Of Years And Coffee

There’s a “fearful symmetry” in Paul’s life at this particular moment. In gray Liverpool of the 50s one day a nervous entrepreneur rented a disused building and sought riches in the latest fad: a coffee bar. Located a few blocks from the art college and both a boys’ and a girls’ grammar school (high school to the US) his chances of moderate success were good. It was a cheap enough project with the impressive steam-boiler-in-miniature, an espresso machine, representing the major investment. A few tiny tables and a lot of mismatched chairs from the street market and a few cans of paint completed his start-up costs.

Indeed it appears that the Jacaranda was one of Allan Williams few really successful projects as students in numbers found it the perfect hangout – as American students found theirs in the soda shop. These were near-revolutionary changes from their parents who spent their free time in pubs or bars choosing the sedation of alcohol to the stimulation of coffee. (In America coffee houses were popular in the late 50s as “Beat Generation” hangouts.)

Wheeling and dealing in his little coffee bar, dreaming dreams of a hundred get-rich-quick schemes, he gave 5 young men with an undistinguished beat group and more ambition then any other local group a few gigs he’d promoted up out of practically nowhere. The Beatles got these gigs more out of their persistence then any belief Williams had in their chances of stardom. In fact, one way or another he let his one good chance at serious fame and fortune escape him because they were too hard to deal with. (He did in the end make quite a lot of fame and fortune out of his failure.)

50 years from the day the Jac made its first cup of espresso, coffee is again a mad fad and thousands of street-front espresso coffee bars not all that different have opened around the world. And this summer of the 50 year anniversary of the afternoon John met Paul and the Beatles began their hegira, these coffee bars echo with the sound a Beatles music and the fortune Allan Williams lost is being made by others following his plan for glory.

In The End

The bottom-most of the bottom lines of who broke up the Beatles is that we killed the Beatles.

We killed them because we couldn’t be satisfied with what they had given us. We wanted more; louder, happier, sadder. We wanted more music, more movies, more concerts. We wanted to know every thing about them, more photos, more intimate moments when their true feelings showed – or we thought they did.

Not believing that they were ordinary humans who had limits we asked them to solve the world’s problems, put a man on the moon (oh, I’m sorry, someone else did that) and comfort us when nour boyfriends acted like idiots. We had literally eaten them down to their skin and bones and,  not being Jesus after all, they declined to let us go any further.

But we continue to want them, more of them. Their songs do as much for us noe – or nearly – as they did then but every out-take, every sneeze or sniffle on tape is treasured. I expect one day there’ll be a bidding war on Ebay for possession of a genuine John-fart with authenticating certificates – at which point we’ll have succeeded in consuming him utterly with our need, our love.

So go now and light a candle for your memory of all they did and continue to do just for us. Beatle Paul gave a concert last night for about 1,000 people and those lucky few tell us of it in words as broken and emotional and transfigured as any of the classic “15 year old girls” could have uttered.

I Remember Yesterday

I suspect one reason I’ve buried myself in the Beatles is because at this time it’s so difficult to believe that the 60s ever happened. That there was a time when people cared what their country was doing, what their president was doing. Cared about hungry people, cared about books and art and music. In the mid 90s Paul said to Miles (one of his biographers and a friend) that he felt like the 60s were yet to come. Except for the Beatles there is hardly a trace left of them.

No, everything about the 60s isn’t gone, women still have more freedom although there are those working very hard to take it away (but not the right to work, they do like those second incomes) and gays are still a bit better off, just a bit. I actually appeared at a demo for the first time in 03 (I did a lot of support work for several in the 60s which keeps you off the green at the time the cameras are there.) We’ve lost all the wins in free speech and then some. Caring about the hungry is so far lost the government has even found a way to avoid calling them “hungry.” Worst of all, all those businesses, like Apple Corps. that tried to run on trust in the employees found that, predictably, you couldn’t trust some of them. Now if it’s a business, you can’t trust any of them, particularly the suits running things. And nobody seems to see that this is a bad thing!

The more things change the more they seem the same and history repeats itself – at least I hope it does. Because right now we are so lost in a past that never really existed that surviving the results of what’s going on sometimes seems doubtful. Despite the suspicion that John was more then a bit of a pessimist, the Beatles music had a very open and optimistic quality, one that I certainly need these days. Maybe trouble wasn’t as far away as all that Yesterday, but let’s keep our eye on It’s Getting Better and also be prepared to step up and do something, when an opportunity presents itself, about it. (End unpaid semi-political announcement.)

The Beatles as Musicians

The Beatles were not showy players. It was a time of singers, not of guitarists or drummers. Only in jazz was the quality of instrumentalists highlighted. While in live performance most rock and roll bands would include instrumental breaks it was more to give the rest of the band and the vocalist a chance to rest then to highlight the playing. The age of the guitar hero waited for Hendricks and Clapton. At the time, only George was actually recognized for his musicianship (frequently among the top ten “jazz guitarists” in the listings) and while as time has gone by both Paul and Ringo’s high reputation with fellow bassists and drummers has become generally known and appreciated. John is, understandably, still seen as the weakest player. In some ways he was but he did perform some notable guitar leads and the high quality of his work as rhythm guitarist seems never to have been adequately acknowledged.

George’s goal seems to have been perfection in the actual playing which he quite frequently achieved. It’s downplayed, indeed barely mentioned, that he was not quick to find licks for a new song and the others, including George Martin, worked with him pretty often. His later conflicts with Paul (which did have a deeper source) evidenced in him resenting any suggestions Paul might make in this regard. Paul obviously didn’t understand why George had become so hostile (exchange in Anthology during Get Back sessions) though from what Paul said you can certainly suppose he was attempting to be diplomatic. Creativity simply doesn’t come easily, or at all, to some people; creativity at the level of John and Paul is extremely rare and sets a standard impossible for others. It certainly isn’t a personal fault to lack somehow the brain connections that support creativity and in fact most humans, including me, do lack it.

Ringo is one off the most modest drummers in a world in which so many are wild extroverts – who are drummers because they want to make the most noise. Ringo saw his job in terms of what he song needed and some of his best work is so soft as to be almost inaudible (Day in The Life). I’m most impressed with the odd, sort of broken beat he uses particularly in a couple of John’s stranger compositions. I strongly suspect he could have come up with something appropriate for Yesterday if it had been necessary.

Paul, of course, took rock and roll bass from the instrument more or less played by the leader’s best friend or the fat wannabe rocker to an important role in the music generally. Taking inspiration from jazz bassists such as Keeter Betts and the piano bass lines of earlier rock and rollers (Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard) he both supported the rhythm and provided a contrast to the lead guitar that has since influenced all sorts of popular music.

Another point showing the level of the Beatles musicianship is the fact that they all played many instruments in addition to their primary. Although Ringo and George were very focused on their primary instrument, they both played piano and other instruments. Paul was the most versatile but all possessed the talent and interest to experiment with many others. The Abbey Road Studios certainly was an advantage there with many instruments available for experimentation. The Beatles level of musicianship may not have been the most important ingredient in their mystique but certainly it would have been difficult to support that mystique without skilled players.

The Night People

“The Night Life” doesn’t refer to the in-crowd that hangs out at nightclubs, the theater and parties. The Night Life is lived by the waiters and performers who make the other one possible. When the play is over and the bars close, the night people emerge into an empty city. Counting their tips they decide between supper or seeking to be themselves amused and waited on in after-hours (and usually illegal) clubs hiding on the silent streets. Exhilarated from a successful performance and exhausted from a long evenings drudgery a strong kinship exists almost without any status conflict between performer and server. Others can go out after supper; night people can only go out before breakfast or go home. In either case, eventually home they go as the darkness fades, street lights go out and the first of the day workers yawn their way along the waking streets.

What is that pale half-life after midnight when we let it all hang out? I don’t think it can be described well enough for anyone who hasn’t experienced it. When a day is sunset to sunrise, you definitely see the world differently. A certain distain grows because they don’t know what you know, don’t experience what you’d seen; live farther from the edge of reality. Ordinary people, “customers,” “fans;” don’t count the way the other night people count. They seem conventional, stodgy; they can’t understand, they are out of touch with the reality you know. What the night people don’t understand, of course, is they are out of touch with the reality the rest of the world sees.