Thoughts on "Paperback Writer"
Thinking about "Paperback Writer" — it's a thousand pages, give or take a few?!Heard this one with fresh ears recently and began thinking about 1,000-page debut novels (paperback or no): Are there any?Not sure. But then I thought about that scene in Wonder Boys (the film based on the Michael Chabon novel), in which novelist Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is typing a [...]
The Casey Black album
You'd think "Eleanor Rigby" would not be an ideal song to cover...but I dig my former student Casey Black's rendition: http://www.youtube.com/v/MiOy2gr0klU?fs=1&h More than once, one of Casey's originals has popped up on the ipod and I've thought: some Springsteen song I forgot? Check out this one: "The Sarge." (At the very least, he finds something to rhyme with "hippocampus.")POSTSCRIPT: Just noticed via [...]
Nilsson’s "Isolation"
Some people get Mania, others get Pandemonium Brother/good influence Jack Gerber just sent me this great cover of John Lennon's "Isolation" by JL's close friend/bad influence Harry Nilsson. It was unreleased until 2008, when it appeared as a bonus track on Aerial Pandemonium Ballet. Lennon covers almost never come close to the original; Lennon's paramount gift was to make his [...]
Talkin’ Beatle books (and our Dev!)
You forgot "Fluoridation" This afternoon, while trolling the internet for something to listen to while I was in the bath, I stumbled upon this podcast from rockcritics.com, which proved to be a very interesting roundup of Beatle tomage by Tim Riley, author of Tell Me Why (and a bio of John Lennon which I will doubtless purchase and read). Our [...]
Pillow talk
I must confess, I did not own the album A Hard Day's Night until fairly recently. So when I finally did get a copy, I discovered with pleasure that there were still a few new-to-me Beatles songs out there, namely "Any Time at All" and "When I Get Home" (which didn't make it into the movie). The latter pops up on my [...]
People who hate the Beatles
Nyah! My 2c: People who hate The Beatles should really be hating all the musicians that came after The Beatles. It's not James Joyce's fault that nobody's topped Ulysses in that form, nor is it The Beatles fault that Revolver still kicks ass when it comes to the three-minute rock song form. I like Amy Mann, but my being bored [...]
Me on Lennon on Huffpo
Lennon on the cover of Newsweek, Dec. 22, 1980. Guys, just wanted to let everybody know that an essay I wrote on the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's murder--and what I plan to do to commemorate it--is up at The Huffington Post. Welcome fellow Dullblogger Devin McKinney to The December 8th Project!
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 [...]
Are you the Fifth Beatle? Or the 16,928th?
Stolen from Brian Epstein's closet. Dullbloggers, I made these t-shirts for myself a while back and thought that some of you might enjoy them, too. I'm still figuring out which service to use for all these ideas--CafePress, Zazzle, Printfection, or others. Any opinion?