Say Something *NEW* about the Beatles...

anyone here read the Albert Goldman book on Lennon? out of print, but worth buying online for a buck... very juicy, very trashy, extremely homoerotic...

Was there anything made of the longterm Fluxus artist choosing to marry a populist pop star?

Yeah, I have that Albert Goldman book.

It's nowhere near as 'damning' as Bono (etc) have made out, it gives an awful lot of bumf and expects you to unpick it.

e.g. that whole "John hit Stu and that's why Stu died", bottom line there is that nobody thought that except for John himself, possibly racked with guilt over some fight they had.

urgh Goldman. i'm glad that book's pretty much been forgotten about in the UK. his lack of any decent footnotes AT ALL tells the real tale there imo.

the recently-edited-together live footage from Shea on the '1+' dvd (as a video for Eight Days A Week) looks killer, and seems to suggest the Shea footage has been remastered/cleaned-up for an upcoming release. possibly tied with the Ron Howard film?

that book is poorly sourced rubbish

It only had the one edition, I believe.

oh yeah, a lot of it is bullshit, but it's a great, grim read. like the opening scene of Lennon in the late-70s "smoking thai stick" in his Howard Hughes period. dark as all hell. and Goldman is just an insane writer, he's so nasty and obviously repressed - it comes out in the prose. a lot of very flowery penis descriptions and allusions

yeah the goldman book isn't necessarily "good" as a reliable biography of an actual person but it's kind of a sick masterpiece. def remember being somewhat traumatized by a lot of it when i first read it as a teenage beatles fan. goldman's style is undeniably ridiculous and over-the-top but writing a 600+ page book without a single dull sentence in it is some kind of accomplishment.

Did you read the Elvis book too, J.D.?

yeah, the elvis book is amazing and deplorable for similar reasons. for pure unadulterated goldman nastiness, though, you need his other elvis book:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41n1UB9KkML._SL500_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

That Goldman book opening: it's a young guy (named Kit?) couriering heroin up to John's Dakota apartment and the ensuing wasted ennui he sees, iirc. V memorable, given I read it 20+ years ago.

It's been a while since I read it but I remember the Goldman book being massively entertaining, and actually pretty good when talking about the actual music.

feel like the mark lewisohn book was so good and actually made the early days beatles story feel fresh i never want to read anyone else write anything about the beates except his next 2 upcoming books

^^^

ha i should give it another try, got a little exhausted around page 150 ... though I"m excited for that level of detail on the actual Beatles years

Lewisohn was very enthusiastic about the prospects for this film.

"Something new about the Beatles"

Cool band

As far as I can gather, the people of the Philippines are still more than a bit embarrassed about the way the Beatles were handled here.

Yeah, "We're sorry about Imelda Marcos", they've said that a few times.

#9 Dream sounds an awful lot like an Ariel Pink song, doesn't it? (or the other way round if you're offended by this comparison)

^ yes, it does

https://i.redd.it/bea2nydimowz.jpg

A better thread would be "Say something about a band that aren't The Beatles"

(and I'll bet 'Carnival of Light' is terrible)

haha, that's great

I always thought "From Me to You" was the weakest of their early singles, but I like it more now - pretty classic Beatles.