Michael Gerber • Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

I’m Down by Joe Strummer

By Michael Gerber|2016-02-05T12:31:22-08:00February 5, 2016|Beatle-inspired, Covers|

"You tell lies thinkin' I can't see..." This morning, I awoke to find this gem in the comment queue from @O'Boogie... "Long time/first time — tangentially, there are some neat bits of Beatles flavoured trivia to London’s pub rock/proto-punk scene. Joe Strummer christened John Tiberi (pre-Clash manager of The 101’ers, later associated with the Pistols) “Boogie” because he’d smoke Winston cigarettes; before “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones” in 1977, Strummer was speeding through material like I’m Down and I Saw Her Standing There." Here's the YouTube in question; I've cued it up for "I'm Down." Thanks, @O'Boogie, and [...]

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Was John Lennon bipolar?

By Michael Gerber|2016-02-04T13:28:57-08:00February 4, 2016|John Lennon|

After watching a TV program on Spike Milligan's battle with depression, John Lennon sent the comedian a book. In the comments on the John and Mimi post, @Karen and some others have elucidated a theory that I've toyed with for years, myself: that John Lennon, Chief Beatle and beloved by all denizens of Dullblog, suffered from bipolar disorder. Formerly called manic depression, bipolar disorder is "a condition in which a person has periods of depression and periods of being extremely happy or being cross or irritable. In addition to these mood swings, the person also has extreme changes in activity [...]

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Dark Horse demo

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-31T11:44:53-08:00January 31, 2016|1974, George Harrison|

Dig those boots. Commenter @Linda S. sent me this lovely video of George Harrison singing a Dark Horse demo. Just the thing on this rainy SoCal Sunday. (BTW, I was interested to learn -- via Wikipedia (so...y'know) -- that "[a] number of music critics rate Dark Horse as one of Harrison's finest post-Beatles compositions and believe that the single would have achieved greater success with a cleaner vocal performance." https://youtu.be/mLR8_e7Gc_M

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Lies, Damned Lies and Dullblog

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-30T13:20:39-08:00January 30, 2016|Housekeeping|

Story, nothing -- John should've sued over the PICTURE A side-question from the indefatigable @Rob on whether or not Paul McCartney actually was pissed off by Hunter Davies printing this interview in his revised edition of his book The Beatles, sent me off on a desultory Google search to determine the truth. After two minutes I could not, and I don't have more time to investigate this fully. Everybody, please feel free to fire up your own brains/Googling machines. When it was mentioned in a comment thread; seeing that it was a private phone call taken down after the fact, [...]

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Dirk Voetberg

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-30T11:50:02-08:00January 30, 2016|comedy|

Great-looking, but when it rains, they're SH*T (image links to a neat merch site) From my very funny friend Dirk Voetberg, on Facebook: "With the almost-death of printed media and the ubiquity of Uber, is it any wonder that newspaper taxis are now practically nonexistent?" Go friend him. He will make you laugh.

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Faul McCartney expert wanted

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-30T10:26:45-08:00January 29, 2016|1969, Each One Teach One|

"We Demand Justice" This morning, I received the following email: Hello, I'm Tatiana. I'm doing a project.. my class got to pick from 41 different topics and I chose one about "Faul McCartney." I was wondering if you had any information/ clues about this topic? If so could you email me back ASAP? Thank you very much! Who says doing a Beatles blog is all arguments about heroin and Yoko? I sent Tatiana to the Wikipedia for "Paul Is Dead." Is there anything more to the contemporary theory? How else can we help this youth? Besides reassuring her that Paul [...]

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Lester Bangs on the Beatles

By Michael Gerber|2016-02-25T11:13:26-08:00January 28, 2016|critics, Lester Bangs|

"Uncool" is just another type of cool, Lester. Oliver Hall over at the amazing website Dangerous Minds surfaced this contentious clip by ur-rock nerd Lester Bangs dismissing Beatles nostalgia as "sick" and "a rip-off," a mind-killing corporate shill whose ultimate victims were "the consumer" and (gulp) "John Lennon." This explosion of insight comes from a TV series called "FM-TV," which did a segment on Beatles nostalgia. The entire annoying segment is below. Right up front I'm going to cop to taking this personally, being one of those second-generation fans that, in Lester's eyes, should've lined up to see -- I [...]

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Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-26T13:28:02-08:00January 26, 2016|biography|

Hunter Davies in 1980 In the Allen Klein thread, @Ruth mentioned an interview Beatle biographer Hunter Davies conducted in 1981 with Paul McCartney, in which Paul expressed some more caustic feelings about John, rather than his usual "butter-doesn't-melt-in-my-mouth" persona. Though things apparently improved between Paul and Hunter Davies, McCartney was apparently pretty angry that the author chose to publish it in a revised version of his 1968 biography. I found it on the internet and have pasted it below. (H/T Abbeyrd's Beatles Page; their store is here, if you buy something they get a few shekels.) "Not long after John's [...]

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Allen Klein Playboy Interview, 1971

By Michael Gerber|2026-04-07T00:31:27-07:00January 24, 2016|Allen Klein|

"Scuse us, folks. It's the 70s." Ladies and gents, I have a treat. It seems the proprietor/tress of the wonderful Beatles tumblr Amoralto was reading our comment thread, and shot me a link to the entire scan of the Allen Klein Playboy interview. This link will take you to a site where you can download it. (A natural word of caution: Of course download at your own risk, etc etc. I have not had a chance to download it myself.) Thanks Amoralto! Million h/ts in your general direction.

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Allen Klein

By Michael Gerber|2016-01-21T11:19:24-08:00January 20, 2016|Allen Klein|

Commenter @ChelseaQW sent in this interesting tidbit this morning, which I just had to share. It's from Allen Klein's November 1971 interview in Playboy magazine: VETTER: You make it sound as if they [John and Paul] were never really close. KLEIN: I can only tell you what John said when I asked him who he would call among the Beatles if he was in trouble—you know, if he had a real problem. He said he’d call George. That surprised me. Then I asked him if he’d ever been really close with Paul and he said no. Not that he didn’t love him; [...]

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About Michael Gerber