Music

Last month I personally, myself, exclusively, broke the dramatic news that the Stones gig at Slane would be formally announced in Dublin's Gresham Hotel at half eight in the morning of June 10 - Magill publication day.

Thus it was that three rock scrufffballs - representing the Evening Press, the Evening Herald and the Sunday World - gathered blearily in the Gresham lounge clutching early copies of the magazine and harrassing innoocent 'customers with enquiries whether they were close bosom-buddies of Mick Jagger before retiring morosely to the dining room to breakfast on kippers and Press-man Campbell "Paint" Spray's American Express card.

An explanation is, perhaps, in order. The incident was an example of what we in the trade call, technically, a "balls" or "cock"-up. As penance, I have listened to a Big Tom record.

Here's a story about George Hoddnott, whose signature, GDH, at the bottom of Irish Times gig reviews is an unvarying guarantee of quiet exxpertise and clean writing. Not that that matters.

Hoddie is a bone specialist. In his hey-day which hasn't ended yet but which may be temporarily peaked durring World War Two, he was much given to practising his art early in the morning, greatly to the cultural delight of trombone lovers in the vicinity of his home near Sandymount in Dublin. Misfortunately, Sandyrnount trommbone lovers were in a minority no less tiny than adherents of the theory and perspectives of Nicolai Suslov with regard to the ongoing emergency. Not that that matters either.

In deference to neighbours, Hoddie, instrument under arm, would walk into eternity along Sandymount strand to send the proud and mournful music out across the dawning waves. One day as the dawn was breaking bright and fair he was arrested in the act by a posse of Dublin Castle Special Branch detectives who had reckoned the only possible interpretation of his behaaviour was that he was signalling to German If-boats in Dublin Bay.

Joe Breen swears to me that this story is true. Even so, maybe it is.

Let it be clear that nothing in last month's piece was meant to reeflect badly on anyone involved directly , indirectly or tangentially in the orrganisation of the Stones gig. In parrticular, no slight or imputation was intended against James Aiken, Henry Mountcharles, Dennis Desmond, Bill Graham or Eamonn McCann, each of whom is as handsome as a prince, with a heart of gold and a mind as sharp and bright as a diamond ...

The matter of freebie tickets and back-stage passes has yet to be sorted out.

Dickie Rock wears a wig. So does Brendan Shine. Likewise Noel Carty. Also Joe Dolan.

The Four Tops.

The high-light of the Stones' stanndard set these days comes when the scrawny millionaire himself swoops out 65 feet above the adoring multiitudes during his heart-numbing perrformance of "Jumping Jack Flash." This feat is not achieved without mechhanical contrivance.

Even now, accredited represen taatives of Tom Holden of Drogheda are installing on the site at Slane a hydrauulic mechanism known variously as a "Euro-lift " or "HLJ." This reputable machine is widely known in the buildding trade and at Dublin Docks where,'! am told, it is used for assisting recalciitrant cows onto cattle boats.

God grant that nothing untoward occurs at Slane such as Micka continuuing his swoop free-fall out across the horizon and into the adjacent· Boyne river whose bitter waters have been tasted by many a Mick in the past.

I have no wish to spread desponddency but I gather that the man enntrusted with erection of the HLJ is - a selffconfessed Barry Manilow fan.

To say that I am shocked and outraged by reports in the Irish Press and In Dublin that the clothheared cretins who control the dayytime playlist at RTE Radio Two have effectively banned Stockton's Wing's tuneful new release "Walkkaway" on the ground that the band has advertised with Nova, would be to put it as low as the musical stanndards of Pascal Mooney. Who do this bubble-brained bunch of pompous bowsies think they are?

So they want to get back at Nova.

Quite right, Nova is a cheap-skate operation which wouldn't spend Christtmas if it could get it on a contra-deal and whose air-time is now cluttered. completely with boasts that it's "clutter-free." Nova, Sunshine and the others undermine the whole concept of the lowest common denominator.

But if .Radio Two producers want to blast back at the pirates with bans, why not do us all a favour by banning loathsome creeps like' Jim Reeves afficionado Albert Reynolds, comeye bore Michael Woods and Wee Willie Harris lookalike Garret FitzzGerald and the rest of the Leinster House numnucks who climb over' one another to get on Sunshine arid Nova when they think there might be avote in it?

I don't know why I ask these quesstions.

The amazing thing about Christy Moore is that we keep forgetting how amazing he is.

Fresh in from Brit-land where' he was laying down the law and a new Moving Hearts album, the' Prosperous grizzly has taken residence in the Gaiety from July 5 to 11 where he does his solo thing assisted by "friends." Asked who these friends might be; 'manager Mattie Fox informs me at the time of going' to press: "haven't a f--g notion." But it'll be alright on the night.

The Moore-man comes straight from the Gaiety to re-launch Planxty , nation, as they say', Wide, starting in Dundrum in Tipperary on July 14, and then to record a new Planxty album for release in the US of A next spring coterminous with a tour of those parts;

There's Christy Moore and Christy Moore with Planxty and Christy Moore with Moving Hearts' and if the bums at RTEhad ears to listen they'd never have banned the patriotic Tones' Mallvinas opportunism while . allowing through the current : Moore release. Which is subversive and gladdening of socialist hearts.

Seeing as how this is an intellectual magazine I'd thought of finishing on a high note with comment on Phil . Lynott's current solo tour to the effect that evening's all aglitter and noon a purple glow and evening full of the Lynott's Wings.

But, shurely, some mishtake ,