Which song is he talking about?
ED PARK • Want to hear a really sloppy record? It's a good song, but the recording's a mess. The drums consistently drag the rhythm; the bass player isn't quite sure how his part is supposed to go...—Douglas Wolk, "The Death of Mistakes Means the Death of Rock" http://youtu.be/T3znOTuT4K8
"John was as blind as a bat…"
George watches This Boy. http://www.youtube.com/v/NAZGpFrx8G0&h
White Album Not All That, Writer Claims
Nik Cohn & Ben Ratliff DEVIN McKINNEY • Here, via Rockcritics.com, is a New York Times podcast from September, half of which is devoted to a talk between music critic Ben Ratliff and pop-crit originator Nik Cohn on the remastered version of the White Album (which Ratliff deliciously informs us is currently #16 on the LP charts, "right below Lady [...]
I’ve just seen a face…I think
ED PARK • The face of the Beatles’ drummer, Ringo Starr, has been seen in a droplet of water bouncing on a lotus leaf... —Telegraph
And You’re Gone
Lucy O'Donnell as a child; Lucy Vodden grown up DEVIN McKINNEY • But not forgotten. Lucy Vodden, who provided the inspiration for the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” has died in London. She was 46. Her death, after a history of lupus, was announced Monday by St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, where she had been treated for [...]
“Paperback” Trail; or, The Hunt for Mark Shipper
DEVIN McKINNEY • Note from the future (2013): Refreshing this post four years after assembling it, I find that a couple of the hyperlinks are no longer functional—one doesn't exist, while the other exists but doesn't yield the indicated information. But this is the story of a few hours' Internet idling, a mesh of the long-gone afternoon, and rather than rewrite it [...]
Little embellishments
ED PARK • "How is it different than...karaoke? I mean I once sang karaoke harmony on 'You're Gonna Lose That Girl,' and it was definitely fun, but is this that much different? Oh? What's that you say? Oh it's about playing the instruments? Really? Is it that much fun to play that guitar-thing like it's, I don't know, Defender?Isn't the fun of playing [...]
Better, better, better…AAAAH!
ED PARK • Korean baby singing Hey Jude. http://youtu.be/zPoQWclfqOY
The best dancer
And again ED PARK • This sort of I've-been-living-under-a-rock thing shouldn't work...but I think Klosterman pulls it off! It is not easy to categorize the Beatles’ music; more than any other group, their sound can be described as “Beatlesque.” It’s akin to a combination of Badfinger, Oasis, Corner Shop, and every other rock band that’s ever existed. The clandestine power [...]