Fab Foto Fakes: Photoshopping Beatles History
DEVIN McKINNEY • There used to be a fun little shadow business going in fake Beatles records—songs with a Beatlesque sound, or just a Beatle-sounding name on the label, that got taken, however briefly and inexplicably, for the real thing. The Knickerbockers’ highly convincing knockoff “Lies” lay at one end of the scale, with something like “The Girl I Love” by “the [...]
Art and the 60s
Yesterday, I watched the BBC Four documentary "Art and the 60s," which tells the story of Swinging London through its two iconic galleries, the Kasmin Gallery, and (of course) Robert Fraser's Robert Fraser Gallery. http://youtu.be/7anAtAgEpFs "Groovy Bob" was great pals with Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Brian Epstein (and even greater pals with the Rolling Stones, to the point of famously being [...]
Mick Jagger on The Rutles
Cash is all you need… If you haven't seen All You Need is Cash, the 1978 Python/SNL jam that created the Rutles, you're in for a treat. We've covered the Rutles before on Dullblog -- here -- here -- and here -- but I just ran across a transcript of the interview with Mick Jagger from the movie. "QUESTION: Were [...]
Thank God for Abbey Road
The Beatles, not worrying about global warming, 1969. In the midst of a comment thread, I stumbled on an interesting thought which I wanted to open to the group: how do you think The Beatles' legacy would've been different if they'd never returned to the studio after Let It Be? My initial, instinctual thought is that the group's demise would've [...]
Apple Jam: Off the Beatle Track
Oh, you'll like this In the process of refurbishing Nancy Carr's earlier post on the Seattle-based Beatle-tribute band Apple Jam, I discovered these videos and had to pass them on. 2009's "Off the Beatle Track" is Apple Jam doing an LP's worth Lennon/McCartney songs never released by the Beatles (a recent obsession of mine) in the style of the early [...]
Mark Britton: Odds and Sodd
Man on a mission-style chair: Singer-songwriter Mark Britton Singer-songwriter (and devoted Dullblog reader) Mark Britton recently pointed me to his latest collection of songs, called "Odds and Sodd." (Sodd is, apparently, a sort of empty-the-icebox Norwegian soup.) "Odds and Sodd" is very Beatle-influenced, he wrote me, and Mark Britton don't lie. I'm listening to it right now, and really enjoying [...]
McCartney’s DJ Chris Holmes
LA-based DJ Chris Holmes. Now that I know what he looks like, maybe I'll bump into him. Rolling Stone comes in for a lot of licks here on Dullblog, mostly from me, mostly for its role in canonizing Lennon and demonizing McCartney in the early 70s. But they've gotten their act together since then, and the Stone's relentless Boomer-focus means [...]
The Many Faces of Coming Up
In addition to famously sparking John Lennon's dormant creative flame, "Coming Up" has proven itself to be one of the most versatile songs in Paul McCartney's catalog. Here's the original, from 1980's McCartney II. Crisp and clean and plenty of caffeine. http://youtu.be/NnHu-WLvY5U Now the single, which was performed by Wings in Glasgow, 1979. http://youtu.be/EXNFynXEow0 And here's the great, funkified version Macca did [...]
McCartney’s mullet
Sir Business-in-Front-Party-in-Back My latest internet rabbit hole, down which I can spend entirely too much time, is this Tumblr site, which bills itself "Paul McCartney's Mullet Appreciation Blog." The site's owners, Christina and Hannah, are entirely too modest in their description: "This is not a quality blog. All I will do is post photos of Sir Paul. And his mullet. [...]