UTCzech III

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.

Just some random thoughts, observations, maybe a little trivia... Watched parts 1 and 2 the past two nights, am saving part 3 for tomorrow. I'm also a super fan, have easily over 100 bootlegs of the Beatles and solo members. I have the Nagra tapes, I've listened to them, all 95+ hours of them. They are a slog to get through. The doc has really fleshed these out though, allowing me to put a visual to a lot of what I've heard over the years. And definitely the conversations are a lot clearer here than on the Nagra tapes. I'm loving it, my son and I watched both parts, he was ready last night for part 2 after the "cliffhanger" of part 1... He's a guitar player too and was really digging John's Epiphone Casino. Some observations: I really feel that this is (to me) not indicative of their normal recording process, Paul and John are clearly playing it up for the camera, John especially, just really hamming it up, I don't think the Abbey Road sessions were probably conducted this way. Ringo and George both seem really annoyed but the cameras, rather George does, I think Ringo is bored with all the TV show/location etc talk, he seems to me like he just wants to play, let the others sort all this shit out, the ultimate musicians' musician. Have really grown in my respect and love for Ringo over the years (I'm telling you right now - no more autographs! Peace and love! Peace and love!) When John and Paul are talking in the canteen, unaware that they are being recorded, you hear a much more serious, candid discussion. When they are in front of the cameras, discussing where to perform, or when John remarks on how this was Paul's number (the whole movie/tv show idea etc) but now it's become all of their number and they've taken away Paul's grandiose ideas, you can see Paul eyeing the camera, and just kind of shrugging off John, agreeing with him, when I'm sure he had much more to say but didn't want to air it in public. I'm sure the meetings at George's house were much more animated and raw than what we see in Twickenham. Although we are getting an intimate look at the Beatles, I'm not sure it is a totally accurate one, but somewhat of a facade. The sessions are so unstructured, that had a lot to do with it. Even though George Martin is listed as producer and shows up in the film, he was rarely there, he left it to Glyn Johns to run the recordings, and Glyn is not going to step in and tell the Beatles that they need to get cracking, as George Martin would have (and did a time or two in the doc when he was there). He assumed after the Get Back sessions that he would never work with them again. That's the reason Abbey Road is so Immaculate, because after the fiasco of the Get Back sessions, they asked George if he would help on their next album, he agreed on the terms that they go back to EMI and "do it the way we used to" with him in charge. John is so fucking strung out on heroin in these sessions. The day that Peter Sellers stopped by, John is high as a fucking kite, just google the Canadian interview he and Yoko did right before that, just search for "Two Junkies". One of the reasons Peter left so quickly is because John began talking about needles and getting high. Go back and watch John just staring at the camera, eyes never blinking. Spooky, and he's so damn pale. A lot of the songs that appear to be created in the studio were in fact rejects from earlier times. There is a clip on the White Album 50th Anniv. box set of Paul performing "Let It Be", the melody is more of a jam, but the lyrics are already beginning to percolate. Same for "Long and Winding Road", a demo was recorded during the summer of 68 and given to Tom Jones as a pitch, but he didn't want it. "Get Back", however, wow! That's totally organic, we get to see that song being born. And it is amazing that as huge artists as they were, and how albums were really coming into their own for all rock artists, the single still ruled the day. George remarks that it's been a whole 5 months since their last single, "Hey Jude", and that they could have "Get Back" recorded, mixed, mastered and out in a week. The public (and record companies) were a fickle lot back then. No 2/3 years between albums back then... Man, you could really tell how pissed George was getting, after he came back, and John and Paul began slagging the Maharishi and their trip to India. To them it was a joke, to George, that was his life at the time, I'm really surprised he didn't walk out again. I fucking love Mal. Such a big teddy bear. He did so much for them, I knew he was their main roadie and body guard, but hell, writing down lyrics as they are being created, I never knew he did that, that's a big job. And hell, he helped Paul write "Long and Winding Road", he offered some great lyric suggestions ("standing" instead of "waiting"). Man, were these guys some smoking fools. Really surprised Paul or Ringo haven't turned out like George. Someone upthread mentioned how they were able to cobble Let It Be together, They didn't cobble shit, they didn't want anything to do with it after they were done. Tey gave all the tapes to Glyn Johns and said, here, you figure it out. Johns did a fucking hell of a job, He's the one that picked out the takes used on the album and inserted all the little sound bites in between. There's a Glyn Johns 1st and 2nd mix of Get Back (as it was originally called), search them out if you can (the 2nd mix is included in the Let It Be box set that just came out). Phil Spector just took Johns' mix and added strings to it. Need to go back and watch the first two parts a few more times, lots of stuff I am forgetting. I finally got smart and put the subtitles/closed caption on for part 2, need to go back and watch part 1 with the captions on, a lot of those conversations are so low or have so many people talking at once that it's hard to make a lot of it out. I'm blown away so far, can't wait for the full rooftop concert (at least I've heard the full 30 minutes is supposed to be shown, I hope so...)