Over the weekend via that most wonderful invention known as Netflix Instant View I caught an excellent documentary on the making of the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP
That they also touch…
I was about to write that Theme One is a “seldom heard” classic by Beatles producer George Martin, but seeing how for years, every single morning when Radio 1 began its broadcasting day this was the ceremonial first song, that really wouldn’t be the case for our UK readers. In fact, people of a certain age in England heard this all the time as Wonderful Radio 1’s signature fanfare.
Radio 1 was launched at 7:00 am on September 30th, 1967 after the prosecution of the offshore pirate radio stations such as Radio Caroline. as a way to service the youth listeners. The Controller of Radios 1 and 2, Robin Scott, came on said a few words, then introduced Martin’s Theme One. After this Tony Blackburn, who’d been a DJ at Radio Caroline himself, played The Move’s Flowers in the Rain followed by the Bee Gees’ Massachusetts.
But back to the music: What a brilliant and glorious way to start the day hearing this song must’ve been at the time. It’s like waking up with the warn sun on your face, even in rainy Britain. Really an inspiring and amazing track. Theme One also closed Radio 1 and 2 at the end of the broadcast day at 2 am. This is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. I wish it had been developed into a full symphony. (I love the George Martin side of Yellow Submarine. It’s incredible!)
The composition was later used for the Sounds of the Seventies radio show, but this version was done by the Van Der Graaf Generator! Renowned heavy metal drummer Cozy Powell recorded a disco version as well. I can’t help wondering if PiL’s calming Radio 4, which closed Metal Box, was a sort of homage to Theme One. (Lydon was a huge Van Der Graaf Generator fan, don’t forget)
Here’s Van Der Graaf Generator performing their progrock version of Theme One live in concert.
(via Nerdcore)
Exploration of Beatles music through infographics:
These visualizations are part of an extensive study of the music of the Beatles. Many of the diagrams and charts are based on secondary sources, including but not limited to sales statistics, biographies, recording sesion notes, sheet music, and raw audio readings. Join this project here.
An open letter in the underground press that accused the Beatles of going soft and selling out to the establishment, comparing John Lennon’s call for pacifism in “Revolution” to a BBC radio soap opera, and conferring superior revolutionary credentials on the Rolling Stones, so incensed the Beatle that he spent six hours 40 years ago giving an interview to a couple of college students offering a rebuttal that was finally published today in the pages of the New Statesman magazine.
In 1968, Maurice Hindle and a friend hitch-hiked to Surrey to meet Lennon, who picked them up personally at the train station in his Mini Cooper. Yoko Ono fed them homemade macrobiotic bread and jam. Lennon spoke nearly continuously for six hours.
He says “Revolution” was no more revolutionary than Mrs Dale’s Diary. So it mightn’t have been. But the point is to change your head - it’s no good knocking down a few old bloody Tories! What does he think he’s gonna change? The system’s what he says it is: a load of crap. But just smashing it up isn’t gonna do it.
Hindle writes “Lennon demanded Black Dwarf publish his response, which took [writer John] Hoyland to task for his “patronizing” tone, and ended with the defiant challenge: “You smash it—and I’ll build around it.”
The full interview is only available in the print edition of New Statesman magazine.
I find this totally plausible.
(via Scott Gairdner)
Dangerous Minds pal Michael Simmons writes: “This is one of the rarest records in the world, though with the advent of the internet, rare ain’t what it used to be. For Maureen Starkey’s 22nd birthday, someone at Apple arranged to have Frank Sinatra record a private version of “The Lady Is A Tramp” for Mrs. Ringo Starr with new lyrics by Sammy Cahn called “Maureen Is A Champ.” Allegedly only one copy existed—the one Ringo gave to Maureen.”
Download the MP3 here
Absolutely wonderful article from the Times of London where children review the new Beatles re-masters. To crib from another group of classic rockers, looks like these kids are all right:
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Rock archaeologists take note of this gallery of 21 never before seen photographs of the Beatles and Rolling Stones:
The behind-the-scenes, intimate and unguarded shots, have been unearthed after spending 45 years in a duffel bag of The Beatles and Rolling Stone’s former tour manager.
The collection of more than 50 pictures, which are being revealed to the public for the first time are part of 3,500 taken by Bob Bonis, the US tour manager who helped organise the so-called British invasion of America in the Swinging Sixties.
Beatles and Rolling Stones photographs: New shots of John Lennon and Mick Jagger found
Delia Derbyshire is most famous for the Doctor Who theme. Although she did not actually compose the music, it was her arrangement of the piece that has made it one of the most instantly recognizable TV theme tunes of all time:
In 1963, soon after joining the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Delia Derbyshire was asked to to realize one of the first electronic signature tunes ever used on television. It was Ron Grainer’s score for a new science fiction series, Doctor Who.
Grainer had worked his tune to fit in with the graphics. He used expressions for the noises he wanted - such as wind, bubbles, and clouds. It was a world without synthesizers, samplers and multi-track tape recorders; Delia, assisted by her engineer Dick Mills, had to create each sound from scratch.
She used concrete sources and sine- and square-wave oscillators, tuning the results, filtering and treating, cutting so that the joins were seamless, combining sound on individual tape recorders, re-recording the results, and repeating the process, over and over again. When Grainer heard the result, his response was “Did I really write that?”
“Most of it,” Delia replied.
She was also in an avant garde pop group (using electronic sounds long before Kraftwerk) called Unit Delta Plus:
Perhaps the most famous event that Unit Delta Plus participated in was the 1967 Million Volt Light and Sound Rave at London’s Chalk Farm roundhouse, organised by designers Binder, Edwards and Vaughan (who had previously been hired by Paul McCartney to decorate a piano). The event took place over two nights (January 28th and February 4th 1967) and included a performance of tape music by Unit Delta Plus, as well as a playback of the legendary Carnival of Light, a fourteen minute sound collage assembled by McCartney around the the time of the Beatles’ Penny Lane sessions.
She was in later group called White Noise and they recorded an extremely strange, harsh and very futuristic album in 1969 called An Electric Storm—it’s pretty evil sounding—that’s been embraced by today’s electronic music fans. She also contributed music to the classic British 70s sci-fi series, The Tomorrow People, but by the 70s she was starting to show signs of depression and left the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She worked in a few other soundtrack factories, then a bookstore, then an art gallery but generally drifted away from her musical career, becoming a severe alcoholic. She died in 2001 as her earlier recordings were were beginning to come out on CD
Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer includes several audio samples and a proto “dance” track from the 60s
Delia Derbyshire, producer of Doctor Who theme music, has legacy restored
As loyal Dangerous Minds readers have probably already figured out, I am both a “rock snob
What you might not know if you are of a certain age (or have forgotten if you are of another!) is that the Beatles albums sounded WAY better in mono than in stereo. Both the group and George Martin preferred mono and the stereo mixes back then were often afterthoughts with severely panned stereo mixes that had most of the instruments on one side and the vocals on the other! The stereo mixes always seemed very peculiar to me.
The 1987 CDs were the pits. Just awful, flat aural experiences. And nothing’s been done to rectify that situation until now. It always been ridiculous that the Beatles and the Stones had the worst sounding CDs. A lot of people don’t rate the Stones ABKCO reissues highly, but I thought they were (mostly) done pretty well and it was nice to be able to hear that material with fresh ears. Most of us who grew up with the Beatles, Stones and Led Zeppelin probably probably don’t listen to them all that much now, because it’s so easy to conjure their music up in our “mind’s ear,” but the Love mash-up album from the Circe du Soleil show helped me get back into the Beatles again and I’m really looking forward to hearing the remasters. If I can manage to score some promo copies of these sets, I’ll offer up reviews of stereo vs. mono daily on the site.
Meanwhile, here’s a song that sadly didn’t make it to any Beatles CD ever, their uniquely comic turn—it’s very Goon Show, isn’t it?—on Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture taken from the credits of Help!
I like how he’s confused by the rules of American Football. I doesn’t make any sense to me, either, and I’m American… (HT Mikki Halpin)
