I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

Welcome to the church, Alba.

That mono box is truly amazing. I'm glad Apple wound up pressing a lot more copies, it may be out-of-print but it's not too hard to find for a reasonable price.

Presumably you're talking about the CD version there. The vinyl mono box goes for astronomical sums.

Ah, yes, that's what I meant! Too bad about the vinyl, but maybe they'll bring those back in-print? (It's weird that it's easier to get Giles's remixes on vinyl than the original mono.)

I'm late to the party, just watching Get Back now. Just got to the part where Paul sings "I'm So Tired" and literally screamed. This thing is uncut heroin.

Just rewatched the rooftop concert and one of the best moments of the entire 8 hours is when Paul looks over his shoulder and sees the cops, gives a little hoot, and starts putting extra sauce on everything.

About 3/4 of the way through watching it & have to jam out for the night. It’s been so great. I can’t imagine Suzy Creamcheese being all over this - can’t fathom why it hasn’t been widely panned, it’s so ramshackle and would have to be dull as fuck for a non-fanatic (not to mention so many off-key performances) - but I want the 56 hours of raw tapes, fuck it, gimme it all. I really understand now why George got fed up & left - the whole Beatle thing is John & Paul playing and performing for and at and to each other, & the other 2 are so often cut out of the bubble of those guys’ love and rivalry.

Also LOVING Mal Evans just writing down lyrics & changes to lyrics constantly so nobody has to break the creative flow. Underrated contributor.

yeah that was awesome. note takers consistently underrated team members.

A small point of confusion which no doubt has a trivial explanation: when they first go on the roof they have to climb a six foot plus high wall, actually bodily dragging Michael lindsay-hogg up it. Then when it comes to the performance they just walk out of a door...

I think someone pointed out that that higher roof was part of the building next door and therefore they would be trespassing to be on it

You could be right - Ringo just says "what happens if we do it on top of the other roof" but it's not clear what roof he's talking about, maybe they just climbed up to get to the highest vantage point even though the gig location was always going to be the larger part of the roof lower down. I think it probably is the building next door they climb up to, the red brick structure they climb up beside - and perform in front of - is no longer there in google maps, and the building next door has been redeveloped, but the greenhouse is still there.

For me the strange thing about the gig is that as far as they can tell they're performing to almost no-one. There's no way they can see down to the street, almost everyone directly in front of them is a cameraman or techie of some kind.

Xp to self just seen another view (live tweeting here) and the roof they climb up to is definitely the building next door.

Was Pink Floyd at Pompeii an attempt to do the same playing-to-no-audience thing on a larger scale I wonder. It’s.. not an idea that took off much beyond that iirc.

Well, Nilsson did it, and fifty years later, Nick Cave

I would imagine that after Beatlemania hit the gigs would have felt like performing to no-one anyway

the interviews with people who were on the street cinfirmed what ive always suspected: that the concert was extremely underwhelming. the most enthusiastic reaction is like ‘oh, that’s the beatles? oh. yeah, they’re alright. can’t hear or see anything though’

right that was my reaction too. they played great but it felt faintly ridiculous. more than a little bit spinal tap tbh.

“I’m moderately in favour of this sort of thing, generally!”

God, part 2 is fucking slog to get through, even with Billy Preston coming in halfway.

I broke it into 1 hour chunks, it was fine

Yeah my viewing has been extremely episodic, after my forensic analysis of roofs last night I still haven't finished part 3. My wife came down and said "god you're not still watching the beatles are you?" then complained that don't let me down was making her feel sick.

Roofing issues: From reading a couple of interviews, it seems it wasn't quite the spontaneous 'just stepping out onto the roof now guys' it appears. A consulting engineer was brought in to check that the roof would take the weight of people and equipment, and a wooden platform was put down. The rooftop sequence does make me slightly nervous, particularly when the filming cuts to people perched precariously on neighbouring roofs and window ledges. Did lol at the footage of poor MLH being ungraciously dragged up the wall.

MLH issues: It was probably a bit unfair for Tony Richmond (cinematographer) to say “So Michael stopped it. Which was probably a silly thing to do. It would have been fantastic to have seen him taken away by the police, and down the stairs, and up Savile Row, because nothing would have happened.” It seems that MLH had no work permit at the time so may well have faced personal consequences.

God, part 2 is fucking slog to get through, even with Billy Preston coming in halfway.

Had no idea he played on Rattle & Hum.

Gopnik:

ker.com/magazine/2021/10/18/paul-mccartney-doesnt-really-want-to-stop-the-show

My affection for Old Brown Shoe has grown immensely since watching them having an absolute gas learning & tracking it.

same!

and I already liked it plenty

1967-70 was the first album I ever bought, aged 11, in the summer of 1973. The only track I never connected with was Old Brown Shoe. But, yeah, I guess it’s alright.

it's a mystery how that B-side appeared on that collection

Wasn't Harrison the band member most involved in putting those comps together?

I don't think so, mainly because there's no George songs on the red album.

Those comps were Allen Klein’s doing.

Never had the red album but wow, that’s odd about Taxman. Revolver only gets two tracks compared with six for Rubber Soul wtf?

Exactly. I have no problem with six from Rubber Soul but they should have at least put four more from Revolver: Tomorrow Never Knows and Got to Get You Into My Life are massive omissions, and I'd also pick Taxman and For No One, and I'd also include John's B-side Rain. I guess they wanted to keep all the songwriting royalties to themselves, but Twist and Shout and Money should have made it too, IMHO. Otherwise, there are originals like I'm Down that I definitely would have included.

Regardless, the red album should have been expanded for CD release. Way too skimpy, it's much less than 70 minutes, and it was priced as a premium 2 CD set (usually above $30 retail in the U.S.) which made it feel like a rip-off.

And I Saw Her Standing There, how does that get missed?

I think there's a direct correlation between lack of Revolver tracks on the red album and Revolver's elevated status in the 80s and beyond. Those compilations set up Revolver to be the one planet in The Beatles solar system w/the most discoverable landscape.

it's a mystery how that B-side appeared on that collection

George was at his most successful in relation to John and Paul in 1973; there was probably a demand for "more George" and "Old Brown Shoe" was a more likely candidate for a compilation than "The Inner Light" or "Savoy Truffle". Do people really think it's worse than the Ringo song?

Though by 1976, George's star had dimmed sufficiently for The Best of George Harrison to feature a whole side of Beatles songs.

Is that the right Gopnik article above, or did you mean a close read of the Beatles in Get Back

“old brown shoe” is excellent even tho george’s vocal has always sounded weirdly quiet to me, like they didn’t mix it loud enough. also way better than its a-side (“ballad of john and yoko”) imo.

Otm.

Yes, thanks, Luna!

I mean to post this on this thread, not the poll:

The third and final part of that SATB interview with Peter Jackson is up. I haven't listened to it all yet, but this bit I've transcribed below is encouraging (the interview was recorded before Get Back was aired, and I think it's fair to say the reaction has been bigger than expected:

PETER JACKSON: What I’m hoping is that this whole edict of ‘no extended cut’ will go away. If people seem to really like this, Disney will do an extended cut. If they think they can make money from it, they’ll do it.
So even though they say now and probably rightly “Extended cuts don’t sell, there’s nobody buying them. there’s no market for them, we don’t do them”, if they get a sense, if they just get a sniff because of the reaction that they could sell a lot of extended-cut Blu-rays – you know, they would cost whatever it would cost for us to do it, which wouldn’t necessarily be hugely expensive, since all the groundwork has been done, the organisation, all the restoration has all been done, so much of that has been done, so it wouldn’t be hugely expensive to do it – if they felt that for the cost of doing that they could earn 10x as much from the Blu-ray sales then I think an extended cut would come back on the table.

I think we just at the moment, we just have to let this happen and it’ll be a Disney decision if they feel there’s a demand for it. It will literally come down to a demand. So if you’re listening to this do your bit and demand it!

http://somethingaboutthebeatles.com/224c-the-making-of-get-back-part-three-with-peter-jackson/

Lol does he mean an even longer cut of Get Back? I think Disney is right that the demand is small. If they could get 50K Beatles fans to pay £60 each for a Blu-Ray that's £3m.. And that's gross. Once you look at the cost of making the things and promoting it...

50K is a small estimate in my humbs

Old Brown Shoe is fantastic; Paul's bassline is amazing, esp. in the "when I'll grow up I'll be a singer" bits.

Maybe so. I can't find a global chart for Blu Ray unit sales but here's the US chart:
https://www.the-numbers.com/home-market/bluray-sales/2021

All the top sellers are big tentpole 'fiction' movies (with 'Beetlejuice' surprisingly at #29?)

xpost

Lol does he mean an even longer cut of Get Back?

Yeah, he originally assumed there was going to be a longer cut wanted down the road based on, y'know, Peter Jackson experience, and when he found out Disney weren't interested he upped the first cut from 6hrs to 8.5. The way he tells it, he just delivered that extra length as a fait accompli without checking with them first – and they just put it out without any comeback at all, like they hadn't noticed it was 90 mins longer than agreed. He also said that 5 min sneak preview was all his team's doing too - not something Disney's promotional team had asked for. It all sounds like Disney had a remarkably hands-off approach to the whole thing. The only thing he mentioned having to push for regarding the broadcast film was keeping the swearing in. He also said none of the Beatles (or Yoko or Olivia) vetoed anything being included.

Idly, he also moots the idea of even doing it as a 21-part series, one hour for each studio day. You'd love that, Tracer!

90 mins longer

150 mins longer, rather.