Beatles News
Stormzy has revealed what it was like getting a piano lesson from Sir Paul McCartney.
The British grime star met the Beatles icon after an intimate show McCartney played at Abbey Road, where Stormzy apparently sought advice to help advance the sound of his music.
“He’s (Stormzy) looking to advance his music,” Paul told The Sunday Times in September. “As a rapper, I thought he’d have words down, but there was a piano, so I showed him basic stuff – how you get middle C, make a chord, a triad and, just by moving that, get D minor, E minor, F, G, A minor, and how that’s enough for anyone.”
I was just so compelled, in the presence of someone that great, to get advice — anything for my career an OG [original gangster] like him can give me,” Stormzy told the publication, in a new interview. “But I know the stigma that comes with being a rapper, so I introduced myself as a songwriter: ‘Can you teach me something?’
Source: Roisin O'Connor/msn.com
A short chapter in Dublin’s musical history will be commemorated next month when a plaque marking The Beatles’ first, and only, appearance in Ireland is unveiled at Arnotts.
The band played two shows at what was then the Adelphi Cinema, Middle Abbey Street, on November 7th, 1963. Their debut album Please Please Me came out earlier that year and by November the newspapers were already reporting on the first flushes of Beatlemania: “It’s happening everywhere” declared the Daily Mirror.
If The Irish Times of the day failed to recognise the musical significance of the band, it succeeded in providing extensive coverage of Ireland’s only exposure to Beatlemania.
“Many arrested as city crowds riot” ran the front page headline on November 8th, accompanied by a photograph of a crowd of young people breaking through a police cordon on O’Connell Street. The paper referred to them throughout as “Beatle ‘fans’ ” , with the word fans usually in quotation marks.
Source: irishtimes.com
Stern Pinball, Inc., a global lifestyle brand based on the iconic and outrageously fun modern American game of pinball, in collaboration with Ka-Pow Pinball, proudly announced today the availability of the one-of-a-kind Beatles pinball machine. Only 1964 units will be produced in recognition of the year in which the world forever changed when Ed Sullivan introduced America to four young mop-topped musicians from Liverpool, England. The deal was brokered by Bravado Merchandising, the Beatles North American licensing agent.
The game is available in three models named for the recording industry's sales award levels. The Diamond Edition, the highest level and most difficult to attain, is limited to only 100 units. The Platinum Edition is limited to only 250 units. The Gold Edition is limited to 1614 units.
The Beatles pinball machine will immerse players in 1960's Beatlemania and feature eight timeless hit songs from that era:
Source: prnewswire.com
Ringo Starr fondly recalled The Beatles' historic 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on Thursday night, as he and Michael Jackson were honored at The Paley Honors: A Gala Tribute to Music on Television.
The Paley Center event, which featured packaged salutes to musical performances and themes over nearly 70 years on television, took place at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.
“The Ed Sullivan Show. Yeah, we did that,” Starr said, garnering a laugh from the audience. “We came to America, and you don’t know where things are going in life. I was in a factory and I left there to play drums. I had a three-month gig, and after that, I was on my own, and then I was introduced to the other three lads. I’m here because we are celebrating the four of us. I well up a little bit because two of us aren’t here.”
Source: Melinda Thomas/Billboard
The Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney thinks the 'White Album' sounds like a record by a "modern band", according to the producer's son Giles Martin
Sir Paul McCartney thinks the 'White Album' sounds like a record by a "modern band".
The legendary musician listened back to The Beatles' iconic album while preparing for the new reissue, and he told the son of the famed 'fifth Beatle' Sir George Martin how contemporary it still feels.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper at the Abbey Road studio, Giles Martin revealed: "The last person to sit right there with me was Paul McCartney.
"We listened to The White Album mix and Paul said, 'I never realised how modern this record sounds. This could be a band today.' "
The new project has seen the record's 30 tracks becoming a staggering 107 tracks for the latest collection, and it sounded like Paul, 76, took the chance to reflect while he was going through the original LP.
Source: list.co.uk
Ringo Starr may be 78, but the legendary musician isn’t about to stop rocking out anytime soon.
“Someone at the press line today said, ‘What, you’re still doing this?’” the former Beatles drummer said. “They say that all the time to me. I’m still doing the tour…That’s what I do, you know. I’m not an electrician.”
Starr was honored Thursday night during the Paley Honors: A Gala Tribute to Music on Television.
During his speech, Starr acknowledged the power of television, and especially the “Ed Sullivan Show,” in launching Beatlemania in America, with “over 70 million people” watching the band’s 1964 performance on the program. “They said there was no crime while we were playing. How far out is that?” Starr remarked.
Motown founder Berry Gordy gave a tribute at the event to Michael Jackson, recalling the late King of Pop’s legendary performance in 1983 on Motown’s 25th anniversary show on NBC.
“From the first beat of ‘Billie Jean’ and the toss of his hat, people were mesmerized. But when he did the iconic moonwalk, it was pure magic. That was the night that he and his career went into orbit and never came down,” Gordy said.
Source: Rachel Yang/variety.com
Previously unseen images of stars such as Amy Winehouse, Sir Paul McCartney and Annie Lennox have gone on show in a new exhibition.
Unseen Icons will feature a series of intimate portraits taken across a 25 year period by photographer and director Phil Griffin, who has created documentaries following stars such as Bon Jovi and Britney Spears.
The one month exhibition will be on display at Brownsword Hepworth Gallery in Chelsea, and aims to reveal the close bond between photographer and subject.
He said: “To me, a good photograph is never taken - but given. My job was to make myself available to capture these moments of stillness from each of my collaborators, so each portrait is a moment of pure truth and self-expression,”
Through his work as a creative director in the entertainment industry, Griffin was able to forge close friendships with his sitters, including the likes of Diana Ross and Prince Charles.
Source: Sian Bayley/standard.co.uk
It must’ve been disorienting, knowing that you could do pretty much anything and still hit #1. That’s basically what “Hello, Goodbye” is. The Beatles had been having a hell of a year. During the early summer, they’d released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album that more or less forced the entire culturally literate world to view them as high artists. But a few months after that, Brian Epstein, the manager who had discovered them and taught them how to be stars, died of an apparently accidental overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. Epstein was just 32 when he died. “Hello, Goodbye” was the Beatles’ first release after Epstein’s death, and maybe its simplistic babbling was the only rational response imaginable to the members of this band, seeing that their public lives had spun out of control.
“Hello, Goodbye” came out of a word game. One night, Paul McCartney sat at a piano and sang a few words, asking Epstein’s assistant Alistair Taylor to call out the opposite of what he was saying. McCartney then turned it into a song. It wasn’t about anything, though that hasn’t stopped people from theorizing about it. It’s prettily orchestrated nothingness — a numb word-salad nothing with a maddeningly repetitive chorus and no real reason for existing beyond the idea that someone decided the Beatles needed to come out with another single.
Source: Tom Breihan @tombreihan /stereogum.com
Jane Asher, Paul McCartney’s girlfriend during much of the Beatles years, inspired many of his best compositions (“And I Love Her,” “Things We Said Today,” “You Won’t See Me,” and “Here, There and Everywhere,” to cite a few examples). “I’m Looking Through You” paints a vivid picture of the couple’s troubled relationship, but another muse may have inspired the Rubber Soul track: Bob Dylan.
As McCartney told Barry Miles in Many Years from Now, he wrote “I’m Looking Through You” while still living in the Asher family home. “I seem to remember [writing the song] after an argument with Jane,” McCartney said. He composed the track as well as songs like “Yesterday” in Peter Asher’s room, as he kept his instruments in the spacious area.
After penning the track, McCartney brought the song to Abbey Road Studios on October 24, 1965. They spent an astounding nine hours on the song, recording the rhythm track in a single take and overdubbing the lead and backing vocals, handclaps, maracas, organ, and electric guitar. Then they set the song aside for a few weeks. At this point, “I’m Looking Through You” featured a slightly slower tempo, significantly different percussion, no “why tell me why” bridge, an organ riff (courtesy of Ringo Starr), and a bluesy guitar solo from George Harrison. The extended instrumental sections resemble a Rolling Stones track through Harrison’s snarling guitar.
Source: Kit O'Toole/somethingelsereviews.com
Jean-Marc Vallee is set to direct a film about John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Universal Pictures is in negotiations to option Anthony McCarten’s script with Michael De Luca Productions and Immersive Pictures producing. News first emerged in February that De Luca was collaborating with Yoko Ono for an untitled drama about Ono and her relationship with Lennon.
Vallee (“Dallas Buyers Club,” “Big Little Lies”) is attached to direct and edit. He will also rewrite the screenplay alongside McCarten. Ono will produce with De Luca, Immersive Pictures’ Josh Bratman, and McCarten. Vallee and his producing partner Nathan Ross will also produce through their production company, Crazyrose. Bruce Kaufman of Wood Hollow Pictures will executive produce.
Ono and Lennon met in 1966 at a London art gallery, where Ono was showing abstract art while the Beatles were four years into superstardom. Lennon asked Ono about her “Painting to Hammer a Nail In” piece, and if he could hammer a nail into the painting.
Source: Dave McNary/variety.com
