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

They just couldn't... let it be

They could have let it lie...

...around, all over the place.

one thing i liked about the rooftop was george really seemed to be having fun and enjoying himself

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

I got the opposite impression. He looks spirited and plays and sings awesome on "Don't Let Me Down," but his body language registered some combo of "Why don't John and Paul throw me a loving look for a change?" and "It's fucking cold."

These guys have been blogging about January 1969 for *ten years*, some fantastic stuff in here, apologies if it's already been mentioned

https://twitter.com/TheyMayBeParted

What would you like to see in a mythical 10-hour version of another 1969 rock documentary, Gimme Shelter?

Bobby Goldsboro recording "Honey."

lol
also i hate that song

when has Goldsboro ever written or sung a good song

Just did a cursory search of the archives to see if he had any defenders on ILX, couldn't find any.

Following Marty Balin around for 10 hours

The amount of smoking indoors in this movie is giving me the willies (former smoker here).

It always freaks me out how cavalier people are about smoking in older movies. I was watching a French film from about 1971 and you had several adults all smoking around their young children (like no more than 5 or 6 years old, probably younger). It was one long take with everyone sitting indoors in a circle, just breeeeeeathing it all in.

What freaks me out is how cavalier people in old movies are about smoking around nice clothes. Everyone's wearing suits and nice dresses that will surely be ruined by a lit cigarette wielded carelessly by any rando. How people like Bogart and Bacall were able to preserve their clothes in these conditions is a total mystery to me. It's one thing if the studio is supplying the clothes, but when it's a social set that is dressing this way all the time, like the way most people apparently did in the 1940s/50s I just don't get it.

ahah, yeah. That said, as a kid, ALL the adults around me were smoking outdoors, indoors... during long journeys in a car !
As for clothes, you don't need to go back that far, it was still the case for me in Paris like 10-15y ago (restaurants, bars, clubs, parties...).

I’m wondering when recording studios started instituting no-smoking rules, or at least when it became apparent that smoking could (and did) seriously damage mixing boards, tape machines, the tape itself, etc.

hence why I could never imagining Bogart, Cooper, etc. I dislike the taste of tar-encrusted ashtrays.

Dear kids, there used to be smoking "sections" in restaurants and even planes and hospitals (!). Everything everywhere smelled like stale cigarette smoke. Signed, an old person.

P.S. Don't recall smoking in supermarkets and movie theatres, but there must have been.

I’m wondering when recording studios started instituting no-smoking rules, or at least when it became apparent that smoking could (and did) seriously damage mixing boards, tape machines, the tape itself, etc.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, December 14, 2021 7:15 AM

Hey! Now they did have that sign posted in the documentary that said "PLEASE PUT CIGARETTES OUT IN ASH TRAY".

i'm finally watching this non-ambiently, i'm in the middle of episode two and it's very good and much better than let it be. surprised at how much of a narrative there really is tying these eight hours together: watch a band try and fail and then try again and then sort of succeed re: getting their shit together literally at all

one distinct difference between the two is, iirc, let it be really lingers on the grueling "maxwell's" rehearsals at twickenham, possibly as a shorthand way to develop the tension between paul and george, whereas the sessions come off far more varied and dare i say ramshackle in this film

The narrative arc is well developed and/or imposed by Jackson, it really does have a shape. Which makes sense, given that they had created this ridiculous film/recording schedule for themselves. It's like someone gave Jackson the raw footage from a reality show.

Every event seems less harsh than what hundreds of books and interviews have sold us. It's not how life or bands work, right? No event triggers withdrawal -- a long weariness, the telling yourself to count to three, the inside jokes you no longer find amusing, that's what Jackson shapes here.

Good point.

It's like everything you have read about the "Let it be" sessions has turned out to be incorrect.

Sounds a bit suspicious when you say it like that.

the walrus was Paul!

Alfred otm

Also, I suspect that a large part of the reason that vintage tube gear and those old consoles required so much upkeep and maintenance (by lab-coated engineers) was because their innards kept filling up with smoke and resin and dust - hence they were designed with the patch bays comparatively open, so as to be serviceable on site by the aforementioned technicians.

That may in fact have played a part in the introduction of solid-state gear.

Like, in 35 years of making music I have owned (checks notes) three mixers. Do you know how many times I've opened them up and cleaned every component with a Q-Tip? Zero.

BUT - old gear was designed to be modular and user-serviceable, partly because that made technological sense but also partly because they lived in rooms full of cigarette smoke and weed and cocaine and, I dunno, probably also kinky sex. Also they were in older buildings that were less sterile and more prone to accumulate dust and gunk and mouse droppings.

BRB, I will now go obtain several doctorate degrees in materials science and electrical engineering so that I can write an exhaustive scholarly treatise on the disparate effects of Marlboros vs. Players vs. Gauloises on recording equipment, with a detour into European vs. American rodent species, a sidebar on cocaine granularity, plus the viscosity of different sexual lubricants in the period 1964-1979

, I dunno, probably also kinky sex

Ya got me thinking of sweet sweet Paul-George hate fucks.

bang bang

(Mal on anvil, obv)

Paul was physical
Studied homophysical

All schlongs must pass

i'm finally watching this non-ambiently, i'm in the middle of episode two and it's very good and much better than let it be. surprised at how much of a narrative there really is tying these eight hours together: watch a band try and fail and then try again and then sort of succeed re: getting their shit together literally at all

one distinct difference between the two is, iirc, let it be really lingers on the grueling "maxwell's" rehearsals at twickenham, possibly as a shorthand way to develop the tension between paul and george, whereas the sessions come off far more varied and dare i say ramshackle in this film

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, December 14, 2021 10:34 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The narrative arc is well developed and/or imposed by Jackson, it really does have a shape. Which makes sense, given that they had created this ridiculous film/recording schedule for themselves. It's like someone gave Jackson the raw footage from a reality show.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, December 14, 2021 11:11 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

narrative + reality show otm. It comes off to me as a v modern streaming style show (which it is). Might have even leaned in a little more to that by making it 50+ minute episodes instead of 2.5 hr parts, but I'm struggling to think of additional cliffhanger/storylines/resolutions they could have used.

answering the question about whether Ringo really did fart

Head fake editing at the end of Episode 1 to make you think they are going to Libya, only for George to quash that in the cold open of Episode 2.

i dont think anyone thought they wete going to libya except MLH

*were

Ob-la-di ob-la-da li-by-a, bra

Head fake editing at the end of Episode 1 to make you think they are going to Libya, only for George to quash that in the cold open of Episode 2.

Yes, it's like watching a James Bond film and knowing that Bond isn't going to die but you go along with it anyway.

Having only used dials and sliders all my life in radio, I was fascinated by those submarine levers Glyn and Alan, et. al. were pushing.

Marmalade's cover of "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" was actually at Number One in the UK singles chart during January 1969 (Wilson Pickett's "Hey Jude" was also a lesser hit during the month), while The White Album was at Number One in the albums chart. Also, the Yellow Submarine soundtrack LP was released in in the same month, although thus far into my viewing I've yet to hear anybody mention it.

There's a parallel universe in which MLH gets his way, they still break up, the concert gets mythologized as being the cause, and "Playing Sabratha" becomes a byword for the writing being on the wall.

they should've made heather the lead singer of the beatles

heather rules

Nice interview with Gile Martin on Let It Be:

https://www.goldminemag.com/features/the-making-of-the-beatles-let-it-be

It clears up a few things - for example, the box set was always done with Peter Jackson's new film in mind, and Martin didn't want to be repetitive, so a lot of stuff was probably dropped simply because it was already in the film.

Also, none of the multitracks were properly backed up until Martin did Love. Since he was going through them anyway, he made backing up everything part of the project, just to have it be useful (it didn't sound like he expected Love to be much of a release). The new mixes have been generally done from these digital transfers rather than the original analog multitracks, so I'm guessing backing everything up made Apple/the Beatles/etc.'s decision to have him remix albums later on a whole lot easier.

god the rooftop concert is so fucking dope

^^^
After all the fucking around, they just go out and kill it.

I'm repeating myself, but I absolutely love the sound of the Let it Be material. Billy Preston really added something groovy to them.

Sorta surprising that Billy isn’t on more than just two tracks on Abbey Road; I Want You and Something. It’d be great if he was on the whole thing.

ok i'm done listening to every beatles album and song, time to listen to a ton of yoko

I got to meet Giles Martin in at a Rock Band: Beatles event, the whole game was made possible because of the reissues, they were digitizing all the multitracks so they could pull the "stems" for the game.

he was super enthusiastic, he was definitely the one that was the main liason with Harmonix the developer.

very nice and personable, was dressed in an understated casual way where you can just sense that the clothes cost a zillion dollars even though they aren't flashy.