Michael Gerber • Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Harry Nilsson: The Shadow Beatle

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-06T18:05:38-07:00August 5, 2013|Beatle-inspired, biography|

Harry Nilsson in the studio, right around the time John and Paul made him famous. Can I just assume that everybody reading this knows Harry Nilsson? If not, scroll down to the bottom of this post, and listen—I'll wait until you get back. (You can also go to the great Nilsson site "For The Love of Harry," but it's recently changed to invite-only.) Harry was one of the biggest Beatles fans around, and one of the few who could compose and sing almost as well as the Fabs themselves. He's also a really interesting window into our favorite foursome. “Harry [...]

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Mike’s Dream Bootleg: Beatles Complete Anthology Recording Sessions Box Set

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-03T18:08:08-07:00August 3, 2013|bootlegs, Revolver|

A beautiful sight for Beatles fans. One of my dreams for this site has been setting up a page for each UK album, then collecting all the available session recordings on YouTube, plus outtakes and remixes, and putting it in that one place. Organized chronologically, so that scholars could reconstruct the process by which the songs came to be—all the minute creative decisions that The Beatles did so well. Seems like I'm not the only one with these kind of ambitions. In Dullblog's vast refurb, I stumbled across something called "The Beatles Complete Anthology Recording Sessions Box Set," a 62 [...]

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A Beatles Tarot

By Michael Gerber|2026-03-23T11:48:58-07:00August 3, 2013|Beatle-inspired|

Paul McCartney's Tarot card, The Fool. While looking for neat images with which to illustrate this post on The Beatles' in-house astrologer, I stumbled upon an interesting article on The Beatles and Tarot. As a sample, here's a portion of the entry on Paul's card, "The Fool": Interpretation: Paul needed the Beatles more than the others did. He thrived in the identity and framework provided by the group and flourished in the public acclaim of the concert stage. The Fool’s creativity made Paul the most natural musician, albeit wholly untrained, in the band. His innate Celtic romanticism revealed itself in [...]

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Psychedelia in the UK: "A Technicolor Dream"

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-12T18:01:53-07:00July 23, 2013|1965, 1966, 1967, Documentaries, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Sgt. Pepper|

Inside the "Ally Pally," for The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, 1967 Any of you that have been interested by my burblings on "psychedelia"—by which I mean the whole gestation, birth and decay of the flower-power movement—will be interested in a video I streamed from Netflix last night: "A Technicolor Dream." It documents the UK scene: the Albert Hall poetry reading in 1965; the Indica bookstore; IT; The London Free School; UFO; and finally the Fourteen Hour Technicolor Dream on April 30, 1967. Lots of Beatles-related stuff in here, from McCartney's right-hand Miles, to footage of a very stoned John Lennon. Here's [...]

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Some vinyl to complete your collection

By Michael Gerber|2026-04-12T15:15:59-07:00July 17, 2013|Sgt. Pepper, The White Album|

It's amazing how many men used to wear horn-rimmed glasses, isn't it? For those of you with a little extra scratch, two Beatles vinyl rarities are up for sale: number A0000001 of The White Album, and a copy of Sgt Pepper with various Capitol execs dotting the crowd in the background. The White Album, which was purchased in 1989 for $1000 (seems cheap even for then), is expected to fetch—well, it has an opening bid of $10,000, so God knows. The Pepper, on the other hand, has an opening bid of $15,000. You can read a bit more about this White LP [...]

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Oh for God’s sake–

By Michael Gerber|2014-07-23T11:56:41-07:00July 2, 2013|1967, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper|

No Sgt Pepper? Did they put stupid in the water of Williamsburg? Okay, today I had the kind of experience the internet is made for. I was sitting in my doctor's office reading Entertainment Weekly and—look, I know that if I'm reading EW, I get what I deserve. I suppose I am showing my age, expecting a magazine to be not-idiotic because it's on paper, but still: there I was reading EW's list of the Top 100 LPs of All Time and Revolver is #1, and White is #12, and Abbey Road is #22 and Rubber Soul is #65 or [...]

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Movie Poster of the Week: NVUJ!

By Michael Gerber|2014-07-23T11:56:48-07:00June 25, 2013|1965, Help|

Help poster from Japan! Apparently that genial hot mess Help! is coming out on Blu-Ray next week. While looking for illustrators this evening I found a nice round-up of the various posters for the film. These two are just a sample if the many HELP posters; if you like graphic design, it's definitely worth a look. Help poster from France! Really, guys, none of these posters are necessary. You had me at Eleanor Bron. :-)

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From Dangerous Minds: The Beatles’ In-House Astrologer

By Michael Gerber|2022-11-17T13:54:56-08:00June 10, 2013|1967, 1968, Apple, John Lennon|

Did Harrod's Food Court have an in-house astrologer, I wonder? Since the period of late-1967 to late-1968 has come up in several comment threads of late, I wanted to pass along this post from Richard Metzger's site Dangerous Minds. I'd never heard of The Beatles' astrologer Caleb Ashburton-Dunning before...I'd just sort of assumed the existence of someone like him. Or a whole bunch of someones. You really could get anything at the Apple Boutique, couldn't you? I personally do not use fortune-telling, seances or any other such stuff as a path towards good life-decisions, but I suspect that they could be, for [...]

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Time-Lapse Photography

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-05T04:48:44-07:00May 29, 2013|John and Paul, john and yoko, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Photos|

Eagle-eyed commenter Sonia posted this picture set regarding an earlier post, but I found it so striking, I wanted to give it a full post. David Bailey took the ones on the left. Anybody know who took the second set? John and Paul and John and Yoko

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Anybody else share your love?

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-05T17:52:24-07:00May 19, 2013|1970s, Beatle-inspired|

The Beatles are my ultimate "fave rave," as they might say on Ready Steady Go; their stuff has always, and probably will always, sound just right to me. (There are pictures of me circa 1970, a 1-year-old freaking out with pleasure over "Back in the USSR," which proves two things: a) It's not just nostalgia, I have always genuinely LOVED Beatle music; and b) not all of the White Album makes me want to send Therapists Without Borders back to 1968.) There's only one other person that reliably gives me the same flood of endorphins: Stevie Wonder. And only his stuff from [...]

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About Michael Gerber