1960s Archives | Page 2 of 19 | Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Beatles mystery: “She’s Leaving Home”

By Nancy Carr|2016-09-22T07:33:20-07:00September 20, 2016|1968, Beatle-inspired, Beatles fiction, books, fans, Uncategorized|

William Shaw's She's Leaving Home is a Beatles-linked police procedural mystery. It's also a deep dive into the turmoil of late-60's London. And an examination of two detectives struggling with their identities and social roles. If that makes the book sound overstuffed, it's because it is. But overall it's an enjoyable read for Beatles or mystery fans who are prepared to skim a bit. Beatles novels are as various as the songs on the White Album, ranging from the simply parodic (Alan Goldsher's Paul is Undead) to the thriller (Phil Rickman's December) to the realistic slice-of-life (Philip Gillam's Here Comes the Sun). But alternative history leads the field, with [...]

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Did Monoculture Make The Beatles?

By Michael Gerber|2016-09-19T10:09:16-07:00September 18, 2016|1967|

December 21, 1967: John, Paul and Ringo at the party celebrating the BBC's transmission of "Magical Mystery Tour." This morning, as I was shaving -- a marvelously quick operation now that I have a beard -- "Breakfast With the Beatles" played a blast-from-the-past radio ad touting the then-new LPs Magical Mystery Tour and Wild Honey. (So we can date the spot to late December 1967/early 1968). I suddenly felt a very warm feeling, a pang of entirely comfortable longing. How nice it would be to hear something like this on contemporary radio, something that I understand fully, by artists I [...]

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Starostin on the White Album

By Nancy Carr|2016-06-20T07:18:13-07:00June 20, 2016|1968, Beatles Criticism, George Starostin, The White Album|

The tireless George Starostin, still working his way through Rate Your Music's list of "Top Albums of All Time," has just published a new review of the White Album (currently #25 on the list). As usual, there's plenty of substance in Starostin's review, and I highly recommend it. These lines particularly stood out to me (ellipses mine): "A typical 'complaint' against The Beatles is that this is the first album where the band, much too often, reads like the sum of its parts rather than a collective whole: The Lennon songs are Lennon, the McCartney songs are McCartney, the Harrison songs mark [...]

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The Joshua Liquid Light Show

By Michael Gerber|2016-05-04T09:50:38-07:00May 4, 2016|1969|

The Joshua Liquid Light Show, invented by artist Joshua White, was a psychedelic staple at New York's iconic Fillmore East in the late Sixties. White and his colleagues would project their work on 30-40 foot screens behind bands like Jimi Hendrix and The Who, improvising in time with the music. I've found one of their Shows on YouTube, which I'm pasting below. This work is now part of the permanent collection at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. https://youtu.be/TW733Ut5zE0 It is a real shame that the Beatles didn't return to touring; their post-Pepper music, plus proper mic-ing and amplification, plus [...]

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Starostin re-reviews Sgt. Pepper

By Nancy Carr|2016-05-02T15:09:50-07:00May 2, 2016|1967, Beatles on the Web, George Starostin, Psychedelia, Sgt. Pepper|

Online reviewer George Starostin has just posted another review of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, this time as part of his working down the list of the RateYourMusic site's "Top Albums of All Time" list. (Pepper is currently at #18). I love the whole review, but here are a couple of my favorite song-by-song comments: ʻLovely Ritaʼ - oh, that triumphant cry of "RITA!" leading into the piano solo break. It's one of McCartney's most Pythonesque numbers ever, a hilarious send-up of, let's say, "traditional British values", and the exuberant piano chords of the break are the climactic peak. Although the [...]

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The Jets and The Beatles

By Karen Hooper|2016-04-25T14:44:45-07:00April 25, 2016|1962, Beatle History|

Rick Richards, far right, with the Jets. Tony Sheridan is beside him. Sometimes the musings of artists about the Beatles who knew them in the early days are pretty amusing. Take, for example, Rick Richards' memories of The Beatles while they were performing together at Der Kaiserkeller: ...[Bruno] Koschmider engaged the Beatles through Alan Williams to play at another club he owned called the 'Indra'. The Indra although in the same street as the Kaiserkeller (the Grosse Freiheit) was someway away from it where the main crowd never seemed to reach, and consequently didn't get the custom it should have. We [...]

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Lennon and McCartney On The Tonight Show, 1968

By Karen Hooper|2016-04-21T06:57:16-07:00April 20, 2016|1968, Apple, Lennon, McCartney|

Speaking of his appearance with Paul McCartney on the Tonight Show to announce Apple Corp., John Lennon said it “was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever been on.” And if you listen to the audio portion (the video portion is no longer available), it IS truly cringe-worthy. Sitting with a slightly inebriated Tallulah Bankhead and a polite but clueless Joe Garagiola (who was subbing for Johnny Carson), John and Paul endured 22 minutes of embarrassingly vacuous questions (“Will you ever be able to top Sgt. Pepper?”, asked Garagiola) which made ME want to put a fork in my ear. An interesting backstory [...]

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Stop And Smell The Daisies

By Michael Gerber|2016-04-10T23:10:08-07:00April 10, 2016|1967|

Anybody know where and when this was taken? Bangor, 1967? Stop and smell the daisies

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The Beatles and the Boomers: The Childhood They Gave Us

By Karen Hooper|2016-03-10T08:10:16-08:00March 9, 2016|1960s, Beatlemania|

I really don’t remember when I first saw the Beatles. I have no memory of a ‘before’ and ‘after.' I think I must have issued from the womb with them firmly attached, like a birthmark. I’m a first-generation Beatles’ fan, born in 1956, which makes me a younger cohort of the boomer generation. According to Sociologist and Beatle Expert Candy Leonard, “screaming teenage girls got a lot of attention in 1964 and they're the ones immortalized in the black and white footage, but the largest number of first-generation Beatle fans were actually boys and girls between five and 10 years old [...]

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With The Beatles: Alistair Taylor

By Karen Hooper|2016-03-04T09:13:24-08:00March 3, 2016|1960s, 1970s, Apple/Inner Circle, books|

Alistair Taylor, 1967 In 1960, Alistair Taylor was a newly married 25-year-old office clerk when he applied for a sales job at NEMS. He had never met Brian Epstein before, but the two men hit it off immediately. The sales job morphed into an offer to be Epstein’s personal assistant, and Taylor jumped at the chance. If you’re looking for a Lewisohnian-type account of Beatle history, this isn’t the book to read. Taylor is charmingly unsophisticated and his recollections are quirky and hyperbolical (and sometimes a little suspect). But hey-- that’s part of the book’s (and the author’s) charm. [...]

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