Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

 Have always been a fan of Sci-Fi author Douglas Adams since his wonderful "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" series, and when his newest book  "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" came out in 1987, me and all my sci-fi aficionados in school made sure to grab it!

As I had not grown up with Hitchhiker's Guide, I've always had a sentimental attachment to Dirk Gently since it was the first one I read in "real time", and found it as wonderfully witty and silly  as Hitchhiker had ever been!

The "Horse in the Bathroom" scene is still one of my favorite passages, and as a Beatles fan, the DIALOG was simply chef's kiss!

"A Horse?" repeated Richard.

"Yes," said Reg.

Richard went out and looked up the stairs and then came back in.

"A HORSE?" he said again.

"Yes it is," said the Professor. "Wait—" he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate— "let it be. It won’t be long."

Richard stared in disbelief. "You say there’s a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?"

The Professor looked blankly at him.

"Listen," he said, "I'm sorry if...I alarmed you earlier, it was just a slight turn. These things happen, my dear fellow, don't upset yourself about it. Dear me, I've known odder things in my time. Many of them. Far odder. She's only a horse, for heaven's sake. I'll go and let her out later. Please don't concern yourself. Let us revive our spirits with some port."

"But...how did it get in there?"

"Well, the bathroom window's open. I expect she came in through that."

Richard looked at him, not for the first and certainly not for the last time, through eyes that were narrowed with suspicion.

"You're doing it deliberately, aren't you?!" he said.

Oh My GOSH, I remember reading this and cracking up out loud! "Yes It Is", "Wait", Let It Be", "It Won't Be Long", I did not even realize they were Beatles titles til Richard pointed it out, and when I re-read it, I was DYING! 

I remember trying to memorize the exact dialog to repeat to my friends the next day, it was so cool how Adams stung together those Beatles titles together! Just more wit out of the mind of Douglas Adams!

The Beatles' First US Visit: Beatles '64

Caught the new Beatles documentary “Beatles ’64” , covering the Beatles first trip to America as seen through the cameras of Albert and David Maysles and filled with interviews of both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as well as various celebrities and fans who share remembrances of the Beatles and the societal times in general!

Highlights Beatles appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and at the Washington Coliseum and the few times they were out on the streets and not locked up in their hotel rooms!

I think this Disney Special is a nice companion piece for new fans that have discovered The Beatles through the “Get Back” miniseries they aired  a few years back. In that one of course they detailed the END of the Beatles career together, and it’s great to have a special that shows new fans just how HUGE , impactful and HAPPY they were at the beginning of their rise to stardom, laughing, joking, making music and playing with a pure joy that’s hard to top!

The "With the Beatles" Cover Problem

"With The Beatles" 1963

 I remember seeing the cover of the Beatles “With the Beatles” as a kid and hating the spacing of the members’ faces. I thought some ad exec had taken cut-out heads of John, Paul, George and Ringo and had laid them on a black background with little to no care or idea how to arrange them in any kind of symmetry, and instead just stuck them all willy-nilly!

John’s head was big, George was OK , Paul was small, and Ringo looked tacked on at the last minute! So uneven, and  I remember thinking if I was the one to lay the cut-out heads, I would have placed them like THIS:

 

See? Oh! So Nice and EVEN! HAHAHAHAHA

LOLOL, what the young me did not realize was that those were NOT cut-out heads of the Beatles, but an actual single PHOTO with the members of the Beatles in black turtleneck shirts posing against a black background, a fact I only discovered when I finally got to see a copy of the original photo in detail:

With it all lighted up properly like this, you can clearly see the silhouettes of the boys' shirts, their arms and shoulders, explaining why their faces were at such uneven positions! NOW it all made sense!! With this detail, I can finally see what a great cover it is, and for one HELL of a GREAT album, besides!!

The Beatles "Get Back"

 

Just wrapped up the Peter Jackson Docuseries "Get Back" and though I liked Jackson's take on the original Michael Lindsay-Hogg Let It Be Footage a lot, I cannot conceive of a casual Beatles fan getting into this show!

I would say that you had to at LEAST know most of the songs and lore of the Beatles for most of this stuff to have any real meaning or interest... I mean, "I've Got A Feeling" and "Don't Let Me Down" are some of my favorite songs from the Beatles but even I was  getting tired of hearing it rehearsed for the umpteenth time over 8 hrs, LOL!

Still, LOTS of treasure in here, LOTS of insight into the inner workings of the band and a great many revelations about some of the songs, especially ones that became tracks on their subsequent solo releases after the band broke up that I had No IDEA started off as Beatles songs!

As someone who always had a bad feeling after watching Let It Be, it was nice to see a bigger picture that showed that there was more than the dark parts of this moment in their lives, and wrapped up on a positively POSITIVE note to boot!!!

And just think, even at this seemingly "low" point in their careers, "Abbey Road" was still to come !!!

Beatles 2000 TV Guide Promotion

Back in 2000, TV Guide had a pretty fun promotion where they featured each of the four Beatles on their own cover, and upon reading inside, found out that you could send away for a collectible WHITE ALBUM version of the issue- yep, a laminated and embossed TV Guide just like the Beatles' seminal 1968 LP!
Only thing that bothered me about this promotion  (besides the very expensive $15.00(!) charge for the variant issue plus shipping and handling) was that the Beatles featured on the covers were nowhere NEAR the"White Album" era of their careers, making this promotion feel more like a gimmick (which of course, it was) than tribute! Ah well, still looks pretty nice on my shelf of Beatle Collectibles!

Beatles "Let It Be" on Videodisc

The Beatles Let It Be Videodisc

As I've recounted earlier in this blog. the main reason I got a RCA Videodisc Player back in th early 80's was because it was the sole format that carried The Who's incredible Rockumentary "The Kids Are Alright", but it wasn't the ONLY Rock N Roll Movie that RCA somehow got the rights to- they also were the only folks who were able to release The Beatles' fifth and last movie LET IT BE!

  As you may have guessed, the first time I saw the movie, I was both intrigued by the inner workings of the recoding sessions, and quite taken aback by how much the Beatles had disintegrated as a 4-part working unit, and it made me uncomfortable to watch them fighting with each other, right there on the screen :( 

Luckily, the "Rooftop Concert" at the end of the movie saved it, though brief, those five kick-ass songs lifted me out of that funk and made me watch that movie again and again! Don"t Bring Me Down, One After 909, I've Got A Feeling, etc...what incredible performances!!!

 "Let It Be" is the ONE movie that still hasn't been released officially on DVD or Bluray, in fact, I don't think they even released it back on VHS back in the day. While I'm not too keen to revisit the squabbling,  I WOULD love to see those live performances  on my bigscreen TV!!! Still waiting....

The Beatles "The Capitol Years" in Jewel Case Format!

 As a Beatles Fan in the USA, I grew up on the American Releases of the Beatles first few albums, and though the UK versions are the Real and infinitely superior albums, I had such a sentimental attachment to those Capitol albums that I was happy beyond belief when they announced that those LPS were getting an official CD release!

 They eventually release the first eight discs in two parts, called “The Capitol years Parts 1 &2, and came housed in these carboard mini-album replica sleeves. Very Nice, but somehow, I was disappointed that they didn’t release them in the same Jewel case format they did with the rest of the Beatles albums…the paper sleeved CDs looked funny on my shelf alongside the other CDs. Then I had an idea!

 I took the cardboard sleeves, scanned the backs and fronts, then sized them so they’d fit in empty Jewel cases, and with photoshop, recreated the lettering on the spines of the cases. I then printed them out on thick photo paper, cut them all out with my trusty x-acto, and viola, The Beatles: The Capitol Years…in Jewel Case Format!

The Beatles...Remastered at LAST!

While I patiently awaiting my CoCo DVD Box Set, I’m happy to announce the arrival of ANOTHER Box Set that has been a LONG LONG time coming, and that would be the glorious BEATLES REMASTERED CD COLLECTION, a beautiful box set that features all 13 albums and singles from England’s premiere band!

  I remember back when the Beatles first four albums (Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles For Sale) were to come out on CD, the big argument was why release an album on CD if you’re gonna release it in Mono. But since that’s how the albums were originally presented, that’s how they were done on CD.

Though I understood this logic, it really bummed me out because I grew up listening to the stereo mixes of most of these songs from the Capitol records, especially the awesome SOMETHING NEW, and though I bought all the mono CDs and enjoyed them dearly, in the back of my mind I always missed the kick that the stereo version had, especially in songs like the .thundering drumroll at the end of “Tell Me Why” !

But now we’ve come full circle, and each and every album has been given the remastered treatment, and though I haven’t listened to them all yet, what I’ve been blastin’ out over my stereo speakers has just been heaven!!

I first found out about this wonderful box set through Japanese site CD JAPAN of all places, and at the time, figured it to be a japan-only release. I really wanted it, but that 300 dollar price tag gave me pause, I must say! So I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that they’d be releasing the Box Set in the states as well, and with a decent  price of $179.00 at Amazon, IMMEDIATELY sent in my order, this time without hesistation!

Beatles Live At The BBC!

People tend to write off THE BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC double album as nothing more than a bunch of recordings taken from a live Radio Show. Well…yeah, that’s what they ARE, but it’s more than that, too!  

   When the Beatles were clubbing and touring in their early days, most of their set consisted of covers of their favorite songs at the time, songs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, and others.

   By the time the Beatles were releasing albums, their OWN compositions were filling the tracks, but they always put at least a couple of songs from their club sets onto their albums, songs like SLOW DOWN, BAD BOY, ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN, BOYS, A TASTE OF HONEY, BABY, IT’S YOU, LONG TALL SALLY, and YOU REALLY GOT A HOLD ON ME.  

   On BEATLES LIVE AT THE BBC, you get to hear a whole plethora of songs they covered that never made it onto ANY of their albums. The thing about it is, these songs are performed REALLY TIGHT, and you can hear the joy in their voices as they sing- they really love these songs!

 

  There are even a couple of songs (Keep your Hands Off My Baby, I Forgot To Remember To Forget) that actually sound pre-recorded, the performance is so tight.   The cool thing about these covers is that they aren’t merely re-done, rather, they are taken and given a “Beatley” twist to them.

 

Songs like Elvis Presley’s “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry over You” has been given a Beatles “Wooooh!”, The Coasters’ “Young Blood” has John saying “What’s Your Name?” in his hilarious "simpleton" slur, and Chuck Berry’s “I Got to Find My Baby” has a real sweet Beatles riff towards the end of the song! 

  Even songs that DID make their way to Beatles Albums sound different and interesting: At this stage in the game, JOHN was still singing lead on “Honey Don’t” (which later went to Ringo on Beatles For Sale), and it is a real foot-stomper! 

   I always tell my friends that you could take the unreleased songs from the double album, and make ONE fine Beatles single album! By my estimation, the tracks to consider:

 I Got A Woman (cool George guitar picking)

Too Much Monkey Business (George rocks in the middle!)

Keep Your Hands Off My Baby (pre-recorded? Background vocals sweet!)

I’ll Be On My Way (AWESOME Lennon/McCartney song never put on album!)

Young Blood (Awesome, Fun song with George lead)

A Shot Of Rhythm and Blues

Some Other Guy (Killer song, featured on the ANTHOLOGY special)

That’s All Right (Elvis song featuring a driving Ringo beat!)

Carol (nice George guitar talk-back to John’s vocals)

Soldier of Love (a bit of “Baby It’s You” here)

Clarabella (Paul doing his “Little Richard” style vocals here)

Nothin’ Shakin

Crying, Waiting, Hoping  (cool version of Buddy Holly song)

To Know Her is to Love Her (early “This Boy” influence?)

Memphis, Tennessee (John doing Johnny Rivers!)

Lonesome Tears in my Eyes

Sweet Little Sixteen (I can’t believe this never made it to album!)

Hippy Hippy Shake I Forgot to Remember to Forget (awesome George vocal)

Ooh My Soul

I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry Over You (Elvis song turned Skiffle beat!)

I Got To Find My Baby (rockin’!)

Honey Don’t (John Vocal-kicks ass!)

Don’t Ever Change The Honeymoon Song (a real Paul-type song, nice!)

Yes, the quality here isn’t great, and in spots can be pretty thin (this is probably why they kept this from the public so long!), but these were radio broadcasts, and to hear new/unheard music by The Beatles is such a rare thing!