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George Starostin on music today
Longtime readers of Hey Dullblog will recall that I’ve posted about Starostin’s music reviews before. He’s prolific, insightful, and unafraid to swim against the tide — though he’s never a contrarian for controversy’s sake. His reviews of the Beatles catalog are well worth reading. His original site is here, and the site he is currently […]
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Geoffrey Giuliano Goes Off
Commenter Gibson pointed me to this cri de coeur from Beatle author Geoffrey Giuliano on the perils of “thinking about the Beatles a little too much.” It tickled me immensely, and some of you will have strong feelings, I’m sure. I look forward to hearing them in the comments. Now if you’ll excuse me, I […]
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A Few Words on Conspiracy Theory
Who is this man? Several Beatles-related conspiracy theories—the idea that John and Paul were lovers, and the granddaddy of them all, the Paul McCartney death hoax—have emerged in the comments of late, and so I wanted to take a moment to share some strategies on how to deal with this kind of thinking. The goal […]
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A Secret History of The Beatles?
Is there, do you think, a secret history of The Beatles? In a private email, commenter Justin and I began talking about this Dullblog post—which, nearly ten years later, remains the best summary of my feelings on the breakup. (For those short on time: I think Lennon pulled away from Paul and the group impulsively, […]
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Who’s buying the Abbey Road Anniversary Edition?
I genuinely love Abbey Road—for what it is, and for the role it plays in the Beatles’ story, too. I agree with Michael Bleicher’s recent post: of all The Beatles’ work it is the least sonically dated. More than that, it’s always somewhat refreshing to listen to. To my ear, it mapped out a solid […]
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Peter Fonda 1939-2019
Actor and acclaimed Beatle tangent (“At a party at the Playboy Mansion in 1965, Lennon overheard…”) Peter Fonda died this week at age 79. As I said in this earlier post, I met him at a party in 2009, and we talked Fabs. He was tall and gracious and looked just like, well, Peter Fonda. […]
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John Was My Favorite Beatle
Everybody’s a baby. Commenter @Justin wrote this morning about John Lennon’s lousy reputation among younger Beatle fans, and the concomitant rise in esteem that Paul McCartney has enjoyed. This has joggled some thoughts about my own fandom that perhaps are worth sharing. I haven’t given this post the obsessive working over that I sometimes mete […]
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A John and Yoko movie?
Commenter @Hologram Sam found this item on Deadline from last October, and we’ve been talking about it a little on the Jann Wenner thread, so I thought it was worthy of its own post. Apparently the project teams the director of Dallas Buyers Club, Jean-Marc Vallée, with the screenwriter behind Bohemian Rhapsody. I don’t envy […]
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Willy Chirino, “My Beatles Heart”
Willie Chirino’s 2011 collection of Fab Four songs, My Beatles Heart, is one of the few cover albums I listen to regularly all the way through. Chirino is a Cuban-American musician, singer, and songwriter who lives in Florida and was involved in the salsa-based “Miami Sound” back in the 1970s and 80s. I’m not familiar […]
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“Yesterday,” the film: slight but fun
“Yesterday” is wildly implausible, to a degree that makes “Back To The Future” look like a serious exploration of the theory of relativity. It’s a sheer waste of time to ask yourself any of the innumerable questions raised by the macguffin that is the film’s premise. But if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief, it’s […]