Excellent photos of the Fabs…
...can always be found at the blog If Charlie Parker Was A Gunslinger. Just thought I'd pass it along. (If my last trip to Taschen is correct, I think this photo was taken by Harry Benson.)
A box of LPs from the States.
From this lovely series of photos. (h/t Boing Boing)
Mikal Gilmore: “They had thrown away something special”
DEVIN McKINNEY • "I've never come across a story that fascinated or moved me more than this particular one. The end of the Beatles was convoluted and acrimonious, but it was also transcendent." Read this if you haven't. It resonates nicely with discussions that have gone on here, mainly between Michael and various of our correspondents, about why the Beatles broke up. It's by Mikal Gilmore, journalist, critic, and author of Shot in the Heart, one of the best books I've ever read. It is an excerption from Gilmore's 2009 Rolling Stone article, as well as prologema to his planned 2013 release, [...]
Doctor Who?
DEVIN McKINNEY • I'm not a Doctor Who fan myself, but if you are, this must be the cat's whiskers. Courtesy of Archie McPhee's Endless Guyser of Awesome!.
Indiana, Indiana, Indiana
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.
Indiana, Indiana
The Beatles, live at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis, Sept. 3, 1964, at Heavy Sugar Radio.
The Beatles First American Concert
The moptops in action amid a hail of jelly babies, February 1964. Last night, I was lucky enough to see the closed-circuit film of The Beatles' first American concert, given February 11, 1964, in Washington, DC. The film was broadcast in March, 1964, to movie theaters all across the country--then languished in somebody's basement until the mid-90s, when it was handed over to an archivist. I don't know why it hasn't enjoyed a proper release; my guess is wrangles over rights and royalties. But whatever: WOW. You NEED to see this film. Beatles first American concert… and their best? When [...]
Kate Powers on McBroom Photo
[This morning, as we were listening to Breakfast with the Beatles, my wife Kate launched into a long analysis of the Beatles photo that Apple has been using for its campaign, the McBroom session of April, 1969. I thought what she said was really funny and interesting, so I asked her to share it.--MG] Thanks to the combination of the Apple/iTunes Beatle campaign and the fact that I was reloading the Apple site every five minutes on Thanksgiving night (looking for the Black Friday discount that made it possible to buy the spiffy new laptop on which I am writing this email), [...]
I have an admission…
...I love Magical Mystery Tour. Love love LOVE it. Maybe it was seeing the movie as an impressionable 12-year-old at the Tivoli Theater in St. Louis, wreathed in pot smoke and surrounded by kids from Wash U.; or maybe it's the fact that most of the LP is singalong singles; or maybe it's the shimmery quality of the production (Elliot Smith was trying to recreate the MMT sound in his home studio when he died); or maybe it's the fact that the group still seems to have the "free from touring but still interested in being Beatles" vibe going... For whatever reason(s), [...]
More on Lennon and McCartney
The Beatles during their "Mad Day Out," 1968 Shenk's series in Slate provoked this interesting post from my good friend, the progressive pundit Jonathan Schwarz. Check out the comments section, too--I left one, and it's usually very vigorous. BTW, enjoy the thematically appropriate "Mad Day Out" pic.