to play the vinyl community’s fastest-growing game: Who Among Us Remembers This Guy?
Reintroducing Robbie Patton, another likable wannabe rock star who caught his big break opening for Fleetwood Mac’s troublesome tour behind Tusk — although Christine McVie, whose discography I’ve been revisiting, clearly took a shine to him more brightly than she did the focus of our previous post in this deep dive, Danny Douma.
Wait, wait, wait … what’s this?
Is this a #VinylTwosDays pairing appearing on Friday instead?
Thorough readers — and thank you very much, you’re why I bother Instababbling — might have noticed a footnote on my previous post indicating I’m unshackling my chronicle of A&M Records from once-a-week confinement. Haven’t decided yet what hashtag (if any) ought to replace #TuesdaysWithJerry, in tribute to late label co-founder Jerry Moss. But that’s really no reason to stop me from plowing ahead.
We’ve reached the point in my year-old deep dive into Christine McVie’s vast discography where we must ask, for the first of several times: Who among us remembers this guy?
If you were lucky enough to catch Fleetwood Mac during the first North American leg of their Tusk tour in late ‘79 — and you bothered arriving on time — then you probably saw a warmup set from this likable fellow, Danny Douma.
Initially I’d planned for this lengthy look back at A&M Records to be a series of twofers, the better to coincide with #VinylTwosDays, a weekly scene I’m always happy to join. But as I started sorting through titles and structuring future installments, it quickly occurred to me that not everything will pair up so pleasingly.