Don’t ask me about Rob Smith; this is my first exposure to him. But he certainly can make the electric bass stand in for a lot of other instruments–even harpsichord!
(Thanks Dave!)
Rob Smith’s Solo Bass Performance of “In My Life”
11 Nov 2012 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: in my life, rob smith, the beatles
Beatles Buses Headed for New York, L.A.
09 Nov 2012 1 Comment
in General Posts Tags: beatles bus, the beatles
(Reprinted from Rolling Stone)
The Beatles will celebrate the vinyl release of their remastered studio albums with pop-up shops in the form of custom double-decker buses set to appear in New York and Los Angeles November 13th.
The 14 stereo LPs – the 12 U.K. originals, the U.S.-originated Magical Mystery Tour and the B-sides and rarities collection Past Masters Volumes One & Two – will be available individually or in a box set that includes a hardbound book. In addition, the Beatles’ mobile record store will have available CD versions of the albums, DVDs and Blu-Rays of the newly restored Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine films and a unique t-shirt exclusive to each city.
In New York, the pop-up bus will appear at 9:30 a.m. on Seventh Avenue between 49th Street and 50th Street; at noon on Broadway between Price Street and Spring Street; and at 2:30 p.m. on Broadway between Cortlandt Street and Liberty Street. In Los Angeles, the bus will appear at 9:30 a.m. at the Capitol Records building at 1750 North Vine St.; at noon at the ICE at Santa Monica skating rink, 1324 5th St. at Arizona Avenue; and at 2:30 p.m. at L.A. Live at Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street.
Rare Footage: Stones Cover Beatles
29 Oct 2012 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: the beatles, the rolling stones
(Source: Open Culture)
Today we set the Wayback Machine to Ireland, 1965, where we find a young Mick Jagger and a shockingly restored Keith Richards staving off the downtime boredom of a two-day tour with a not-entirely-reverential Beatles singalong. Despite the drabness of the room in which documentarian Peter Whitehead caught the lads clowning, it’s clear that Jagger was feeling his oats. Go ahead and read those famous lips when he wraps them around the chorus of Eight Days a Week.
This priceless private moment is culled from the just released, not-entirely-finished documentary, The Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling — Ireland 1965. Former Stones’ producer Andrew Loog Oldham recently chalked the near-50-year delay to the massive explosion of the band’s popularity. Padding things out to a proper feature length would have required additional filming. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction had shot to the top of the American charts just two months earlier, from which point on, the lads’ dance card was filled.
Lucky thing, that. What might in its day have amounted to a fun peek behind the scenes feels far more compelling as a just-cracked time capsule. The sad spectacle of Brian Jones musing about his future options is offset by the youthful larking about of rock’s most celebrated senior citizens.
Mumford Revisited
17 Oct 2012 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: mumford & sons, the beatles
Following up on my post of Oct. 8th: https://edcyphers.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/mumford-sons-in-a-league-with-the-beatles-um-no/
(taking issue with an item in Paste which hyped Mumford & Sons’ latest album by comparing the sales of its singles to the Beatles’ chart successes)
The following is from the today’s Rolling Stone online feed:
Folk-rockers continue their slow decline
LOSER OF THE WEEK: Mumford & Sons. Look at the numbers: 600,000, 169,000, 96,000. Not an impressive trajectory for a smash album. Babel had a fantastic debut two weeks ago, but its sales plunged 72 percent last week and another 43 percent this week. And the band’s single “I Will Wait,” despite a respectable 6.6 million YouTube views, seems to be petering out as well – it’s down 14 slots on BigChampagne’s Ultimate Chart (which tracks Internet criteria) from Number 16 to Number 30. It’s still possible for Mumford to maintain its positioning with a slow-burning, Lady Antebellum-style, release-great-singles-over-time strategy, but for now, its chart run appears to be declining.
And just to be clear, the BigChampagne chart didn’t exist in the Beatles’ day (and they’d have owned it if it did) so the Billboard singles chart makes for the best apples-to-apples comparison. Billboard’s chart shows “I Will Wait” at #32 this week, down from its peak of #23. So the statement still holds true: Mumford & Sons still haven’t cracked the top twenty with a single. And the drop from 600,000 in album sales to 169,000 the following week is quite spectacular.
And as for a “release-great-singles-over-time strategy”, there were already (as Paste correctly pointed out) six Mumford singles on the chart simultaneously as of two weeks ago. So much for doing that.
Not saying they aren’t great. Just saying it takes more than a single great week on the chart to earn anyone a comparison to any all-time great. Especially the Beatles.
Hmph.
New Book Reveals John Lennon’s Bitterness Toward George Martin As Well as McCartney
09 Oct 2012 1 Comment
in General Posts Tags: john lennon, the beatles
New book The John Lennon Letters has some interesting revelations. Most surprising to me is that Lennon and George Martin disputed who deserved more “credit” for “Revolution 9”.
Read the article at Yahoo:
Mumford & Sons “In a League With the Beatles”? Um, No.
08 Oct 2012 7 Comments
in Articles, Best of the Blog, General Posts Tags: mumford & sons, the beatles
Fact: Mumford & Sons have six songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart this week.
Wild, misleading hyperbole, courtesy of Paste magazine:
Mumford & Sons Tie The Beatles for Most Hot 100 Hits in a Week
…The quartet is now in a league with The Beatles as the band with the most Hot 100 hits in a week. Lead single “I Will Wait” moves up to No. 57, and joining it are the debuts of five others including the title track (No. 60), “Lover’s Eyes” (No. 85), “Whispers in the Dark” (No. 86), “Holland Road” (No. 92) and “Ghosts That We Knew” (No. 94). (http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/10/mumford-sons-beat-the-beatles-for-most-hot-100-hit.html )
Reality check:
During the week of April 4, 1964 the Beatles not only occupied the top five slots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (#1 “Can’t Buy Me Love”, #2 “Twist and Shout”, #3 “She Loves You”, #4 “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and #5 “Please Please Me”) but held twelve positions overall. Twelve. Twice as many as six.
Oh, and of the twelve songs the Beatles charted simultaneously, three topped the chart at some point. And others didn’t only because they were crowded out of the number one slot by other Beatles songs. (“Twist and Shout” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret” were #2’s and “Please Please Me” peaked at #3)
Oh, and that same week’s chart also included two singles that were tributes to the Beatles (“We Love You Beatles” by the Carefrees and “A Letter to the Beatles” by the Four Preps). Oh, and two more Beatle tribute songs charted just two weeks previous (“My Boyfriend Got a Beatle Haircut” by Donna Lynn and “The Boy With the Beatle Hair” by the Swans).
Oh, and the following week another Beatles number 1 , “Love Me Do” would debut on the American charts.
Also beginning the same month Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas would chart three hits written and given to them by the Beatles, including top ten “Bad to Me”. Then starting in May a string of three Beatle-penned top twenty hits came from Peter & Gordon, including number 1 “A World Without Love”.
You see, the Beatles weren’t a flavor-of-the-month iTunes wonder–you know, like Kings of Leon, the last Next Big Thing? They were, and are, a cultural phenomenon. They owned not only the decade of the sixties but (let’s be honest) every decade since. In the less than seven years between their first chart hit and their breakup they established a record for most number 1 singles (20) that still stands. The great Rolling Stones, who made their chart debut within nine months of the Beatles and are still at it, remain at number fourteen on that list with 8.
The Beatles had 15 American million-selling records in 1964 alone. Their total worldwide record sales are in excess of 1 billion units.
Every conversation about the greatest rock and roll album of all time starts with one or another of their LPs.
The Beatles’ drummer has had seven more top ten singles as a solo artist than Mumford & Sons. In fact, Mumford & Sons have never had a top ten single. Or a top twenty single.
I could go on. The point is that calling a band like Mumford & Sons “in a league with the Beatles” is irresponsible hype. And saying they’ve tied them for the most chart hits in one week is factually incorrect. Correct your post, Paste. Post haste.
Every Moment Has A Song 