Aspiring or inspiring?

The New York Times Book Review sent Philip Norman's new biography John Lennon: The Life to singer-songwriter Nellie McKay, and her very positive review is written in the manner of Lennon the prose stylist. Did she pull it off? I'm of two minds, myself. On the one hand, the review is a chore to get through, in a way In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works are not. As I read, my delight was heavily diluted by frustration. But that's at least in part a genre problem: a book review, however creatively written, must in the end communicate information; it can't be a pure flight of fancy (or, at least, it shouldn't be). McKay has not shirked that duty, but deciphering what she has to say about Norman's book is a lot more work than following the thread of one of Lennon's nonsense stories. However, McKay also scores some remarkable successes with her wordplay, and I have to think Lennon would have been pleased by the attempt. I particularly admired the end of the penultimate paragraph (the final graf being written, mercifully, in plain English):

It shows Jo Venom, who destroyed the nice old houses, and John the Gent, willy more sentrimental than Healer Paul; a man whose instigation held friendless mirrors and who helped bring peace and joyce to a victious planet, a man stingy and cruel to those cossacks to him, mentally corchuring Cleo and offering to off his Chad, and one so medicated to being a good boy and father that he rushed each fight to put Sun to bed.

Whatever you think of McKay's Lennon act, you have to give the NYT due credit for publishing a cryptogram only a fan(atic) could follow, much less love. And spare a thought for the poor proofreader!

On the facing page is Suzanne Vega's review of Paul McCartney: A Life by Peter Ames Carlin. It's not so quirky or creative -- "I was one of those little girls who loved the Beatles in the 1960s" isn't going to win any prizes for most memorable lede. But it I loved this:

....we careen from breathless fan-boy writing to dusty travelogue descriptions of Liverpool at the turn of the 20th century, while Carlin describes some immigrants flooding in and others flooding out, “departing for the untrammeled shores of the New World.”

Yawn. Why are shores always untrammeled? No one ever seems to write about how trammeled most shores actually are these days.

And this made me laugh, especially coming after a page of McKay's gleeful punning:

[Astrid Kirchherr] is also described as an “inspiring photographer” when the context would seem to imply “aspiring photographer.”

Call it the proofreader's revenge.

Read entire post

Well, one comment, maybe ...

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 (yes, as in Freddie & The), Rolling Stones (way down the list!), Beach Boys, and Petula Clark. There are also great action shots of Shindig fruggers and beach babes; and on the cover is a KKK lawyer flashing a two-fingered hand, signaling "V" for the white man's victory. Oh, what a time.

The pop story is crowned by a spread headed "The Old Masters and Their Girls ..." (at the ages of 22-24, the Beatles are elder statesmen of Hip), comprising fab shots of George with Patti, Paul with Jane, and Ringo with Maureen; and, on the facing page, John, Cynthia, and, in his first public appearance, Julian:


The photo is credited to Henry Grossman, who started snapping the Beatles in 1964 and kept on their arses for the next four years. He's published one creamy and hyperexpensive book of Beatle pics, and plans another; go here for the poop.

Nice end thought, Michael; ditto from me.

Read entire post

No comment necessary

I'm not even going to attempt to date/source this photo (we know what happened the last time), but I discovered it yesterday and wanted to pass it along today. Spare a thought, and be good to the people who love you.

Read entire post

Nutopia: Threat or Menace?

Hello folks--Dullblogger Mike here. Sorry I've been silent, but it's for the best of reasons: I've just finished a comic mystery about a rock star who survives an assassination attempt, and has to go incognito to find out who did it and why. I'll let everybody know when it comes out; I trust it will meet with your Beatle-bonkers approval.

As part of my coming-back-to-life I forward the following from my boon companion Jon Schwarz, proprietor of the very fine progressive blog A Tiny Revolution. It's a good reminder about just how crazy the authorities were when it came to John Lennon. (Which ties into my bookie-wook quite neatly--not to give anything away...)

Read entire post

A gracing rayhound

Dusty Springfield asks Paul and John some questions.

(Via Don)

Read entire post

Which song is he talking about?

Want to hear a really sloppy record? It's a good song, but the recording's a mess. The drums consistently drag the rhythm; the bass player isn't quite sure how his part is supposed to go...

—Douglas Wolk, "The Death of Mistakes Means the Death of Rock"

Read entire post

"John was as blind as a bat..."

Read entire post

White Album Not All That, Writer Claims

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; now he has softened somewhat, admitting subtleties and qualities precluded at the time by his proto-punk stance. Ratliff, a mere tit-sucker in '68, does the second-generation thing resonant with many of us, about how he grew up with the album in the house, apprehending adult doom through child's ears.

[MORE]

Cohn is one of my favorite writers, not only for his pop stuff (I Am Still the Greatest Says Johnny Angelo, Rock from the Beginning, "Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night") but his other stuff (The Heart of the World, Yes We Have No: Travels in the Other England); I'd love to think he loves the album I love more than I love any other album I love. But even though it sounds better to him now than it did then, he is drawn back to words like "flabby" and "smug," and still finds the White Album a far distant second to its late '68 rival, Beggars Banquet. Well, even geniuses can be wrong: Nabokov hated Dostoevsky, too.

But Cohn is fun to listen to, sounding with his undiluted accent like his cheeks are stuffed with eel pie and Newcastle Brown Ale, and he comes up with at least one aperçu that is not only quotable but grimly valid: "'Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on — bra,' is not credible to me."

Read entire post

I've just seen a face...I think

The face of the Beatles’ drummer, Ringo Starr, has been seen in a droplet of water bouncing on a lotus leaf... —Telegraph

Read entire post

And You're Gone

But not forgotten.

Read entire post

Beatles humor two-fer

Is there any humor better than Beatles humor? Of course not. In the midst of playing Beatles Rockband like it was a job, I've posted a friend's recent humor column for Tribune Media Services over at mikegerber.com. Mark's column inspired me to write a little Beatles-inspired scene-let of my own at the end. Enjoy.

Read entire post

"Paperback" Trail

This is for anyone who is interested, which may not be some of you:

As I wrote in my posted comment on "The Best Dancer" below, thinking about Chuck Klosterman's piece got me thinking about Mark Shipper's piece — which, being a book, is a much bigger piece. Its title tells you that: Paperback Writer — The Life and Times of the Beatles, the Spurious Chronicle of Their Rise to Stardom, Their Triumphs and Disasters, Plus the Amazing Story of Their Ultimate Reunion. That blows the hell out of Klosterman's title, which is a mere five words long. And the book behind it goes much farther down the same path toward a reinvention of not just the Beatles' factual history, but the general perception and popular mythology around them.

[MORE]

"The finest novel ever written about rock and roll," goes the Greil Marcus blurb on the back; "Marvelously entertaining!" says Hilburn of the LA Times; "Devastatingly funny" writes Selvin in the SF Chronicle. I love the book my own damn self, and began wondering what became of Shipper. Apparently others have wondered that too. My Internet caught this email exchange (whence I swiped the jpegs posted here) between Scott Woods, majordomo at Rockcritics.com, and Richard Riegel, who reviewed Paperback Writer for Creem upon its 1978 release. Woods and Riegel discuss the novel (Scott reckons it funnier than The Rutles) and the mystery attaching to its now-you-see-him-now-you-don't-author, who followed up the Beatles satire with the compellingly titled How to Be Ecstatically Happy 24 Hours a Day for the Rest of Your Life, and then went underground, or at least sufficiently far to the fringes that he may be theorized as the J. D. Salinger of rock writers.

Riegel mentions that our elusive satirist now does something called "The Shipper Report," which would make him the "rarely-seen radio guru" referenced here, as well as the subject of this vintage piece of journalistic documentary from the Bush I era. Though Shipper is also said to have written for Creem in its early days, Woods says that in scanning back issues he has never come across his name. However, at the same time, Shipper demonstrably was in charge of a fanzine called Flash, which I discover is quite highly regarded in the annals of that particular subculture. Fanziner Christopher Stigliano constructs what must stand as the definitive history-critique of the short-lived Flash, including reprinting Shipper's Bangs- and Meltzer-influenced mission statement. Down below, if you scroll, is an extensive thank-you response from Shipper himself, which would seem to confirm his continued existence as of February 16, 2007. And another blog entry, with a much fuller low-down on the content of Paperback Writer than I've offered here, includes another, much shorter response from Shipper, which brings us up to September 18, 2008.

Time since then, as far as I can find it, goes unrecorded in the public forum. But I hope Mark is working his wang dang doodle somewhere this very moment, well and happy.

One more piece of Shipperiana, or related bizarrerie: a centerpiece of Paperback Writer is a deliriously imagined songwriting summit between a fully-baked Lennon, McCartney, and Dylan, the three magi drawing from their collective marijuana mists a horror of Surrealist wordslop called "Pneumonia Ceilings." ( "You've got the idea," Bob encourages Paul, "but the problem with your line is that it could make sense.") I recalled that I had not so very long ago come across a reference to this "song," but a reference that assumed it was real! Couldn't recall where, though, till some peremptory 'netting led me here, where the story is likewise repeated for fact.

Ta, Rock Turtleneck: your scroll-down commentator rights the historical wrong, and you remind me of where I saw Mark Shipper's "Pneumonia Ceilings" gag first become academic-archival myth: the gazillion-page reference work The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, by Bob scholar Michael Gray — which our very own Beatle Ed Park had me review in The Village Voice three years ago!

Read entire post

Little embellishments

"How is it different than...karaoke? I mean I once sang karaoke harmony on 'You're Gonna Lose That Girl,' and it was definitely fun, but is this that much different? Oh? What's that you say? Oh it's about playing the instruments? Really? Is it that much fun to play that guitar-thing like it's, I don't know, Defender?





Isn't the fun of playing this kind of music on an instrument, part of it anyway, being able to do it your own way, at your own pace, adding your own little embellishments and whatnot? Rock Band just seems so...totalitarian. There! I said it! Just looking at that stream of colored notes makes me anxious. It's like being asked to monitor the production line at the Starburst factory! If I wanted to do that, I'd just watch Unwrapped..."

—Overheard (in my own brain)

Read entire post

Better, better, better...AAAAH!

Read entire post

The best dancer

This sort of I've-been-living-under-a-rock thing shouldn't work...but I think Klosterman pulls it off!

It is not easy to categorize the Beatles’ music; more than any other group, their sound can be described as “Beatlesque.” It’s akin to a combination of Badfinger, Oasis, Corner Shop, and everyother rock band that’s ever existed. The clandestine power derived from the autonomy of the group’s composition—each Beatle has his own distinct persona, even though their given names are almost impossible to remember. There was John Lennon (the mean one), Paul McCartney (the hummus eater), George Harrison (the best dancer), and drummer Ringo Starr (The Cat). Even the most casual consumers will be overwhelmed by the level of invention and the degree of change displayed over their scant eight-year recording career, a span complicated by McCartney’s tragic 1966 death and the 1968 addition of Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, a woman so beloved by the band that they requested her physical presence in the studio during the making of Let It Be.

—Chuck Klosterman on the reissues, in The Onion's A.V. Club

Read entire post

Everybody's trying to be my baby

Everyone and their brother is writing about the Beatles today -- and last night VH1 was showing Help!, for heaven's sake! It's weird, and oddly it's making me a little bit cranky. (Like, Hey, I liked them first.) This happened back in 1995, though, a couple of years after my own personal conversion to Beatlemania, when Anthology landed and suddenly everyone was a big-time fan. So I guess it will blow over. In the meantime, if you find yourself growing fatigued with reading box-set reviews by Johnny-Come-Latelys, I recommend Chuck Klosterman's take at the Onion's AV Club. (Thanks to friend Betz for sending me the link.) Here's a sample:

1967 proved to be a turning point for the Beatles—the overwhelming lack of public interest made touring a fiscal impossibility, subsequently forcing them to focus exclusively on studio recordings. Spearheaded by the increasingly mustachioed Fake Paul, the four Beatles donned comedic Technicolor dreamcoats, consumed 700 sheets of mediocre acid on the roof of the studio, and proceeded to make Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a groundbreaking album no one actually likes. A concept album about finding a halfway decent song for Ringo, Sgt. Pepper has a few satisfactory moments (“Lovely Rita” totally nails the experience of almost having sex with a city employee), but this is only B+ work. It mostly seems like a slightly superior incarnation of The Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, a record that (ironically) came out seven months after this one. Pop archivists might be intrigued by this strange parallel between the Beatles and the Stones catalogue—it often seems as if every interesting thing The Rolling Stones ever did was directly preceded by something the Beatles had already accomplished, and it almost feels like the Stones completely stopped evolving once the Beatles broke up in 1970. But this, of course, is simply a coincidence. I mean, what kind of bozo would compare the Beatles to The Rolling Stones?

Also: How creepy is that ad for Rock Band where the modern people mingle with the Beatles as they're shooting the Abbey Road cover, and they all, like, have a party in the street? Here's what I think. Ordinary people crossing Abbey Road: Great concept. Mixing in the 1969 Beatles, digitally, as if they were interacting with said people: Good God the nightmares!!!

Read entire post

Missing link

1. Dangerous Bacon, Stackridge (from “The Man In The Bowler Hat”). The whole album is a masterpiece, the missing link between the Beatles and Prog, produced by George Martin in 1973. The harmonies are soaring, the songs alternately epic, whimsical and vaudevillian, all snapping with crackle and pop. It’s the kind of album you want to tell people about, the kind of music you’d like to listen to while you write epic, whimsical, vaudevillian books.

From "Living With Music: Wesley Stace" on the NYT's Paper Cuts blog

Read entire post

And your "Birds" can sing

Jonathan Lethem on the new Lorrie Moore novel:

I’m aware of one — one — reader who doesn’t care for Lorrie Moore, and even that one seems a little apologetic about it. “Too . . . punny,” my friend explains, resorting to a pun as though hypnotized by the very tendency that sets off his resistance. For others, Moore may be, exactly, the most irresistible contemporary Ameri­can writer: brainy, humane, unpretentious and warm; seemingly effortlessly lyrical; Lily-Tomlin-funny. Most of all, Moore is capable of enlisting not just our sympathies but our sorrows. Her last book, the 1998 story collection “Birds of America,” included the unforgettable baby-with-­cancer story “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” a breathtakingly dark overture to a decade’s silence — as if the Beatles had exited on “A Day in the Life.” For many readers, the fact that Moore has now relieved an 11-year publishing hiatus is reason enough to start Google-mapping a route to the nearest surviving bookstore. —NYTBR

Read entire post

Enjoyable Billy Preston Video Friday

Read entire post

Ram On!

Speaking of which, did anyone else listen to this?

It's the expected farrago of good, bad and oh, come now, but the fact that Ram inspires a remake from a slew of hip LA bands unborn when it was first released must say something about its staying power.

Read entire post

Boo, Jon Landau!

I've been listening to Ram, one of the handful of solo Beatles discs I can listen to (others: All Things Must Pass, POB when I want to reaffirm the value of therapy). For kicks I unearthed this Rolling Stone review from 1971. It starts off as a pure hatchet-job in the standard "how dare McCartney not be Lennon" RS style, then ascends to a discussion of how The Beatles were better as a group, an observation that had to be tired even in 1971. If you sense a little extra snarkiness in my tone, it's because I think Macca got an incredibly raw deal in the Seventies. Critics resented him because they craved the glory reflected from rock's still-new status as an art form. (A conceit they owed, in some part, to McCartney. No Macca, no Sgt. Pepper; and no Sgt. Pepper, no Rolling Stone, at least not in the same way.)

A thought that struck me as I was reading: it's possible that, out of the four of them, McCartney's development was stunted the most by being in the group. As the most fluent musician, it fell to him to compensate for/counterbalance the others. Yeah, The Beatles were incomparably better as a group, but perhaps the reason that all of them were so spotty as solo artists was because each of their talents had been forced to develop in a complementary way, McCartney's most of all. Just a thought.

Read entire post

Web synchronicity — Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Wristband

Beatles fan and litblogger (and novelist) Mark Sarvas catches a curious NYT juxtaposition—the obituary for Richard Poirier mentions his Beatles essay, and what do we see in the margin?



Yes—it's an image from the impending Beatles Rock Band release, illustrating the recent NYT mag story...

Speaking of which: What do readers/dullbloggers think about the story/the release/everything?

Much to mull over. I was most struck by the contrast between Paul's and Ringo's attitudes:

1) “That’s what you want,” [McCartney] told me. “You want people to get engaged.” McCartney sees the game as “a natural, modern extension” of what the Beatles did in the ’60s, only now people can feel as if “they possess or own the song, that they’ve been in it.”

2) “It took me a while to understand downloading,” [Starr] said. “The last record was a wristband.” (His 2008 album, “Liverpool 8,” was released in the unlikely format of a USB drive that doubles as a bracelet, as well as on CD and MP3.) “The game is the biggest thing in the world right now, they tell me.”

Read entire post

Nothing to get hung about?

From today's New York Times article on the CIA's secret prisons:

Eventually, the agency’s network would encompass at least eight detention centers, including one in the Middle East, one each in Iraq and Afghanistan and a maximum-security long-term site at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that was dubbed Strawberry Fields, officials said. (It was named after a Beatles song after C.I.A. officials joked that the detainees would be held there, as the lyric put it, “forever.”)

Isn't what you've done to American principles and international law enough? Must you even ruin the Beatles?!

Read entire post

I will never be gainfully employed again

Soon, soon my little timewaster, you will be mine...

When my wife Kate sent this to me, she wrote, "What got me was how they narrowed John's nose, to show his increasing use of heroin." Dark Irish, she is.

Read entire post

Covers and covers

From an L.A. Times piece about a "Worst Album Covers" blog...which also includes the "butcher" cover. What?? Get McKinney on the case!

Read entire post