Another goodbye

“Religion convinced the world that there’s an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there’s 10 things he doesn’t want you to do or else you’ll to to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! …And he needs money! He’s all powerful, but he can’t handle money! […] I’ve begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It’s there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There’s no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, and there’s no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate. […] Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don’t ask me to wear your shoes. And let’s not nail the lift to the natives’ feet.”

George Carlin, dead at the age of 71.

P.S. shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.

I’ve loved George since the first time I saw/heard him — no, I don’t remember it in specific. I was lucky enough to see him the night he had the audience LONFASTC (Lying on the floor laughing and scared the cat) without doing one single joke! I was rolling around on the carpet too. Light unto your feet, bro.

Miss Jane

G’night Dick

Miss Jane and Mikki who love you.

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.

John and Yoko’s Peace Campaign

I’ve always been unhappy with John and Yoko’s bed ins and I’ve finally figured out why: the basic term began when African American college students in South Carolina held “sit-ins” at the lunch counters of drug store and ten-cent store chains that refused to serve them. The idea spread as the civil rights movement geared up after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ruled against segregated schools. Participants in these sit-ins and the later demonstrations of the civil rights movement risked arrest and violence (not either/or, both) from their protest and even the war protestors shared these risks as well as the risk of being kicked out of school.

John and Yoko risked nothing but embarrassment and being laughed at – which they certainly were. Their bed-ins were a cheap shot that depended on John’s fame and provided good publicity for both of them independent of music and the Beatles, a situation they were seeking. Their co-opting the term ultimately cheapened the actions of those who had paid for their struggle in blood.

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.

What if Decca had signed the Beatles?

I just heard the complete tapes the Beatles made on New Years Day, 1962 for Decca. I have to strongly suspect that Brian Epstein chose the songs because it’s a straight pop set with barely a hint of rock and strongly featured Paul’s undeniable abilities as a crooner. So what if Decca had liked the audition? Well, first, we’d have had Paul McCartney and the Silver Beatles. So there’d be no real Beatles. Second, the time of the crooner was not 1962! They would have had a small success in Britain and that would have been that.

It’s not that they didn’t do pop very well indeed. And it’s certainly not that Paul didn’t have the looks and the voice. Four or five years earlier he could have been another Vic Damone or Eddy Fisher! One could have an excellent nightmare out of the knowledge that we only just missed having another out of date crooner with a pretty good backup band instead of millions of screaming girls and some of the most innovative music on the planet. (and some bad stuff as well but that’s ok) In that case, John Lennon wouldn’t have been John Lennon but just some dude that played rhythm guitar.

I really can’t see any A & R man giving a group as much freedom as George Martin did the Beatles. Anyone else would have told them to shut up and do How Do You Do It. Nobody else would have listened and tried to find out what was in their minds, nobody else would have hired half a symphony to do 24 bars!! They would simply have been fed into the machinery and come out looking just like everyone else. Almost worse, the Rolling Stones would have turned out looking, and probably sounding, like the Dave Clark Five!

Tribute Bands

Copy-cat bands don’t seem to have begun until more then 10 years after the Beatles stopped touring (1966) and the Beatles seem to be the first band to have been copied (Beatlemania, 1977.) The Beatles considered attempting to stop the production. There are now scores, if not hundreds of Beatle tribute bands as well as a wide variety of tribute and cover bands devoted to just about every pop group you can think of, not to mention about a million Elvis impersonators. *A tribute band usually attempts to sound and look like the band they take their inspiration from although there are some, like Beatallica who play Beatle songs in the style of Metallica. Cover bands do a particular bands music giving it their own style and interpretation.

Among Beatles fans there is a dichotomy between those who enjoy the fun and nostalgia of attending an “almost Beatles” concert and those who either consider it a rip-off or who see no reason to dilute their memories of the real thing. I’ve heard one of the “antis” say that she understands the attraction for people who didn’t see the originals, whether due to lack of interest/opportunity at the time or due to the fact that they were born to late. I was around at the time and actually lived only a few blocks from DC Stadium in 64 – 66 so I could have gone. Being older then most Beatle fans and hating to be caught up in a crowd situation, I never thought of going.

I’ve been to see two tribute bands, courtesy of my daughter, and enjoyed them very much. I was amazed to see that most of the audience at both concerts were probably too young to have been allowed to go to a Beatles concert and a great many too young to remember the 60s. Both concerts were very well done. The group 1964 very simply recreated a real Beatles concert working on a bare stage with only the appropriate instruments and taking the music only to Paperback Writer and Rain as the Beatles as a group did none of their later songs live. They wore the Sullivan show dark suits and white shirts. I felt rather disappointed when they really did not include the Beatles movements and manner in their performance and I got more the feeling of precision from the band then the fun the real Beatles communicates – or course, it could just have been a bad night or disappointing audience.

Beatlemania Now included several costume changes: dark suits, Pepper uniforms and white tie and tails. Visuals, primarily from the Anthology videos, were projected behind and beside them. I enjoyed the multimedia presentation and the performers of Beatlemania Now were far more active and more nearly recreated the way the Beatles performed rather then merely recreating their music. The musician playing “John” had his stance down really well as did the “Ringo”. The “George” looked very much like George but hadn’t quite perfected the way that George curled his upper body over his guitar nor did he do any of George’s attention gathering leg moves. “Paul” was played by “Paul Ramon” indicating to me that he probably was not the “Paul” who generally worked with the band. His voice was excellent as was his bass playing but he did not have the stance, the stretch up to the mike, or the bounce so characteristic of Paul.

I do like tribute bands, perhaps mainly because I didn’t come to Beatles fandom until a couple years ago. I also like the audiences which were mixed in age and apparent economic level if not in race. The audiences were enthusiastic although, thank goodness, not prone to the screaming of the originals. I also tend to believe that tribute bands, far from damaging the Beatles legacy or taking money that should go to the originals, have done a lot to keep their memory alive. I doubt that anyone sees a tribute band as taking the place of the originals either in their heart or pocketbook. They simply are another way of remembering the group that lodged in so many peoples hearts and can never appear for us again.

There is a legitimate question about the ethics of copying a group’s (or individual’s) stage performance and getting paid for it. (Tribute bands no doubt pay composers’ royalties to Lennon/McCartney but you can’t copyright a performance, only the film/tape it’s on.) I suspect that it was the performance that the Beatles originally thought of as writing a song. That’s merely my opinion and although I am a writer and have suffered a good deal of internet copyright infringement, I remain on the somewhat looser side of the question. I sensed that the 1964 band was bored with their own performance – I have the feeling that they have been doing it too long. Many tribute bands are made up of young musicians who want very much to play their own music but the pay, as an “imitation Beatle,” is far better and infinitely more dependable then the pay for an unknown group. It’s easy to understand both the temptation to go for the bucks and the wish that they could make money doing their own thing. Beatlemania Now, in contrast, really seemed to enjoy being the best “Beatles” they could be and their staging kept our entertainment jangled attention span focused for the whole concert.