end of the road

HAPPENINGS TEN YEARS TIME AGO April 2 to 8, 1997 The Wallflowers, led by Jakob 'son of Bob' Dylan, leap more than 50 places to No 5 in the US albums chart with Bringing Down The Horse, on its way to shifting more than two million copies - thereby out-selling any record ever released by Dylan senior.

The folk magus is to play Aintree Racecourse in July

Squeeze and Supergrass also to play the award-winning event

The madchester boys are back with first record and full tour in 15 years

HAPPENINGS TEN YEARS TIME AGO March 26 to April 1, 1997 MTV fire a string of onscreen presenters, after US ratings drop by 20 per cent. The station's facelift, which it claims will result in the screening of about 20 extra hours of videos a week, with a stronger emphasis on indie, electronica and dance artists, is also believed to have been prompted by a hugely critical music biz poll. The survey, by the Record Industry Association of America, suggests that MTV has become "surprisingly irrelevant" to consumers.

Wayne Coyne has teamed up with West Wing creator to write a Pink Robots script

The '65 Tour classic is repackaged, plus a new film rescued from the cutting floor

Late Clash man's tracks appear on Julien Temple's biopic

There's something a little disingenuous about opening your album with a song called "Do I Disappoint You?". This is how the fifth album by Rufus Wainwright begins: with wave after wave of opulent, complex orchestral flourishes, building and building; with a multitracked Martha Wainwright screaming "CHAOS!" and "DESTRUCTION!"; and with Wainwright himself, coy in the midst of so much melodrama. It's a theatrical set-piece pretending to be an anti-climax. It's both lovely and knowingly ridiculous. And it's also rather good.

World premiere of first new songs in ten years