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Post by OldFred on Sept 9, 2008 20:14:39 GMT -5
Went over the article referencing the remastered White Album. Definitely sounds very promising for us Beatles fans. ;D In regard to the second CD of Mojo's White Album recreation, I was curious as to how 'Revolution 9' was going to be handled. It's covered by the Neil Cowley Trio who tackle it as a free-form jazz piece. A very interesting interpretation and perhaps the only version of 'Revolution 9' that I can listen to and actually enjoy as music. Granted that the original Beatles (i.e. John/Yoko) version of 'R9' is a fascinating sound collage, I'm still peeved that it ended up on the White Album and not George's 'Not Guilty'.
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Post by John S. Damm on Sept 9, 2008 22:13:04 GMT -5
John, I have to tell you I disagree with your first reactions to the disc. I actually think Back in the USSR is quite good -- I understand your reference to the Scarecrow track -- but this version has a lot more development than that. It makes me think of Stephen King's use of Hey Jude in the Gunslinger series. I think this is somewhat what Jude sounded like in that world -- pounded out by a drunk on a rinky dink piano in a violent setting. USSR here is ragtime, somewhat, very Southern. I like your analogy, Jim, to the Stephen King use of Jude. I also like your use of ragtime in describing this cover. I can see that. I read the magazine's notes on each song after I posted above and they at least told me what the artists were shooting for, even the Weeps. ;D I think I could come to like Ms. Green' cover of USSR. Weeps, probably not. Gee OldFred, it pays to live in the Big Apple. Heck, JimC, ChuckE and I just found Part 1 while JMG recently wrote that he still can't find it. I might have to ask you on Wednesday after the Election just who won! Things seem to travel slow to the MidWest.
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Post by OldFred on Sept 10, 2008 5:57:10 GMT -5
Gee OldFred, it pays to live in the Big Apple. Heck, JimC, ChuckE and I just found Part 1 while JMG recently wrote that he still can't find it. I might have to ask you on Wednesday after the Election just who won! Things seem to travel slow to the MidWest. I have a good feeling about that Dewey fellow.
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Post by John S. Damm on Sept 10, 2008 7:33:51 GMT -5
Steve, on your News Site you give comments on the new Word cover with John Lennon(and the fact that many readers find a Lennon cover boring). Philip Norman writes the article and it says it is the most explosive story in Rock this year!? Does anyone know what it is about? What month was this edition?
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Post by Steve Marinucci on Sept 10, 2008 7:50:22 GMT -5
Steve, on your News Site you give comments on the new Word cover with John Lennon(and the fact that many readers find a Lennon cover boring). Philip Norman writes the article and it says it is the most explosive story in Rock this year!? Does anyone know what it is about? What month was this edition? Norman just released a bio of John Lennon, so I suspect it's an excerpt of that. It's available through Amazon here: tinyurl.com/5o6w8m
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Post by johnpaulharstar on Sept 10, 2008 10:34:40 GMT -5
Norman's book SHOUT is one of the worst Beatles books (too critical, too pro Lennon, very down on virtually all solo work, lots of unsubstantiated stuff from fringe Beatle people) so I'm not too excited about him doing a Lennon bio. His Beatles book was written shortly after John's death so there was a trend of giving Lennon too much credit at that time. The key to the Beatles was and always has been Lennon AND McCartney and the way they worked together and inspired each other.
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Post by Steve Marinucci on Sept 10, 2008 11:24:13 GMT -5
Norman's book SHOUT is one of the worst Beatles books (too critical, too pro Lennon, very down on virtually all solo work, lots of unsubstantiated stuff from fringe Beatle people) so I'm not too excited about him doing a Lennon bio. His Beatles book was written shortly after John's death so there was a trend of giving Lennon too much credit at that time. The key to the Beatles was and always has been Lennon AND McCartney and the way they worked together and inspired each other. I disagree. "Shout!" was, as I recall, the first serious Beatle biography that really tried to cut through the myth. Faults? All Beatle books have them, to some extent. But "Shout!" was good overall, much much better than Peter Brown's "The Love You Make."
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Post by John S. Damm on Sept 10, 2008 12:29:42 GMT -5
Norman's book SHOUT is one of the worst Beatles books (too critical, too pro Lennon, very down on virtually all solo work, lots of unsubstantiated stuff from fringe Beatle people) so I'm not too excited about him doing a Lennon bio. His Beatles book was written shortly after John's death so there was a trend of giving Lennon too much credit at that time. The key to the Beatles was and always has been Lennon AND McCartney and the way they worked together and inspired each other. I disagree. "Shout!" was, as I recall, the first serious Beatle biography that really tried to cut through the myth. Faults? All Beatle books have them, to some extent. But "Shout!" was good overall, much much better than Peter Brown's "The Love You Make." I thought that Shout was a good read but like Hunter Davies book, the early years are giving most of the attention then the later years are shortchanged IMO. I am curious though about the "explosive" claims of this new Norman book. Can anything on John be more "explosive" than Goldman's book? I'm not commenting on whether it was at all accurate just the wild allegations in it.
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Post by Steve Marinucci on Sept 10, 2008 12:38:10 GMT -5
I disagree. "Shout!" was, as I recall, the first serious Beatle biography that really tried to cut through the myth. Faults? All Beatle books have them, to some extent. But "Shout!" was good overall, much much better than Peter Brown's "The Love You Make." I thought that Shout was a good read but like Hunter Davies book, the early years are giving most of the attention then the later years are shortchanged IMO. I am curious though about the "explosive" claims of this new Norman book. Can anything on John be more "explosive" than Goldman's book? I'm not commenting on whether it was at all accurate just the wild allegations in it. Goldman's wasn't all that explosive, since it was all concocted out of thin air.
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Post by John S. Damm on Sept 10, 2008 17:29:54 GMT -5
I thought that Shout was a good read but like Hunter Davies book, the early years are giving most of the attention then the later years are shortchanged IMO. I am curious though about the "explosive" claims of this new Norman book. Can anything on John be more "explosive" than Goldman's book? I'm not commenting on whether it was at all accurate just the wild allegations in it. Goldman's wasn't all that explosive, since it was all concocted out of thin air. LOL! You know what I mean! That Goldman book did cause a stir. I think it even caused Ray Coleman to speed up the release of his Lennon book which put John in a much better light. Goldman's book most amazingly brought together for once Yoko, Cynthia and May Pang on the Imagine documentary. Finally, let's not forget that Goldman inspired the self-appointed Beatles' protectors, U2, to write a song called "God 2" on the same album in which they stoled "Helter Skelter" back from Charles Manson. Maybe Norman's new book is explosive because it claims that John was normal and boring like the rest of us!
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Post by winstonoboogie on Sept 10, 2008 21:21:34 GMT -5
Goldman's wasn't all that explosive, since it was all concocted out of thin air. Maybe Norman's new book is explosive because it claims that John was normal and boring like the rest of us! ;D I agree that "Shout" is too pro-John and anti-Paul. It also has the winning line "We went from a decade where things happened [the 60's] to a decade where things un-happened [the 70s]"
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Post by Steve Marinucci on Sept 10, 2008 22:37:10 GMT -5
Maybe Norman's new book is explosive because it claims that John was normal and boring like the rest of us! ;D I agree that "Shout" is too pro-John and anti-Paul. It also has the winning line "We went from a decade where things happened [the 60's] to a decade where things un-happened [the 70s]" "Shout" was originally published in '81, the year after Lennon's death. It's not surprising it was very pro-John. I still rank "Shout" as one of my all-time favorite Beatle reads, along with Hunter Davies' book and the Bob Spitz book, which I really enjoyed. Again, when you compare it with Peter Brown, there's no contest. Norman wins big.
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Post by Panther on Sept 10, 2008 23:39:35 GMT -5
I really don't like Shout!. It's well-written and very readable, but that's not enough to impress me. Norman makes 2 of the 4 Beatles sound like morons, and 1 other sound like a maneuvering bastard pop tart. The most ridiculous part is when he writes that George went on tour with Delaney and Bonnie, and (I'm paraphrasing) was barely able to play the easy chords like B7. WTF??
I think Mojo is a great magazine, and I'll look forward to reading this article. Mojo is, in fact, probably the only good music magazine anymore...
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ChuckE
Very Clean
AlexE & RachelE, May '08
Posts: 77
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Post by ChuckE on Sept 12, 2008 11:22:15 GMT -5
OldFred, thanks for the preview of Disc 2 of MOJO's "White Album" cover tunes! I'm looking forward to hearing those, but I think availability of that magazine and CD is still another 3 weeks away for a lot of us. I can wait, though. NP: Harry Chapin, "Taxi," The Essentials
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Post by John S. Damm on Sept 12, 2008 11:54:36 GMT -5
Steve M. gives a link on his News Site to a review of the new Norman book, Lennon The Life which gives it fairly good reviews. The book claims that John had sexual fantasies of his mother(late in her life he layed next to her for a nap and touched her sexually as far as she would let him) and Paul McCartney. We have read of the former(kind of) but the bit about Paul is seemingly a new allegation. It is written that John's very initial advances were thwarted by Paul's staunch heterosexuality. I've read that Mick Jagger had the same kind of attraction to Keith Richards early on. Paul is on record many times stating that he slept in hundreds or thousands of hotel rooms with John and he had no indication that John was interested in men. Paul must have missed the signals if this book is to be believed. ;D Yoko is said to be one source of this allegation of John's desire for Paul. Yoko says that people at Apple called Paul "John's Princess" behind their backs. Perhaps there is a secret meaning in Milk and Honey's "My Little Flower Princess!" This could shed light on why John and Paul's relationship got so nasty as The Beatles broke-up. Perhaps to at least one of the two, it was more like a failed romance than a business or artistic break-up.
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Post by johnpaulharstar on Sept 15, 2008 11:42:38 GMT -5
There are certainly parts of SHOUT that were good, but my point is that anybody who says (as Norman did) that John was 75% of the Beatles is absolutely clueless.
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