I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

either the bad editing choices are front-loaded in ep 1 or i’ve just gotten used to them

insane to me that they appear to have prepared the Apple basement for recording by covering the walls with hard metallic sheeting??

Don't mind me, I will just sit behind this guitar amp. Nothing to see here.

― Duck and Sally Can’t Dance (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, November 30, 2021 6:07 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

say hey to the hare krishnas for me

The bad editing is front-loaded, yes. It is either just how the material worked (they had a lot more usable audio than usable video), or a way to weed out casual viewers so that only the truly dedicated see it through to its glorious conclusion.

Tracer, they appear to be hinged panels that can be reflective to different levels

Anyone mentioned Godard's Sympathy for the Devil in connection with this? It's playing a rep theatre here in a couple of weeks--from the description I read (don't think I've seen it but not 100% sure), sounds similar but considerably shorter.

I wondered if that was a remnant of Magic Alex’ doings. According to Harrison, the “72-track studio” that Alex built there was just 72 tiny speakers placed around the room. I was hoping we’d get to see what he wrought.

xp

re: The Band, I keep thinking of starting a poll of UK responses to Big Pink, but I can never get a list I’m happy with.

(Off the top of my head: Get Back/Let It Be, Fairport’s Unhalfbricking, Jack Bruce’s “Theme From An Imaginary Western,” Blind Faith, Humble Pie’s Town and Country, probably a couple of Traffic records, most of Led Zeppelin III…)

In general, there was a back-to-roots movement that was happening at that time and you can trace the influence to both Dylan and the Band (mainly the Basement Tapes). Grateful Dead, the Byrds (not to mention Gram Parsons and his Burrito Brothers), and I'm tempted to add Elvis's resurgence as well - his comeback recordings went more towards Memphis Soul than country rather than the showbiz Hollywood soundtracks he had been doing. The Stones independently moved in a similar direction, from TSMR to Beggars Banquet.

I'm not sure if anyone's written a book about it, but there ought to be.

*Memphis or Southern soul then country

Yeah, it’s definitely true that there was a general oh-man-I-gotta-get-my-head-together-in-the-country sentiment among a number of bands/musicians, but the UK response is interesting to me (and unique) due to a number of factors. Some tried to just plain mimic the Band; some decided their “roots” were in English folk music; and others decided their “roots” were in Black American folk blues. Overall, it was a massive collective LSD hangover, but the Brits — especially Cream and the Beatles — reacted the most severely to Big Pink. Bands like the Grateful Dead or the Byrds just turned down a bit, or swapped electric guitars for acoustic, but UK bands seemed to re-think their entire approach (or, like Cream and the Small Faces, just broke up).

(A notable exception is the Who. Townshend was never a massive Band fan, though he admired them, and the closest they got to a Big Pink response was “Let’s See Action,” released four years after the Band’s record.)

Anyone mentioned Godard's Sympathy for the Devil in connection with this?

I definitely thought about it! I think on my DVD there is an option to just watch the just Stones footage but I don't know if there's any additional material. From memory it was definitely a definitive '60s band in the studio' document but it generally feels more purposeful and with less interpersonal complexity? Like Brian Jones is kind of fading away in plain sight but it's all subtext.

And of course there is all the other political material intercut - which I love but would be a hard slog if you were only there for the Stones.

I think John Wesley Harding deserves a lot of credit for the back to roots thing, that predates Big Pink and Sweethearts of the Rodeo or I think anything else mentioned

there was a general oh-man-I-gotta-get-my-head-together-in-the-country sentiment among a number of bands/musicians, but the UK response is interesting to me (and unique) due to a number of factors. Some tried to just plain mimic the Band; some decided their “roots” were in English folk music;

Seems like yr R. Thompson and Martin Carthy and other Fairport type folkies were already there. They didn't need to depart for the country and embrace folk music, it was already in their bloodstreams, like.

I think John Wesley Harding deserves a lot of credit for the back to roots thing, that predates Big Pink and Sweethearts of the Rodeo or I think anything else mentioned

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

otm. George befriended Dylan during this period.

Ok but imagine telling Norma Waterson or Sandy Denny about Big Pink and saying "you gotta get into stripped-down folk music, maaaan, it's so groovy," they'd be like "yeah we know."

the UK folk thing is a whole nother can of worms, separate tradition

Nah, Fairport definitely influenced massively by Big Pink, though their reaction was not to go back to roots of American music but to British music:

In Fairport's case, it convinced them that their early dalliance with transatlantic influences was best forgotten. "Music from Big Pink showed us that Americana was more suited to Americans, and we needed to explore Britannicana, or whatever the equivalent of that was," says Thompson. "They seemed to nail American roots styles so well, and blend them so seamlessly: country, R&B, blues. At that point, we thought, 'We'll never be that good at American music. We should be looking at something more homegrown.'"

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/aug/03/folk

Silver wings totally sounds like the M.O. of Magic Alex.

I should mention that whenever John played lead guitar he was his own man too, i.e. Plastic Ono Band, "Walking on Thin Ice," and even "Get Back."

Lennon said his best playing was on Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band.

yep

Some of my fave Beatles guitar solos are Paul.

When Musician ran its list of the 100 Best Guitarists in 1993, they cheated and cited "John-Paul-George."

i loved watching George work out that one song on piano with Billy Preston, figuring out chords and stuff , he said something to the effect of he wouldnt have gotten it if he had tried to work it out on guitar
(?cant remember which song now?)

Old brown shoe I think

yes that was it

aka Alfred’s Favorite Song

xxxxxpost Still haven't heard the debut, but Fairport soon did just great by Joni (whose own recording of "Eastern Rain" may never have surfaced?), and Dylan (still my fave "I'll Keep It With Mine," by miles), also "Mr. Lacey" (About a mischievous conceptual artist, also in Jeff Nuttal's Bomb Culture, I think, and also think he did the bumpkin Rod The Mod casually-flapdancing on the clothesline in video for Herbie H.'s "Rockit") is yer basic electric shuffle. Also nailed "Percy's Song" and enough other Dylan to fill the real good Fairport and Friends' A Tree With Roots. But yeah, they said listening to The Band got them back to focusing mostly on British music.
Nevertheless, they later felt secure enough, also the urge, to come back to this, as described by Xgau:
Rock On [A&M, 1972]
In which Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, and eleven other English folkies redo twelve American songs, and I bet the Silver Beatles loved every one of them. The conjunction brings out the passionately droll in all the principals, especially Denny and Thompson, but the great moments are "The Loco-Motion," with Linda Peters playing Little Eva, and "Nadine," which Tyger Hutchings delivers deadpan, as if reading off cue cards after a quick runthrough. B+

aka Alfred’s Favorite Song

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl),

lol

Is that referring to The Bunch, dow?

Oops, sorry, The Bunch it is by indeed.

Def. weird to hear Fairport (more or less) do Buddy Holly.

people of ilx, I read about 200 pages of hoffman forum takes on Get Back over the past few days and it has negatively affected my mood. by the 100th posting of "is there going to be a dvd I don't have disney+" I started blocking people

yeah but seriously though, is there gonna be one

The Beatles will never be bootlegged.

For You Blu(Ray)

no one knows, but the official word is that there isn't one planned AS OF NOW. Also (and this was likely here upthread as well) but Jackson planned to do a longer cut for dvd/blu ray, but disney said they weren't planning on a physical release, so he went back and made the six hour broadcast cut longer, turned it in, and no one ever mentioned it to him. He also intimated there is an 18 hour cut.

I'm certain at some point they will do that, because it is money left on the table.

"Get Back" was okay, I really wish they had interviewed some of today's top artists for the film. Would have liked to see Dave Grohl say that there wouldn't have been Nirvana or the Foo Fighters without the Beatles, to put the band in historical context

— Jesse Hawken (@jessehawken) November 30, 2021

makes you think imo

If Dave Grohl's not in this, I'm not watching; also want to see Johnny Depp and Dick Cavett.

that tweet is worth clicking on for the full thread

BONO OR GTFO!

there is not a single Beatles song worse for Ringo.

You knew Albert Goldman was a fool when he wrote how, after the delicate intro of "Strawberry Fields Forever", Ringo ruined it with his "bricklayer hands".

Is John a great guitarist or piano player?

The problem with John was not his technical skill but his disinterest or disdain on learning and working on other people's songs.

OTM

Def. weird to hear Fairport (more or less) do Buddy Holly.

Okay, that Twitter thread was indeed worth it.

I'm still plodding through, just made it to the Apple basement in Part II.

I've never seen Let It Be or seen any footage from this era. All this time, I've been listening to these bootleg recordings, the 50s covers, the adlibs, the "Doris Gets Her Oats!", etc. I always pictured them in a darkened studio, halogen lights (if any), at like three in the morning with smoke sifting about.

Them in some banquet sideroom with fluorescent lights and shiny walls... not what I pictured at all. Didn't see Lennon's Joe Pera rainbow polo coming at me either.

Now, if I ever find out that Rumours was actually recorded inside a laboratory, I'm gonna lose my mind.

Lol

this definitely picked up as it went on. we're at the rooftop concert now except I put Slayer on thru my bluetooth headsets while my mom continued watching, so it appears that the Beatles are playing "Angel of Death" and it's quite awesome

Back to our Star Club roots, mangg!

I'm about halfway through it all.

Just have to say, Magic Alex's bass invention!

There's definitely a pantomime element at play here too.

About halfway through the whole thing. One thing that delighted me was all the John Lennon. And John Lennon being happy and cutting up, and all of them getting along a lot better than an armchair fan like myself might have known. He was a lot less dour than I expected to see. Also it looks like the Beatles or their estates made a pointed effort to tap dance around the drug references. But I guess they were quite aware the cameras were on them, too. Still, no cocaine boogers like The Last Waltz or anyone seriously on the nod so far. Except Ringo once but I think he was just bored. Paul always just seems jacked up.

Paul was still pretty into uppers iirc

I like how Paul & John lapsed into stupid accents so readily when singing across from each other, they cracked me up numerous times