DEVIN McKINNEY • This is some of what the Beatles did on their trip to the heartland (see Ed's audio post of the Indiana State Fair show below). John's laugh looks a bit, er, forced. Derek Taylor is already framing the priceless prose in which he'll one day memoirize this moment. Miss Indiana State Fair looks taller than all of them ("Milk. It does a body good"). Where is Paul? Probably off securing a private room for himself and Miss I. S. F.
DEVIN McKINNEY • In case you didn't know, our own Mike Gerber has published a fanciful and fantabulous fantasy novel re: the Beatles, John Lennon, murder, mystery, memory, and the whole mishigas. Here is another plug of support from a fellow co-founder of this blog (cropped above and below to honor the subclause of our bylaws requiring co-founders to maintain facial anonymity as we walk among our subjects). Kudos, Mike, on—as JL often referred to a PM song he particularly liked—a damn good piece of work.
John, Cyn, and showbiz newcomer Julian in LIFE, 1965. DEVIN McKINNEY • Seems to me I recognized the shot Michael posted below, or one quite like it ... It's evidently from the same session that yielded this shot, part of a pictorial in Life magazine's issue of May 21, 1965. The story, "Hear That Big Sound," is about the current exploding state of pop music and features pix and hype-nuggets on a range of current faves, some mere pan-flashes, others eventual mainstayers: Chuck Berry, Supremes, Herman (sans Hermits), Pacemakers, Righteous Brothers, Wayne Fontana, Dave Clark Five, Dreamers (as in Freddie [...]
Nik Cohn & Ben Ratliff DEVIN McKINNEY • Here, via Rockcritics.com, is a New York Times podcast from September, half of which is devoted to a talk between music critic Ben Ratliff and pop-crit originator Nik Cohn on the remastered version of the White Album (which Ratliff deliciously informs us is currently #16 on the LP charts, "right below Lady Gaga"). Cohn, who was the Times's London correspondent on pop matters circa 1968-70, trashed the Beatles' masterpiece in their pages (see the December 15, 1968, headline bannering this post); now he has softened somewhat, admitting subtleties and qualities precluded at [...]
Lucy O'Donnell as a child; Lucy Vodden grown up DEVIN McKINNEY • But not forgotten. Lucy Vodden, who provided the inspiration for the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” has died in London. She was 46. Her death, after a history of lupus, was announced Monday by St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, where she had been treated for more than five years, and by her husband, Ross Vodden. Ms. Vodden’s connection to the Beatles dates back to when she was Lucy O’Donnell, a schoolmate and friend of Julian Lennon…
DEVIN McKINNEY • Note from the future (2013): Refreshing this post four years after assembling it, I find that a couple of the hyperlinks are no longer functional—one doesn't exist, while the other exists but doesn't yield the indicated information. But this is the story of a few hours' Internet idling, a mesh of the long-gone afternoon, and rather than rewrite it to excise the dud links, I let it stand. The links once worked, and they said what I said they said. Honest. As I commented on "The Best Dancer" below, thinking about Chuck Klosterman's piece got me thinking about Mark [...]
Get a room DEVIN McKINNEY • Speaking of which, did anyone else listen to this? Here's the tracklist: Earlimart :: Too Many People Frankel :: 3 Legs The Parson Redheads :: Ram On Bodies of Water :: Dear Boy Radar Bros. :: Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey Naptunes :: Smile Away Los Baby Fools :: Heart Of The Country Le Switch :: Monkberry Moon Delight The Broken West :: Eat At Home Amnion :: Long Haired Lady The Parson Redheads :: Ram On (reprise) Travel by Sea :: The Back Seat Of My Car It's the expected farrago of good, bad and [...]
DEVIN McKINNEY • Again showing our contrarian streak, we thought we'd differentiate ourselves from everyone who wished "Sir" "James" Paul McCartney (jus' Paul to us) a happy birthday yesterday—which, true enough, was his actual date of birth, but isn't it always nice to get something the day after too? (Or is that Christmas?) Sorry for the miss, Paul. But you and we are like an old married couple, and one of us is bound to blank on an anniversary once in a while. Beatleheads may celebrate Paul's lifespan and selfishly luxuriate in his giftings over at 30 Days Out, which has agglomerated [...]
Kosher butcher cover? DEVIN McKINNEY • Yes, it's time once again to gather at the seder table, eat the ritual spices, set aside an empty chair for Elijah, watch as the kids search for hidden matzohs, and spin some Beatles tunes. (Anything but "Piggies.") My thoughts have gone all Semitic since being reminded today of this. (Thanks to Mickey Trester for the link—and the mitzvah.)
DEVIN McKINNEY • Written in November 2002, cut from the Magic Circles discography: The Star-Club material has been reshuffled and reissued in a variety of forms over the years, none odder than that of 1962 Live at Star Club in Hamburg, issued in 2000 on the Walters label. Two dozen of the Star-Club songs (including most of the finest, and in the best available sound) are packaged with a booklet of notes authored by someone calling himself Gary Michael Walters—an individual whose bona fides are never offered, but for whom the label is presumably named. The first hint something might be a [...]