Concert in Atlanta

I attended Paul’s concert in Piedmont Park, Atlanta, GA last night via the cell phone of a friend who had volunteered to help in setting up the park for the concert. The volunteers were given special passes to the show and I asked him to let me “attend” the concert briefly through his phone. My thought when word of the concert first came out that it would be cool to just be somewhere around the edge of the park to overhear it — but Atlanta is a couple hundred miles away and doing that sort of thing in a wheel chair means a lot of effort particularly for whoever is pushing the chair.

My friend was pleased at the idea. I mentioned it on one of the McCartney mail lists and Steve Marinucci read it and asked if I would let him publish my report in his Examiner column. So if you want to read about my concert experience as I “live blogged” it, visit his column at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2082-Beatles-Examiner~y2009m8d15-Paul-McCartney-Atlanta-report-1–concert-report–by-phone

I had a wonderful time and still have a contact high from it.

Paul in Atlanta

Reviews — Again

I just finished reading The Beatles; Off the Record by Keith Badman and I recommend it heartily to serious Beatle students. There’s quite a lot there that I haven’t found elsewhere. One thing I like is that he gives the questions and answers before and after bits that have been quoted by everybody and frequently it puts a different spin on it then it had when presented as a stand-alone. It’s a ‘heavy’ read in both length and information content and also has some very nice photos that you don’t see everywhere.

I thoroughly enjoyed a page-plus on the Mad Day Out photo session. They were/are interesting photos and the commentary from one of the photographers involved was interesting. There’s simply too much in the book to light on specifics and each of us will find diffferent things to be delighted with in any case.

I also recently got the DVD Composing the Beatles Songbook http://www.blastmagazine.net/dvd%27s/dvd%20reviews/composingthebeatlessongbook.html

They picked a dozen people, mostly musical folks and discussed John and Paul as composers. I have really fallen in love with it. I’ve played it twice, paying very close attention each time and I expect to watch it several times more. One thing that really turned me on is that one of the participants, Chris Ingham (musicologist, author, Beatles Academic) chose to really look at For No One, a Paul song that I had some time ago identified as an extremely insightful and serious song that has been completely overlooked.

You may not agree with everything on it, I certainly don’t but it does really add to an understanding of the music.

I apologize yet again. It’s obvious that I’m not going to be able to post regularly. This time it was health, family concerns and computer complications. The computer problems seem to be completely solved — at least as much as such are ever solved — and hopefully that will help keep the other things from having such a negative effect on my work.

A few quick book reviews.

The Beatles Literary Anthology; Mike Evans, Ed. I enjoyed this collection ofserious and not so serious writings about the Beatles; balanced, occasionally insightful and occasionally amusing. Worth bothering with by serious Beatles students.

Band on the Run: A History of Paul McCartney and Wings; Garry McGee. I give this a VERY low score on accuracy. More then a sentence here without acknowledgement are taken verbatim from either Solewicz or Flippo (neither of whom are more then occasionally accurate as well as being more hostile to Paul then not. It does have a few nice Photos. The chart statistics gathered in the back are interesting as his analysis of them. Very light weight and a good 20 years out of date.

Paul McCartney; 20 Years on His Own; Edward Gross. Except for a few nice quotes I havn’t seen elsewhere, copy the above review.

In My Life, Encounters with The Beatles; Edited by Robert  Cording, Shelli Jankowski-Smith and EJ Miller Laino. Another collection that in no way stands equal in interest to the above Anthology nor Read the Beatles. The ONLY book about the Beatles that plunged me into immediate and rather deep depression! A true loser in my opinion. Worn to transparency, they are the lost surviving examples of late-blooming pseudo intellectualists with sad, blurred pretensions of cool.

Paul McCartney; Behind the Myth; Ross Benson; The accurate subtitle would be “How Paul Destroyed the Beatles and Was A Failure Alone.” Possibly the ugliest of all the carefully chosen photos of Paul on the cover. The author is obsessed with the idea that Jim McCartney was what was wrong with Paul — a theory that gets old fast. his antipathy for Paul hints at a personal grudge. Among other problems, like ‘edited’ material offered between quotation marks and some untruths that appear to be the author’s own, it’s an inept hatchet job considered against similar books.

McCartney, Christopher Sandford.  It would be far easier to mark the true statements rather then the errors. Unflattering photographs abound He combines the prose of a WWII war correspondent for Hustler with the hysterical hatred as intense as the Pope’s toward Martin Luther. All in all, I wonder what the name of his failed garage band was.

Meet the Beatles, A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World; Steven D. Stark.  I strongly disagree with some of his sociological theories and many of the quotations  are grossly time-shifted — without acknowledgement of that fact. He attributes most jointly composed songs to John alone. Included are several weird “what ifs” that are completely pointless. He greatly overrates the “sexless” image of the early Beatles — which is NOT the way he came over to most young females! Not a bad read and he does have some interesting theories. Of the lot I reviewed this morning, only this and the Literary Anthology seem to me to be worth reading.

Defining Rock

Tim Ripley, Ask Me Why, said Rock is typified by “more adult themes: isolation, despair, alienation, loss and the positive correlations of peace, communication, self-worth, vision and hope.” Note that the “positives” contain only unemotional hope type while the first mentioned qualities, the important ones, are all emotion. Nowhere is happiness, content, love triumphant, friendship mentioned. Misery is the only legitimate truth. Rock & Roll is adequately defined by the “jury” of Juke Box Jury in Britain and Dick Clarks American Bandstand in the US: “it’s got a beat and you can dance to it.” I looked all over the web, Wikkipedia to Rolling Stone Magazine and nowhere did I find anything approaching a definitive definition. Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head, opines that Rock concentrates of feel and beat rather then on music. That Rock is laid-back while “pop” tries to catch a moment, story, or feeling. Later (p. 206) he says the difference between pop at its best and Rock is well-crafted music.” Take that, Hoagie Carmichael, Bert Bacrack!! Most of the books aggressively name John Lennon as a master of Rock, primarily because of his tendency to wallow in misery and this in many ways probably set the preoccupation of Rock with the negative emotions. Rock critics celebrate John’s emotionality even when they imagine most of it and somehow find something to love in George3’s insecurity, status as lead guitar or soloist. Paul’s skill and competence playing and singing however is seen as insecurity and unfair to John and Georges perceived insecurities. Riley claims that Paul’s universality is a sin in Rock as Rock people aren’t like everybody else. Rock is said to be marked by something they call “texture” although I can’t imagine any music that lacked it. I have read that Rock specifically sets “listening pleasure” out of consideration in favor of commiting to the idea that if you enjoy it as music it’s not Rock. I do understand that everyone who writes professionally about the Beatles or abut Rock needs a to stay in with the Rock press but that knowledge doesn’t quite make me forgive MacDonald, Riles and all the others for crumbling before those prejudices. John would no doubt have been discarded from the Rock mainstream for Double Fantasy had he not been killed before they got into print. If any singer/composer sinned against the Rock rules, Double Fantasy is the album in evidence. If you have suggestions for refining a definition of “Rock” I’d be grateful if you’d share it with me. [Sorry for the delay, I haven’t been well and only got my computer problems lessoned a couple days ago.]

Comments on/ from books

To me the most shocking thing about the first person books about the Beatles is that almost all (except George Martin and Geoff Emerick) ignore the music completely. Peter Brown, Tony Bramwell, Tony Barrow, Allan Williams, Bill Harry, Mike McCartney, Alistair Taylor, etc. and even Pete Best hardly mention it and if they do, it only the first 3 or 4 hits. Not one of them seem to have cared at all what the Beatles wrote or recorded so long as it hit the top of the charts. It appears to me that virtually everyone whose salaries the Beatles paid (all of NEMS as well as all of Apple) neither enjoyed nor understood the music.

They were all hooked on the mania and their soft jobs. Few of them ever saw the Beatles as persons nor were actively concerned for them. From Liverpool or the far ends of the earth, they all were concentrated on milking their cash cow with little thought of what the cow wanted or needed. No wonder Klein looked good and no wonder Paul stuck to an in-law to manage his career and money.

“…confused with its naïvely anarchistic bourgeois cousin, rock journalism.”  From Clayson, I think. My own thoughts are somewhat less printable.

Odd question: With all the fuss about a not-red rose/carnation and bare feet why have I read no speculation about why George rides a dark horse (giggle) in the Penny Lane video when the others ride white ones? “they rode their white horses out through an archway in a ruined wall,” From Lewisohn’s Chronicles – and he’s usually more careful!

Set List for Paul’s New Tour!!

Actually I certainly do not mean to tell Paul what he should do particularly since I’m unlikely to be able to attend any of his concerts. I might buy the video though so I’ll make some suggestions just in case he’s interested in suggestions from fans.

I do not say that these are in appropriate order!

Things We Said Today
For No ONe
Why Don’t We Do It In The Road
Two Of Us
Ram On
Monkberry Moon Delight
Sing Along Junk
Hope of Deliverance
Off The Ground
Songs We Were Singing
Picasso’s Last Words
Feet In The Clouds
How Kind Of You
If You Wanna
Pipes Of Peace
The World Tonight
Penny Lane
London Town

Some more book reviews

The Beatles, Unseen Archives: A very interesting book if you are particularly fond of Beatle’s photos that you haven’t seen before. Most of these were never printed from the negatives until assembled for this book. The text is more then a little sketchy and conforms to the Apple party line as seen in Anthology (which I unreservably recommend for the quotes from the Beatles and others as well as the photos.) The photo captions are good for the most part and reasonably good chronologies are included. As a Beatle picture book it seems to me to be worthwhile although I put the Anthology book and Rolling Stones Beatles book first.

Those Were The Days; an unofficial history of The Beatles Apple organization 1967-2002; Stefan Granados. I suggest this book only if you are truly interested in Apple and its ups and downs. While not everything is there a great deal of it is and some of it I have seen nowhere else. The author interviewed a great many of the people who worked for Apple except for Neil Aspinall and the Beatles themselves. Among other things, he presents a far more balanced picture of Apple’s failures and successes then I’ve seen anywhere else. It is a focused book and the four Beatles are not the focus, although acknowledged of course as the major players. It is also written in a serious deadpan style that will make it hard reading for anyone without specialized interest. Warning, I paid more for this book then I have ever paid for a used book before.

Apple to the Core; Peter Cabe and Robert D. Schonfeld. The 1971 whole truth about Apple. Well, the publication date is correct. Even taking into account that the book was written in 1970, the authors evidently didn’t bother to read Hunter Davies bio — or decided the newspaper versions were better. The only footnotes are to A Cellar Full of Noise, Brian Epstein’s none too accurate autobiography and papers filed in Paul’s suit to break the partnership and kick Klein out of Apple. They evidently did interview a selection of (ex mostly) Apple employees however, in at least one case they report an individual saying something inconsistant with that individual’s later book. I personally don’t think it’s worth the trouble of finding a copy.

The White Book, Ken Mansfield. A very nicely designed book with pages in an assortment of colors, occasionally with lack of sufficient contrast for easy reading. Thye book is more about Mansfield and Apple Records then the Beatles although he knew all of them and there are some interesting remembrances. As a person, Mansfield comes across as attractive and neither artificially humble nor proudly bombastic (as too many other Nems and Apple employee biographies have.) There were some things about Apple Records that I didn’t know although I read it after the book reviewed above. Few of the photos include the Beatles though some of them are interesting for other reasons. I do recommend it to those who are interested in the business of records but not necessarily to those who are Beatle fans.

Beatle Books I Recommend

If you are looking for a book about the Beatles because of a realization of what great music they made, begin with A Day In The Life by Mark Hartsgaard. It focuses on the music but covers enough of the life of the group to satisfy a moderate interest. The author carefully documents his facts and if he puts more trust in certain biographers then I do, well it’s a matter of opinion isn’t it? His commentary on the music is concise, readable for the non-musically educated and betrays less favoritism for one or another member of the band then most.

If you want to know more about the individuals who were members of the Beatles – but not ever possible obscure detail, read The Beatles by Hunter Davies. This is a well-written book with an added forward if you end up with one of the later editions (It was first published in 1968).  It is an authorized biography and Davies had a good deal of access to all four Beatles and most of the people around them. It was edited, in a few cases heavily, by the Beatles and/or some of their relatives (as explained in the commentary to the revised edition.)

During the live of the band, and for some years after, some facts about their beginnings, particularly details about John’s family, were deliberately suppressed. Given the world of 1963 this was an appropriate decision. Davies book reflects most of these limitation although there are some hints for the attentive reader.

For those who want nothing but the facts and all of the facts I recommend Mark Spitz The Beatles. Unless you are willing to wait for Mark Lewishon’s 3-volume history (2010 – 2020) this is about the best you can do. It is far from perfect but of those available, it’s certainly one of the best. It’s complete with 100 pages of footnotes, which I note the reviewers found quite impressive. Unfortunately, a fair number of debatable issues do not have any footnote and a large proportion of the footnotes are quite trivial.

If you are curious about what happened to John, Paul, George and Ringo after the Beatles broke up, the situation isn’t too good. The supposedly best bio of John is not only nearly as big as the Spitz book, it’s pointedly avocatory. Ray Coleman was a reporter who covered the Beatles during their popularity and he is very sympathetic to John’s point of view. I’m willing to take his word for objective facts but his focus is always as Lennon’s friend.

I think the best book on Paul is Barry Miles Many Years From Now although it does not give you much on Paul’s post-Beatles career. It focuses on the things Paul was doing besides being a Beatle and is written by someone who was there and a friend. Howard Elson’s McCartney, Songwriter, is the best of the books I’ve read that includes Paul’s post-Beatle career although it was written and published in 86 and therefore a good bit isn’t there.

I haven’t found a good book on either George or Ringo. The books I’ve read that attempt to follow all four of them after the breakup are extremely sketchy. I have to say that you’ll probably get more out of a study of their official websites and the better of the fan websites.

Paul’s divorce

[Please note: the following is a spoof, sarcasm! It is not fact, it is not a prediction for the future, it’s a JOKE!]

Paul McCartney and Heather Mills have had their days in court and all that’s left for them is to wait for the judge to sort out the money. We’ll get a huge number of newspaper and tabloid guesses about how much, none of which are all that likely to be accurate.

HM’s appeal was turned down on the grounds that if she chose to spend her entire settlement on a “victory party” that’s her problem, not his and that she failed to produce medical evidence that she suffers from Tourettes and therefore cannot be held to a gag order. She also failed to prove that a victim of that syndrome is per se unable to keep their mouth shut. The offer from her ex-husband to provide a full-time special minder to gag her any time she slips and starts to talk about their relationship was refused.

HM then appeared on Good Morning to the Whole World accusing Paul of errantry, barratry and rolling an old lady in a barrel as well as referring impolitely to her wooden leg. Oddly enough, the News of the World has joined The Mail, The Globe and The Mirror in a lawsuit filed against Ms. HM alleging barratry in that she threatened those papers, together and separately more then 150 times in one 12-hour period. Leading barristers have opined that it’s an open and open case.

In separate suits HM also claims the royalties from Paul’s new #1 hit album titled After the Ball is Over saying that she actually wrote and sang all the songs in it as well as playing all the instruments.We expect a statement from MPL as soon as the laughter dies down.

The tell-all book for which HM received a $1 million advance on royalties has after 18 months failed to earn the cost of printing and the publisher advises us they will sue her to recover the advance as the book sold only 423 copies – all to her dearest friends. The book is now available on half.ebay.com, new, for $0.25 plus postage.

Bea goes to boarding school so her mother can spend at least nine months of the year someplace other then Great Britain. Paul’s world concert tour enjoys unprecedented success although he breaks and returns to England for every school holiday.

HM suit appealing for a restraining order preventing her former personal trainer from telling reporters about their relationship (even though, of course there was no personal relationship between them) is scheduled for next week. This follows upon her earlier attempts to get such gag orders to cover five former nannies, 12 dismissed security guards, 14 chauffeurs, three bike mechanics and a trash collector.

HM’s dearest friends report that she is happy and delighted to be free from all the hubbub and also to be free of “that dreadful old man” and that she is seriously depressed, on vast amounts of medication and a suicide watch must be provided by her ex-husband.

 

Seriously for a moment–Point 1: could be please forget about the accusation that it’s all Paul’s fault for letting his little willie overrule his head and lead him to marry this woman. If there’s one fact about HM’s past that is completely beyond dispute it’s that she is world class as convincing men, whether old or young, that she is the most desirable female they’ll ever get a chance at. Every single man who has spoken of his relationship with her emphasizes that at first she’s absolutely perfect and that it takes quite a while to realize that it’s all a scam. She’s fooled plenty of men who didn’t have Paul’s romantic outlook and made major fools out of them as well.

Point 2: “They” haven’t been battling in the press; HM’s been battling in the press. Paul’s issued a very few statements, mostly direct, simple denials. He did change the locks on the two houses he was living in. Considering that he’d had his phone tapped and that we now have her “word” that she had secretly taped and video-taped him before she moved out, I personally think it was a minimally smart move.

Yoko’s lack of knowledge of the Beatles

I clearly remember my husband telling me about some new English band that was causing quite a stir back in February, more or less, of 1962. I remember because I went over how they spelled the name and how it might be pronounced in the shower and we only lived in that house with that particular shower for a few months. We were both art majors and members of the old Bohemia that immediately preceded the famous 60s counter culture. Not quite Beat Generation – that has mostly petered out and not completely a part of the foundation for the next. At any rate it was a group that paid attention to what was happening in politics, in the arts and letters, and in entertainment. I remember only that they were English, in England and that there was something different about them.

I relate this because while we were in Nashville, Tennessee and Yoko was in NYC we were essentially members of the same little group. We heard about the antics of her general artistic movement though I doubt we heard of her in specific – she didn’t make a very big splash at that time. I remember that there was a review in the underground newspaper on the University of Tennessee campus the fall of that year. My point is that her crowd must have heard of the Beatles if that knowledge had filtered down to US in Tennessee. Knowing what was going on was one of the base lines of that movement!

One does remember that HM also claimed ignorance of who the Beatles were as well as calling the fans “Beatle nutters” – roughly the same attitude that Yoko seemed to have at that time. I assume they both thought it would make their “falling in love” with a famous man seem to be simply an ordinary person falling in love with another ordinary person and that it had nothing to do with their fame and fortune. Umhmmm.