Beatles News

Sir Paul doesn’t just show up for anyone — let alone twice. Over the weekend, masked Italian DJs Bloody Beetroots released the music video for “Out of Sight,” their inspired collaboration with Paul McCartney, and the legend appears in the eerie clip.

How the collaboration came to be has been of particular interest in the weeks since its announcement; though an unlikely pairing, it seems the Beatle and Beetroots share a producer in Youth (aka, Martin Glover).

“This year, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the studio producing new stuff with Youth of Killing Joke,” explained Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo, the mastermind behind the Bloody Beetroots, during a recent interview with KROQ’s DJ Jeremiah Red (host of Saturday nights’ Roq ‘n Beats). “He asked me if I was looking for some new features for my upcoming album. I said yeah, I have two names: one is Penny Rimbaud [formerly] of [punk band] Crass, and the other one is Paul McCartney. You never know if it will happen or not. But at le details

Paul McCartney is a member of two very exclusive fraternities in the pantheon of rock and roll. He is one of few artists in the world who can sell out any venue, in any city, whenever he wants to, and he's part of an even smaller group that can play a lengthy show in which every song is a true, timeless, classic. McCartney showed the prowess that got him into both clubs with an amazing, sold out,  attendance-record-breaking performance at Fenway Park on Tuesday night as part of his "Out There" tour.

For the last 50 years — with the Beatles, Wings, and his own solo work — McCartney has dazzled massive crowds all over the world, but where some artists might become complacent and allow their shows to become stale, McCartney continues to improve. Over the course of the 38-song set (think about that for a minute before you read on; the man played 38 songs in a row and they were all classics), McCartney played every song that a fan could details

Back in 1973, John Lennon wanted to make New York City his home, but he was being treated like an illegal immigrant. Though his wife Yoko Ono already had a green card, the rabble-rousing Lennon had been denied permanent resident status in the US. So with characteristic whimsy and outside-the-box thinking, he called a press conference on April Fool’s Day to announce the pair’s creation of “a conceptual country, Nutopia,” seeking diplomatic immunity as its ambassador.

“Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of Nutopia. Nutopia has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people. Nutopia has no laws other than cosmic,” Lennon declared. The couple even hung a plaque inscribed “Nutopian Embassy” on their kitchen door in the Dakota. The virtual country flew a perpetual white flag, and its Great Seal was a picture of…a seal. You know, the kind that barks and does tricks for fish.

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On June 18, 1942, a boy named James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool, England. He'd grow up and meet other chaps — John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr — and together as the Beatles, they'd impact the lives of countless millions around the world, and of people living in Milwaukee, during the '60s and the decades that followed.

McCartney has been active ever since, in Wings, as a solo artist and on the road. On Tuesday, McCartney will take the stage at a sold-out Miller Park for his first Milwaukee concert since 2005, to perform in front of about 40,000 spectators.

In light of the occasion, we wanted to know some of the stories of the locals who owe so much to McCartney and his music. We reached out to a variety of Wisconsinites — among them executives, die-hard fans, and a famous Grammy-winning musician from Eau Claire — and asked, "What does Paul McCartney mean to you?"

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In 1960, a Hamburg art student with a flair for fashion and a passion for photography grabbed her camera and began to record intimate moments with a new group of friends, musicians from the north of England. The Beatles were under contract to play seven hours a day at the KaiserKeller Club when Astrid Kirchherr was introduced to them. She immediately saw something special in this young group and began to photograph them in her home and various settings around her city.

Rock Paper Photo is excited to introduce The Astrid Kirchherr Early Beatles Collection, considered one of the most important photographic records of 20th century pop culture. Our first release features 12 beautiful images, each available as hand-signed Silver Gelatin prints in editions ranging from 25 to 145.

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Paul McCartney's life was threatened by BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) anti-Israel groups prior to a concert he performed in the country in 2008, according to Adam Shay of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “I got death threats, but I'm coming anyway. I got explicit death threats, but I have no intention of surrendering. I refuse to cancel my performances in Israel,” the ex-Beatle said according to Shay.

Shay said that many artists claim that they won’t perform in Israel for “reasons of conscience,” when the real reason is that they are frightened by death threats they receive. He added that many of the artists’ web sites have been hacked just ahead of their Israeli concerts.

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AN artist has painted a striking portrait of Beatles legend John Lennon. Leigh-based artist Paul Karslake is currently exhibiting at Southend Central Library with a vivid Rolls Royce car door and the painting of Lennon, who would have been 73 this year.

He was inspired to paint the two pieces to mark the rock star’s role in music history. The car door is painted the same as Lennon’s psychedelic car which he bought in 1965 and shipped to America in 1970, when he moved there with Yoko Ono.

They rarely used it, but often lent it out for special occasions to rock stars such as the Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues and Bob Dylan.

Source: Echo

From the moment Paul McCartney, coolly holding his iconic, beat-up Hofner bass guitar, plucked the first notes of the "Out There" tour kickoff in Brazil, the audience must have recognized something momentous was happening.

He was playing "Eight Days a Week," the 1964 rocker that is one of the Beatles' most memorable No. 1 hits. And yet, until that show, the song, penned by McCartney and John Lennon, had never been played onstage. Lennon thought "Eight Days a Week," which the group struggled to write, was "lousy."

It's one of a handful of never-performed Beatles treasures that McCartney exhumed for his "Out There" tour. The nearly 40-song set list starts almost every night with "Eight Days a Week," then slips in four more rarely performed numbers from the Beatles catalog.

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Julian Lennon’s White Feather Foundation charity has been gifted by a signed boxset from Paul McCartney to raise money to help people who are dying from lack of clean water and sanitation.

The White Feather Foundation was named after something Julian’s father, Beatle John Lennon, once said to him if he should ever pass away. To let Julian know he was OK, John promised to send a message in the form of a white feather.

“Then something happened to me, whilst on tour with the last album, Photograph Smile, in Australia. I was presented with a white feather by an Aboriginal tribal elder, from The Mirning people, which definitely took my breath away. The White Feather Foundation was created for the purpose of giving a voice and support to those who cannot be heard.

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I remember when Paul was dead. It was the fall of 1969 — my first year at the University of Victoria — and I, like the rest of my generation, was stunned at reports that the real Paul McCartney had been killed in a car accident two years earlier and replaced with a look-alike.

Like many others I hunted for hints of his death in the lyrics of earlier Beatles albums — “turn me on, dead man” in the White Album’s Revolution 9, and John Lennon’s supposed phrase “I buried Paul” in the song Strawberry Fields Forever. It was a hoax, of course, but it persisted for weeks until Life magazine reported that “Paul is still with us.”

And, happily, he’s with us still, as the now 71-year-old ably demonstrated at his three-hour concert in Ottawa on Sunday. Certainly, he’s not the rocker of yore with smooth cheeks and a dense mop of hair — neck wattles, sagging jowls and dyed can’t be denied — yet by all accounts those who saw his performance were amazed.

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BOSTON – Somewhere in a musty attic in Liverpool there has to be a portrait of an aging Paul McCartney because the guy who rocked out Fenway Park Tuesday night sure didn’t act like a 71-year-old.

The former Beatle played for two hours and 40 minutes at the venerable ballpark and treated fans to 38 songs. (A far cry from the 11-song set The Beatles played during a half hour show at Suffolk Downs back in 1966).

One of the richest men on the planet, a knight of the realm, and driving force behind some of greatest songs ever recorded, McCartney surely doesn’t need the cash or adulation he received at the sold-out show. Clearly, Sir Paul still finds joy in playing out.

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When Paul McCartney left The Beatles in 1970 he decided to drop out of public life for a while. Taking his wife and children Macca headed off to his newly bought farm house in the Mull of Kintrye to raise sheep, walk on the beach and pen gentle folky ditties.

It wasn’t until a year later in 1971 when the former Beatle raised his head above the parapet again with the release of the album that had largely been written on Kintrye – Ram. He probably wished he hadn’t bothered. When the press compared Ram with the output of his former sparring partners they found it to be twee, slight and a tad half-baked. It was no match at the time for Lennon’s primal screams or Harrison’s spiritual ditties. Although it sold well Ram became a exhibit A for Macca detractors.

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Source: brandish

Half a century after they had their first hit and four decades after they split up there remains an insatiable appetite for tales about The Beatles. And amazingly, even now they keep on coming.

Thus the burgeoning success of Standing in the Wings: The Beatles, Brian Epstein and Me – the memoirs of Liverpool’s Joe Flannery which recall the Fab’s formative years on their way to pop superstardom.

The book is barely off the presses and its publishers are talking of a second print run, while its author is preparing for a nationwide promotional tour – and with the tantalising prospect of America, Canada and even Japan to follow.

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Source: Liverpool Echo

Fenway Park is preparing for thousands of spectators in the next five days, none of whom are coming to see any home runs. As the Red Sox begin a new series in Seattle tonight, their home plate is currently being converted into a concert venue to host two of Boston's biggest concerts of the summer: Paul McCartney and Jason Aldean.

Rock legend Paul McCartney will take the stage tomorrow night for a record-breaking crowd. Tickets for tomorrow's show sold out in a whopping five minutes back in April, making it the fastest-ever sellout for a concert in Fenway history. McCartney is returning to perform in Boston for the first time since 2009, when he broke another attendance record for drawing the largest crowded the ballpark had ever seen for a two-day concert.

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Source: Bostlnno

In early December 1961, Brian Epstein drew up a contract that bound The Beatles to him for five years. Only Paul McCartney was hesitant about signing it. McCartney told Epstein that he hoped The Beatles would make it big, as Howard Sounes recounts in Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney. “But I’ll tell you now, Mr. Epstein,” McCartney declared, “I’m going to be a star anyway.”

Macca was 19 at the time. He turned 71 last month and the steely resolve he showed Epstein has never wavered.

McCartney, worth about $650 million according to Forbes magazine, is on the road this summer to burnish his musical legacy. Not only his own, but The Beatles’ legacy, too. The plan is to cement his place in pop history by giving fans what he calls, with Liverpudlian understatement, “a good night out.”