The American Bystander #2
I look high, I look low... Where is Mike?" I'm sure many of you are not asking. But others may be concerned. "Where am I supposed to get my daily quota of digs at the White Album? Who can I turn to for frank, unashamed love for the Fabs' psychedelic period? Not to mention egregious and off-topic references to Peter [...]
Fred Arnold’s Beatle Memorabilia Collection
We love receiving emails from our ever vigilant commentariat about new developments in Beatleland. The autographed postcard from the Fred Arnold Collection. Commentator @ODirony sent us an interesting link about a homeless fellow by the name of Fred Arnold, who was killed after being struck by a car in Little Rock, Arkansas. Turns out Arnold was a prolific collector of [...]
Ray Cathode is George Martin and Maddalena Fagandini
Spotted something neat on the Twitter feed of musician Michael Penn today: this oh-so-1962 single, recorded by a post-Goons pre-Beatles George Martin and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's Maddalena Fagandini. Can someone please tell me what a "time interval" is? Apparently "Time Waltz" was a reworked time interval. https://youtu.be/mhVYEgMrxOg In addition to his humble roots, George Martin's buttoned-up demeanor and BBC diction hid [...]
Dr. Jenny Boyd On Creativity
Jenny Boyd with George Harrison I was surfing the internet yesterday and came across an interesting story about Patti Boyd’s sister and ex-wife of Mick Fleetwood, Jenny Boyd. After leaving her modelling career, Boyd attended UCLA and obtained her Ph.D in psychology in the late `80’s. Her Ph.D dissertation about the origins of creativity was published in 1992 as Musicians [...]
Commenting Standards on Hey Dullblog
Your commanding officer, Mr. Paul McCartney They all laughed when we stepped up to the mic, but when we began to sing... Hey Dullblog is the most popular Beatles fan site on the web, with about a thousand visitors a day. This means that we're getting lots of new commenters, which we love. But now's a good time to remind [...]
Paul Is Dead Open Thread
Worst Hanukkah EVER In case you hadn't noticed, here at Dullblog, we live to serve. One of the topics that seems to be of persistent interest — particularly to Beatle fans under 40 — is the theory that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike. (My personal theory is that Paul committed suicide so he wouldn't [...]
George Martin Tribute on Twenty-First Century Radio
"We have a ghost in our house in the country...he smokes a pipe." Commenter Linda sent me some interesting links to last night's two-hour George Martin tribute on Twenty-First Century Radio, hosted by Dr. Bob Hieronimus. Baltimore-based radio host and artist Hieronimus seems to be somewhat Art Bell-ish, but with a definite Beatles bent (he's written a whole book on [...]
Benjamin Levi Marks has a new Anthology cooking
Beatles at Twickenham, 1969 This morning, I awoke to a nice comment from Benjamin Levi Marks, the world's pre-eminent scholar on the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. : "Hey! Long time since I checked in. I have finally retired, which frees up a lot of time and energy. This allows me to move forward with my dissection of one month [...]
George Martin, King of the Bond Theme
"Name's Martin. George Martin." Some of you know that I'm a very big, but very picky, fan of James Bond. So much so that -- if Bystander ever gives me a couple months' off -- I'm planning a novel designed to be the ultimate Fleming-era Bond book. It should be great fun. But even I did not know that George [...]