Thanks for the updates, nonsuch!
So, did the box set come out yesterday as scheduled? Amazon lists it as shipping in 24 hours, but CD Universe has changed the release date to “not determined,” which suggests that Capitol may be withdrawing the incorrectly mastered pressing.
I saw it in a bookstore yesterday, so yes.
If it’s any help to the Beatle nerds posting, as I get older, I tend to read more about the group and listen to their music more. I’ve read and reread the Abbey Road chronology, got the anthologies, read “All You Need Is Ears” (George Martin’s memoirs), and other bits and pieces when I can.
I lay no claims other than being a fan, so while I haven’t contributed to these threads, I appreciate the discussions and try to learn from them. I only wish I have the money and time to indulge in this.
Hi, pesch! I always like to meet people who like The Beatles enough to read the good books about them. Depending on your definition of expensive, it’s not really too awful expensive to get all of their records on CD, except for some oddities which are unavailable commercially. You would only need the EMI CD box, Singles box, EPs box, Live At The BBC and its two CD singles, the Free As A Bird and Real Love CD singles, 1, Yellow Submarine Songtrack, Let It Be…Naked, and the two Capitol Albums sets. Then it starts getting expensive. To get the whole experience, you need the first four UK albums in stereo, plus Sgt. Pepper and The White Album in mono, but these are not commercially available on CD.
There are quite a few remixes that have only been issued on vinyl, and some early stereo cuts only available on CD on the '62-'66 set, so you need to get 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, Live At The Hollywood Bowl, Love Songs, Rock And Roll Music, 20 Greatest Hits and (US) Rarities.
And then it gets even more expensive, with imports from the Netherlands and Germany and France and Spain and Russia and Japan and China and Australia and Mexico and Argentina…each of these countries has compilation albums not available in any other country. And, of course, there are colored vinyl limited editions, picture discs in 7" and 12", promotional records, picture sleeves, label variations, you name it! But there’s more! There are in the neighborhood of 3000 Beatles bootlegs that contain nearly everything they ever recorded that isn’t on an official album… concerts, radio & TV broadcasts, interviews, demo versions, acetates of different mixes, intact series of outtakes and alternate mixes. It’s incredible what’s out there. But it’s really fascinating. I have around 500, collected over 30 years.
The 27-minute “Helter Skelter” has never been available. It is the most sought-after Beatles recording, but only Abbey Road and Paul McCartney have copies. They don’t seem to be willing to part with what’s on them.
Or not and hope it increases in value.
Hi, my name is fishbicycle and I am a Beatles-a-holic. <Hi fishbicycle>
fishb - very cool. And since you have been VERY kind in sending me some great alternate-take recordings, I have to be very appreciative of your obsession. Did I every tell you that I got to see George’s Gibson SG - the one used on the White album that he gave to Pete Ham of Badfinger and was just sold back to Olivia and Dhani Harrison in auction a few months ago? I had to go see it on display at the auction house. I didn’t get to play it - I nearly got to play Keith Richards’ '59 Gibson Sunburst (the seller said cool, but the auction house said no). The SG was charged with mojo, as we guitar players like to say…
Why not? Do they simply regard it as being of inferior quality and not worthy of commerical distribution? Until this moment I had never been aware there was a 27-minute version of “Helter Skelter.” Is it a raw studio recording which hasn’t been mixed and/or tweaked?
LP, nobody knows why they’re keeping a lid on it. The epic length is tantalizing, but only a handful of people in the world have ever heard the tape. It was just one of several versions they recorded on the way to making the version we all know.
If the jams recorded in January 1969 during the filming of “Let It Be” are any indication of what The Beatles did when they stretched out, 27 minutes of “Helter Skelter” would have waxed and waned numerous times. Parts of it might have been really good. Others might have been really boring. It might be really interesting. It might be 24 minutes of crap, who knows?
You know that snippet on “Let It Be” called “Dig It”? That was a 12-minute jam. Phil Spector selected the best 35 seconds of it. The rest of it, before and after the selection heard on the album, was just terrible, as they tried to warm up and think of something interesting to play. For those 35 seconds, they became a cohesive unit. I’ve got a feeling (sorry) that “Helter Skelter” might be more of the same.
Me, I’ve always wanted to hear the “Carnival of Light” sound collage Paul McCartney made with the Beatles in early '67. AFAIK, not one second of it has ever been heard by any except the likes of Lewisohn.
I like how before the counter gets reset at 11 AM EDT, the number of views of this thread was 910… which is one after 909.
I’m not so sure. In the helter skelter case they had a good foundation to jam over. And John Lennon described it as “mad”. That sounds good.
Anybody notice that Neil Aspinall stated that Apple Corps was going to finally release the newly-remastered Beatles catalogue for downloading?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12301007/
Woo-hoo!
Well, this group is only a small part of the research I’ve done. I have more than twelve thousand records that aren’t by The Beatles! And a story to go with each one.
No, but you just did! How cool is that?
Or maybe mojo filter?