The Beatles during their "Mad Day Out," 1968 Shenk's series in Slate provoked this interesting post from my good friend, the progressive pundit Jonathan Schwarz. Check out the comments section, too--I left one, and it's usually very vigorous. BTW, enjoy the thematically appropriate "Mad Day Out" pic.
Lennon and McCartney by David Bailey, 1965. My favorite photo ever of John and Paul, taken by David "Blow Up" Bailey in January 1965. Speaks volumes. In analysis that is almost Dullbloggian in its grain of detail, Joshua Wolf Shenk addresses the Lennon/McCartney collaboration in this multi-part series in Slate. Take a look; if you're reading this blog, you'll really enjoy it. This article--part of a series on famous collaborations--was forwarded to me by my own dear collaborator Jonathan Schwarz. Jon and I wrote a bunch of humor back in the 90s. You can read Jon's own "Yesterday" (or "Help!" [...]
ED PARK • Here's a simple/brilliant/catchy thing by Geoff Geis: FAST RAM. Which is exactly what it sounds like: Ram played at 45 rpm. https://soundcloud.com/alans-experiments/sped-up-and-pitch-corrected?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Geis writes: I’ve listened to Ram on 45 a whole lot, but I’ve barely listened to it on 33. And while my initial love affair with it was a few years ago, I’ve gotten back into it pretty hard lately. Coincidentally, the other day it was the topic of conversation at a party; fortunately it was a party with a turntable and a copy of Ram. My friend Kyle S said that he had a natural aversion [...]
Paul McCartney performs a rare version of Blackbird in this video from 1968. http://youtu.be/3uqGCqMYaHQ
John Lennon The Life by Philip Norman The New York Times Book Review sent Philip Norman's new biography John Lennon: The Life to singer-songwriter Nellie McKay, and her very positive review is written in the manner of Lennon the prose stylist. Did she pull it off? I'm of two minds, myself. On the one hand, the review is a chore to get through, in a way In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works are not. As I read, my delight was heavily diluted by frustration. But that's at least in part a genre problem: a book review, [...]
DEVIN McKINNEY • Note from the future (2013): Refreshing this post four years after assembling it, I find that a couple of the hyperlinks are no longer functional—one doesn't exist, while the other exists but doesn't yield the indicated information. But this is the story of a few hours' Internet idling, a mesh of the long-gone afternoon, and rather than rewrite it to excise the dud links, I let it stand. The links once worked, and they said what I said they said. Honest. As I commented on "The Best Dancer" below, thinking about Chuck Klosterman's piece got me thinking about Mark [...]
Get a room DEVIN McKINNEY • Speaking of which, did anyone else listen to this? Here's the tracklist: Earlimart :: Too Many People Frankel :: 3 Legs The Parson Redheads :: Ram On Bodies of Water :: Dear Boy Radar Bros. :: Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey Naptunes :: Smile Away Los Baby Fools :: Heart Of The Country Le Switch :: Monkberry Moon Delight The Broken West :: Eat At Home Amnion :: Long Haired Lady The Parson Redheads :: Ram On (reprise) Travel by Sea :: The Back Seat Of My Car It's the expected farrago of good, bad and [...]
DEVIN McKINNEY • Again showing our contrarian streak, we thought we'd differentiate ourselves from everyone who wished "Sir" "James" Paul McCartney (jus' Paul to us) a happy birthday yesterday—which, true enough, was his actual date of birth, but isn't it always nice to get something the day after too? (Or is that Christmas?) Sorry for the miss, Paul. But you and we are like an old married couple, and one of us is bound to blank on an anniversary once in a while. Beatleheads may celebrate Paul's lifespan and selfishly luxuriate in his giftings over at 30 Days Out, which has agglomerated [...]
Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl ED PARK • 9:57 p.m. | Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatle! Paul McCartney performs “I Saw Her Standing There” with Dave Grohl. Jon: Glad Paul is doing “I Saw Her Standing There” - I was afraid he’d be dour. Dave: He was always the “Clean Up After a Legendary Rap Performance” Beatle. Jon: Many legendary nights with Rakim in the late 80s. But Dave Grohl: what does he signify? He’s Zelig. His career is one long episode of “Punk’d.” No one on the corner has swagger like Paul. —NYT liveblogs the Grammies
ED PARK • Q: The Beatles’ music was always wonderful, but at a certain point it became something more than entertainment; at what point did you know that the work you were doing was important? PAUL: It’s difficult to discuss this without sounding immodest, but I think I started to feel it around the time of “Eleanor Rigby.” Prior to that, I thought the music was very good, and I realized we were in a different league when we wrote “From Me To You,” because it had a middle eight in it and went somewhere we hadn’t been before, but you used [...]