For just this once I’m going to break my long-standing Beatles veto. I really didn’t think the world needed yet another Beatles blog post, but then this is just so ridiculously adorable it had to go up. Not only that it’s factually accurate! I’m pretty certain not many four-year-olds are aware that Ringo was not the original Beatles drummer:
Super Punch is currently holding a bizarre art-mashup contest of the Beatles meets Stanley Kubrick meets Lord of the Rings. There are some pretty humorous entries in the lot. Here’s a taste:
Go visit Super Punch to view more entries and vote.
My brother and sisters in arms here at Dangerous Minds will probably exile me to a digital Siberia for posting a mashup, but this one really tickled my fancy. DJ Fanfaroff is a master of the form and continues to come up with inventive mixes.
The great comedic actor Peter Sellers would have been 85-years-old today. Here he is seen as Laurence Olivier doing Richard III reciting a Shakespearean version of “A Hard Day’s Night” on the Beatles TV special, “The Music of Lennon and McCartney.”
We all know that writer, William S. Burroughs is one of the “people we like” on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album cover, but did you know that Burroughs was around when Paul McCartney composed “Eleanor Rigby”? Apparently so. Over the weekend, I noticed the following passage in the book With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker by Victor Bockris:
Burroughs: Ian met Paul McCartney and Paul put up the money for this flat which was at 34 Montagu Square… I saw Paul several times. The three of us talked about the possibilities of the tape recorder. He’d just come in and work on his “Eleanor Rigby.” Ian recorded his rehearsals. I saw the song taking shape. Once again, not knowing much about music, I could see that he knew what he was doing. He was very pleasant and very prepossessing. Nice-looking young man, hardworking.
The connection here was, no doubt, author Barry Miles. Miles started the Indica Bookshop in London with McCartney’s financial backing. Miles states in his book In the Sixties that Burroughs was a frequent visitor to the shop. When the Beatles started their experimental label Zapple, with Barry Miles at the helm, the idea was to release more avant garde fare, such as readings by American poets Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Brautugan and comedian Lenny Bruce. McCartney set up a small studio that was run by Burroughs’ ex-boyfriend, Ian Sommerville, who also lived there, and this is why Burroughs would have been around.
It’s always thought that John Lennon was the far-out Beatle, but it was Macca who was obsessed by Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Morton Subotnick, not Lennon (he got there later via Yoko).
Below, the “Eleanor Rigby” sequence from Yellow Submarine:
The latest masterpiece by the true genius of the form, StSanders. This guy’s videos are a well known phenom for good reason and he keeps getting better. Total hilarity and it only improves with multiple viewings.
Another Beatles mini-mystery unraveled ! As proven in this fun clip of ultimate keyboard expert and author of the most over-the-top Beatles book I’ve ever seen, Brian Kehew demonstrating the wonders of his Mellotron MK 2, we find that the ornate flamenco guitar intro to The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill was played by no Beatle nor Yardbird. It was a bloody pre-set ! Ballsy, a readymade worthy of Duchamp and nobody ever figured it out except for a few hip vintage keyboard collectors. I love it.
by Victor Bockris:
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