Happy 9 9 9!

The long-awaited Beatles Remastered albums are being released today, as well as The Beatles: Rock Band! Hot damn am I excited for both of these. I’ll be at Best Buy when the doors open to pick up my copies.

In honor of this momentous date in history, I am going to share one of my favorite Beatles songs ever, and one of my favorites Beatles covers ever. Check it.

“Rain” was the B-side of “Paperback Writer”, their 11th single released. The songs were written while the band was recording Revolver in 1966. Beyond it being a great song (with a tiny bit of social commentary), it carries the distinction of being one of the first pop songs to include tape manipulation. At the end of the song, Lennon took part of the group singing and played the tape backwards. This happens all the time now, but back in the 60s recording techniques of this nature were still being developed.

“Rain” by The Beatles

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And here’s a fantastic cover (recorded live) by of Montreal:

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And just for kicks, here are some more Beatles covers by of Montreal:

“Nowhere Man”

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“Hey Bulldog”

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“I Will” (Kevin Barnes)

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Enjoy, and spread the Beatlemania.
ek

If you’re a Beatles aficionado like myself then you have definitely checked out Love. It’s this crazy CD where various Beatles songs are stripped down, mashed up, and blended together in crazy ways. A lot of the songs are totally trippy if you’re familiar with the majority of their catalog, and this one always gets me good when I listen.

Drive My Car The Word What You’re Doing

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For those following along at home, it starts as “Drive My Car” (Rubber Soul, 1965) then goes to the into the main verse of “What You’re Doing” (Beatles For Sale, 1964). And then at the end it’s a free-for-all of with those two tracks mixed with the organ riff and chorus tag from “The Word” (Rubber Soul). It just blows my mind. The tempos weren’t altered. The pitch wasn’t raised or lowered. These three songs just fit together absolutely perfectly. I’m not sure if it’s a testament to the amazing song-writing abilities of Lennon/McCartney or aural proof that they had a specific formula for a percentage of their tracks. Either way it’s a fun listen.

ek

At some point while living in Ohio I went record store hopping with a friend of mine. We stopped at this rather large record store that reminded me a bit of Missing Link in Indianapolis (a store I miss sorely) and I rummaged through their old R&B/Rock section. I found a couple classic records, one of which being The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. Tracking down copies of this isn’t all that difficult, but they were only selling it for $3, and I think people on Amazon are trying to sell it in upwards of $100. I think I win that game.

I find that I gauge the value of bands more on their live performance than on their studio albums. And what has made me love The Beatles the way I do is how absolutely fantastic they were live, even with thousands of girls screeching at them the whole time. I can’t even imagine how hard it was for them to hear each other on stage.

The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl is a compilation of two live shows at the Hollywood Bowl (surprised?) on August 23rd, 1964, and August 30th, 1965.¹ It was their only official live record, which was an oddity for bands back in the 1960s. Bands of the time typically released quite a few live albums, but the screaming girls made live recordings a bit difficult to engineer.

Frankly, I was not in favor of taping their performance. I knew the quality of recording could not equal what we could do in the studio, but we thought we would try anyhow. Technically, the results were disappointing; the conditions for the engineers were arduous in the extreme. The chaos, I might say panic, that reigned at these concerts was unbelievable unless you were there. Only three track recording was possible; The Beatles had no “fold back” speakers,² so they could not hear what they were singing, and the eternal shriek from 17,000 healthy, young lungs made even a jet plane inaudible.
– George Martin, 1977

Martin went on to say, though, that the recordings Capitol Records made of these two Hollywood Bowl shows were something special. They captured the energy of the crowd and how The Beatles responded and fed off of it. The banter of the boys between songs is pretty entertaining, especially how they egg the crowd on. One track that really stood out to me was “Things We Said Today,” written and sung by George Harrison (who was always my favorite, to be honest). You can tell it was a new song, because he forgets how long the introduction is, comes in late, stumbles on words, and seems generally tentative when singing. When Paul pipes in for the bridge the girls go absolutely nuts, as to be expected. I probably would have too; the bridge of “Things We Said Today” is quite possibly my favorite bridge of any song. Ever.

Here is the recorded version from The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl:

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And for comparison, here is the studio version from A Hard Day’s Night:

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I may have to share more Beatles love in the near future. I can’t be the only one that feels it.³

<3 ek

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¹ As an aside, it’s interesting to note that Doctor Who was in its second broadcast season at this point, and it would be another 2/1 years before Star Trek would premiere (though it was already in production). Back to your regularly scheduled music post.
² I’m guessing that a “fold back” speaker is what we would call monitors now. Speakers on stage pointed towards the performers so that they can hear themselves and the other members of the band playing. Back to Mr. Martin.
³ And the footnote love. Who doesn’t love footnotes?

Just so you all don’t think I only listened to hardcore back in The Day, here is something a bit different. If you’re familiar with Alkaline Trio you should definitely know about Tuesday. Dan Andriano formed the band with Matt Stamps (guitar), and Rob Kellenberger (drums/vocals) some time in the mid 90s, ’96 I believe. Tuesday is a bit hard to classify, but I’d say they’re in that nether region between pop punk and emo. Well, at least what emo used to be, which was not Crap.

Their first record was Early Summer, an EP released on Asian Man Records in 1997.

Tuesday is my Essential Summer Band. It’s association with the season may be related to the name of this EP, which is something I cannot confirm or deny. But there is just something essentially summery about Tuesday. Especially lazy summer evenings. Sunday car rides. Eating snocones. Going swimming. I can’t describe it, but Tuesday is just … a summer band. As much a summer band as The Casket Lottery is a autumn band. I’ll get to them later. Neither of which are technically Dupage bands, or Dupage Hardcore bands. But like I said, I’m sharing this in the interest of variety. And sharing The Awesome with the masses.

1 – It’s a Bright Light

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2 – One Day of Peace

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3 – That’s Not Like Me

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4 – So Awake

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Andriano and his lovely lisp would go on to be in The Alkaline Trio with Matt Skiba and a parade of drummers. Kellenberger went on to play in Duvall and Colossal. All great bands.

ek

I’ve posted quite a bit of music in the last few days, and had planned on waiting for a while until I shared something else. But it’s my birthday so I’ll do whatever I want!

The Lapis Sanctuary was pretty much my favorite band. The 7″ they released with The DuPage Collective was probably one of the best records to ever be released during the Hayday of DuPage Hardcore.

I’m not sure how many colors were pressed, but I know that there were clear green ones. Because that’s what I have.

The insert is probably my favorite part. I love the selection of art and the layout with the lyrics and text.

The quality of the recording is really unparalleled. I did my best to make the cleanest digital copy that I could, but let’s be honest. Nothing will ever sound as good as a record played on a turntable through a good set of speakers. But I think these recordings turned out well. The stereo mix is incredible. Such a good album.

1 – Fair-say Question Hearsay

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2 – Render Nothing Sacred

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3 – Demise of the Half-Empty

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4 – In a World of Formal Handshakes …

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5 – Functioning on Autopilot

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I hope you enjoy this album as much as I do.
ek