Michael Gerber • Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Prove Violence Doesn’t Work: Do Good in John Lennon’s Name This Dec. 8th!

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-07T03:44:25-07:00November 16, 2010|1980, John Lennon|

This morning I had a great idea: "Wouldn't it be great if everybody who loved John Lennon and The Beatles did something nice in his name on December 8th? Something that he might've done, if he were still here with us...like donating to the ACLU; eating organic (or even macrobiotic) for a day; spending some extra time with a kid; making some art that showed love for people and hope for the world...Wouldn't it be wonderful to turn a tragic anniversary into something awesome? And wouldn't that show, once and for all, that violence doesn't work unless we allow it to?" Like [...]

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I have an admission…

By Michael Gerber|2014-08-14T00:08:20-07:00November 11, 2010|1967, Magical Mystery Tour|

...I love Magical Mystery Tour. Love love LOVE it. Maybe it was seeing the movie as an impressionable 12-year-old at the Tivoli Theater in St. Louis, wreathed in pot smoke and surrounded by kids from Wash U.; or maybe it's the fact that most of the LP is singalong singles; or maybe it's the shimmery quality of the production (Elliot Smith was trying to recreate the MMT sound in his home studio when he died); or maybe it's the fact that the group still seems to have the "free from touring but still interested in being Beatles" vibe going... For whatever reason(s), [...]

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Eht Seltaeb

By Michael Gerber|2010-11-10T15:17:00-08:00November 10, 2010|Beatle-inspired|

The Beatles from jordan stempleman on Vimeo.(Via Poetry Foundation)

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The littlest Beatles fan asks:

By Michael Gerber|2010-11-06T01:29:00-07:00November 6, 2010|Ringo|

Why don't they just let Ringo play?

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The new Lennon £5 coin

By Michael Gerber|2013-09-20T21:31:02-07:00October 30, 2010|John Lennon|

Imagine no possessions…or borders. Nice our boy made it onto a coin and all, but it doesn't look like him to me. More like Queen Victoria. Somewhere, John is looking down and saying, "Couldn't they have made me a little skinnier?"

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Oh my God, Beatles sketch comedy

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-03T19:34:46-07:00October 21, 2010|comedy, Rutles|

I owe commenter Tony (aka Pismotality) a pint, a kidney or something even more important for bringing this into my life. From the British sketch show "Harry and Paul": http://youtu.be/SgnaAiAi1Pk I particularly enjoyed the banter on the bus--somewhere Alun Owen is smiling. And the bit with Lennon and the Germans..."Harry and Paul" is now more popular than Christ, at least in this household. Dullblog people, you are the greatest!

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Real or fake?

By Michael Gerber|2014-12-23T18:49:06-08:00October 13, 2010|john and yoko, John Lennon|

I've been wrong before, but the man doesn't look like Lennon to me, I've never seen any other shots from this shoot, there are no historical markers to check, and the woman's hair seems to hide her face rather too conveniently. Is this really a shot of John kneeling before Yoko? What say you, commentariat? "I'm not worthy!" But then again, I'm a big believer in the awesome power of Photoshop... You call it harassment, I call it guerilla marketing.

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"We think there’s something in the air that’s going to pick us all up again."

By Michael Gerber|2010-10-09T02:02:00-07:00October 9, 2010|john and yoko|

"TV to me is like the fireplace used to be..."Read a Talk of the Town visit with John and Yoko in New York, 1971.

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Preview of LENNONYC: Jack Douglas

By Michael Gerber|2014-07-23T16:22:59-07:00October 7, 2010|1980, Double Fantasy, John Lennon|

Friend Jamie Bryan turned me on to these unedited interviews from the upcoming "American Masters" program, "LENNONYC." I haven't listened to them all, but I just finished this one with Double Fantasy producer Jack Douglas, whom we have featured previously on Dullblog.It's spellbinding, especially beginning at around the 41:00 mark, where Douglas talks about the plans that John and Paul had to perform on Ringo's 1981 album. Douglas believes that would've become a full-fledged Beatles reunion, and given the context he provides, it's difficult to argue. (By the way, the first 4:45 is low-key hype from the people behind the show—pleasant enough, [...]

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Nowhere Boy: The first Mid-Atlantic Beatles biography?

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-09T00:00:59-07:00October 1, 2010|biography, John Lennon, pre-Beatles|

Poster for "Nowhere Boy," the Lennon biopic, 2010. If you love The Beatles, the idea of a movie based on John Lennon's teenage years is guaranteed to cause mild discomfort, as your leaping heart presses against your rising gorge. (Of course, we all agree that a comedy/mystery based on Lennon's later life is completely OK. By the way, thanks to the hundreds of people who downloaded Life After Death for Beginners yesterday. I hope you all enjoy it.) Faced with Nowhere Boy then, the logical left-brain is definite: "The world does not need John-Julia slash." At the same moment, however, [...]

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