UTCzech III

A lot went into video production, see Elephant Parts and Television Parts above. Also financed some pretty decent movies, including one of my top 5 of all time.

Could go here or in TV. My favorite Monkee. Rest in peace sir.

That's first rate cipherin' right there.

A few random comments on the breakup and all that. First, they did not go into Abbey Road planning it as their swan song. A tape came out two years ago that Mark Lewisohn, when he heard it, claimed on Twitter, 'This tape rewrites everything we knew about the Beatles'. Here's a link to the article, but major points are quoted below: LINK I too think that if they had taken some time off, maybe a year or so, each done a solo album, and then got back together to reassess everything, things might have been different. But they also were just growing apart. They each wanted to do their own thing. The real death knell to me was when John, George and Ringo outvoted Paul 3-1 on hiring Allen Klein to handle their affairs. Paul wanted Linda's brother, he was out voted. "That was the crack in the Liberty Bell" Paul says. And I really think the other 3, at least John and George, just grew tired of Paul's "bossiness" (again not precisely that), but also musically. Paul is pure pop, some of it "Paul's granny music" as John once said. John and George were going in vastly different directions, John stripping his music down to the bare minimum (Give Peace a Chance, Instant Karma, Plastic Ono Band album). George was really exploring his spiritual side, beautiful music but not necessarily Top 40 material (not that he couldn't crank a great pop tune out). John, George and Ringo all played on each others' albums through out the early to mid 70's, John and George loved Ringo and gave him some of his best singles. The flip side to "It Don't Come Easy" is a song Ringo wrote called "Early 1970" that pretty much sums it up: I think the biggest thing they missed (especially John) in the 70's was being challenged, or having someone to reign in some of their impulses. Even Paul, his albums are littered with pop masterpieces, as are John and George's, but there is also a ton of just self-indulgent crap as well. I guess that's what solo albums are for, though.

Heard he got a great gig with some pseudo-blues outfit, relegated to recording chiming clocks and airplanes and such...

Plus, due to pressure from the record companies, they basically gave away an albums worth of singles and non-album tracks Strawberry Fields Forever Penny Lane It's All Too Much (recorded during the Pepper sessions but held until put on Yellow Submarine soundtrack) All You Need is Love Baby You're a Rich Man Hello Goodbye Lady Madonna The Inner Light Hey Jude (written and recorded during the chaos of the White Album) Revolution Hey Bulldog (written and recorded in one afternoon while shooting a promo film for Lady Madonna) Only a Northern Song All Together Now The Ballad of John and Yoko Old Brown Shoe

No, it would have been John and Harry Nilsson. LAPD aided by an irate Tommy Smothers (look it up...).

Yeah, they had so many songs rattling around, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam go back at least to the Esher demos in May 1968.

And it’s gone gone gone

Yes, modern technology is something, which they would have had this back during Anthology for the two Threetles songs, Free as a Bird and Real Love... HOW PETER JACKSON USED AI TO STRIP OUT THE GUITARS AND UNCOVER THE BEATLES HIDDEN STUDIO CONVERSATIONS ON GET BACK

Or was she...

And Jane Asher.

Little trivia - during filming Martin Sheen had a heart attack. Since they were already behind schedule, they got his brother, Joe Estevez, to do some of the voice over narrations. Coppola has said that he can no longer tell which parts are Martin and which parts are Joe.

Couple of quick bits, first all 4 Beatles (or their proxies) have veto power, if one says no, it's a no go. Now, Yoko is said to be in poor health (she's freaking 88 years old! Will be 89 in February), last year she turned all business dealings over to Sean, who is certainly protective of both his parents but is also pretty open-minded. There may have been a few clips that they asked to be removed, haven't heard of any, I certainly didn't see anything that showed her in a bad light (other than the singing, ugh). George did NOT like here being there, going back to the White Album sessions, but he dealt with it. Finally, one last bit about George leaving, it was kind of hard to hear on Part 1, haven't re-watched it yet with the captioning on, but is a trranscript of the fight that led to George leaving, just Paul pushing a little too far... PAUL: It's not together, so that it's not sounding together. GEORGE: So we keep on playing until we find the bit. PAUL: Or we can stop and say it's not together. GEORGE: Yes. Then you've got to carry on until you get it together. I mean, that's all I'm going to play until it's found the blending with the rest. PAUL: Okay, well, you know, I never know what to say to that, because what I want to say is, “Now, come on” and play, you know. But I can't, you know, and we get into that one. … PAUL: See, if we can get it simpler and then complicate it where it needs complications. But it's complicated in the bit- GEORGE: It's not complicated. I mean, all I'm playing is the chords. PAUL: No, no, come on, you always gotta knock me when I say that. I'm trying to help you, but I always hear myself annoying you. GEORGE: No, you're not annoying me. PAUL: It gets so that I can't say... GEORGE: You don't annoy me anymore. PAUL: You know what I mean. But doesn't everyone agree that it's confused at the moment? So all I'm trying to say is let's get the confusion unconfused, then confuse it. But that's what we've been doing all afternoon. This is why we're not getting anything done. We're just rolling on with it, and we've only got twelve more days. So we've really got to do this methodically. … PAUL: I really am trying to just say, “Look, lads, the band, you know. Should we try it like this?” You know. GEORGE: It's funny, though, how it only occurs when we record the, um- PAUL: I know, on this one, it's like should we play guitar all the way through “Hey Jude”, and I don't think we should. GEORGE: Okay, well, I don't mind. I'll play whatever you want me to play. Or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I'll do it.

Another bit of wizardry I wished they had shown... This is the very beginning of the first day, I don't think Paul is there yet, basically warming up, throwing shit against the wall, John had already had a few passes through "Don't Bring Me Down"... George starts playing "I Shall Be Released" by the Band, John joins in, after a couple of minutes it morphs into a guitar riff you will definitely recognize, which merges back into "Don't Let Me Down". Just out of thin air...

Well, since you asked.... I'll go a little bit into why I think George left, just my personal opinion, a lot of this is based on listening to the Nagra tapes, a lot of this stuff is not in the doc so hard to deduce otherwise. First, the very first day, I don't know if the cameras even capture this, John breaks out a little bit of "Everybody Had a Hard Year" (which would be incorporated into "I've Got a Feeling" later, but for a while it was its own standalone song...). Right after that, George give a couple of run-throughs of "Lay It Down", one of his most brilliant songs ever IMO. John doesn't react at all. No comment, no "hey, that's nice", nothing. John really was like a big brother to George, so I think that hurt his feelings. Second, the one George song they did attempt, "All Things Must Pass", got a fair amount of work in, but they abandoned it after January 8. two days before George quit (same for "I Me Mine", it was only worked on for one day, January 8, the album version came from, and on a side note, I don't know why they abandoned that flamenco section in the middle, I love it, would have loved to have heard that in the final version...). So he's already starting to feel short-changed. In the meantime they spend tons of time working on "Maxwell" and "Bathroom Window" and "Long and Winding Road" and "Two of Us", all Paul songs. Third, the whole, live, no overdubs concept I think really grated on him. He had "Let It Down", "All Things Must Pass", "Something" was coming along, all brilliant songs, and I think he knew they deserved better than this rag-tag approach that was going on. He was coming into his own and I don't think he wanted to "throw these songs away", he knew they could be really made special, strings, moog, whatever. So he was being held back in that regard. Fourth, and the straw that broke the camel's back, was just Paul's bossiness. And not so much bossiness, but his insistence, ever how slight, to put his thumbprint on all their songs. He did the same thing to John, I can't remember which song, probably "Don't Let Me Down", where he tells John, "Let's try it this way" and you can see John is not having it, he's like "this is my fucking song, I'll do it the way I want". George had already been through this on "Hey Jude", ("I'll play if you want me to, or I won't play if you want me to, whatever it is to please you" is basically the quote). They had been working on "Get Back" and "Two of Us" all morning, with Paul basically directing how he wanted the song to go. I think George finally felt, fuck, do it yourself then. I can have a better time sitting in my garden writing songs and then fucking Patti at night. Although that actually may have had something to do with it as well, relating to George's overall state of mind, as Patti had left him at the beginning of the year. and finally, like Ringo, I don't think he was into the project at all, you can tell he hated the cameras and microphones being around, "Oh so you're taping our conversations" he says right at the beginning. And just the entire trying to run their own business affairs was a drag, it all piled up on him. Just my $.02 anyway

Excellent article on Glyn Johns and the Get Back album LINK And I do have to correct myself, Phil Spector didn't just take Glyn Johns album and add strings to it, he actually did use some completely different takes than Glyn Johns did. I'm listening to the Get Back 2nd mix right now and the takes are noticeably different. Glyn Johns version is truly the original vision the Beatles had, no overdubs or corrections at all. Exactly what you see and hear in the documentary. ETA: interesting, the version on the Let It Be box set is the Glyn Johns 1st version, from 1969, and not the 2nd mix, which is what I have, guess I'll be getting the box set now.

You’re friends with Randolph Duke?

Openly stolen from the Steve Hoffman forums

Hot take incoming! Not a peep since, hmmmm.