Beatles News

A couple of weeks ago, immediately after the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival's screening of Ron Howard's The Beatles: Eight Days a Week -- The Touring Years, my wife, Karen Martin, who was moderating a post-screening discussion of the film, asked the nearly 600 audience members how many of them had seen The Beatles live before they stopped touring after their 1966 concert trek.

Six or eight hands shot up around the room and Karen raised her own -- she'd seen the group at Cleveland's Public Hall in September 1964.

That show, which she says she doesn't remember much about (though she remembers how she dressed in black turtleneck, red blazer, black skirt, leather cap and Beatle boots and, most of all, how she anticipated going), was remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, shortly after The Beatles started playing, teenagers rushed the stage and Police Inspector Carl Bear of the Cleveland Police Department's juvenile division ordered the band back to their dressing room. The show proceeded after a 15-minute delay, during which the crowd presumably calmed down.

After the performance, all rock 'n' roll shows were temporarily banned. Less than two years later The Beatles were back, playing a show at Cl details

Dave Meister, of BlueSky Jazz, stands on the stage of his replica of the Cavern Club he is building in Hartland. It is based on the Liverpool, England venue where the Beatles got their start.(Photo: Tyler Langan/Now Media Group)

Driving past 510 Hartbrook Drive in Hartland, there isn't anything out of the ordinary. The office building fits in with its surroundings in this quiet part of town with a park and another office building next door. A chiropractic office and a drivers education company call the building home.

Aside from a few piles of brick in the front, it's impossible to tell that Dave Meister, the building's owner, is nearly done constructing a spitting image of the legendary rock 'n' roll venue the Cavern Club, where the Beatles got their start in Liverpool, England.

It's all part of Meister's plan for BlueSky Jazz, a nonprofit organization that will create a music venue where military veterans and students can learn, perform and someday record music with professionals. He also plans to use the space as a venue for fundraisers to benefit veterans.

“Music is therapy,” Meister said.

The venue is a bold undertaking for a man with no interior design experience. The bas details

He rubbed Lennon up the wrong way, thought he’d killed his brother Ray, and would have loved a three-in-a-bed romp with Brian Jones and their shared girlfriend. He's Kinks man Dave Davies

John Lennon

The only thing me and [late Kinks bassist] Pete Quaife ever argued about was The Beatles. I never liked them but Pete thought the sun shone out of their arses. I used to say: “C’mon, Pete, we can do this stuff better than them!” The Kinks opened for The Beatles at Liverpool Empire, and we were dying to see the guitars they used. We knew they were Rickenbackers. I was going to go up there and play one, but John Lennon wouldn’t let us touch anything. “Don’t you dare touch those!” He was a paranoid guy, but funny.

They were so protective of everything, with their posh suits and Beatle haircuts. John used to hang out at the Scotch of St James. I think he liked me, mostly because he knew I didn’t give a shit. My attitude wasn’t down to inner resentment, like his was. A lot of his discontent was born from deep-rooted experience and resentment. But, unlike John, I’d had a great childhood. We were once both drunk, sitting at the tab details

(photo) The Capitol Records building photographed on March 26, 1958 in Hollywood, Calif.

In honor of Capitol Records’ 75th anniversary, the record company plans to give music fans a better glimpse into the history of the label with reissues of old favorites and more.

The celebration kicks off Nov. 15 when Capitol Records becomes the first record company to receive a star of recognition from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to be placed in front of Capitol Tower near the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Capitol Music Group Chairman and CEO Steve Barnett announced Tuesday (Nov. 1) that the company has three endeavors planned out that include music, film and literary projects that pay tribute to eight decades worth of artists signed to the famed West Coast label.

The first is a year-long major vinyl reissue campaign called The Capitol Records 75th Anniversary Collection, which features 75 albums. The list spans many Capitol eras, genres and artists and includes well-known and lesser-known releases.

Capitol joined noted music journalists, authors and other renowned creative figures to decide on the final list, which includes artists like Coldplay, Katy Perry, Bonnie Raitt, The Beatles and Frank details

48 years ago today (11/1/68) George Harrison released his first solo album, Wonderwall Music on the Apple label. The songs which were mostly Harrison instrumentals, featured Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and an unaccredited banjo contribution by Peter Tork of The Monkees. Wonderwall Music also marks the first solo album by a member of The Beatles and although it doesn’t have any standout hit songs, its equally strong in its range of music from Indian to guitar workouts and early time nostalgia. Listen to the sonic scorcher “”Ski-ing” featuring Clapton that sounds years ahead of its time…

ake a surreal trip under the seas in the LEGO® version of the Yellow Submarine (#21306). A collectible replica of the underwater vessel from The Beatles inspired musical fantasy film, the LEGO Yellow Submarine takes fans on a journey to Pepperland with the Fab Four!

The submarine features a removable top for easy play, a cockpit that accommodates the included John, Paul, George and Ringo cartoon minifigures, two rotating propellers, four periscopes, an adjustable rudder, plus assorted accessory elements that The Beatles have collected on their journey. The set also includes a Jeremy figure – on board to help the musicians defeat the Meanies. An ideal gift for fans of LEGO building and The Beatles, it’s great for role-play or to create a colourful retro display.

Created by fan-designer Kevin Szeto and selected by LEGO Ideas members, the set measures over 5” (13cm) high, 9” (25cm) long and 2” (6cm) wide. At £49.99 RRP, the set includes over 550 pieces, is suitable for ages 10+ and contains a collectible booklet about the LEGO fan designer and the Yellow Submarine.

“As an amateur musician and songwriter, I have always been drawn to the music of Th details

We’ve all dreamt of being in The Cavern Club with The Beatles twisting, shouting and mop-wobbling the place into a Cilla-quivering frenzy, but only the more imaginative business studies student has ever dreamed of what it might be like to run the club after they’d graduated to Shea Stadium. Until now. A new book, 'Cavern Club: The Inside Story', tells the story of Debbie Greenberg, a Beatles-era Cavern regular whose family bought the legendary club in 1966, nursed it into a second golden era and who wants to set the record straight on why the original Cavern was demolished in 1973.

What was it like being at The Cavern in the ’50s?

“When I first started to go there, there was quite a bit of jazz being played, then it moved into a bit of skiffle and they very slowly started to introduce rock’n’roll, which the owners of the club were against at the time. But of course the kids went wild when they played rock’n’roll so gradually the rock’n’roll took over. It made for a very different vibe, it was vibrant and exciting. Every time, you got that tingle, your feet started to tap and you couldn’t wait to get details

The Music Universe recently interviewed Vivek J. Tiwary, author of the New York Times best selling graphic novel and soon to be TV series The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story. It is the story of Brian Epstein, the man responsible for discovering the British supergroup and who had such a profound impact on the band. Discovering the band when they were disorganized teenagers playing pubs in Liverpool, he masterminded their transformation into a revolutionary, trailblazing, pioneering band that would have more impact not just in music but also in the arts and society than any other rock band in history. It’s fair to say without Brian Epstein, the world would not have The Beatles we know today, if at all.

But The Fifth Beatle is not a book about The Beatles. It tells the remarkable story of Brian Epstein, a gay, Jewish man living in England at a time when one could be arrested for being gay. Dying at the age of 32, he would not live long enough to see how his work behind the scenes would influence the way bands made their deals. He laid much of the groundwork that paved the way for bands to profit handsomely from their work.

From thefifthbeatle details

“It was one of those things. You take the enormity of being the Beatle brother or the Guinness heir, you face it, you accept it warmly, it is your heritage, it’s who you are,” Mike McCartney said of life in the shadow of his older brother Paul.

“As our kid [Paul McCartney] once said to me, “Mike don’t ever forget, you were there”. And it’s true,” he told Róisín Ingle, presenter of the Róisín Meets podcast.

Another person who was there was Mike McCartney’s friend the Guinness heir Tara Browne. Artists, writers and musicians – including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – were guests at wild parties at his home, Luggala in Co.Wicklow.

Immortalised in the Beatles song, A Day in the Life, after he was killed in 1966 aged 21 in a car crash in London, Browne is now the subject of the Paul Howard biography, I Read the News Today, Oh Boy.

McCartney is responsible for helping Howard paint a picture of Browne’s life at the centre of the London scene during the swinging 60s. The pair got on well, according to the Liverpudlian, because he and the aristocrat both had big names to live up to.

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