Posted by Walrus on May-31-2008
One of the main problems Beatles’ fans are involved in is which is the best or “authentic” version of their records: mono or stereo? Nowadays you can buy only stereo albums, as we use to; but during the 60s you could choose between both formats.
A solution is suggested by Mark Lewisohn - what a great man! - in his famous book. Talking about “Sgt. Pepper”, Richard Lush, second engeneer for that album, told him drastically: “The one and only version of Sgt. Pepper is the mono one, ‘cause all the Beatles worked on mixing. We made the stereo version later, faster and without them”.
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Posted by Walrus on May-28-2008
On Monday Paul McCartney was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music Degree by Yale University.
The University explaines: he gave a “fresh sound to rock n’ roll and rythm and blues”, “awakened a generation” and wrote “new classics”.
What to say: congratulations, doc. Paul!
To learn more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_en_mu/mccartney_yale
Posted by Walrus on May-18-2008
The story of this guitar is one of those when an instrument is so linked to a musician to become almost an icon of him. Ric 325 is to Lennon what Fender Stratocaster is to Jimi Hendrix, or Gibson SG is to Angus Young.
Lennon bought this guitar in Hamburg in 1961, after weeks and weeks spent saving money. It was a natural finish model with golden pickguard and “short arm” (the neck was shorter). It was a perfect instrument for rock n’ roll: its hollow body (without f-holes) but most of all the three “toaster” pickups (called so cause resembling to a toaster) produced a gingly, acute sound which probably has never been reproduced again by any instrument.
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Posted by Walrus on May-10-2008
The Beatles used to choose accuratly in which order songs would be published in their albums. George Martin remembers their rule was to begin a side with a “strong” hit and end it with one hard to be followed by anything else.
By the way it doesn’t mean that songs were recorded in the same order as they would be put on record: this choise would be made later.
So we thought to give curious people a list of the first songs to be recorded for each album (for this and other similar informations we thank Mark Lewisohn’s and Ian MacDonald’s books).
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Posted by Walrus on May-5-2008
Try to visit this Flickr page: a genius called Digger Digger Dogstar has reproduced some Beatles’ covers using Lego toys.
Don’t you think they’re beautiful?
