BBC Beatles Week begins 5th Sept '09.

Subject: BBC Beatles Week begins 5th Sept '09. Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:38 pm

Saturdary 5th September on BBC 2:

7:45pm Timewatch: Beatlemania
8:35pm The Beatles: On Record
9:35pm The Beatles: The First US Visit
10:45pm Help!

Head Librarian Gender: Number of posts: 2308 Registration date: 2008-07-30

^
Anyone see this?

With the release of the remastered Beatles catalogue, the BBC is celebrating with Beatles week.

On BBC Radio 4 at 8pm Sunday 6th Sept: Storyville- How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin.

Last night's BBC 2 offerings were fascinating. John seemed more concilatory that I remember; Ringo more fun-loving; George tougher; Paul more of a rocker. I'd forgotten that Ringo used to shake his hair when he played the drums. And wasn't Ed Sullivan a terrible presenter?

But the most striking thing was the amateurism and naivete of all concerned. On the first US tour:

1. Minimal security.

2. Extraordinary degree of journalistic/media access to the band.

3. One promoter saves money by not putting a weatherproof cover over the stage. It rains. Paul's mic is sparking as he sings into it. All four could have been electrocuted.

4. Management saves money by renting a decrepit old aeroplane to fly the band between gigs. The engine catches fire in mid-flight.

Much of this would be unthinkable these days, but I suppose any pioneering endeavour is going to look clumsy with hindsight.

The Floyd Gender: Number of posts: 414 Registration date: 2008-07-10

i'm not sure if we get the bbc here, or how to find it.

there sure is a lot of advertising about the remasters though.
even my mum asked me today if i was getting it.

it is very expensive. stereo and mono.

eddie, did you see the beatles when they first started?
that would have been a good memory.

Head Librarian Gender: Number of posts: 2308 Registration date: 2008-07-30

tatiana wrote:

eddie, did you see the beatles when they first started?
that would have been a good memory.

I was 7-8 years old in 1963, Tatty, so I first clapped eyes on the Fabs as flickering images on b/w steam TV, along with newsreel footage of girls screaming- incomprehensibly, I thought then- at airports.

See the "Beatles ephemera" thread for more childhood impressions.

The Boss Gender: Number of posts: 990 Registration date: 2008-04-28

Is there any particular reason everything's gone a bit Beatle crazy? The Sunday Times is having a whole magazine dedicated to them today, all these shows, they're here, there and everywhere right now (ho ho ho)

The Floyd Gender: Number of posts: 414 Registration date: 2008-07-10

LaRue wrote:

Is there any particular reason everything's gone a bit Beatle crazy? The Sunday Times is having a whole magazine dedicated to them today, all these shows, they're here, there and everywhere right now (ho ho ho)

hi larue,
i think the main reason is that they have re-mastered the catelogue (again).
this time though they have used extra technology to edit out all the undesirable noises that came with the original recordings.

although there could be other reasons which i have not taken too much notice of.

the beatles are a group that were extraordinary in their day because no-one had presented themselves like that before.
the whole rock band and fan groupie thing was new.
it gave the young people an opportunity to open up and explore themselves. then came dylan , the stones and everyone else and before you knew it, it is today.

and now, well everyone likes to re-live their past and so the record producers are taking advantage of that and so we have yet another re-master being released.

besides that, the cd that were previously released were not of the best standards and so this might be better.

i might be wrong though and others might have different opinions of what is happening.

but generally, a lot of people like the beatles and so a cleaner version of their music is appreciated.
i won't be buying it , i can't afford it.

tatiana

The Floyd Gender: Number of posts: 414 Registration date: 2008-07-10

Eddie wrote:

tatiana wrote:

eddie, did you see the beatles when they first started?
that would have been a good memory.

I was 7-8 years old in 1963, Tatty, so I first clapped eyes on the Fabs as flickering images on b/w steam TV, along with newsreel footage of girls screaming- incomprehensibly, I thought then- at airports.

See the "Beatles ephemera" thread for more childhood impressions.

i missed a lot of it because my father was a tyrant.

in 1963 i was about 4ish, i first listened to them in the very early 70's and they were very freedom giving.
other than that, my best groups were the stones, pink floyd and david bowie.
dylan wasn't played as much because he was american and we all liked the english singers. (don't know why that was.)
but it certainly sounded good.

Head Librarian Gender: Number of posts: 2308 Registration date: 2008-07-30

Last night's BBC 2 offerings gave a strong sense of how trapped the Beatles were by their own fame.

After the extraordinary success of their groundbreaking London Palladium gig, there's nowhere for them to go to celebrate- without being torn apart by their fans- but the bedsit of a roadie where the only libation available is two bottles of Matteus Rose.

Inevitably- after months cooped up together in hotel rooms, airplanes, dressing-rooms and limosines- cracks in their hitherto mutually-supportive esprit de corps begin to appear...and the rest is history.

Poor Ringo confides to a jounalist who sits beside him on the airplane that he'd rather be with his dad down the local Liverpool social club. This was immediately illustrated by a lovely still photo of a glum-looking Ringo standing at a bar.

Gender: Number of posts: 154 Registration date: 2009-08-23

LaRue wrote:

Is there any particular reason everything's gone a bit Beatle crazy? The Sunday Times is having a whole magazine dedicated to them today, all these shows, they're here, there and everywhere right now (ho ho ho)

As tatiana says the remastered albums are out this month. This month is also fourty years since they released Abbey Road which was the last album that they fully recorded together.

Gender: Number of posts: 461 Registration date: 2009-06-15

This past weekend's Sunday Times magazine was also devoted to The Beatles. In an article by Philip Norman, he makes the interesting point that their nigh-on faultless taste also extended to their album covers (into which they exercised considerable input and over which they held droit de seigneur), and compares that with their peers less certain efforts: The totally uniconic Beach Boys' Pet Sounds cover, featuring their awkward feeding of goats, and the Stones tacky Let It Bleed cake cover. Elsewhere, he also manages to take a pop at 'the ludicrous Bono'.

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King of Pop Gender: Number of posts: 3131 Registration date: 2008-05-05

Come now, a chief virtue of Brian Wilson is that the man had no sense of Irony, at least in the more recent use of the term. But the thinking behind the Pet Sounds concept is downright weird - special sounds that are so special that they become like your pet, like a "pet sound" and this will be conveyed through the tending of pet goats on the album cover. It gets a ten out of ten in my book.

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Gender: Number of posts: 461 Registration date: 2009-06-15

Allow me to shock you by admitting that I am capable of making the correct concept connection between the Pet Sounds album title, its cover and its content. Pepper falls well short of being my favourite Beatles album, but the cover is unquestionably iconic. Perhaps the overrated and uncohesive Pet Sounds - some great singles, interspersed with less than riveting filler songs, and yes, I realise there are filler songs on Pepper, but that would make them the most famous filler songs of all time- got the cover it deserved.

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King of Pop Gender: Number of posts: 3131 Registration date: 2008-05-05

I was merely reiterating the strangeness of the mind of Brian Wilson, Sarcasotron 5000.

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The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

Gender: Number of posts: 461 Registration date: 2009-06-15

Eat your heart out, oldmanemu. I've reached Sarcasotron 5000 status.

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Head Librarian Gender: Number of posts: 2308 Registration date: 2008-07-30

precinct14 wrote:

the Stones tacky Let It Bleed cake cover.

I loved that sleeve, particularly the cake's destruction on the back cover.

But then I was a very messed-up teenager: a member of the Stones' primary fan base, in fact!