I think this is my first thread in Cafe Society. I’m a lifelong Beatles fan, since I saw them on Ed Sullivan. Our babysitter used to bring over their albums on Saturday nights. I watched the cartoons. I was aware of their existence, but didn’t really get all the way interested in them until I heard “Come Together.” I was 11 years old. I’d never heard anything like it (still haven’t), and it made me want to listen to all their music. This led to buying all their records, and imports when you could find them. I’ve been keeping a Beatles discography since before there was one published on the subject (All Together Now by Castleman & Podrazik, 1976). When it came out, anybody who was a collector knew right off that there were scores of errors and omissions. That’s when I started seriously trying to document every instance of a Beatles record from every country, and obtaining an example, where possible.
The book mentioned bootlegs, filled with mysterious outtakes and unreleased recordings. I couldn’t wait to find any of these! And I did, in head shops in Toronto, for between $6-12. Now I’ve got nearly everything any of them ever committed to tape that’s managed to escape somehow. I still collect these recordings in all their various incarnations, because in the absence of commercial product, that’s all there is. It’s like Anthology, only moreso. I’ve got all kinds of books on them, not fan books, but those analyzing how the recordings were made, and more recent discographies and reference volumes.
Is there anybody here who likes The Beatles enough to listen to multiple takes of songs and alternate mixes? Can you sit through 8 versions of “What’s The New Mary Jane”? Any collectors here? Do you even listen to them anymore? Do you care?
I’m well aware that the group is long gone, and they’re definitely not the only thing I listen to. I’m not stuck in some kind of delusional fan rut, I just collect their records and have studied them a great deal, in order to learn how records are made, and what heights you can achieve with limited equipment and unbridled enthusiasm. You can learn a lot about it by figuring out what they did on their records, and how it was achieved.
I’d appreciate your thoughts on whether you still listen to The Beatles, if you think they’re important to music today, whether you hate them because they’re overplayed on the radio, if you couldn’t get into them, if you always did, or got in 'way late. Thanks for your input.