A 1970s George Harrison watches a 1960s George Harrison.
George Harrison Watches George Harrison
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Tag Archives: Beatles
Going Underground
Illuminting Paul McCartney’s avant-garde credentials
John Lennon may have ended up with the larger avant-garde cred, but this fascinating 153-minute documentary suggests it was Paul McCartney who first dug into the underground. Combining period footage (including clips of the Beatles, Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Pink Floyd and Soft Machine) and contemporary interviews with a number of ’60s scene-makers, the film demonstrates McCartney’s early interest and sponsorship of counterculture art and social activities, and the role he served in bridging the avant-garde into the mainstream. Beatles fans will recognize key moments in the group’s career, but may not know the roots of the invention and synthesis that brought “Tomorrow Never Knows” and other icons to fruition. Even lesser known is the role McCartney played in supporting key counterculture activities, such as Indica Books and Gallery, the Long Hair Times (and its successor the International Times), and the legendary Million Volt Light and Sound Rave.
The story begins with the late-50s emergence of youth culture in the UK, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the expressive freedom and bohemian romance of the Beats, the cutting edge jazz of the 1960s, and the growing influence of art school on music. The program gets to the Beatles at the thirty-minute mark, when John Lennon and George Harrison dip their toe in the underground at a birthday party for Allen Ginsburg. Lennon was then living in the suburbs with his first wife and child, and didn’t find an immediate resonance with the underground. McCartney, on the other hand, was a bachelor, living in London and being introduced to the works of John Cage by the family of Jane Asher, to Karlheinz Stockhausen and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop by George Martin, and to avant-garde books and art through his association with Indica.
McCartney’s intellectual pursuits, and his experiments in a home studio (something that would continue into his post-Beatles solo career) were absorbed by the Beatles, but reiterated to the market in pop song format. The reframing of avant-garde ideas, coupled with the Beatles unprecedented renown, made it seem as if these concepts were drawn from thin air. But as this film documents, there are many antecedents from which McCartney and the Beatles drew, brilliantly recontextualized and then released into the commercial mainstream. This might seem opportunistic, had the Beatles not completed the loop by feeding back into the underground. By the end of 1966 the Beatles had abandoned touring, Lennon had met Yoko Ono (at a private showing of her work at Indica), and McCartney provided the impetus for both TNK and the “Carnival of Light” sound collage.
The Beatles continued to slip avant-garde elements into their music, but 1967 turned out to be a year of changes. McCartney’s media appearances gave a more explicit view of his involvement with the underground, but by year’s end, with the death of Brian Epstein, he’d given himself over to running the group’s business. Lennon, on the other hand, had become much more deeply enmeshed with the avant-garde, and expanded its role on Beatles records with Revolution 9. Post-Beatles, Lennon strengthened his ties to political elements of the underground, but the avant-garde influences faded from his solo music. McCartney doubled-down on the mainstream with Wings, but continued to experiment in his solo outings.
McCartney’s role as a bridge between the underground and the commercial mainstream provides the central thesis, but the film’s subtitle is a bit misleading, as McCartney himself does not occupy the majority of the program’s screen time (there are, for example, major segments on Pink Floyd and Soft Machine). The bulk of the continuity is provided by a mix of the era’s scene makers and contemporary musicologists, providing background information that is essential to understanding the avant-garde milieu in which the Beatles developed. No doubt many Beatles fans have already absorbed some or all of this material, but to those who only know the group through their records and publicity, the context for their musical experimentation will be eye opening. [©2013 Hyperbolium]
4th Annual Beatles Complete On Ukulele Concert
PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, NY: The 4th Annual Beatles Complete On Ukulele Marathon Concert returns to Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday January 14, 2012 from 3-11 PM. Every Original Beatle Song (185) will be performed by some of New York’s top players sprinkled with a star or two. Previous shows have featured Nellie McKay, Ben Kweller, The Pierces, The Naked Brothers Band, Ryan Miller of Guster and many, many more.
The event is produced by Performance Philanthropist and Ukulele Master Roger Greenawalt, who has raised literally hundreds of dollars for the likes of Yoko Ono, EMI Records, and most famously, beloved billionaire Warren Buffett. Buffett used his 2009 donation to buy 17 ukuleles for at risk inner city youth through his daughter Susie’s pet charity, Girls Inc. of Omaha.
This year’s beneficiary is the world’s leading investment bank, Goldman Sachs. Why give money to Goldman Sachs, when they already have so much? Greenawalt explains:Â “Unfortunately it appears that by entirely legal means, Goldman Sachs has been able to acquire The Government of The United States of America. It’s up to We The People to get creative. I have an idea that’s so crazy it might just work. It’s called Buy America Back from Wall Street!”
Based on past shows, Greenawalt feels confident that the concert will be able to comfortably raise somewhere in the neighborhood of “the high three figures.” Greenawalt hopes this will serve as an initial good faith gesture and down payment until The American People are able to come up with the other $14 trillion or so to Buy America Back from Wall Street. After the show, Greenawalt will personally deliver the cash to Goldman Sachs in a brown paper bag/photo opportunity just like he did with Warren Buffett.
Opening the festivities again this year will be the Mass Uke Mob, all audience members who show up between 2:00 and 2:30 with a ukulele will be admitted free. There will be a rehearsal and then the entire volunteer uke group will take to the stage to play together two easy three-chord Beatle songs, “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road,” and “All Together Now.”
This is a kid friendly event. Headliners TBA.
For more info see Greenawalt’s site, where he is rerecording uke versions of the entire Beatles catalog:Â beatlescompleteonukul
Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Ave
Brooklyn, NY
www.brooklynbowl.com
The Poppees: Pop Goes the Anthology
Teriffic Merseybeat sounds from the heart of the punk era
Amid the skinny ties, safety pins and DIY ethos of late-70s punk rock, a few brave souls stood in contrast with well-crafted pop and tunefully sung harmonies. Among them, the Poppees most visibly swathed their sleeves with Beatles influences. Well, “influences,†is probably an understatement. Though they weren’t a Beatles tribute band, per se, “homage†is a more accurate description of the group’s sound. Like the bands sprung directly from the Beatles’ wake (e.g., Uruguay’s Los Shakers, Poland’s Czerwone Gitary and New Jersey’s Knickerbockers), the Poppees didn’t so much take a cue from the Beatles as they took whole pages of music, along with the Fab Four’s fashions and haircuts.
The Poppees actually got their start in 1974, a year before the downtown New York City scene exploded with new music. Their first single,†If She Cries,†was produced by Bomp head-honcho Greg Shaw in 1975, and opens tellingly with the same guitar strum with which the Beatles led their cover of “Do You Want to Know a Secret.†The flipside, helmed by soon-to-be-Ramones-producer Craig Leon, was a cover of Lennon and McCartney’s “Love of the Loved†that features the winsome qualities of Gary Lewis & The Playboys. In short order the group was playing CBGB and Max’s Kansas City alongside punk and new wave bands who would soon become icons. The following Spring the Poppees cut their second – and last – single, the original “Jealousy,†backed with a cover of Little Richard’s “She’s Got It.†Produced by Cyril Jordan, the single is even hotter than the debut.
Only a few months after their second single was released, the band split, sending lead guitarist Arthur Alexander to start the Sorrows (soon to be joined by drummer Jett Harris), and bassist Paddy Lorenzo and rhythm guitarist Bob Waxman to start the Boyfriends. Bomp’s CD fleshes out the band’s two singles (which, on their own, are worth the price of the disc) with demos, live performances and an unreleased studio track. The extras are often as good as the original singles, highlighted by the Harrison-esque volume pedal of “Sad Sad Love,†the flaming hot (and crisply recorded) CBGB live cut “She’s So Bad,†a harmony call-and-response take on Dusty Springfield’s “Stay Awhile,†and demos of “If She Cries†and “Jealousy†whose charms may be even greater than that of the finished singles.
Unlike fake Beatles bands (such as the Buggs, Liverpools, and Beatle Buddies) whose budget labels sought to fool unsuspecting buyers, the Poppees celebrated the Beatles with their original echo of the Merseybeat sound. There are Rutles-like moments of “spot the Beatles,†such as the “All My Loving†guitar figure in “I’ll Be Loving You†and the “This Boy†riffs in a cover of “Since I Fell for You,†but like those who earnestly rode the wave in the mid-60s, it’s affectionate and terrifically infectious. By the time they played “Woman†at Club 82, the group was moving towards a harder rock sound, having exhausted their exploration of Please Please Me and With the Beatles. But those early sounds are great to hear, and sound as fresh as they did in 1976 and 1963. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com] 
MP3 | Jealousy
The Poppees’ Home Page
The Poppees’ MySpace Page
The Poppees/Boyfriends’ MySpace Page
Big Daddy: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper as originally envisioned in 1959
Big Daddy is a retro doo-wop group that first appeared in 1983 with their debut What Really Happened to the Band of ’59. The band’s fictional backstory involved an aborted USO tour of Vietnam that resulted in their being held captive through the ‘60s and ‘70s. Given only sheet music to work from, they spent the years applying their ‘50s stylings to contemporary songs. Their debut featured ‘70s and ‘80s hits cleverly reworked in the style of well-known 1950s acts. Barry Manilow’s “I Wrote the Songs†was taken up-tempo in tribute to Danny and the Juniors’ “At the Hop,†Rick James’ “Super Freak†was given an Everly Brothers harmony treatment, The Cars’ “Just What I Needed†is mellowed with the sound of the Fleetwoods’ “Come Softly to Me,†and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger†is sung as a cappella street corner doo-wop. The new arrangements were impressive in their own right, but the group’s musical talents made the results both terrific novelties and surprisingly listenable music.
Additional albums in 1985 (Meanwhile… Back in the States) and 1991 (Cutting Their Own Groove) extended the joke by mashing up Bruce Springsteen with Pat Boone, the Talking Heads with Harry Belafonte, Dire Straits with Tennessee Ernie Ford, and A Taste of Honey (or Kyu Sakamoto, originally) with the Beach Boys. As on their debut, the depth of the group’s imagination and the quality of their musicianship merited listening past the novelty. In 1992 the band waxed their final album, a tour de force recreation of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as if it had been waxed in the late ‘50s. In place of the fab four’s psychedelia you get the title tune as it would have been rendered by the Coasters, “With a Little Help From My Friends†as crooned by Johnny Mathis, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds†as a Jerry Lee Lewis barn burner, “Lovely Rita†given the Bo Diddley beat of Elvis’ “His Latest Flame,†and a Freddy Canon-styled, sound effects-filled take on “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.â€
There’s sax-lined doo-wop, Dion-inspired braggadocio, Spector-styled baion beats, beatnik poetry, baritone-voiced R&B, a cappella jazz vocalizing, and the album closes with a brilliant Buddy Holly styled recreation of “A Day in the Life†that blends “Peggy Sue†and “Everyday†into Lennon and McCartney’s individual sections of the original. The piano sustain of the Beatles’ original is given over to the descending sound of the music dying. Unfortunately, only two of Big Daddy’s original albums ever made it to CD, along with a greatest hits collection, and all are currently out of print. You can find them on the secondary market, though, and they’re all worth the hunt. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]
The Charles River Valley Boys: Beatle Country
1966 bluegrass arrangements of Beatles classics
The Charles River Valley Boys came together amongst the early ‘60s folk revival scene of Cambridge, MA, the product Harvard and MIT students and a transplanted New Yorker. For all those Northeast roots (and the jokey name), their shared love of old-timey music resulted in surprisingly fine acoustic bluegrass. This 1966 album for Elektra could have been nothing more than a crass effort to cash in on the Beatles’ popularity (see for example The Hollyridge Strings’ contemporaneous Beatles Song Book), but the group displays an obvious love of Lennon and McCartney’s songs, and finds plenty of room to add bluegrass harmonies. Several choices find obvious analogs in the acoustic string band vein (e.g., “I’ve Just Seen a Face,†“Baby’s in Black†and “What Goes Onâ€), but others are taken much further from their source. Lennon’s blistering “And Your Bird Can Sing†is turned from angry to melancholy, “Ticket to Ride†leans surprisingly on the blues, and the beat-heavy “She’s a Woman†is turned into a hot-picked instrumental for banjo, guitar and mandolin. Originally marketed to the general country music audience, rather than bluegrass fans or folk revivalists, the album stiffed and quickly became a hard-to-find collector’s item. Reissued first by Rounder and subsequently by Collectors’ Choice, the dozen cuts hold up as both bluegrass-harmony string band music and an affectionate tribute to the Beatles. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]