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Thoughts On Red And Blue

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Both these sets have been expanded into triple LPs with Giles Martin remix versions.

Red is a triumph for Peter Jackson’s MAL technology that can pick apart the individual elements from recordings made on very few tracks. The first two Beatles albums were recorded on two tracks, upgrading to four by 1964. Abbey Road was slow in introducing eight until 1968. MAL has enabled Giles and his team to remix the 1962-1966 period in stereo. The results are spectacular. The band really rock in the early days, becoming increasingly sophisticated by 1965. The Rubber Soul songs are absolutely beautiful, light and airy. The big winner throughout is Ringo but all the elements, vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards sound so much better. The strings on Yesterday are gorgeous. She Loves You is the only one that isn’t so good, but that’s more likely due to difficulties finding a decent source to apply MAL to. You can quibble about song selection. If I was breaking Allen Klein’s original no-covers rule, I’d choose Twist & Shout, Long Tall Sally (this EP is not otherwise represented) and Act Naturally (Ringo should have two songs on a set this big, and it suits his character perfectly). » Continue Reading.

Fancy Doing A Masters “In The Beatles”?

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A lot of people on the Aftrword have a good knowledge of The Beatles. Two host a wonderful podcast, Nothing Is Real, that challenges if we really know The Beatles.

Now, there is a golden opportunity to study a masters degree. (I presume the fee will be around £10,000). The drawbacks are that it is in Liverpool University (of course) and it is “future facing” on the band’s impact on heritage and culture. (Some of us don’t have a very long future to face). There is no word on who the lecturers might be. Mark could tune out of writing his magnum opus for a short time to run a workshop. Paul might show up. It’s possible that Ringo will be given the task of selecting the Starr student. A dissertation on The Rutles would be diverting but I suspect How The Beatles Weaponised The Remix has a better chance of a merit.

If you the time to spare, all you need is love and cash.

Any takers?

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2021/02/24/world-first-masters-in-the-beatles-music-industry-and-heritage-launched/

Beatlesque…

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Browsing gently through some songs, I thought, “Ooh! That sounds like The Beatles.” I pondered that their influence has been so wide and so long, there must be plenty of songs not by The Beatles but sounding more like The Beatles than The Beatles themselves, and I’m not talking deliberate pastiche like the magnificent Rutles. It made me wish there was a word for it.

Fiona Apple, for example, loves The Beatles so much, she named herself after their record label. She does a wonderful cover of Across The Universe. On Paper Bag, the piano chords and the horns are straight out of The White Album.

How many Beatlesque songs can The Afterword think of?

Why don’t we do it on the roof?

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Today, January 30, it’s been 50 years since The Beatles played on the roof of their Apple office to create a proper ending to their Let It Be movie. It would take close to another year and a half before it, and the album, was released.

The lovely thing is you can see them enjoying themselves, each other and the music. They would never play together in public again.

Paul McCartney’s 1965 Christmas mixtape

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DJ Paul takes us through some of his favourite songs of the time. He had good taste in music, even back then. Add to this tape loops and some not necessarily unstoned banter.

It was intended to be strictly limited, with only his fellow fabs given a copy each. But more than fifty years later, well. Here we are.

Enjoy!

https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/12/paul-mccartneys-1965-christmas-mixtape-has-surfaced-stream/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

It´s Ron Nasty´s birthday!

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And Ron should be celebrated accordingly. He wrote some of the best songs ever written, showed his Dr Robert on that album cover and grew a beard in bed. What more do you need from a pop star?

Do a poo poo!

That´s not Cheese & Onions, no. But if one needs to go one needs to go.

(And if you kind people haven´t seen The Rutles, this won´t make any sense at all. In that case, see Lennon, John. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this post.)

Abbey Road

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I’m not, by any stretch, an avid Beatles fan but I’ve been listening to the remastered version of Abbey Road on Spotify this week, and it struck me what a phenomenal record it really is. Such an innovative record – I find it hard to believe that it was recorded before the 1970s! The production is faultless, and the vocals are, to my ears, the best of any Beatles album. ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ are works of genius by George Harrison. I think ‘Something’ is actually one of the best records ever written – it’s just amazing. And the medley on side two just works so well – it had the potential to be a self-indulgent disaster, but it’s just so ahead of its time and different. That iconic cover too.. Anyhow, just ordered it on vinyl, a great album from start to finish.

Beatles Project #1 – Love Me Do

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My source – Please Please Me CD – mono version

The sound of October 1962. Is this when the 60s started? Not for me as a six ear old. The 60s didn’t at this time, nor for a few years to come, mean anything special. The didn’t immediately register with me, but it did make some impression because not long after when Beatlemania took off I knew it well enough to sing it with friends.

According to MacDonald this album version is the one that features Alan White on drums, with a disgruntled Ringo relegated to tambourine. I can’t listen and say that’s definitely not Ringo.

Notable for opening with Lennon’s harmonica employing a riff he learned from Delbert McClinton, who had played something (supposedly) similar on Bruce Channel’s Hey Baby.

It doesn’t sound that alike to me. But legend is that Delbert showed John how. That aside Delbert McClinton is a fine musician. I saw him at The Garage in Islington about 20 years ago and he was fabulous. Piling a massive amount of energy into his performance, he » Continue Reading.

An Afterword Beatles project – songs first to last: a modest proposal

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There have been threads about The Beatles since the original Word v1 site (of which Tigger’s White album post below is just the latest). The recent publicity given to 50 years since Sgt Pepper, the thread on Rolling Stones songs ordered by merit, plus comments elsewhere on Ian McDonald’s Revolution In The Head got me thinking and planted a seed.

I propose to listen to every Beatles song in turn, and post a commentary on each one of them, first to last. The order of songs will be guided by MacDonald’s book; while I may refer to, concur with or disagree with IMac’s opinions or extract notable information the thoughts will be mine and I hope yours.

Just to be clear, the main purpose of referring to Revolution In The Head is to use it as a chronological guide. I’m not proposing a redundant exercise of re-analysing the songs as McDonald did, but want to consider their impact on me and I want to read your thoughts on how they hit you. I recall almost all of them first time around. How have younger members come across them and how do you feel about them?

So we can discuss EVERY » Continue Reading.

Bobby Vee – 1943 -2016

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He filled in for Buddy Holly on the 1959 tour after Buddy was killed, Bob Dylan played in his band and The Beatles covered his songs in Hamburg and on their failed Decca audition.

Above all Bobby Vee made some great pre-Fabs pop records.

Around 1960 Dylan lied his way into Bobby Vee’s band under the name Elston Gunnn (with three n’s) claiming he was a piano player and had toured with Conway Twitty. Vee was impressed, but later learned that Dylan could only play in the key of C. They hired him for $15 a night, but the job didn’t last long as Bob wasn’t much of piano player.

It was lightweight pop perhaps, but Take Good Care Of My Baby was a great Goffin & King song.

http://i.imgur.com/66GVzRm.jpg

Three Albums To Soundtrack Your Life

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My first real exposure to Pop music was a gift for my fifth birthday, With The Beatles. We had no record player but the gifted brought one round whenever she babysat. I was entranced by those songs, transported by their fresh, wide-eyed excitement. I’d dance myself to sleep. My aunt was a skilled babysitter.

By the time I was eighteen, it was Songs In The Key Of Life, a wondrous, sprawling album, covering every aspect of life. It was cool, sophisticated and definitely very grown up. It was music to dance to, to fall in love to, to pray to, to drink to, to laugh to, to flirt to, to stand up and be counted to, to man the barricades to. It had jazz, rap and soul. Even a crying baby couldn’t spoil it.

Today, I’m recovering from a really difficult year. A Moon Shaped Pool documents a car crash of the soul but has splinters of hope. I listen to it and marvel at how far Pop music has come since my childhood. Radiohead have effectively created a Classical Song Cycle rather than a Rock record. Its ebbs and flows transport me just as much as With The Beatles » Continue Reading.

What’s your obsession?

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My current one is Sudoku. I just love the challenge to my intellect – it’s all about logic, and I can’t believe that I can’t get my head around it, given that I think I’m an intelligent person.

In the last couple of days I have had a couple of breakthroughs, after buying a “how to solve” book, and also using an iPhone app that shows you different techniques.

In the past my obsessions have been musical – Frank Zappa, The Beatles, Thelonious Monk, Erik Satie, and so on.

Is “obsession” human nature? (We’re talking First World problems here of course). I recently stayed with some old friends and as I retreated to the couch to indulge in my latest obsession this question was seriously asked. I don’t know. But I’m happy in my little obsessive world…

Is this funny?

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With the death of George Martin the Peter Sellers’ version of A Hard Day’s Night has once more come to the fore.

I, unfortunately, heard it on Desert Island Discs for the first time ages fairly recently. One of Hugh Bonneville’s choices.

Neither my wife nor I find it remotely amusing. We never have. The thought of it as a DID is bewildering. Does anyone really find it funny? It was slightly clever, but always shite. IMHO.

Dublin Mingle – January 15tn

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As regular AW podcast star Ola is coming to Dublin next week, there will be a going-out on the Friday night, January 15th. Where? Oh, somewhere “in town”. Time? 8pm seems sensible. I’ll figure out the details next week. Yeah? Who’s in??

The Beatles Meet Billy

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On the Beatles’ “1” DVD the Hey Jude clip from the David Frost Show appears to run quite a bit longer than usual and right at the end it features a strange bespectacled character who I don’t recall seeing in the clip before. He is clearly much older than the assembled crowd of youngsters and dressed in a curious fashion.

His name is Billy and Macca speaks at length about him in the DVD commentary, but allow me to add a few memories of my own.

Stairwell To Pop Heaven – Manchester Square

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North of London’s Oxford Street behind Selfridges department store lies the 18th century open space known as Manchester Square. Between 1960 and 1995 EMI records’ imposing glass fronted headquarters was located there (don’t look for it, it was demolished some time ago). Now, the one thing nearly everyone knows about 20 Manchester Square is that the cover photo of The Beatles’ first LP Please Please Me was taken in the stairwell there. But what most people don’t know is that this wasn’t just a one-off. For years EMI’s press office used Manchester Square extensively as a cheap and convenient location for their publicity photos. Dozens of iconic pictures were taken against the front of the building, or in the basement stairwell and some, like the Seekers’ EP cover shown here, were even snapped in the park-like environs of Manchester Square itself. The Marylebone Council park bench upon which Judith Durham is reclining so seductively here is clearly branded “Manchester Square 1953” so it was maybe 22 years old when the photo was taken.

http://i.imgur.com/JfW8D2F.jpg