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- A brief (?) hiatus - April 22, 2023
- Something Happened - March 6, 2023
OK, OK, we’re uniting…sheesh
So the redoubtable Nancy and I are planning to meet up at Beatlefest Chicago tomorrow. Nancy’s daughter is also coming. I am not at all sure she realizes what she’s in for, so pray for her.
You should go, if you can. The Chicago Fest is a great one (never been to NYC, plan on changing that). On top of all the Beatley goodness, the Fest for Beatles Fans is always a hell of a time-machine: nothing evokes the heady mix of bewildered hope, outsized ambition and creeping angst that was Mike Gerber’s teenage years, quite like the faintly mildewy conference halls of Chicago’s O’Hare Hilton.
Any of you who are planning to go and would like to say hello, send an email through the site. I’ll be checking my phone throughout the day.
• • •
Now for something completely different, sent over Dullblog’s transom this morning by beloved commenter Karen:
A nice, much earlier, shot from Beatles Photo Blog.
“When Paul contacted Yoko and asked her if John had any unpublished material they could use for Anthology, she gave him some cassette tapes John recorded at the Dakota during the last year of his life. As the story goes, at least one of the tapes had a note attached to it. Written on the note, ostensibly in John’s handwriting, were the words ‘for Paul.’ The song was ‘Now and Then.’
The note could have been written by Yoko herself, as one would do as a reminder/instruction to an assistant, etc. If it WAS written by John, was it further to a possible recording date that never happened?”
I know what I think — as I’ve said for years, I bet there would’ve been new Beatles stuff or at least new John and Paul stuff in the early 80s, after John and Yoko went to England, and then finished touring on Double Fantasy/Milk and Honey. But what do you all think?
Related posts:
Off to the Fest for Beatles Fans
Beatles at the BBC, Volume 2: clearly enjoyable
Mitch O’Connell McCartney poster
Who should I interview at The Fest?
Great Beatles Tumblr: Amoralto
The Future of Beatlefest
Socal Dullbloggers: Beatles on the Pier!
Do female Beatles fans understand John and Paul better?
Los Angeles Beatles fans: Wanna go see a movie?
Attention Harry Nilsson fans!
All I’ve got is a photograph: Ringo snaps Miami fans
New York Beatlefans: Stop reading this and go to The Fest!
Interesting, I’ve never heard that tidbit about the “For Paul” on the cassette.
What do I think? I think John was going to have to divorce Yoko (or vice versa) before he would ever get a chance to truly collaborate and record with Paul again. Without that stipulation, I don’t see it happening.
this is new to me; a nice remix of Now and Then as the Beatles would have finished it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPE795oaw6Y
I wonder is that note real or just a rumor by third party people or a blurb in an interview by Beatles’ related folks?
And by the way, what are fans expecting from potential eighties music by The Beatles? Whether they would or not create new stuff I cannot find interesting, but wondering about the relevant music and lyric shaping factors that would have played a major role is fascinating.
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Lennon’s 1980 recordings and production are musically good but boring un-innovative. His production of ‘Walking on Thin Ice’ was the best thing he produced musically. He did compose a few nice melodies en lyrics, nothing really surprising but good songs with nice hooks and interesting melodies.
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McCartney was innovative as ever, as his McCartney II proved…
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The combination of this fascinates me… and my hunch is that if they would have walked that road, Duran Duran would have been boring to hell and Prince and Springsteen would have had great contenders.
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I wonder about George’s musical contribution. His creative peak around 1972-1975, with his solo-work, (Living in the Material World and the Tour) Splinter productions and all his Indian Music stuff is on or surpassing the level of creativity and quality of Paul with his Wings musical output was never really repeated until a less broad creative peak with The Wilburys superband. Yet his Brainwashed album showed his guitar-playing with sensitive melodies, precision, typical Harrison sound etc. I am just not capable of fantasizing about Harrison contribution to the sound.
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The rocking looseness of Ringo’s drumming in the sixties… how that would have sounded or contributed in the eighties… mmm just dunno, got no idea about that.