Uncategorized Archives - Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

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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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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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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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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Will the Beatles Last?

By Michael Gerber|2026-05-07T01:24:58-07:00March 30, 2026|Beatle History, Uncategorized|

When the Beatles are 64, from LIFE Magazine in 1968. As the Boomer generation fades into eternity, what does that mean for the standing of Beatlemusic in the culture? And what does it mean for the phenomenon of The Beatles as a cultural force? Will they persist as something like Mozart or Shakespeare, or recede like "Laugh-In" or Herman's Hermits? I'm biased, of course -- but less than you might think. I'm 56, so what people are digging in one hundred years' time is really nothing to do with me. But going strictly by what has happened since 1963, I [...]

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Old Draft: Beatles Folk Memory 1970-1995

By Michael Gerber|2026-01-03T21:30:45-08:00December 8, 2025|Uncategorized|

[Folks: I found this in Drafts, re-read it, and liked it. I don't know why I didn't post it before, maybe because i didn't come to A Grand Conclusion. Anyway, enjoy.—MG] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl8btU0EYno Commenter D.N. just coined a phrase that I really love: "Beatles folk memory," which I took to mean "how the Beatles phenomenon, and the experience of being a fan of theirs, was experienced by fans." I think it's a tremendously useful concept. The folk memory of first-generation fans is easiest to track, not only because it left huge traces in the mainstream monoculture, but because it was [...]

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From Faith Current: “The Sacred Ordinary: St. Peter’s Church Hall”

By Michael Gerber|2025-12-08T12:22:45-08:00May 1, 2023|Uncategorized|

Folks, this piece was in the editorial queue before Nancy and I decided to put this site on hiatus. To honor my commitment to Faith, I post it here. Enjoy.—MG BY FAITH CURRENT St. Peter’s Church, Woolton Village, Liverpool January 11, 2023 “You’re lookin’ for Eleanor then?” The voice startles me — I’d thought I was alone and anyway, disembodied voices in cemeteries tend to be startling on any account. I spin around to see an old man regarding me with a cryptic smile. He’s wearing a thick woolen overcoat and carrying a walking stick. Standing in the mist at the edge [...]

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A brief (?) hiatus

By Michael Gerber|2025-12-08T12:22:48-08:00April 22, 2023|Uncategorized|

After much discussion over several months, Nancy and I have decided to put Dullblog in the deep freeze, at least temporarily. We may post occasionally, but comments will be off. We'll be leaving it up as an archive—for now. Diverting as it has been, Dullblog has never really fit with the rest of my professional life, and my first impulse was to send the other writers their posts, then nuke the site from space. But my wife convinced me that there might be people—perhaps someone housebound, as I was when Devin, Ed, and I began this site in 2008—for whom HD is [...]

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All is well!

By Michael Gerber|2025-12-08T12:22:54-08:00February 28, 2023|Uncategorized|

The float right BEFORE the John and Yoko one. Folks, sorry about that -- the site went down yesterday for the most prosaic of reasons, an expired credit card on Autopay. We're all good now. …or are we? I must admit my first thought was all the attackery, hackery and miscellaneous jackery the site's been suffering over the last year. But no angry Floyd or VU fans were involved. Thank you for all the concerned messages. My favorite was, "Elliot Mintz hasn't come after you for talking about Yoko and kink, has he??" To be honest, the single best PR [...]

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