Michael Gerber • Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

Try some, buy some

By Michael Gerber|2016-02-10T16:55:27-08:00February 10, 2016|Uncategorized|

Donald Trump's use of "Revolution," though egregious, is far from the only time the spirit of John Lennon's been pressed into service to sell something. The Lennon commercial pasted below is objectionable on so many levels, not least dubbing and vocal impression (have they ever heard John talk?): https://youtu.be/4Ph4rZU0Ns4 And here's a 1992 Nike ad featuring "Instant Karma" (ironic, that): https://youtu.be/AmmpbSlr8UQ And here's an ad that works hard to get around the Estate: https://youtu.be/RweXg3YMOHg People often ask why rock music doesn't pack the same political punch -- Beyoncé's halftime show aside -- as it did in the Sixties and Seventies. One reason [...]

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Explaining Beatlemania via Sex At Dawn

By Michael Gerber|2016-02-07T13:35:26-08:00February 7, 2016|Beatlemania|

Nope, nothing sexual going on here. Commenter @King Kevin asked me yesterday whether I'd read the book Sex At Dawn, a fascinating and controversial attempt to explain contemporary human sexual behavior via “anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality.” One of the book's primary contentions is that human females are as randy as males, if not more so -- and it takes maximum effort and much selective vision on our society's part to make it seem otherwise. From the book: "And yet, despite repeated assurances that women aren't particularly sexual creatures, in cultures around the world men have gone to extraordinary [...]

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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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