Kosher butcher cover? DEVIN McKINNEY • Yes, it's time once again to gather at the seder table, eat the ritual spices, set aside an empty chair for Elijah, watch as the kids search for hidden matzohs, and spin some Beatles tunes. (Anything but "Piggies.") My thoughts have gone all Semitic since being reminded today of this. (Thanks to Mickey Trester for the link—and the mitzvah.)
DEVIN McKINNEY • Written in November 2002, cut from the Magic Circles discography: The Star-Club material has been reshuffled and reissued in a variety of forms over the years, none odder than that of 1962 Live at Star Club in Hamburg, issued in 2000 on the Walters label. Two dozen of the Star-Club songs (including most of the finest, and in the best available sound) are packaged with a booklet of notes authored by someone calling himself Gary Michael Walters—an individual whose bona fides are never offered, but for whom the label is presumably named. The first hint something might be a [...]
If only you were here to confirm or deny... DEVIN McKINNEY • Mike asked what I thought of the “Revolution 1” Take 20 RM1, so called, that's been burning up Beatleland. I’ve been loving and chewing on this piece of mystery meat since the weekend, and at first assumed it was genuine. Why not: Remember the stripped-down masters of those four Sgt. Pepper songs that appeared almost a year ago? Those were just as crisply digitized, just as thrillingly intimate in their four-track nudity, and no one has credibly claimed they are not genuine. So I figured it was more [...]
45 sleeve for "Coming Up"--very New Wave graphic design This morning, while listening to LA's version of "Breakfast with the Beatles"--I grew up with Terri Hemmert on XRT in Chicago, but I think Chris Carter's show might be even better--I was reminded how John Lennon had been roused to record again by Paul's single "Coming Up." Carter said that the first song Lennon wrote in this ego-pricked, ambitious state was "I Don't Wanna Face It," which later appeared on Milk and Honey. That got me thinking: both songs are good, but I think John and Paul working together would've made [...]