Michael Gerber • Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Some Thoughts on The Boys of Dungeon Lane

By Michael Gerber|2026-06-03T17:42:05-07:00June 3, 2026|The Boys of Dungeon Lane|

(A friend of mine, Nick Zaino, wrote me his thoughts on Paul's latest LP, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. I found them interesting, and asked him if I could share them here. Put your own feelings in the comments, hmm?—MG) I like it. He can still write a snarling guitar riff when he wants to, and his ability to chart a whiplash change in an arrangement is well intact. And he can still tell a story from a character’s point of view. The opening track is sticking with me. It’s about him having a crush on a neighbor when he was a [...]

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“Hope You Got That”

By Michael Gerber|2026-06-02T11:27:06-07:00June 2, 2026|Paul McCartney|

A friend sent me this excerpt from Paul's appearance on "Chicken Shop Date." I pass it along mainly to note that Paul's method of going through life is "Flirt first and make excuses later," and I 100% approve. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chicken Shop Date (@chickenshopdate) In addition to their obvious musical and lyric talent, the four Beatles were each some of the most charming MFs to ever walk this good green Earth. Together, they were unstoppable, and far from thinking that charm invalidates their success, it actually should be celebrated as a integral part [...]

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Quick Housekeeping Note re: Moolah

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-28T17:48:07-07:00May 28, 2026|Uncategorized|

Ringo's "very impressive" Zephyr for sale. As you know, I've been investigating monetizing this site somehow. It costs me about $720 per year to host, and over the 15 or so years we've been on Wordpress, that's enough for a used Zephyr Zodiac. But I just can't do it. Ads are junky-looking, and people are DCMA'ing posts they don't like. I think the Patreon's been hacked, though by whom and what for I'm not sure. As I am learning, people just do things. If it's a choice between making a little money and having the freedom to say exactly what [...]

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How We Got Here

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-14T14:59:07-07:00May 14, 2026|Yoko Ono|

J&Y in National Lampoon Magazine, March 1972. Available, along with the rest of the issue, on Internetarchive.org. This morning, about a week into the Great AdSense Experiment, I got a notification from Google that ads were being turned off on one of our posts. I went to check it out, and someone had filed a DCMA violation report. What post was it? My Yoko Problem…and Yours? Sigh. DCMA is a claim of copyright infringement, so the first thing I did was remove all external art embeds from the piece. The second thing I did was replace the featured image with [...]

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The concept behind Pepper

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-13T01:06:38-07:00May 13, 2026|Uncategorized|

Reading Starostin's part one analysis of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, I realized that I've never wondered for a second about "the concept" behind that LP; it's so clear to me I'm a little puzzled when people -- John Lennon among them -- profess that there is no concept whatever. But I'm finding it difficult to write. I've spent the last two days writing paragraphs and discarding them, and this post is a final attempt to blast through, share my idea, and continue hashing it out in the comments. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is an album designed around a [...]

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How I’d publish Tune In Vol. 2 and 3!

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-07T01:15:04-07:00May 6, 2026|books, Tune In, Uncategorized|

The Beatles liked BOOKS. I had not been following the publishing trials and travails of the world's foremost Beatle researcher, Mark Lewisohn (having plenty of publishing trials and travails of my own), so I was surprised to hear from commenter @Craig that he doesn't have a publisher for Volumes II or III of his definitive Beatles history. Volume I, Tune In, came out in 2013 to much acclaim, and so much fan interest that a truly mammoth 1728pp Extended Edition is available right now for $169.00 on Amazon.com. (It had gone out of print in the States, which caused us [...]

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Are the guitars on Pepper…different?

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-07T01:18:46-07:00May 4, 2026|1966, 1967, Sgt. Pepper|

The best part? Ringo's wearing a goddamn tie. As an unabashed Pepper-supremacist -- a surprisingly contested position these days -- I'm always trying to figure out why I like listening to that LP so much more than Revolver (which has better songs), or White (which is so much more musically varied). To me, Revolver is still the new sound in-process; and as I've said many times, White to me is the sound of the group breaking up. All I can say for sure is that, of the three, Pepper is simply the place I like to be most. This evening, [...]

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A Few Thoughts on Beatles Scholarship

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-07T01:20:05-07:00April 28, 2026|Beatle History, Uncategorized|

The Fabs at Brasenose College, Oxford, March 1964 Folks, I'm not sure this one is worth posting—I'm not satisfied with it, but sometimes I'm the last to know what will spur discussion. Enjoy.—MG As part of my freewheeling, exhaustive, and ultimately exhausting attempt to do anything other than what I am supposed to, this morning I ran across a very interesting blog post by a Beatles scholar named Serene Sargent. Coming hot on the heels of yesterday's attempt at work-avoidance, a Substack about the decay of the university and the death of the humanities, and the increasingly important role of [...]

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Eleanor Rigby But The Beatles Step On A Lego

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-07T01:21:05-07:00April 13, 2026|comedy|

Okay, it's no "Helter Skelter but rockabilly," but I laughed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzx80TDdS0

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Did Paul “Save The Beatles”?

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-07T01:22:50-07:00April 7, 2026|1971, Allen Klein, Uncategorized|

"Hey, we're in the best position in the history of showbiz. Now watch us fuck it up." Allen Klein, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1969. Allen Klein has, unsurprisingly, been a frequent topic of this blog (to begin with: here, here, here). This morning I read a Great Thought claiming that Paul McCartney gets too much credit for filing his lawsuit to dissolve the partnership; far from "saving the Beatles' legacy" as is now frequently claimed, Paul was simply looking out for his own narrow interests, the commenter said, and following the advice of his in-laws, the Eastmans, who were [...]

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About Michael Gerber