Beatles News
The Beatles arrive in New Zealand ahead of their 1964 tour.
Rose was in her Wellington flat one Sunday afternoon when the phone rang.
It was her journalist friend Sue Masters, who had just finished interviewing a visiting rock band.
The band members wanted to meet some local women. Would Rose and her two flatmates like to come down and hang out with them for the evening?
It was June 1964. The band was called The Beatles.
John, Paul, George and Ringo had landed in Wellington that afternoon. They were greeted by a Māori kapa haka group who presented them with very unusual hei tiki.
A hei tiki is a small carved pendant made of pounamu (greenstone) that is highly prized in Māori culture. Hei means worn around the neck in te reo Māori and tiki means human form. They are commonly referred to as tiki.
Source: Charlie Gate/stuff.co.nz
George Harrison was the George Harrison of the Beatles. This, presumably, was not an easy thing to be. Harrison was a bona fide star, a fascinating and omnivorous musical mind and a tremendous talent who happened to be in a band with two world-historical game-changing titans. In a lot of ways, Harrison was my favorite Beatle: the funniest, the most musically curious, by far the best-looking. He’s responsible for many of the twangy, snaky guitar lines and solos that add so much to so many of the great songs that he didn’t get any credit for helping to write. His influence subtly nudged the Beatles toward Motown, toward folk-rock, and toward Eastern mysticism. He was absolutely crucial to the Beatles’ success, and yet he was still the third horse in a two-horse race.
Harrison was the youngest Beatle, the Quiet One. He was almost never the focus of the band. He’d joined the Quarrymen, the pre-Beatles skiffle group, when he was just 15, and he’d gotten the Beatles’ first Hamburg residency shut down when he was deported for being too young to be in the clubs.
Source: Tom Breihan/stereogum.com
Rachel Fuller, musician wife of The Who's Pete Townshend, has composed a requiem for lost pets, with help from Sir Paul McCartney
Sir Paul McCartney has approved a unique reworking of a Beatles classic which will be performed during the first Animal Requiem, a memorial concert celebrating the lives of deceased pets.
Audience members are invited to bring a photograph, portraying a happy memory of their beloved pet to the concert, held at the St James’ Church, in Piccadilly, London.
They can pin their photo to a large board that will be placed in view,
then light a candle in remembrance of their pet.
Animal Requiem premiere
This will be followed by a full orchestral and choir performance of the Animal Requiem, a work composed by Rachel Fuller, the singer-songwriter who is married to Pete Townshend of The Who.
Source: Adam Sherwin/inews.co.uk
The so-called White Album has often been thought of as symbolic of the end of The Beatles, but the newly released 50th anniversary edition shows a band still operating with audible joy and camaraderie.
With the demos of some songs reaching more than a hundred takes, there certainly also weren't any signs of contentment or artistic indolence. This was still a band that was eager to push the envelope of what popular music and the recording studio could be and could provide.
That the making of The Beatles (that's the actual album title; its popular nickname taken from the minimalist album artwork) was fraught with tension and infighting has been so widely reported that it has become a crucial part of the Beatles' lore – the beginning of the third act, when things start to fall apart and just before the redemptive arc (that would, perhaps, be the various solo albums?).
Source: The Jakarta Post
A 1965 Mercedes-Benz 230SL roadster once owned by Beatles legend John Lennon will be offered for sale during the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction in Scottsdale, Arizona this weekend.
The car’s listing said it was delivered new to England, where it was bought and registered by Lennon with registration plate GCP 196C. Lennon is thought to have sold the car before his untimely death and it passed through various owners before the consignor acquired it 20 years ago. The car has been in the owner’s museum in Florida.
“Carrying wonderful early provenance, remaining faithful to its original specifications, and offered from a well-cared-for museum collection, the John Lennon 1965 Mercedes-Benz 230SL is a thrilling find and a wonderful piece of automotive and cultural history,” the Barrett-Jackson listing read.
Source: Carter Nacke/journal.classiccars.com
Fixing A Hole has never been more apt...
A pothole has become an unlikely sensation online after its questionable resemblance to Paul McCartney was first noticed.
The hazardous crack in the road surface was first spotted by the Lancashire Evening Post, who were keen to point out the similarities in appearance to the Beatles icon.
Upon first inspection, the gravel surrounding the hole looks extremely similar to Macca’s famous mop-top hairstyle, and there’s even individual stones that are making up his eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth.
Responding to the unusual photo, one user joked: “Why is no-one Fixing A Hole?”
Another quipped: “Is this one of the 4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire?”
Source: Nick Reilly/nme.com
The man famous for putting the beat in The Beatles is coming back to Caesars Windsor.
Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band are set to perform at The Colosseum on Aug. 1 — the only Canadian date of the 78-year-old drummer’s latest tour.
Starr last played Caesars Windsor in 2010.
This time around, his All Starr Band features former members of Men at Work, Toto, Santana, Journey and Average White Band.
Fans can expect renditions of songs from the 30-year history of the All Starr Band, as well as singalong tracks that Starr recorded with The Beatles, including Yellow Submarine and Don’t Pass Me By.
Concert begins at 8 p.m., 19 and older only.
Ticket prices start at $43, with sales beginning Jan. 25 at noon.
Source:Dalson Chen/Windsor Star
Sir Ringo Starr is planning to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his All Starr Band in grand style.
The Beatles legend is hitting the road with fellow musicians Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Gregg Rolie, Warren Ham, Gregg Bissonette and Hamish Stuart for a 2019 tour.
The trek includes a stop at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland on Aug. 28.
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Jan. 18, www.ticketmaster.com.
Starr has been busy of late.
Besides making plans for the 30th anniversary tour with his All Starr Band, the former Beatle released his third book, “Another Day In the Life,” last year.
Source: eastbaytimes.com
A tribute to British music hall. A “fantasy song.” A curious throwback, considering its 1968 origins. No matter how one chooses to describe it, “Honey Pie” reveals Paul McCartney’s continuing love of British music hall, big bands, and Hollywood musicals. It even owes a debt to jazz, as John Lennon performs a Django Reinhardt-inflected guitar solo. Like so many other Beatles tracks, “Honey Pie” results from a melting pot of influences, music that the foursome were reared on through television and film.
Despite being released on an album widely considered to be a time capsule of a turbulent year, “Honey Pie” traces its roots to the 1920s, specifically through a hugely popular London bandleader. Billy Cotton formed the London Savannah Band, his first orchestra, in 1924; originally a traditional English dance band, they transitioned into a music hall-style show featuring humor and even a tap dancer. After building a large following, Cotton debuted his first BBC radio show, the Billy Cotton Band Show, in 1949. The show proved so popular that hit was also broadcast on BBC television, beginning in 1957.
Source: Kit O'Toole/somethingelsereviews.com
The Beatles, like gravity and tacos, are easy to take for granted. You could live without them, maybe, but would life be the same? One day we might discover they’re the source of dark energy, the magical mystery stuff that drives the expansion of the universe.
Truth is, the lads from Liverpool weren’t just a band, they were a force that pushed the boundaries of culture. UC Santa Barbara’s Carsey-Wolf Center (CWC) will explore the group’s influence in “Beatles: Revolutions,” a five-film series beginning with the groundbreaking “A Hard Day’s Night,” screening Thursday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m. in the campus’s Pollock Theater. All films in the series are free and open to the public, but reservations are recommended to guarantee a seat.
“We believe it is important to revisit the Beatles as a phenomenon at this moment because they serve as a lens for understanding the major cultural and political shifts of the long 1960s and the reverberations of those changes 50 years later — in and beyond popular culture,” said Patrice Petro, the Dick Wolf Director of the CWC and Presidential Chair in Media Studies.
Source: Jim Logan/news.ucsb.edu
