Does Ringo Starr have a tattoo?
I was rather aimlessly watching this video on YouTube last night — I feel a Klaus Voormann obsession coming on, so get ready for a lot of Klaus stuff on the site — when I saw something that I had to share. Does Ringo Starr have a tattoo? Look at about 9:05 of the video. Is that a tattoo or just a [...]
Three Cheers for the Girls School Bus
These dark days, I'll take opportunities to laugh wherever I can get them. On a recent trip to Indianapolis I saw this bus, and immediately imagined it as on its way to the imaginary, wink-wink-pornographic girls school Wings celebrated in song back in 1977. It was released as the B side of "Mull of Kintyre" and reached #33 on the U.S. charts. [...]
Dominic Sandbrook on the Early Seventies
Not-so-Great Britain. Today I happened across something I think Dullblog readers might like: "The Weird World of Seventies Britain," a lecture by the Oxford historian Dominic Sandbrook. (You'll also dig it if, like me, you're a fan of "The Crown.") The details Sandbrook relates—cue Paul's "Power Cut”—are interesting and enjoyable. Spurred by our conversations about the British nightclub scene, I've gotten Sandbrook's [...]
Best Post-Anthology Tracks?
I was just prowling around on the internet -- as one does on a Saturday night -- and discovered a Lennon demo from December 1968 called "A Case of the Blues." It's a neat little scrap of a song. See what you think. Maybe all of you know it already? What are your favorite demos, outtakes, and alternate versions of Beatles songs [...]
Ethical Reflections on John/Paul
I’m writing this because the discussion on the “Were John and Paul Lovers?” post has been niggling at me for a while now. Though it was published more than six years ago, it's one of Hey Dullblog’s most viewed and most contentious posts. And because Michael Gerber and I read every comment as it goes through moderation, we're aware of movements on [...]
What are we doing here, anyway?
They don't even golf like you or I. I was responding to a comment regarding the podcast Another Kind of Mind, and the application of "emotional intelligence" to The Beatles, and as I wrote the water grew deep enough for me to want this to be its own post. I have long thought—since 1995 or so, when the Anthology finally belched out [...]
Swinging Through The Sixties Podcast
The many faces (and bodies) of The Profumo Affair. Since everybody seemed to enjoy last week's post on Another Kind of Mind, a podcast offering some interesting new angles on Beatles analysis, I wanted to offer up another Beatle-related podcast I'd run across recently: Swinging Through The Sixties. Though the podcast is Beatle-tilted, it also has quite a bit of general Sixties [...]
Another Kind of Mind Podcast
The gentlemen under discussion, some years prior Reader Laura pointed me to an interesting Beatles podcast called "Another Kind of Mind," and after listening to a bit, I think you guys would love it. AKOM describes itself as "Artists, musicians, & professionals who dissect and challenge Beatles narratives with irreverent, though-provoking analysis.” I think we can all get behind that. The episode [...]
Question Time!
Private Gripweed indulges his sweet tooth. I am attempting, with only partial success, to stay off my computer. I find, like so many of us, that frequent exposure to Facebook and Twitter makes my mind feel like the bottom of a birdcage; and on top of that, I was in production for Bystander pretty much every day since July 1. So my [...]