X-ing the Road
ED PARK • From author Jeff Gordinier's interesting video promo for his book X Save the World: "Why is Paul McCartney barefoot on the cover of Abbey Road?" "I don't give a f---! Just stop talking about it." http://youtu.be/MPdEgwOsvDk
The Vision of Joe Orton
DEVIN McKINNEY • The missing piece in the Beatles’ movie puzzle, the wild card in their deck, is Joe Orton. This enfant terrible of the British theater, in between epatering the ‘60s bourgeoisie with the likes of Entertaining Mr. Sloane and Loot, wrote a screenplay for the Beatles at the commission of producer Walter Shenson. Adapted from an early, unpublished novel and suggestively titled Up Against It (Brit-speak for “under the gun”), the script was violent, sexually transgressive, defiantly sui generis—part Fellini freakshow, part black Ealing Studios farce, part prophecy of every late ‘60s anti-establishment decadence-and-destruction fantasy from How I Won the [...]
Dullblog Calendar
By our own Devin McKinney. Go buy it, you'll like it. ED PARK • Next Tuesday (March 25) at 7 p.m., Dullblogger Devin McKinney, author of Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History, will appear at a Barnes & Noble in New York, as part of "1968 Week." You don't want to miss this! He'll be at the B&N on Broadway at 82nd St., along with Charles Kaiser, Anthony DeCurtis, and Ken Mansfield. And why not click through and pick up a(nother) copy of Devin's book?
Book Review: “The Beatles’ Second Album”
The Beatles’ Second Album by Dave Marsh 186 pp. Rodale Books, 2007 DEVIN McKINNEY • I’ve been reading Dave Marsh for many years, starting with his dozens of thumbnail critiques in the first two editions of The Rolling Stone Record Guide and his artist essays in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll; on through the reviews and journalism collected in Fortunate Son; uncollected pieces in old issues of Rolling Stone; and the massive compendium The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles of All Time (one of my favorite music books, mainly because it anthologizes so many [...]
Oh! Our mistake
Harmless-seeming Pied Piper of the Get High Generation From Many Years from Now, Paul McCartney's memoir/bio, page 314: "...Another inaccurate but frequently told story is that 'Fixing a Hole' was about heroin. This track is actually about marijuana."