The Beatles

All this talk about "Beatlesque" just made want to post the time New Kids on the Block tried to sound like the Beatles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTo3N73hpPg

That is all.

Something that signals Beatles to me is the descending chromatic bassline ("Dear Prudence," "Lucy in the Sky," "While my guitar..."), which apparently is called lament bass. John also plays it on "Look at Me" from Plastic Ono Band, which could be a White Album castoff.

It’s very Julia-esque, innit?

Another act that does a pretty good job sounding Beatles-esque is Elvis Costello. Songs like "And In Every Home" (of course), and the later Macca co-writes, but also stuff like "This is Hell" from Brutal Youth.

From the Dylan Center - John, Paul and George's 1969 X-Mas cards to Dylan (and an '80s one from George)

I kind of turned my back on Beatles fandom and left it to everyone else in the world, but Sean Lennon's cover on FB for Paul McCartney's birthday really got to me.

A few years ago, Sean was doing some kind of virtual chat with Paul, and IIRC a lot of it focused on personal questions that only Paul could answer. For example, he wanted to know what his paternal grandmother was like, because he had absolutely no idea.

Chris Charlesworth just posted this anecdote about the McCartneys. Nothing big or earthshaking, but it's charming just to see Paul and Linda McCartney trying to raise their kid right and also be good parents despite their enormous celebrity status. It's also highly commendable because it doesn't always work out - I knew almost nothing of Tom Hanks's family life until this past year, and it's pretty sad how things have played out for one of his kids despite his efforts at trying to do the same.

Been making my way through this, which was just posted yesterday:

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-150-all-you-need-is-love-by-the-beatles/

Every episode of the series has been brilliant, and this one -- at nearly 4 hours -- is no exception. Among (many) other things, it provides the definitive account of the "bigger than Jesus" uproar in the US. The standard narrative -- "they were misquoted in some teen magazine" -- is patently false.

Oh, that guy's Monkees book is very good, so that sounds intriguing.

His podcast is fairly mindblowing. Rarely does he focus solely on the song in question, and sometimes the song isn't taken up until near the end of an episode. There's also many unexpected, but necessary and welcome, detours: the one on "Eight Miles High" started out talking mostly about Dexter Gordon, and part of the "Love Is Strange" episode dealt with Iannis Xenakis.

It's a really great podcast

Among (many) other things, it provides the definitive account of the "bigger than Jesus" uproar in the US. The standard narrative -- "they were misquoted in some teen magazine" -- is patently false.

Haven't ever heard anything about a teen magazine before. The standard narrative is that the quote came from this John interview with Maureen Cleave for the Evening Standard.

If Andrew Hickey has a new twist on this that would be a real scoop. I do enjoy his podcast, but I started from the beginning and diligently try to follow the whole thing episode by episode. Up to about episode 30, which is a long way off getting to Beatles and stuff.

I've never heard that standard narrative before either!

The Lennon interview didn’t ruffle any feathers in the UK, nor in the US when it was published by (among others) the Detroit Free Press and Newsweek (Hickey mistakenly refers to “Detroit Magazine,” but posted a correction on his site). The standard narrative is from — among other sources — the Beatles Anthology series. Brian Epstein is seen at a press conference saying Lennon was quoted, in Datebook magazine, “entirely out of context.” (Prior to that, The Compleat Beatles said he was “misquoted by an American teen magazine.”)

Except, Datebook published the Cleave interview in full, and in fact the magazine tried to piss off southern racists with a McCartney quote, but the bigots instead latched onto Lennon.

god dammit why did i read the transcript of that podcast about spade cooley, i should know better than to do that sort of thing

Are they teasing new music?

https://t.co/WD7FPPbm1P pic.twitter.com/xEXToI76E2

— The Beatles (@thebeatles) October 25, 2023

I assume it will be a reunion with AI Lennon and Harrison contributing

it's surely the red & blue album reissues which are coming with a new track, the lennon demo they worked on a bit during the anthology sessions but the quality of it was too bad for them to be happy with at the time. mccartney recently used stem-extracting tools to extract the vocals from the demo and finish it off or something like that.

I wonder if they've been tempted to go back in and pull out more of Lennon's vocal in Free As A Bird and remix it, they didn't have much of any tech to do such a thing at the time.

They did remix it for the video disc of 1+ so I can see them doing it again.

I assume it will be a reunion with AI Lennon and Harrison contributing

I read this several times, and was like — "Who the f is 'Al Lennon'??"

(this may only work if your font displays a capital "I" as a thin line)

feels weird to add myself to the fan email list for the literal beatles but hey

As a top fan of The Beatles on Spotify, you have access to a 10" pressing of "Now And Then" – the last new song to be released by The Beatles.

“Now And Then” was written and demoed by John Lennon in the mid/late 1970s. With John’s voice now pristine in the mix, “Now And Then” features elements from the 1995 sessions including George Harrison’s guitar parts, along with vocal and instrumental parts recorded by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in 2022.

“Now And Then” is the last song recorded by all four Beatles, and as the only 10" format of the single, this is a true collectors item.

A limited quantity is available for this offer - until November 9, 2023 at 5:00 PM GMT or while supplies last - so act quickly.

have to say, as much as I like Ed Ruscha, his artwork for Beatles things (this single and McCartney III) is really underwhelming.

I love Ruscha but that cover fucking sucks

so there's a 7" and a 10" and a 12" version of this single?

predictions on what Fantano's gonna give this?

I agree, that cover sucks. Klaus Voorman didn't an excellent job with Anthology, they should've approached him if they hadn't.

*DID an excellent

so there's a 7" and a 10" and a 12" version of this single?

and a cassette single, haven't seen one of those in a while. And presumably a CD single.

Sorry I prefer 8-track, the sound is warmer

oh, there is no cd single! odd (though I think making one would have been a real waste)

Bruce Spitzer's review (which he posted, then pulled down, and is apparently reposting next week). Sounds promising.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231026171932/https://www.beatle.net/now-and-then-a-fitting-last-song-from-the-beatles/

Hahaha, I saw that cover earlier on their website and genuinely thought they were placeholder mock-ups.

wow yeah that's like LCD Soundsystem's American Dream I cannot believe that is the real cover

the flip is better

http://https%3A//i0.wp.com/webgrafikk.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1804.jpeg

bah

http://https://i0.wp.com/webgrafikk.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1804.jpeg

wtf. no idea how you link an img on here anymore. it's on this page

https://webgrafikk.com/blog/news/now-and-then-trailer-and-story/

ok I kinda like the cover, it reminds me of those generic stock covers on 60s private press church choir albums and stuff

I do think it works better on the cassette version with the border and the logo above. But it looks like straight lazy garbage on the vinyl covers.

Never saw this before, but when Letterman was still hosting The Late Show, he brought Paul and Ringo into the theater when they weren't taping an actual episode and had them reminisce about their famous appearance there on Ed Sullivan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KY8uq7uZeE

I pass by this area quite often - pretty much every week. I don't really think about it unless I remind myself, but it's pretty amazing that 60 years ago all the footage I saw of their first visit to NYC more or less unfolded around there, from the Plaza to the few blocks you'd need to walk to get to the Ed Sullivan Theater. On top of that, you have these other places like MoMA, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall all within a few blocks, and of course the Dakota isn't that far either (a brief cab ride away if traffic isn't bad). Before I really knew Manhattan (or lived around here), I just figured it was all spread out more since the city was so big, but it's pretty amazing how 90% of what I knew about the city as a kid is packed into a pretty small area.

(Guess this actually aired when Paul was on Letterman around 2009)

One of the first Beatles albs I owned, took it to parties and played between Never Mind The Bollocks and This Year's Model---Lennon was a born screamer--Paulie not so much, but he hung in there, while George and Ringo smoked all of this 27 minute epic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles_VI

Larry Williams' "Bad Boy" was thee anthem---Lennon: "Aw BUYYYYYYY evah rock 'n' roll book on tha mag-a-zine, stand."

Also Yesterday and Today: even without the butcher block cover, it was some fucken tasty chopnserve, pieces shaken up together like that.

It's Beatles Night!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QagEV5zujw

😳😀

I only watched a tiny bit though

4K upload of 8mm footage filmed by an attendee at their final touring stop at Candlestick Park in 1966:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn5ayAJcxkU

This is kind of great for putting things in better perspective. You see how primitive the set up looks (a given when stadium tours were still new), and why they were a pain - it must be exhausting to have a bunch of policemen running around the outfield to catch fans. Also never realized they used a spotlight like some sort of high school theater production.