The AV Club lists 18 anti-Beatles songs. (Readers of my other blog might recall a post about Sissy Spacek's song contra Two Virgins, included on this AV Club list.)Has anyone heard of this one? 4. The Exterminators, “Beetle-Bomb”The mysterious, little-known, mostly instrumental group The Exterminators specialized in the kind of R&B-slanted dance numbers that were huge in the mid-’60s. An inordinate number of those songs bore ostensibly anti-Beatles titles, including “Beatle Wig Party,” “Beatle Stomp,” and “Stomp ’Em Out”—which was perhaps only natural, considering the band’s name. With “The Beetle-Bomb,” however, The Exterminators got a little more personal. Parodying “She Loves You” [...]
The Brian Epstein Story
Can't remember if I posted this before, but here's a great 1998 BBC documentary on Brian Epstein. (I originally posted just the first segment, but the subsequent segments were not auto-loading, so I found all nine.) Watch The Brian Epstein Story. You will enjoy it. (And when you're finished, read Devin's great story about seeing the film which I've told to more Beatlefans than I can count.) http://youtu.be/1tHJa6zhDjo http://youtu.be/SPeIPo4tAo8 http://youtu.be/N69lbr6HryU http://youtu.be/5qKLL234af0 http://youtu.be/dJaSfoj8SR4 http://youtu.be/YK1R3iORpEs http://youtu.be/_kGiauUVnBA http://youtu.be/GfRpnvUonA8 http://youtu.be/ESD79NZ3rXk
McCartney’s Songs of Empathy
Paul McCartney, possibly empathizing NANCY CARR • Over the years, and especially as a solo artist, Paul McCartney has written many songs expressing empathy toward others. Being the analytical list-making obsessive I am, I've created a catalog of them. Note that I'm not arguing that writing such songs shows McCartney to be a better or more empathetic human being than his former bandmates; I'm interested here in the way his imagination works. John Lennon's written a couple of songs I'd put in the empathetic category ("Whatever Gets You Through the Night" and "Bless You" spring to mind), but often his [...]
"Hey Bulldog" by Fanny
Earlier today, I was hipped to the group "Fanny" by the excellent website Dangerous Minds. In the comments somebody mentioned that the group did a cover of "Hey Bulldog." I liked it so much I had to share. Super guitar solo.
Twelve Apostles of Rock
While buying an obscure album of Beatles covers from Weirdo Records (www.weirdorecords.com ), I was intrigued by their "Top Tens & Stuff" section. Here they post top ten lists by staff members and customers, ranging from "Ten Greatest Jazz Artists" to "Favorite Hip-Hop Instrumentals." One of the lists is "Twelve Apostles of Rock," posted by Gordon Marshall in November 2009.Like most personal best-of lists, Marshall's includes the pretty-much-expected (James Brown, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix) the less-expected (Brian Eno, Bob Marley, Morissey), and the surprising (Holgar Czukay of Can, Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine, and Christian Vander of Magma). Here are his [...]
John in "Nether-Nether Land"?
Commenter CMO#9 writes (slightly edited by me): I've been reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair and there is a profile of the late war correspondent Marie Colvin. The article mentions that growing up, Colvin idolized The New York Times war correspondent Gloria Emerson. That name should ring a bell for some of you and I have no doubt that you are familiar with her brief but polarizing entry into John's life, Michael. I believe it was either 1969 or 1970 when Ms. Emerson interviewed John (and Yoko) at Apple. She basically calls him a fool for him believing that his songs [...]
Rolling Stones open thread
I'm taking the occasion of The Rolling Stones' 50th anniversary to declare the first-ever Hey Dullblog open thread. Any thoughts/opinions/stories about The Stones are welcome in the comments, especially if they have some relation to Our Guys, no matter how tangential. This is an experiment; if everybody has fun, we'll do more open threads. I'll start it off with what I immediately thought of this morning, when NPR told me it was 50 years since The Stones' first gig: You know, they're congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years. Whoooopee! At least Charlie and Bill still got their families. In the [...]
Two takes on the Beatles
I collect cover versions of Beatles songs, because I'm fascinated by the variety of artists who have recorded them and the range of instrumentation and styles they employ. Many covers are just okay, some are outright bad, a few are great, and others are pretty well unclassifiable. The two covers I want to share with you today offer very different takes on elements of the Beatles' work that might be described as transcendent.One of the more improbable Beatles cover albums is Dutch musician Louis Van Dyke's pipe-organ-only Louis Van Dyke Plays Lennon-McCartney. I discovered this album through Dave Henderson's book The Beatles Uncovered (Black Book [...]