The One After 909

Although it's receiving far less fanfare than another recent anniversary (in the States anyway), one of the most pivotal events in music history -- some would say the spark that ignited the last 45 years of popular culture -- happened 50 years ago today, on July 6, 1957. That was the day that 15-year old Paul McCartney attended a summer garden fete at St. Peter's Church in Woolton, Liverpool, where he saw a ragged performance by a group of teenaged skiffle musicians called The Quarrymen. The leader of that band, to whom Paul was introduced later in the day, was 16-year-old John Lennon. In a brief chat before the evening set, Paul showed John how he tuned his guitar, and accompanied himself on some Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Little Richard tunes. Within 3 months, The Quarrymen had a new, left-handed guitar player, and the rest, as they say . . .


Of course this is all a much bigger deal in the U.K., and on June 26, the BBC broadcast a really nice hour-long special on this momentous anniversary, The Day John Met Paul, featuring interviews with Sir Paul, Cynthia Lennon, little brother Mike McCartney and original members of The Quarrymen, as well as -- get this -- a brief recording made on the fateful day. Charged, as I am, with bringing BBC goodness to deprived music geeks across the pond, I just had to snag a copy for the TTT faithful. Listen, learn, and think about how perfectly the planets had to be aligned, not just for these two young scruffs to meet 50 years ago today, but for them even to be alive at the same time, and in the same little part of the world. In my book, it's one of the miracles of history.

THE DAY JOHN MET PAUL - BBC special broadcast on June 26, 2007
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

It Was 40 Years Ago Today

Although it comes in only about fourth on my list of favorite Beatles records, we wouldn't be much of a music blog if we didn't do something to honor this, the 40th anniversary of the U.S. release of the so-called "greatest album of all time" (the anniversary was yesterday in the U.K.). My guess is that most of us would debate that distinction, but there's no denying that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band obliterated any constraints on what a pop band could accomplish in the studio, cemented the album -- rather than the single -- as the medium by which the best artists were expected to distinguish themselves, and ushered in the psychedelic, pseudo-Victorian aesthetic of "swinging London" that reverberated across the globe in the late 60s. There's also no denying that Sgt. Pepper is a fabulous listen, from start to finish, and contains some of The Beatles' most sublime and timeless music, "She's Leaving Home" and, especially, "A Day In The Life" -- certainly among the 3 or 4 most immaculate things a group of musicians has ever produced -- being the most obvious examples.

And for me, the record will always be a sentimental favorite because it was, very literally, the spark that ignited my lifelong obsession with music. When I was 9 years old, a 4th grade teacher was trying to demonstrate the use of unusual instrumentation in modern music -- I can't remember why -- and played "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite" in class, because of the tape loops of calliopes and carousels it has in the bridges. I was positively spellbound. It's my earliest memory of being floored and fascinated by a piece of music. For that reason alone, I will always have a special affection for Sgt. Pepper.

I considered making one of the collections of Sgt. Pepper outtakes the next bootleg in our series, but we've covered The Beatles already and there are too many great artists to sample before we start circling back to some. For now, here are snippets of takes 4, 5, 6 and 7 of "A Day In The Life", all recorded at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London, on January 20, 1967:

MP3: The Beatles - "A Day In The Life" (reduction mix of takes 4-7) from Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 3 (1966-1967) (bootleg)

And a contemporary re-mix of elements (the animal sounds, a George Martin interview, John Lennon's demo, and an alternate studio take) of and relating to "Good Morning, Good Morning":

MP3: The Beatles - "Good Morning, Good Morning" (remix) from Men & Horses, Hoops & Garters (bootleg)

Also, The Times Online has links to quite a bit of Sgt. Pepper anniversary news, including the paper's original review of The Beatles' "gay new LP" published on May 29, 1967.

Finally, for anyone who's interested in the behind-the-scenes lowdown on the studio sessions that produced Sgt. Pepper, I can't recommend recording engineer Geoff Emerick's recent memoir, Here, There and Everywhere, strongly enough.

There's One For You, Nineteen For Me

MP3: The Beatles - "Taxman"

Any excuse to bust out one of the greatest basslines of all time. Just ask Paul Weller.

Tax Day Bonus: I'll send an MP3 copy of the Alternate Revolver bootleg to the first person who can tell me who played the blistering lead guitar solo on "Taxman" -- answer in the comments and don't forget to provide your e-mail address. If the winning entrant can also tell me the other Beatles track on which the same solo is heard (the mash-up on Love doesn't count), I'll send the Alternate Rubber Soul boot as well.

So, anyone scrambling to get everything filed today?

Classic Bootleg Series Vol. 4: The Beatles - Stars of '63

The Beatles are easily the most bootlegged band of all time -- in fact, I'd love to know what percentage of their lives between 1962 and 1970 wasn't caught on tape and can't be had on a CD these days -- so as this series continues, I'm sure we'll revisit them often. But let's begin with something early, short and really, really sweet.

John Lennon often said that this was his favorite live recording of The Beatles. In October of 1963, with Beatlemania in full swing in Britain and swiftly spreading across Europe, the group appeared on a Swedish radio show called "Pop '63" and played a wicked 7-song set before a small studio audience. As was typical at the time, the setlist was a mix of Lennon-McCartney originals (McCartney kicks things off with a rollicking "I Saw Her Standing There") and covers of American rock and roll hits (by artists like Chuck Berry and Smokey Robinson) of the sort that had inspired the boys to pick up their guitars in the first place. The special thing about this performance -- other than the sound quality, which is pretty amazing, especially given the vintage -- is that it was recorded in a studio, away from the thousands of screaming girls who no doubt made the actual concert in Stockholm impossible to hear. So what strikes you with this tape, unlike other live recordings of The Beatles in this period, is the stunning musicianship -- the frequently overlooked fact that the early Beatles were, first and foremost, a shit-hot bar band, forged by hundreds of little club gigs played in places like Liverpool and Hamburg over the better part of 2 years. Friends, these cats could flat-out play. (Check out George's blistering leads on "Roll Over Beethoven".) By the grace of God, they also just happened to possess a magical chemistry and unparalleled charisma, not to mention two of the most gifted songwriters and vocalists who ever plugged a guitar into an amplifier.

Two-and-a-half months after this performance, The Beatles would hit New York, play the Ed Sullivan Show and, well, you know the rest.

Although the translation is a little spotty, you can learn more about this historic recording here.

THE BEATLES - STARS OF '63

Artwork:
Front cover
Back Cover

01 intro
02 I Saw Her Standing There
03 From Me To You
04 Money
05 Roll Over Beethoven
06 You Really Got A Hold On Me
07 She Loves You
08 Twist and Shout
09 interviews*

(*The interviews on this disc, at least one of which was recorded post-Shea Stadium about 2 years later, have nothing to do with this performance. I guess the bootleggers at Swingin' Pig felt guilty about the brevity of this set and wanted to throw in some bonus material. In any event, since the interviews are listed in the artwork, I've included them here.)

Odds and Sods

NPR has last Wednesday night's performance by The Good, The Bad & The Queen, at the 9:30 Club in D.C., available to stream or download. Excellent stuff from one of my favorite records so far this year.




RollingStone.com has posted (far too few) audio excerpts from the wonderfully freewheeling interview that Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills gave at the magazine's offices last Monday afternoon, hours before R.E.M.'s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I especially enjoyed hearing about the squalid conditions the band was living in when Rolling Stone named Murmur the best album of 1983, over Michael Jackson's Thriller.


A huge, slip-cased coffee table book that details "EVERYTHING related to the Beatles recording sessions, including beautiful, almost-pornographic photos of every mixing board, mic, tape deck, etc. ever used in a Beatles session," and costs over a hundred bucks? Yes, please! (tip from DJ Cayenne at BGB)


Need a cheat sheet on release dates for upcoming CDs, music DVDs and even books about music? Pause & Play has you covered.

YouTube Classic Clips

There's been a lot of hype recently (including an end-of-year Time cover story) about the extent to which YouTube has revolutionized the sharing of video clips, and that's true enough. Still, it seems like most folks use the site to post home videos, see a Saturday Night Live skit or Colbert Report segment they missed, or just watch a couple of guys dropping Mentos into bottles of Diet Coke. The thing that excites me the most, though, is that YouTube has become a vast and immediately accessible repository of some of the most fantastic musical performances ever caught on film. No, it's not DVD-quality footage -- okay, sometimes the quality is downright lousy -- but the breadth and diversity of clips that have been posted there is something else. A lot of people, with a lot of old VHS tapes lying around, have turned YouTube into a music lover's treasure trove. [Note to self: Make trolling YouTube for classic performances a semi-regular feature here?] Here's the tip of the proverbial iceberg:

Ever seen The Beatles deliver probably the best version of "Revolution" ever, on the David Frost Show on September 4, 1968?



(And some people say they couldn't hack it live towards the end. Yeah, right.)

Or the blistering "Down By The River" that CSNY performed on David Steinberg's The Music Scene show on September 22, 1969?



And of course, how can I not post a clip of The Clash, performing the song that gives this blog it's name, at Le Palace in Paris on February 27, 1980:



It just doesn't get much better than that.