Beatles on Ed Sullivan, 57 years ago
It's been almost six decades since The Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. As a Gen X-era fan, I found watching the four Ed Sullivan Beatles shows in their entirety (on a DVD) a revelation. [The other shows were on February 16 and 23, and September 12, 1965.] I highly, highly recommend watching the [...]
The Merseybeat gang, circa 1962
Frequent commenter LeighAnn pointed me to this great photo which Ringo put up on his Instagram (@ringostarrmusic) in remembrance of the late, great Gerry Marsden. "3..2..1..JUMP!"
Bernie and the Beatles
After Senator Bernie Sanders showed up at yesterday's inauguration looking a bit, shall we say, casual, the photo spawned a thousand memes, with the Progressive octogenarian popping up in every famous shot imaginable. Of course the Beatles were part of this, so Michael Bleicher and I assembled some of the best examples. Add more in the comments.
Speaking ill of the dead: Phil Spector
I want to say right at the start that I've never really gotten the cult of Phil Spector. With all apologies to our beloved @Hologram Sam, rock and roll before The Beatles leaves me cold—and trust me, I've tried. All that Ronettes stuff sounds like a pompous, immature version of something Motown did so much better. I've also tried to like, or [...]
A few thoughts on conspiracy theories.
Given the political impacts we're seeing here in the U.S. from internet-driven conspiracy theories, and the prevalence of a (I mean this in the nicest way) Beatles-related conspiracy theory on this blog for the past several years, I wanted to speak a bit about this topic. I paddled for many years in the shallows of conspiracy theories, most notably ones around the [...]
A sneak preview of Peter Jackson’s Get Back
This morning the following video was dropped on Twitter, and it's been lighting up our comments, so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UocEGvQ10OE So, basically, "A Hard Day's Night," circa 1969—which is what lots of Beatles fans wanted in 1970, and maybe even more want in 2020. It's really striking to see them doing the same kinds of cuts and capers they did in [...]
The Beatles on Shindig
Everybody's favorite Liverpudlians (except perhaps for Mrs. Marsden) perform "Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey", "I'm a Loser," and "Boys" for a remarkably restrained London studio audience, on October 7, 1964. According to the internet, the audience were members of the Beatles Fan Club. I think this footage might have been colorized after the fact? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFi1VcsuJ_g
Follow us on Twitter! @HeyDullblog
Those of you on the rightly maligned hellsite Twitter can, and really must, follow us. We're at @HeyDullblog. (And I’m personally at @mgerber937.) I say this for two reasons: The first is, lots of Beatle and Beatle-adjacent news breaks on Twitter, and so we'll be able to comment on John's love letters to Paul the VERY MOMENT they are released. "Dear Paul: [...]
Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift on making music in 2020
Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift are on the cover of Rolling Stone this month, as part of the magazine's "Musicians On Musicians" series. You can read their conversation here. Sounds as if this meeting was a real family affair, with Stella McCartney supplying Taylor Swift's clothes for the shoot and Mary McCartney taking the photographs. To me, the most interesting part of [...]