Beatles biographies?

heh

plz tell me volume 2 isn't going to be called "Turn On"

it is!
(but yeah, I agree -- i wasn't toooo interested in the childhood narratives of the first volume, but the rest of it seems like it'll be great)

lol that is terrible

I'm not so interested in vol 1 but vol 2 covers my favorite period. 10 years from now I should be able to afford a copy lol

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, November 24, 2015 7:01 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's what I thought before I read volume 1. Now I have a new favorite Beatles period. Reading about their earliest days -- as people, not just as bandmates -- has effectively recontextualized their music for me now when I hear it (in a positive way).

jesus christ I have to wait 5 more years for this next book?!!!

;_;

in the meantime we all have each other

I've been waiting almost 15 years for the second volume of Gary Giddins' Bing Crosby biography. No publication date in sight.

That's what I thought before I read volume 1.

Me too. I though Volume 1 would be a chore but it was a real pleasure. Everything felt new.

plz tell me volume 2 isn't going to be called "Turn On"

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 25, 2015 12:03 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Vol 3 is gonna be called "... Naah!"

I still think Japage3 is some sort of proto-indie 80's bandname.

Vol 3 should just be called "The End"

yes.

I managed to get Vol 1 for €5 but haven't read any of it yet.
I think it's vol 2 or 3 that will most interest me though. Psych era which is probably more 65-68 so probably overlaps the 2 volumes.
So when is volume 3 due? 10 years from now? & if so, do wonder if he is just working totally chronologically or if he is adding parts as research leads him. I think research is unlikely to wind up with information in strict chronological order. THings turn up at unexpected times. Just wondering what happens if he gets in an accident between here and when he has the Beatles split, if his wealth of information might be useful to somebody else who wanted to pick up the reigns.

& I also really want to get a book of the Robert Whittaker photos, so wonder what the best one is.

There is something weird about his project i.e. the non-zero chance he will die or get ill before everything is complete, and whether that happens or doesn't how his information is laid out for future biographers.

Like, he is trying to be definitive in the last period in which this might be possible for the Beatles specifically, but also the first period in which it is truly possible information-wise. Like, he's nudging at the edging of the period when all primary sources are available forever.

On my phone so hard to type this crap. But seems tragic. The search for the truth and all that.

His 20 years or more of research will be quickly superseded by regular contemporary précis, rewritten according to the age.

gettin vol 1 from the library today

i'm about halfway through revolution in the head[.

when i started it, i was unaware of the author's depression issues but keep thinking: jeez, this guy is relentlessly/unnecessarily negative. and now i just feel bad.

man the Brian Epstein stuff is so sad

Good interview:

www.travelsinmusic.com/episode-01-mark-lewisohn/

Thanks for posting that. Really interesting stuff. When asked "Why Liverpool?" Lewisohn points out that, among other things, Liverpool was the only city in the world in the 1950s with a rock 'n' roll scene. That is, many cities (in the US, obviously less so in other parts of the world) had jazz, blues, and rhythm & blues scenes, but none had (and Lewisohn does leave himself open to correction) a rock 'n' roll scene.

He also talks about how the India trip was the real turning point in terms of them starting to get sick of each other.

There was some other thread where we were talking about the Ron Howard film, but I can't find it. In lieu of that, the full trailer:

https://www.facebook.com/hulu/videos/10154397830312188/

Another good new interview with our guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0fXa1DTR6U

Watched Eight Days a Week over the weekend. Good fun, but not a lot of new ground covered.

really enjoying this book:

https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/8geICwAAQBAJ?fife=w300-rw

Some really entertaining anecdotes including Paul playing Tomorrow Never Knows for Bob Dylan before Revolver came out (Bob's response "Oh I get it. You don't want to be cute anymore."), interesting context around Yellow Submarine / infantilism in mid-sixties London and infighting during the recording of She Said She Said.

interesting -- jon savage also recently wrote a book about the year 1966.

Just listened to audio book of Barry Miles' new Zapple history. Very cool history but the Fabs - at least John, Paul and George - come across a bit assholish at times.

is there a worse contemporaneous critical body of work than the stuff written about the Beatles? Granted rock crit was in its infancy, but going back and reading reviews from the time (esp as the Beatles got further into their career) the amount of misguided invective and just retrospectively bizarre opinions is mind-boggling. Feels sort of similar to how Zep and Sabbath eventually got ret-conned into the canon at Rolling Stone - at some point critical consensus coalesced into acceptance + much higher degree of acclaim

(tbf this occurred to me while scanning the critical reception of McCartney's first two solo albums but larger point stands)

nik cohn famously panned both the white album and abbey road:

https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/arts/nikcohn1968.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/library/music/100569lennon-beat.html

and then there was this gem: http://screwrocknroll.tumblr.com/post/482115454/we-still-need-the-beatles-but

I know they got a lot of positive press too, but sometimes that isn't any better, as it's just vapid and adoring. Rolling Stone did p well in general, but some of the other stuff that was floating around is p dire.

Nice take on Beggars Bandquet in that first Cohn link though

i'd seen that richard goldstein pan of pepper mentioned countless places but had never actually read it till now -- i don't agree w/ most of his take on the album but it is actually a more thoughtful, less kneejerk dismissal than i would've assumed. i did kind of lol at this line --

Musically, there are already indications that the intense atonality of “A Day in the Life” is a key to the sound of 1967.

-- because it reminds me of the "maybe he's an early clue to the new direction!" scene in a hard day's night.

Golstein piece isn't dumb but it does reach bizarre conclusions. Like tying their aesthetic legitimacy to their willingness to be shouted at by masses of teenagers, for ex.

We need the Beatles, not as cloistered composers, but as companions. And they need us. In substituting the studio conservatory for an audience, they have ceased being folk artists, and the change is what makes their new, album a monologue.

I'm not a big Beatles fan, one way or the other, but I've got to give a lecture on them as part of a wider course on the sixties this week, so I've been digging around. I'd read both the Norman book and Revolution in the Head before, and had reasonable memories of them, bu returning to them....Shout! is wildly inaccurate about lots of details, which make you doubt the whole thing - Dick James had a office on the corner of Denmark St and Old Compton St? they don't intersect - Epstein wend to school in Beaconsfield, which Norman carelessly relocates in Kent etc. loads more. RitH is full fo journalistic cliche - McCartney and his celtic blood etc....everytime I read something now by the NM writers I grew up with I realise how bad that shit was.

I don't regret reading the first part of Mark Lewisohn's All These Years, will probably read the next volume when it's out. You can't fault him for accuracy, it's such a tome that any great insight tends to get lost somewhere, but still plenty I remember, especially as two of the Beatles grew up just round the corner from my mum, so I know all the places. The only real complaint I have is the way he tries to lighten the tone with bits of scouse slang, this really begins to grate after a few hundred pages.

nothing touches Lewisohn for scope and accuracy imo

agree

I'm just about finished the Lewisohn book. The nearest analogue in my experience is the Lord of the Rings — it's an astonishingly detailed epic, in a vivid setting (complete with map!), with its own dialect, amazing characters and a propulsive narrative that just builds and builds.

Been seeing Lewisohn commenting on Youtube in a couple of interviews that Vol2 won't be ready for next year, more like 2020 or later :(

Many Years from Now is a good one for McCartney's perspective.

I think I said this upthread but the biggest achievement of the Lewisohn book is re-investing me in their story. Like, I pretty much know how they met and I was still excitedly anticipating the moments when they meet up in the book. and peeling the mythology back to them being fairly normal teenagers etc.

Yeah, that whole "three guitarists, one amplifier" stuff put me right in the room.

Like, I pretty much know how they met and I was still excitedly anticipating the moments when they meet up in the book.

That was a big part of what I loved about the book, too. But also, there were the parts of the story I thought I knew being turned on their head, e.g., "George Martin heard them and said, 'not great, but not bad, I'll sign you'" is now "George Martin was having an affair with his secretary, which his bosses punished him for by forcing him to record a band EMI had only signed for songwriting publishing purposes."

To say nothing of "Japage 3" and all those other band names that pre-date the Qs

I thought the story in Lewisohn of "Love Me Do"'s climb and run on the charts was equally compelling and shocking in how much it had never been told before.

yeah i agree

https://open.spotify.com/episode/66u8d0xhy1mDMAxzpYkibZ?fbclid=IwAR0aRIrcVwMRiRfN27c9qX1LlkS2DTvzk82QTnt081KFJ2sKNd_tBNj2BXg

There's a first part to this, too, but I was just listening to this.