Current News  QFN-21
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The 9th BRIT Awards - 20th February 1996
Earls Court, London
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Queen were not nominated in any catagory this year, but I'm
sure 'Made In Heaven' will be next year. Queen's last
nomination was for 'Days Of Our Lives' in 1992, which they
won in the best single catagory. 1990 saw Queen receive a
special award for an 'Outstanding Contribution to Music'. 

This year saw the birth of a new award  - 'The Freddie
Mercury Award'. This award will be presented each year to an
individual or organisation who work in the feild of charity.

Brian and Roger were at the ceremony this year to present
'The Freddie Mercury Award' to Brian Eno (producer of the
album Help!) on behalf of the 'War Child' charity who are
working in war-torn Bosnia.
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Status Quo 30th Anniversary Celebration
Brixton Academy - Sunday 28th January 1996
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Brian May was amongst the guest performers at this event,
and the show was filmed, so you may get to see it sometime,
somehow.

The Status Quo Fan Club organised this event, and gave the
Queen Fan Club 200 tickets. This was announced on Jacky's
answer machine and the tickets were sold for 5 (I think) on
a first come, first served basis.

Status Quo were filmed during the mimed playback for their
new album 'Don't Stop'. The album contains cover versions
with special guests joining Quo on certain tracks. Brian
performed on 'Rainging In My heart' (Buddy Holly). Don't
forget this was mimed. Brian is on the album 'Don't Stop'
actually playing though.

After the filming, Status Quo performed many of their hits
'live', and Brian joined them on stage to play on 'FBI',
originally by The Shadows (which is on a new tribute album),
and the Chuck Berry classic 'Johnny B. Goode'.
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Mercury - The King of Queen
---------------------------
A suprise new book is to be published by the authur of the
'Queen & I - The Brian May Story' Laura Jackson. This time
it's Freddie's turn to have the spotlight upon him. However
if the sections printed in a 3-page article of the UK
newspaper 'The People' (May 19th 1996) are an indication of
the whole contents, then this book will not be as welcome as
her previous. The book is published by Smith Gryphon on 30th
May at 16.99. Send in a review if you read it. 
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The King Ivory Band
-------------------
Did you know that the band 'Smile' were originally a
four-piece?

As mentioned in the 'Magazine' section of this issue, Chris
Smith was the organ player wo provided some backing vocals
with Smile and giged with them for a while before leaving
amicabley.

Apparently Chris moved to London in 1966 and went to Ealing
College of Art where he met and wrote songs with a certain
Freddie Bulsara.

A year later Chris teamed up with Brian May and Tim Stafell
to form Smile, but quit to persue his first love - The
Blues. The rest was unknown history, until now!

Chris now fronts his own outfit, The King Ivory Band. They
did a session on BBC Radio 2 in Feburary 1996, booked by
admirer, Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann).

A 12 track self-titled cassette is available for 7
(including P & P) direct from Chris himself. You can call
him on 01423 860388 for more details.
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Inuenndo Phonecard
------------------
It had to happen. Another Queen collectors phonecard from
the people who brought you the official 'Made In Heaven'
phonecard - 'P & J Promotions'

The 4th May 1996 saw the release of the 'Inuenndo'
phonecard, limited as was the 'Made In Heaven' phonecard to
5000 worldwide.

Again, the card will come in a full colour and be
individually numbered. The price remains at 10 per card
plus pastage, which is 1 in the UK and 3 in Europe and
3.50 for the rest of the world.

I spoke to someone from P & J Promotions at the Convention
this year, about the possbility of producing a whole set of
phonecards depicting each Queen album as they do with other
sets (ie Star Trek, Prince and many comic characters).
Although he couldn't confirm it would happen, he did say
there was a strong possibility. You have been warned. Expect
20 phonecards in total. 

If you have a 'Made In Heaven' card, (there are still some
left if you haven't) then inform 'P & J Promotions' when you
order the 'Inuenndo' card and you may get matching numbers,
though it can't be guarenteed. You can pay by the credit
cards below by post or telephone, quoting the credit card
number and its expiry date, plus your name and address.
Credit Cards - Access / Visa / Amex / Switch 

Enquiries MUST include an SAE or 2 IRCs.

Contact:

P & J Promotions
PO Box 23
Shoreham-By-Sea
West Sussex
BN43 5EG

Tel: 01273 46017
Fax: 01273 452607
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The Times 500 - The UK's richest people.
----------------------------------------
Below is the Queen-related selection of the top 500 richest
people in the UK. it was printed in the 14th April edition
of 'The Times' newspaper. I have not corrected the errors
which appeared in print. Anyone know what the (qv) is?

John Deacon - 39 million. Placed joint 437th. 
Deacon joined the band in 1971. They earned six platinum
records in America and international acclaim for hits such
as Bohemian Rhapsody before Freddie Mercury, the lead singer
died in 1991. Deacon's wealth derives from the fees paid to
his own Goldfinch Productions by Queen Productions, the
band's master cmpany. we believe his share of the band's
catalogue is worth 29 million and add 10 for accumulated
wealth.

Roger Taylor - 37 million. Placed joint 450th.
Bass guitarist Taylor was a founder member of Queen. He
joins the list for the first time along with Brian May (qv)
and John Deacon (qv). His private company Nightjar
Productions, has paid him 5.4m in total for the past three
years, to which we add his emolulents from the band's Queen
Productions.

Brian May - 38 million. Placed joint 442nd.
May, like John Deacon (qv), has seen a surge in Queen's
popularity since the death of Freddie Mercury. His catalogue
wealth alone in 28 million, based on pay from the band's
Queen Productions and his own Duck Productions.

Notice how all their own companies are named after birds,
which I think were formed in 1991 - Ed.
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Convention Swim
---------------
A 'Mile For Mercury' was swum at the Convention, realising
233.50 for the MPT. And yes 'crawl' was a good description
of the style, as doing it after two '20-hour' days at
Southport was not the most brilliant of sporting tactics.

A huge Thank You to all the trusting fans at the GaGa
Bristol gig and those at the Convention who sponsored me and
paid in advance. PMG 
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Freddie's 50th 'Black & White' Birthday Bash.
---------------------------------------------
The fan club-organised annual Freddie Mercury birthday party
is to be held at Westex, Royal Bath and West Showground,
Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 6QN this year.

The event should be bigger than ever, and the venue is big
enough to house a bar, stage area, and market stalls for
official-only Queen merchandise. Table hire is 2.

There are two bands to play, a re-formed Cross with a guest
singer, (probably Chris Thompson) and the tribute band
'Magic'. There will of course be non-stop Queen during the
rest of the day.

The event begins at noon and lasts until 1am the following
day. The theme is to be 'black & white' - a great favourite
of Freddie's.

The ticket price is 10 per adult, 5 for under 16s. Each
fan club member can bring three guests, or their whole
family on one membership.

Tents and caravans are welcome at a charge of 3 each, and a
few caravans can be rented for 50 each on a first come,
first served basis. 
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Montserrat on TV
----------------
Montserrat Caball was a guest on the 'Gaby Roslin Show' 
(UK TV) - 25/5/96 Montserrat sang something I personally did
recognise, but wasn't anything she recorded with Freddie.
She also gave a 10 minute interview to Gaby and revealed she
was diagnosed as having cancer in 1985 and a brian tumor at
a later. She seems to take it in her stride and proved to be
a brave and very entertaing woman.

She was intriduced as:
      "the greatest opera diva in the world".
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News from 'The Snow Queen' - a Russian Queen newsletter
(October 1995)

Sergey Smelev, PO BOX 151, Nizhny Novgorod, 603065 ,RUSSIA

Roumours abound that American sound-a-like band Queenmania
are to play in St Pertersburg soon

Made In Heaven isn't released so far, but announcemences
have been aird by TV and newspaper which is unusal, as all
the previous releases were ignored! I believe this is the
first time the Russina mass meida has dicussed something
prior to release.

A new Queen counterfeit CD was spotted recently - 'Queen
Platinum'. Produce by  by NAID. It was manufactured in
either Russia or Bulgaria. It has a different track-listing
and artwork than any official 'Greatest Hits' release.
Although the song 'The Show Must Go On' is listed on the
cover, it's not actually on the CD.

QFN printed a 'Snow Queen' quiz in QFN-19 and no one sent
neither QFN nor The Snow Queen the answer correct! It was
quite difficult though. The question and answer is printed
below.

The Snow Queen Quiz Question from QFN-19. In 1971 T-Rex had
a number one hit in the UK with a song written by Marc
Bolan. In the fade-out Marc sings a line from another song
written and recorded by an American rock 'n' roll hero.

Some years later Queen recorded a song, and at the end of
it, they too included a line from the same rock 'n' roll
classic.

Name all three songs concerned.

The Answer is: In 1971 T.Rex topped the British charts with
'Get It On (Bang A Gong)'. At the end of the song Marc Bolan
sings, "Meanwhile, I was still thinking..." This is the from
Chuck berry's 1957 classic song 'Little Queenie'. Another
line from that very same song was used by Queen at the end
of 'Now I'm Here' - "Go, go, go Little Queenie..."

So there! Easy when you know the answer isn't it. Thanks for
clearing that up Sergey.
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THE WHITELOCKS ANNUAL SPONSORED SWIM
------------------------------------------
Joy and Tony decided to do another sponsored swim for The
Mercury Phoenix Trust to mark the anniversary of the sad
loss of Freddie. This was the fourth annual swim and the
length of swim was increased to 35 lengths non-stop, 5 more
than last year (just under  of a mile!)

As the life guards at our local pool have got to know us
over the years the same pool was to be used again and this
time a lane was to be roped off for us. We arrived at the
pool at approximately 6.30pm after a hard day's work and
after saying "hello" to the life guards and making sure that
they would watch us and count the completed lengths we
started the swim. It took approximately 50 minutes for us to
complete the swim, during which we were constantly advised
of our progress by the life guards. After we finished our
swim the life guards signed our sponsor forms to verify that
we had completed the 35 lengths non-stop and we handed out
Red ribbons to them and the other staff at the pool.

The great news is that we managed to raise 333.50, for the
Mercury Phoenix Trust (which was more than last year.) and
we also enjoyed the swim although we were both tired. All
that remained then was to drive a well earned rest.. 

Finally we would like to say a big "THANK YOU" to everyone
who supported and sponsored us which includes many people
from England (including Queen cover bands, local record
shops and magazines and fanzines) and to friends and fans
from other countries including Ireland, Scotland, South
Africa, USA, and Holland.

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END