Podcasts about The Easybeats

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The Easybeats

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Best podcasts about The Easybeats

Latest podcast episodes about The Easybeats

The BOB & TOM Show Free Podcast
B&T Extra: Blue Jeans, EasyBeats, & Talking on the Phone

The BOB & TOM Show Free Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2025 21:23


On today's Extra, Blue Jeans, EasyBeats, & Talking on the Phone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

La Story Nostalgie
Où sont passées nos années 80 ? (Episode 3 : Icehouse)

La Story Nostalgie

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 27, 2025 3:02


Je vous ai déjà raconté comment tant de chanteurs étaient arrivés d'Australie dans les années 60 et 70, des Bee Gees aux Easybeats en passant par Flash and the Pan. Et ça ne s'est pas arrêté dans les années 80 avec Kylie Minogue, Midnight Oil et Icehouse.Et justement, Icehouse, ça, c'est le groupe typique dont on connaît au moins une chanson par coeur, du genre qu'on monte le son sans savoir exactement ce qu'on aime en elle mais dont on ne sait rien. Je ne savais même pas qu'ils étaient Australiens ! C'est vrai que leur fameux single a fait un sacré tube fin 1982, début 83 et que cela leur avait valu d'assurer la première partie de la tournée du retour de David Bowie, la même année. Alors cette voix qui a sûrement dû vous accrocher avec son léger grain quand il descend dans les graves et sa clarté dans les aigus, c'est celle d'Iva Davies. Oui, comme les frères Davies des Kinks mais rien à voir, son père Neville a été garde forestier toute sa carrière dans la région de Sydney. Un père qui chante lors des festivités, alors son fils à qui il a inculqué l'amour des arbres, chante lui aussi, et joue de la guitare. On ne s'étonne pas que son premier groupe se nomme Flowers et qu'il rencontre un joli succès en Australie, avec sa voix, proche de celle de Bryan Ferry de Roxy Music. Alors, un jour de 1981, sa firme de disques décide de le lancer en Grande-Bretagne et par conséquent, le reste du monde. Le nom de Flowers étant déjà pris dans tous les sens, il en faut un nouveau, Iva demande :Que pensez-vous de Icehouse ? Icehouse ? Quelle idée ! Ben, c'était le nom que j'avais donné au flat que je louais à l'étage d'une vieille maison et où je me les suis gelés durant des mois.Icehouse ? vendu ! C'est d'ailleurs le titre du premier single qui paraît en 1982 et qui, au milieu de la New Wave des Ultravox, Depeche Mode et Human League serait sans doute passé inaperçu si la vidéo n'était pas tournée par le réalisateur australien, Russell Mulcahy, hyper célèbre, il est l'auteur du premier clip diffusé sur MTV : Video killed the radio stars et futur réalisateur de Highlander. Le gros succès arrive quelques mois plus tard avec Hey Little Girl, tellement New Wave, et puis un second titre de l'album plus tardivement, chanson d'un film intitulé pour ado Young Einstein, comme on en a tant tourné dans les années 80. Alors voilà, vous savez désormais que la voix de ce groupe mystérieux qu'il était à lui tout seul, appartenait à un certain Iva Davies, immense célébrité dans son pays de l'autre côté de la Terre, mais pour nous, simplement Icehouse, qui nous a offert un des très bons moments de ces années 80.

Independents
Independents - 20/02/2025

Independents

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2025 59:59


Australian Music Archives
Top10-Series-Ep.8 1966

Australian Music Archives

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 7, 2025 37:32


In this podcast; the Top Ten Australian artist releases for 1966, we reflect on how the popularity of Australian Music has grown, tracking from the first Top Ten - 1959. The 1966 Top Ten is dominated by The Easybeats with four entries, Normie Rowe chimes in with two entries, while the other four places are taken by Judy Stone, The Twilights, Johnny Young & Kompany, and Bobby and Laurie. This Top Ten feature five tracks that reached #1. Enjoy the classic Australian Music from 1966!

The Face Radio
Blow-Up! — 2 February 2025

The Face Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2025 119:45


Matt is joined by mod about town, go-go dancer and DJ Marie Welstead this week.There's lots of chat about the Aussie mod scene & dancing with Davy Jones of The Monkees, and of course plenty of music from The Easybeats, The Who, The Pussycats, Desmond Dekker and much more.For more info and tracklisting, visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up/Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up! Sundays from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.//Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Australian Music Archives
Chart Series Ep49 November 1966

Australian Music Archives

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2025 37:15


November of 1966 was a great month for Australian Music with the release of two 45s both of which would go on and reach #1: Normie Rowe's epic Ooh La La, and The Easybeats' anthem, Friday on My Mind are the two songs in question, both recorded in the UK. We'll also hear the 2nd 45 release from an artist then known as JA-AR who, as John Rowles, would go on to international stardom. Amongst others, we'll also hear chart entries from The Kravats, Russ Kruger, and Peter Nelson & The Castaways. Enjoy the Australian artist releases for November of ‘66!

Tunesmate's Podcast
Debbie Kruger - Episode 91

Tunesmate's Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 12, 2025 83:18


In this episode of Tunesmate, join Debbie Kruger, writer, author, and PR expert, as she dives deep into her book Songwriters Speak. The book features in-depth interviews with 45 songwriters from Australia and New Zealand, whose work spans rock, pop, and country music. Through these interviews, Debbie offers a fascinating look into how these songwriters made the hits that dominated the charts. During the conversation, Debbie shares unique insights into the lives and creative processes of some of the world's most cherished songwriters from legendary bands such as The Seekers, The Easybeats, Little River Band, Midnight Oil, Crowded House, Icehouse, INXS, Men at Work, Divinyls, and Savage Garden. Discover the stories behind the music and the people who made it happen. Learn more about Debbie's book at http://songwritersspeak.com.

Dads on the Air
Friday on My Mind

Dads on the Air

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2025


With special guest: Jeff Apter… in conversation with Bill Kable George Young made his name internationally by writing with his best mate Harry Vanda a song we can all sing along to more than 50 years after its release. So it was a natural choice as the title of Jeff Apter’s book Friday on My Mind: the life of George Young. George managed to get a ticket to The Beatles Sydney performance in 1964. He decided right then that he was going to be in music as a career but it was not going to be a straightforward ride as we learn in Jeff’s book. We hear from our special guest today about the toughness of all the large Young clan. Eight of them arrived in Australia as Ten Pound Poms. They needed that toughness firstly as they grew up in a dreary part of Scotland. Then when they abandoned their life in Scotland they needed to be tough once again when they arrived in the Villawood Migrant Hostel in Sydney. Villawood was not the land of milk and honey they had seen on the posters. It was after a fight in the hostel that George met Harry strumming a guitar and the nucleus of The Easybeats formed. Podcast (mp3)

Journal du Rock
Angus et Malcolm Young d'AC/DC; Franz Ferdinand; Robbie Williams; Bruce Springsteen et Jeremy Allen; Debbie Harry; Ian Paice, Rat Scabies et Paul Cook

Journal du Rock

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2025 4:02


La maison de Sydney dans laquelle Angus et Malcolm Young, membres d'AC/DC, ont grandi, a été démolie, alors qu'elle était inscrite au registre des maisons historiques du National Trust d'Australie depuis 2013. Franz Ferdinand a sorti un nouveau single intitulé ‘'Hooked'', ultime extrait avant la sortie de l'album attendue ce vendredi 10 janvier. Robbie Williams s'est exprimé après la disqualification de son titre ''Forbidden Road'' de la liste des Oscars 2025, dans la catégorie ‘'meilleure chanson originale''. Bruce Springsteen a entendu Jeremy Allen White chanter dans le prochain film biographique, réalisé par Scott Cooper, ‘'Deliver Me from Nowhere'', et il approuve l'acteur dans cet exercice. Debbie Harry, la chanteuse de Blondie, a évoqué les 80 ans qu'elle fêtera le 1er juillet 2025 et a parlé de la ‘'beauté du vieillissement''. Certains grands noms du rock'n'roll prennent doucement de l'âge, Ian Paice (Deep Purple), Rat Scabies (The Damned) et Paul Cook (Sex Pistols) ont tous trois parlé de la manière dont les batteurs font face aux exigences physiques de la scène, en vieillissant. Mots-Clés : famille, frère aîné, George Young, The Easybeats, album, Easy, adresse, société, origine, site, Noël, projet résidentiel, millions, dollars, statut historique, promoteurs, bar, café, matériaux, fans, célébrer, héritage, frontman, Alex Kapranos, rôdeur, nocturne, live, origine, présélection, règles, éligibilité, extraits, I Got a Name, Jim Croce, écrit, Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel, décision, adaptation, livre, 2023, Deliver Me From Nowhere, années 80, enregistrement, album, Nebraska, 1982, star, série, The Bear, efforts, distribution, mère, habitude, tête, couple, Dieu, relation, Chris Stein, applications en ligne, informée, existence, rencontres, célébrités, tester, secret, Phil Collins, documentaire, batterie, Nicko McBrain, Iron Maiden, bons et loyaux services, témoignages. --- Classic 21 vous informe des dernières actualités du rock, en Belgique et partout ailleurs. Le Journal du Rock, en direct chaque jour à 7h30 et 18h30 sur votre radio rock'n'pop. Merci pour votre écoute Plus de contenus de Classic 21 sur www.rtbf.be/classic21 Ecoutez-nous en live ici: https://www.rtbf.be/radio/liveradio/classic21 ou sur l'app Radioplayer BelgiqueRetrouvez l'ensemble des contenus de la RTBF sur notre plateforme Auvio.be Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement. Découvrez nos autres podcasts : Le journal du Rock : https://audmns.com/VCRYfsPComic Street (BD) https://audmns.com/oIcpwibLa chronique économique : https://audmns.com/NXWNCrAHey Teacher : https://audmns.com/CIeSInQHistoires sombres du rock : https://audmns.com/ebcGgvkCollection 21 : https://audmns.com/AUdgDqHMystères et Rock'n Roll : https://audmns.com/pCrZihuLa mauvaise oreille de Freddy Tougaux : https://audmns.com/PlXQOEJRock&Sciences : https://audmns.com/lQLdKWRCook as You Are: https://audmns.com/MrmqALPNobody Knows : https://audmns.com/pnuJUlDPlein Ecran : https://audmns.com/gEmXiKzRadio Caroline : https://audmns.com/WccemSkAinsi que nos séries :Rock Icons : https://audmns.com/pcmKXZHRock'n Roll Heroes: https://audmns.com/bXtHJucFever (Erotique) : https://audmns.com/MEWEOLpEt découvrez nos animateurs dans cette série Close to You : https://audmns.com/QfFankx

Australian Music Archives
#86 Australian-Charts-EP.50 1966 October

Australian Music Archives

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2025 49:26


Australian artist releases for October of 1966 brings us a future #1 with The Easybeats, “Sorry” and a future Top 10 with Johnny Young and Kompany's, “Let It Be Me”. Quite a few hidden gems along the way, with four from artists recording on the Perth-based Clarion label; Ray Hoff and The Offbeats, Maggie Fitzgibbon, Robbie Snowden and the Johnny Young and Kompany Top 10 entry. We'll hear the final 45 from Ray Brown and The Whispers, and a track from Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs MkII, that I've never previously heard! And plenty more, with a whole month's worth crammed into a single episode. This podcast has been a month in production due to chemotherapy side effects, mainly fatigue. With chemotherapy now finished for the time being, I can hopefully return to more regular production of these podcasts.

El sótano
El sótano - Especial Shel Talmy; un productor americano en Londres - 19/11/24

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2024 59:24


El pasado 13 de noviembre falleció Shel Talmy a los 87 años de edad. El productor discográfico estadounidense que ayudó a moldear el sonido de la música británica de los 60, la persona que capturó en el estudio numerosos momentos históricos en la historia del rock’n’roll por bandas como The Kinks, The Who, The Creation o The Easybeats. He aquí nuestro pequeño homenaje al padrino del freakbeat, orfebre del sonido de estudio cuyo legado perdurará mientras su música siga con nosotros.Playlist;THE KINKS “You really got me” (agosto 1964)THE WHO “Anyway anyhow anywhere” (mayo 1965)THE FIRST GEAR “Leave my kitten alone” (1964) (octubre 1964)THE SNEEKERS “Bald headed woman” (octubre 1964)THE MICKEY FINN “Night comes down” (marzo 1965)GOLDIE and THE GINGERBREADS “Look for me baby” (inédita, grabada en 1965)THE ROKES “La mia città” (1965)DAVY JONES (DAVID BOWIE) “You’ve got the habit of leaving” (agosto 1965)THE CREATION “Making time” (junio 1966)THE EASYBEATS “Friday on my mind” (octubre 1966)MANFRED MANN “Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. James” (octubre 1966)THE NASHVILLE TEENS “I’m coming home” (octubre 1967)ROY HARPER “Ageing raver” (1968)LEE HAZLEWOOD “Bye baby” (1969)THE KINKS “Sunny afternoon” (junio 1966)Escuchar audio

Real Punk Radio Podcast Network
The Big Takeover Show – Number 513 – November 18, 2024

Real Punk Radio Podcast Network

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2024


This week's show, after a 1965 David Jones (Bowie) jag: brand new Doves, Tubs, Plush Machine, Roach Squad, Guest Directors, David Steinhart, and American Darlings, plus The Who, Rutles, Link Wray, Augustus Pablo, Easybeats, Rita (Graham) & the Tiaras, ...

Ruck 'n Roll
Fine Until Proven Guilty.

Ruck 'n Roll

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2024 68:03


Guess who had a hearing, a small win and is feeling pretty good about himself? Guess again, because it is not the show's resident counsel, but in fact the illustrated man has had words, not pictures, and tells the tale. We have found more words about the AFL Meat Market, the AFLW problem, the Spring Racing Carnival and of course the dearly departed in The Deathalyser.  Musically it is underrated Aussie songs and some rippers get unearthed to enjoy their deserved moment in the sunshine. You may hear Mental as Anything, Goanna, TISM, The Easybeats and Hush in glowing terms or will it be William Shakespeare, Pussyfoot, Joe Dolce or Warwick Capper that rises like a mushroom through the fluent and effluent babble of the boys? Kevin Hillier, Mark Fine, Stephen J Peak Subscribe in iTunes!https://apple.co/2LUQuix Listen on Spotifyhttps://spoti.fi/2DdgYad Follow us on Facebook...https://bit.ly/2OOe7ag Post-production by Steve Visscher | Southern Skies Media for Howdy Partners Media | www.howdypartnersmedia.com.au/podcasts © 2024See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australian Music Archives
Australian-Charts-EP.46 1966 July

Australian Music Archives

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2024 38:40


I was about to start the Top Ten for 1966 when I realised that I had not completed the Chart Series for 1966. So, here's the Australian artist chart entries for July of '66. The Easybeats score the highest-placed chart entry with a song from an EP! We hear from Buddy England, Donna Gaye, Max Merritt & The Meteors, The Twilights and several others; only one #1 but a series of well-remembered songs, including The Skye Boat Song.

The Face Radio
Blow-Up! // 04-08-24

The Face Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2024 119:45


Sammy takes musical direction from place names and Matt veers off into the usual mix of decades & genres this week.We pay tribute to Abdul "Duke" Fakir & John Mayall, plus there's ska from Tony Tribe & Derrick Morgan, mod revival from Squire, classic 60s from The Easybeats & Artwoods as well as a brand new track from Maiiah & The Angels Of Libra.For more info and tracklisting, visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up/Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up, Sundays from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.//Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

That Driving Beat
That Driving Beat - Episode 318

That Driving Beat

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 18, 2024 111:44


We feature tunes by Ray Pollard, JJ Barnes, Mary Wells, Charlie Rich, Dean Parrish, Mitty Collier, a B-side by Little Milton, a garage and mod rock set with the Seeds, The Hollies, The Easybeats, and a studio group on the Bang label called Bazooka! We also threw a few more artists from our home base city of Louisville than usual in the mix in this episode. Get on your feet and move to That Driving Beat! Originally broadcast June 16, 2024 Willie Mitchell / That Driving BeatThe Emperors / KarateMartha & The Vandellas / Forget Me NotCosmo / You Gotta DanceLittle Milton / Ain't No Big Deal On YouRuby Winters / Sweetheart ThingsMary Wells / Oh Little Boy (What Did You Do to Me)Ray Pollard / WanderlustThe Spiral Starecase / I'll RunPopular Five / Little Bitty Pretty OneJ.J. Barnes / Please Let Me InThe Easybeats / Gonna Have A Good Time (Good Times)The Seeds / Can't Seem To Make You MineThe Sultans / I Know It's TrueBazooka / Boo On YouThe Trend-Els / Don't You Hear Me Calling - BabyVan Morrison / Ro Ro RoseyThe Hollies / It's YouThe Original Playboys / Now That I'm SomebodyHoney Cone / One Monkey Don't Stop No Show (Pt. 1)Coasters / Love Potion Number NineJesse James / I Know I'll Never Find Another OneWilson Pickett / Ain't No Doubt About ItCharlie Rich / I Washed My Hands In Muddy WaterFontella Bass / Leave It In The Hands Of LoveThe Vibrations / Canadian SunsetJohnny Nash / Strange FeelingO.V. Wright / Treasured MomentsDean Parrish / Tell HerThe Exciters / Tell HimBarbara Lewis / My Heart Went Do Dat DaBettye Swann / Lonely LoveSteve Alaimo / Every Day I Have To CryMitty Collier / Ain't That LoveOtis Clay / That Kind of Lovin'Dolly Parton / Busy SignalThe Pacers / Gotham City Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RadiOblivion
Exploration In Terror

RadiOblivion

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2024


On RadiOblivion eppy-sode 191 go on an Exploration In Terror with Professor Michael T... Ten POUNDERS for the adventurous spirit featuring the wildest in 60's Punk, Psychobilly, Surf 'N' Instrumental madness. The perfect antidote fer square music infections in these dull times.Featuring:The Del-Vetts, The Easybeats, The Weeds, The Lillipop Shoppe, Dead Moon, The Surf Rats, The Krewmen, Screaming Kids, The Ventures, and Os Gatunos.  Join me on my Patreon page at patreon.com/radioblivion Blow Yer Radio Up, Baby!! If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE

CRÓNICAS APASIONADAS
CRÓNICAS APASIONADAS T05C054 The Party (30/03/2024)

CRÓNICAS APASIONADAS

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2024 54:05


Con Amalia Rodrigues, Alfredo Marceneiro, los Brincos, the Easybeats, los Bravos, las Moskas, Ricky Maritn, Henry Mancini, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, T. Rex ft Marc Bolan, Radio Futura, U2 ft Elton John, Jackson Browne y The Soul Sounds Symphony.

98.5 ONE FM Podcasts
Whatever Happened To? - The Easybeats

98.5 ONE FM Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2024 15:08


One FM presenter Josh Revens and Steve Dowers present 'Whatever Happened To?' This week's topic is the iconic Australian group The Easybeats. This program originally aired on Monday the 29th of January, 2024. Contact the station on admin@fm985.com.au or (+613) 58313131 The ONE FM 98.5 Community Radio podcast page operates under the license of Goulburn Valley Community Radio Inc. (ONE FM) Number 1385226/1. PRA AMCOS (Australasian Performing Right Association Limited and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society) that covers Simulcasting and Online content including podcasts with musical content, that we pay every year. This licence number is 1385226/1.

The Face Radio
Blow Up // 14-01-24

The Face Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2024 119:45


Matt goes solo for his first show of 2024. He's banging around the genres again with some old favourites from The Jam, Stone Roses, The Easybeats and The Maytals as well as some new tunes from Liam Gallagher & John Squire, The Prisoners and Dee C. Lee.There's a new Catalan Connection from Fidel in Barcelona and a garage banger from regular contributor, Brisbane's own Boston Bob.Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up, Sunday from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.For more info visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up///Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dads on the Air
Malcolm Young

Dads on the Air

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2023


With special guest: Jeff Apter… in conversation with Bill Kable Malcolm was a younger brother of George Young guitarist and songwriter with The Easybeats. Music was definitely in the family but in such a fickle industry could lightning strike twice after the enormous success of brother George? The Young family story starts in an economically deprived part of Scotland. Then seven of the eight members of the family became Ten Pound Poms and settled in a migrant hostel in Australia. One of the elder children continued to work as a musician in Europe. After years of playing guitar in his bedroom Malcolm joined a band and later agreed to let Angus in, recognising at that early stage the genius of his younger brother. It was his sister who came up with the name for the band and that was never changed. It is arguable that their choice of music style never changed either, always driving rock’n’roll. Podcast (mp3)

The Jay Jay French Connection: Beyond the Music

Shel Talmy is the legendary producer of The Who's first earthshaking debut album “My Generation,” the first 5 (and most famous) Kinks albums, the Easybeats biggest hit 'Friday in my Mind,' as well as Manfred Mann's debut single 'Do Wha Diddy Diddy,'  mong many many more. It has been a great 2023 here on The Jay Jay French Connection - beginning the year with Twisted's induction into The Heavy Metal Hall of Fame, followed by a diverse & heavy hitting lineup of special guests on the podcast. Don't miss the year's final episode, as Jay Jay welcomes a very special guest onto the show, Shel Talmy! Shel is a legendary producer, songwriter & arranger who is best known for his work in the UK in the 60's. He has an amazing legacy in music, & there's a reason why Jay Jay finds his history in production to be one of the most important in music. Jay Jay talks about how much the records Shel produced have influenced him over the years, & how they served as the foundation for Rock n Roll to this day.  Shel shares some amazing stories - why he found Keith Moon to be the best drummer, recording all of the Wrecking Crew's sessions, his successes in working against the grain & current norms (including developing a 12 mic recording technique), working with Jimmy Page when he was only a 17 years old, & some of his favorite recording sessions. He gets into his early A&R days, & shares the stories of signing The Kinks & The Who (then known as 'The High Numbers').  Tune in, only on The Jay Jay French Connection: Beyond the Music!  Produced & Edited by Matthew Mallinger 

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs
Episode 171: “Hey Jude” by the Beatles

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2023


Episode 171 looks at "Hey Jude", the White Album, and the career of the Beatles from August 1967 through November 1968. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifty-seven-minute bonus episode available, on "I Love You" by People!. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata Not really an error, but at one point I refer to Ornette Coleman as a saxophonist. While he was, he plays trumpet on the track that is excerpted after that. Resources No Mixcloud this week due to the number of songs by the Beatles. I have read literally dozens of books on the Beatles, and used bits of information from many of them. All my Beatles episodes refer to: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn, All The Songs: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Release by Jean-Michel Guesdon, And The Band Begins To Play: The Definitive Guide To The Songs of The Beatles by Steve Lambley, The Beatles By Ear by Kevin Moore, Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald, and The Beatles Anthology. For this episode, I also referred to Last Interview by David Sheff, a longform interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from shortly before Lennon's death; Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, an authorised biography of Paul McCartney; and Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. This time I also used Steve Turner's The Beatles: The Stories Behind the Songs 1967-1970. I referred to Philip Norman's biographies of John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney, to Graeme Thomson's biography of George Harrison, Take a Sad Song by James Campion, Yoko Ono: An Artful Life by Donald Brackett, Those Were the Days 2.0 by Stephan Granados, and Sound Pictures by Kenneth Womack. Sadly the only way to get the single mix of “Hey Jude” is on this ludicrously-expensive out-of-print box set, but a remixed stereo mix is easily available on the new reissue of the 1967-70 compilation. The original mixes of the White Album are also, shockingly, out of print, but this 2018 remix is available for the moment. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, a quick note -- this episode deals, among other topics, with child abandonment, spousal neglect, suicide attempts, miscarriage, rape accusations, and heroin addiction. If any of those topics are likely to upset you, you might want to check the transcript rather than listening to this episode. It also, for once, contains a short excerpt of an expletive, but given that that expletive in that context has been regularly played on daytime radio without complaint for over fifty years, I suspect it can be excused. The use of mantra meditation is something that exists across religions, and which appears to have been independently invented multiple times, in multiple cultures. In the Western culture to which most of my listeners belong, it is now best known as an aspect of what is known as "mindfulness", a secularised version of Buddhism which aims to provide adherents with the benefits of the teachings of the Buddha but without the cosmology to which they are attached. But it turns up in almost every religious tradition I know of in one form or another. The idea of mantra meditation is a very simple one, and one that even has some basis in science. There is a mathematical principle in neurology and information science called the free energy principle which says our brains are wired to try to minimise how surprised we are --  our brain is constantly making predictions about the world, and then looking at the results from our senses to see if they match. If they do, that's great, and the brain will happily move on to its next prediction. If they don't, the brain has to update its model of the world to match the new information, make new predictions, and see if those new predictions are a better match. Every person has a different mental model of the world, and none of them match reality, but every brain tries to get as close as possible. This updating of the model to match the new information is called "thinking", and it uses up energy, and our bodies and brains have evolved to conserve energy as much as possible. This means that for many people, most of the time, thinking is unpleasant, and indeed much of the time that people have spent thinking, they've been thinking about how to stop themselves having to do it at all, and when they have managed to stop thinking, however briefly, they've experienced great bliss. Many more or less effective technologies have been created to bring about a more minimal-energy state, including alcohol, heroin, and barbituates, but many of these have unwanted side-effects, such as death, which people also tend to want to avoid, and so people have often turned to another technology. It turns out that for many people, they can avoid thinking by simply thinking about something that is utterly predictable. If they minimise the amount of sensory input, and concentrate on something that they can predict exactly, eventually they can turn off their mind, relax, and float downstream, without dying. One easy way to do this is to close your eyes, so you can't see anything, make your breath as regular as possible, and then concentrate on a sound that repeats over and over.  If you repeat a single phrase or word a few hundred times, that regular repetition eventually causes your mind to stop having to keep track of the world, and experience a peace that is, by all accounts, unlike any other experience. What word or phrase that is can depend very much on the tradition. In Transcendental Meditation, each person has their own individual phrase. In the Catholicism in which George Harrison and Paul McCartney were raised, popular phrases for this are "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" or "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." In some branches of Buddhism, a popular mantra is "_NAMU MYŌHŌ RENGE KYŌ_". In the Hinduism to which George Harrison later converted, you can use "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare", "Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya" or "Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha". Those last two start with the syllable "Om", and indeed some people prefer to just use that syllable, repeating a single syllable over and over again until they reach a state of transcendence. [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hey Jude" ("na na na na na na na")] We don't know much about how the Beatles first discovered Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, except that it was thanks to Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's then-wife. Unfortunately, her memory of how she first became involved in the Maharishi's Spiritual Regeneration Movement, as described in her autobiography, doesn't fully line up with other known facts. She talks about reading about the Maharishi in the paper with her friend Marie-Lise while George was away on tour, but she also places the date that this happened in February 1967, several months after the Beatles had stopped touring forever. We'll be seeing a lot more of these timing discrepancies as this story progresses, and people's memories increasingly don't match the events that happened to them. Either way, it's clear that Pattie became involved in the Spiritual Regeneration Movement a good length of time before her husband did. She got him to go along with her to one of the Maharishi's lectures, after she had already been converted to the practice of Transcendental Meditation, and they brought along John, Paul, and their partners (Ringo's wife Maureen had just given birth, so they didn't come). As we heard back in episode one hundred and fifty, that lecture was impressive enough that the group, plus their wives and girlfriends (with the exception of Maureen Starkey) and Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, all went on a meditation retreat with the Maharishi at a holiday camp in Bangor, and it was there that they learned that Brian Epstein had been found dead. The death of the man who had guided the group's career could not have come at a worse time for the band's stability.  The group had only recorded one song in the preceding two months -- Paul's "Your Mother Should Know" -- and had basically been running on fumes since completing recording of Sgt Pepper many months earlier. John's drug intake had increased to the point that he was barely functional -- although with the enthusiasm of the newly converted he had decided to swear off LSD at the Maharishi's urging -- and his marriage was falling apart. Similarly, Paul McCartney's relationship with Jane Asher was in a bad state, though both men were trying to repair their damaged relationships, while both George and Ringo were having doubts about the band that had made them famous. In George's case, he was feeling marginalised by John and Paul, his songs ignored or paid cursory attention, and there was less for him to do on the records as the group moved away from making guitar-based rock and roll music into the stranger areas of psychedelia. And Ringo, whose main memory of the recording of Sgt Pepper was of learning to play chess while the others went through the extensive overdubs that characterised that album, was starting to feel like his playing was deteriorating, and that as the only non-writer in the band he was on the outside to an extent. On top of that, the group were in the middle of a major plan to restructure their business. As part of their contract renegotiations with EMI at the beginning of 1967, it had been agreed that they would receive two million pounds -- roughly fifteen million pounds in today's money -- in unpaid royalties as a lump sum. If that had been paid to them as individuals, or through the company they owned, the Beatles Ltd, they would have had to pay the full top rate of tax on it, which as George had complained the previous year was over ninety-five percent. (In fact, he'd been slightly exaggerating the generosity of the UK tax system to the rich, as at that point the top rate of income tax was somewhere around ninety-seven and a half percent). But happily for them, a couple of years earlier the UK had restructured its tax laws and introduced a corporation tax, which meant that the profits of corporations were no longer taxed at the same high rate as income. So a new company had been set up, The Beatles & Co, and all the group's non-songwriting income was paid into the company. Each Beatle owned five percent of the company, and the other eighty percent was owned by a new partnership, a corporation that was soon renamed Apple Corps -- a name inspired by a painting that McCartney had liked by the artist Rene Magritte. In the early stages of Apple, it was very entangled with Nems, the company that was owned by Brian and Clive Epstein, and which was in the process of being sold to Robert Stigwood, though that sale fell through after Brian's death. The first part of Apple, Apple Publishing, had been set up in the summer of 1967, and was run by Terry Doran, a friend of Epstein's who ran a motor dealership -- most of the Apple divisions would be run by friends of the group rather than by people with experience in the industries in question. As Apple was set up during the point that Stigwood was getting involved with NEMS, Apple Publishing's initial offices were in the same building with, and shared staff with, two publishing companies that Stigwood owned, Dratleaf Music, who published Cream's songs, and Abigail Music, the Bee Gees' publishers. And indeed the first two songs published by Apple were copyrights that were gifted to the company by Stigwood -- "Listen to the Sky", a B-side by an obscure band called Sands: [Excerpt: Sands, "Listen to the Sky"] And "Outside Woman Blues", an arrangement by Eric Clapton of an old blues song by Blind Joe Reynolds, which Cream had copyrighted separately and released on Disraeli Gears: [Excerpt: Cream, "Outside Woman Blues"] But Apple soon started signing outside songwriters -- once Mike Berry, a member of Apple Publishing's staff, had sat McCartney down and explained to him what music publishing actually was, something he had never actually understood even though he'd been a songwriter for five years. Those songwriters, given that this was 1967, were often also performers, and as Apple Records had not yet been set up, Apple would try to arrange recording contracts for them with other labels. They started with a group called Focal Point, who got signed by badgering Paul McCartney to listen to their songs until he gave them Doran's phone number to shut them up: [Excerpt: Focal Point, "Sycamore Sid"] But the big early hope for Apple Publishing was a songwriter called George Alexander. Alexander's birth name had been Alexander Young, and he was the brother of George Young, who was a member of the Australian beat group The Easybeats, who'd had a hit with "Friday on My Mind": [Excerpt: The Easybeats, "Friday on My Mind"] His younger brothers Malcolm and Angus would go on to have a few hits themselves, but AC/DC wouldn't be formed for another five years. Terry Doran thought that Alexander should be a member of a band, because bands were more popular than solo artists at the time, and so he was placed with three former members of Tony Rivers and the Castaways, a Beach Boys soundalike group that had had some minor success. John Lennon suggested that the group be named Grapefruit, after a book he was reading by a conceptual artist of his acquaintance named Yoko Ono, and as Doran was making arrangements with Terry Melcher for a reciprocal publishing deal by which Melcher's American company would publish Apple songs in the US while Apple published songs from Melcher's company in the UK, it made sense for Melcher to also produce Grapefruit's first single, "Dear Delilah": [Excerpt: Grapefruit, "Dear Delilah"] That made number twenty-one in the UK when it came out in early 1968, on the back of publicity about Grapefruit's connection with the Beatles, but future singles by the band were much less successful, and like several other acts involved with Apple, they found that they were more hampered by the Beatles connection than helped. A few other people were signed to Apple Publishing early on, of whom the most notable was Jackie Lomax. Lomax had been a member of a minor Merseybeat group, the Undertakers, and after they had split up, he'd been signed by Brian Epstein with a new group, the Lomax Alliance, who had released one single, "Try as You May": [Excerpt: The Lomax Alliance, "Try As You May"] After Epstein's death, Lomax had plans to join another band, being formed by another Merseybeat musician, Chris Curtis, the former drummer of the Searchers. But after going to the Beatles to talk with them about them helping the new group financially, Lomax was persuaded by John Lennon to go solo instead. He may later have regretted that decision, as by early 1968 the people that Curtis had recruited for his new band had ditched him and were making a name for themselves as Deep Purple. Lomax recorded one solo single with funding from Stigwood, a cover version of a song by an obscure singer-songwriter, Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life": [Excerpt: Jackie Lomax, "Genuine Imitation Life"] But he was also signed to Apple Publishing as a songwriter. The Beatles had only just started laying out plans for Apple when Epstein died, and other than the publishing company one of the few things they'd agreed on was that they were going to have a film company, which was to be run by Denis O'Dell, who had been an associate producer on A Hard Day's Night and on How I Won The War, the Richard Lester film Lennon had recently starred in. A few days after Epstein's death, they had a meeting, in which they agreed that the band needed to move forward quickly if they were going to recover from Epstein's death. They had originally been planning on going to India with the Maharishi to study meditation, but they decided to put that off until the new year, and to press forward with a film project Paul had been talking about, to be titled Magical Mystery Tour. And so, on the fifth of September 1967, they went back into the recording studio and started work on a song of John's that was earmarked for the film, "I am the Walrus": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] Magical Mystery Tour, the film, has a mixed reputation which we will talk about shortly, but one defence that Paul McCartney has always made of it is that it's the only place where you can see the Beatles performing "I am the Walrus". While the song was eventually relegated to a B-side, it's possibly the finest B-side of the Beatles' career, and one of the best tracks the group ever made. As with many of Lennon's songs from this period, the song was a collage of many different elements pulled from his environment and surroundings, and turned into something that was rather more than the sum of its parts. For its musical inspiration, Lennon pulled from, of all things, a police siren going past his house. (For those who are unfamiliar with what old British police sirens sounded like, as opposed to the ones in use for most of my lifetime or in other countries, here's a recording of one): [Excerpt: British police siren ca 1968] That inspired Lennon to write a snatch of lyric to go with the sound of the siren, starting "Mister city policeman sitting pretty". He had two other song fragments, one about sitting in the garden, and one about sitting on a cornflake, and he told Hunter Davies, who was doing interviews for his authorised biography of the group, “I don't know how it will all end up. Perhaps they'll turn out to be different parts of the same song.” But the final element that made these three disparate sections into a song was a letter that came from Stephen Bayley, a pupil at Lennon's old school Quarry Bank, who told him that the teachers at the school -- who Lennon always thought of as having suppressed his creativity -- were now analysing Beatles lyrics in their lessons. Lennon decided to come up with some nonsense that they couldn't analyse -- though as nonsensical as the finished song is, there's an underlying anger to a lot of it that possibly comes from Lennon thinking of his school experiences. And so Lennon asked his old schoolfriend Pete Shotton to remind him of a disgusting playground chant that kids used to sing in schools in the North West of England (and which they still sang with very minor variations at my own school decades later -- childhood folklore has a remarkably long life). That rhyme went: Yellow matter custard, green snot pie All mixed up with a dead dog's eye Slap it on a butty, nice and thick, And drink it down with a cup of cold sick Lennon combined some parts of this with half-remembered fragments of Lewis Carrol's The Walrus and the Carpenter, and with some punning references to things that were going on in his own life and those of his friends -- though it's difficult to know exactly which of the stories attached to some of the more incomprehensible bits of the lyrics are accurate. The story that the line "I am the eggman" is about a sexual proclivity of Eric Burdon of the Animals seems plausible, while the contention by some that the phrase "semolina pilchard" is a reference to Sgt Pilcher, the corrupt policeman who had arrested three of the Rolling Stones, and would later arrest Lennon, on drugs charges, seems less likely. The track is a masterpiece of production, but the release of the basic take on Anthology 2 in 1996 showed that the underlying performance, before George Martin worked his magic with the overdubs, is still a remarkable piece of work: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus (Anthology 2 version)"] But Martin's arrangement and production turned the track from a merely very good track into a masterpiece. The string arrangement, very much in the same mould as that for "Strawberry Fields Forever" but giving a very different effect with its harsh cello glissandi, is the kind of thing one expects from Martin, but there's also the chanting of the Mike Sammes Singers, who were more normally booked for sessions like Englebert Humperdinck's "The Last Waltz": [Excerpt: Engelbert Humperdinck, "The Last Waltz"] But here were instead asked to imitate the sound of the strings, make grunting noises, and generally go very far out of their normal comfort zone: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] But the most fascinating piece of production in the entire track is an idea that seems to have been inspired by people like John Cage -- a live feed of a radio being tuned was played into the mono mix from about the halfway point, and whatever was on the radio at the time was captured: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] This is also why for many decades it was impossible to have a true stereo mix of the track -- the radio part was mixed directly into the mono mix, and it wasn't until the 1990s that someone thought to track down a copy of the original radio broadcasts and recreate the process. In one of those bits of synchronicity that happen more often than you would think when you're creating aleatory art, and which are why that kind of process can be so appealing, one bit of dialogue from the broadcast of King Lear that was on the radio as the mixing was happening was *perfectly* timed: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] After completing work on the basic track for "I am the Walrus", the group worked on two more songs for the film, George's "Blue Jay Way" and a group-composed twelve-bar blues instrumental called "Flying", before starting production. Magical Mystery Tour, as an idea, was inspired in equal parts by Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, the collective of people we talked about in the episode on the Grateful Dead who travelled across the US extolling the virtues of psychedelic drugs, and by mystery tours, a British working-class tradition that has rather fallen out of fashion in the intervening decades. A mystery tour would generally be put on by a coach-hire company, and would be a day trip to an unannounced location -- though the location would in fact be very predictable, and would be a seaside town within a couple of hours' drive of its starting point. In the case of the ones the Beatles remembered from their own childhoods, this would be to a coastal town in Lancashire or Wales, like Blackpool, Rhyl, or Prestatyn. A coachload of people would pay to be driven to this random location, get very drunk and have a singsong on the bus, and spend a day wherever they were taken. McCartney's plan was simple -- they would gather a group of passengers and replicate this experience over the course of several days, and film whatever went on, but intersperse that with more planned out sketches and musical numbers. For this reason, along with the Beatles and their associates, the cast included some actors found through Spotlight and some of the group's favourite performers, like the comedian Nat Jackley (whose comedy sequence directed by John was cut from the final film) and the surrealist poet/singer/comedian Ivor Cutler: [Excerpt: Ivor Cutler, "I'm Going in a Field"] The film also featured an appearance by a new band who would go on to have great success over the next year, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. They had recorded their first single in Abbey Road at the same time as the Beatles were recording Revolver, but rather than being progressive psychedelic rock, it had been a remake of a 1920s novelty song: [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "My Brother Makes the Noises For the Talkies"] Their performance in Magical Mystery Tour was very different though -- they played a fifties rock pastiche written by band leaders Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes while a stripper took off her clothes. While several other musical sequences were recorded for the film, including one by the band Traffic and one by Cutler, other than the Beatles tracks only the Bonzos' song made it into the finished film: [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "Death Cab for Cutie"] That song, thirty years later, would give its name to a prominent American alternative rock band. Incidentally the same night that Magical Mystery Tour was first broadcast was also the night that the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band first appeared on a TV show, Do Not Adjust Your Set, which featured three future members of the Monty Python troupe -- Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones. Over the years the careers of the Bonzos, the Pythons, and the Beatles would become increasingly intertwined, with George Harrison in particular striking up strong friendships and working relationships with Bonzos Neil Innes and "Legs" Larry Smith. The filming of Magical Mystery Tour went about as well as one might expect from a film made by four directors, none of whom had any previous filmmaking experience, and none of whom had any business knowledge. The Beatles were used to just turning up and having things magically done for them by other people, and had no real idea of the infrastructure challenges that making a film, even a low-budget one, actually presents, and ended up causing a great deal of stress to almost everyone involved. The completed film was shown on TV on Boxing Day 1967 to general confusion and bemusement. It didn't help that it was originally broadcast in black and white, and so for example the scene showing shifting landscapes (outtake footage from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, tinted various psychedelic colours) over the "Flying" music, just looked like grey fuzz. But also, it just wasn't what people were expecting from a Beatles film. This was a ramshackle, plotless, thing more inspired by Andy Warhol's underground films than by the kind of thing the group had previously appeared in, and it was being presented as Christmas entertainment for all the family. And to be honest, it's not even a particularly good example of underground filmmaking -- though it looks like a masterpiece when placed next to something like the Bee Gees' similar effort, Cucumber Castle. But there are enough interesting sequences in there for the project not to be a complete failure -- and the deleted scenes on the DVD release, including the performances by Cutler and Traffic, and the fact that the film was edited down from ten hours to fifty-two minutes, makes one wonder if there's a better film that could be constructed from the original footage. Either way, the reaction to the film was so bad that McCartney actually appeared on David Frost's TV show the next day to defend it and, essentially, apologise. While they were editing the film, the group were also continuing to work in the studio, including on two new McCartney songs, "The Fool on the Hill", which was included in Magical Mystery Tour, and "Hello Goodbye", which wasn't included on the film's soundtrack but was released as the next single, with "I Am the Walrus" as the B-side: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hello Goodbye"] Incidentally, in the UK the soundtrack to Magical Mystery Tour was released as a double-EP rather than as an album (in the US, the group's recent singles and B-sides were added to turn it into a full-length album, which is how it's now generally available). "I Am the Walrus" was on the double-EP as well as being on the single's B-side, and the double-EP got to number two on the singles charts, meaning "I am the Walrus" was on the records at number one and number two at the same time. Before it became obvious that the film, if not the soundtrack, was a disaster, the group held a launch party on the twenty-first of December, 1967. The band members went along in fancy dress, as did many of the cast and crew -- the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performed at the party. Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys also turned up at the party, and apparently at one point jammed with the Bonzos, and according to some, but not all, reports, a couple of the Beatles joined in as well. Love and Johnston had both just met the Maharishi for the first time a couple of days earlier, and Love had been as impressed as the Beatles were, and it may have been at this party that the group mentioned to Love that they would soon be going on a retreat in India with the guru -- a retreat that was normally meant for training TM instructors, but this time seemed to be more about getting celebrities involved. Love would also end up going with them. That party was also the first time that Cynthia Lennon had an inkling that John might not be as faithful to her as she previously supposed. John had always "joked" about being attracted to George Harrison's wife, Patti, but this time he got a little more blatant about his attraction than he ever had previously, to the point that he made Cynthia cry, and Cynthia's friend, the pop star Lulu, decided to give Lennon a very public dressing-down for his cruelty to his wife, a dressing-down that must have been a sight to behold, as Lennon was dressed as a Teddy boy while Lulu was in a Shirley Temple costume. It's a sign of how bad the Lennons' marriage was at this point that this was the second time in a two-month period where Cynthia had ended up crying because of John at a film launch party and been comforted by a female pop star. In October, Cilla Black had held a party to celebrate the belated release of John's film How I Won the War, and during the party Georgie Fame had come up to Black and said, confused, "Cynthia Lennon is hiding in your wardrobe". Black went and had a look, and Cynthia explained to her “I'm waiting to see how long it is before John misses me and comes looking for me.” Black's response had been “You'd better face it, kid—he's never gonna come.” Also at the Magical Mystery Tour party was Lennon's father, now known as Freddie Lennon, and his new nineteen-year-old fiancee. While Hunter Davis had been researching the Beatles' biography, he'd come across some evidence that the version of Freddie's attitude towards John that his mother's side of the family had always told him -- that Freddie had been a cruel and uncaring husband who had not actually wanted to be around his son -- might not be the whole of the truth, and that the mother who he had thought of as saintly might also have had some part to play in their marriage breaking down and Freddie not seeing his son for twenty years. The two had made some tentative attempts at reconciliation, and indeed Freddie would even come and live with John for a while, though within a couple of years the younger Lennon's heart would fully harden against his father again. Of course, the things that John always resented his father for were pretty much exactly the kind of things that Lennon himself was about to do. It was around this time as well that Derek Taylor gave the Beatles copies of the debut album by a young singer/songwriter named Harry Nilsson. Nilsson will be getting his own episode down the line, but not for a couple of years at my current rates, so it's worth bringing that up here, because that album became a favourite of all the Beatles, and would have a huge influence on their songwriting for the next couple of years, and because one song on the album, "1941", must have resonated particularly deeply with Lennon right at this moment -- an autobiographical song by Nilsson about how his father had left him and his mother when he was a small boy, and about his own fear that, as his first marriage broke down, he was repeating the pattern with his stepson Scott: [Excerpt: Nilsson, "1941"] The other major event of December 1967, rather overshadowed by the Magical Mystery Tour disaster the next day, was that on Christmas Day Paul McCartney and Jane Asher announced their engagement. A few days later, George Harrison flew to India. After John and Paul had had their outside film projects -- John starring in How I Won The War and Paul doing the soundtrack for The Family Way -- the other two Beatles more or less simultaneously did their own side project films, and again one acted while the other did a soundtrack. Both of these projects were in the rather odd subgenre of psychedelic shambolic comedy film that sprang up in the mid sixties, a subgenre that produced a lot of fascinating films, though rather fewer good ones. Indeed, both of them were in the subsubgenre of shambolic psychedelic *sex* comedies. In Ringo's case, he had a small role in the film Candy, which was based on the novel we mentioned in the last episode, co-written by Terry Southern, which was in itself a loose modern rewriting of Voltaire's Candide. Unfortunately, like such other classics of this subgenre as Anthony Newley's Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, Candy has dated *extremely* badly, and unless you find repeated scenes of sexual assault and rape, ethnic stereotypes, and jokes about deformity and disfigurement to be an absolute laugh riot, it's not a film that's worth seeking out, and Starr's part in it is not a major one. Harrison's film was of the same basic genre -- a film called Wonderwall about a mad scientist who discovers a way to see through the walls of his apartment, and gets to see a photographer taking sexy photographs of a young woman named Penny Lane, played by Jane Birkin: [Excerpt: Some Wonderwall film dialogue ripped from the Blu-Ray] Wonderwall would, of course, later inspire the title of a song by Oasis, and that's what the film is now best known for, but it's a less-unwatchable film than Candy, and while still problematic it's less so. Which is something. Harrison had been the Beatle with least involvement in Magical Mystery Tour -- McCartney had been the de facto director, Starr had been the lead character and the only one with much in the way of any acting to do, and Lennon had written the film's standout scene and its best song, and had done a little voiceover narration. Harrison, by contrast, barely has anything to do in the film apart from the one song he contributed, "Blue Jay Way", and he said of the project “I had no idea what was happening and maybe I didn't pay enough attention because my problem, basically, was that I was in another world, I didn't really belong; I was just an appendage.” He'd expressed his discomfort to his friend Joe Massot, who was about to make his first feature film. Massot had got to know Harrison during the making of his previous film, Reflections on Love, a mostly-silent short which had starred Harrison's sister-in-law Jenny Boyd, and which had been photographed by Robert Freeman, who had been the photographer for the Beatles' album covers from With the Beatles through Rubber Soul, and who had taken most of the photos that Klaus Voorman incorporated into the cover of Revolver (and whose professional association with the Beatles seemed to come to an end around the same time he discovered that Lennon had been having an affair with his wife). Massot asked Harrison to write the music for the film, and told Harrison he would have complete free rein to make whatever music he wanted, so long as it fit the timing of the film, and so Harrison decided to create a mixture of Western rock music and the Indian music he loved. Harrison started recording the music at the tail end of 1967, with sessions with several London-based Indian musicians and John Barham, an orchestrator who had worked with Ravi Shankar on Shankar's collaborations with Western musicians, including the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack we talked about in the "All You Need is Love" episode. For the Western music, he used the Remo Four, a Merseybeat group who had been on the scene even before the Beatles, and which contained a couple of classmates of Paul McCartney, but who had mostly acted as backing musicians for other artists. They'd backed Johnny Sandon, the former singer with the Searchers, on a couple of singles, before becoming the backing band for Tommy Quickly, a NEMS artist who was unsuccessful despite starting his career with a Lennon/McCartney song, "Tip of My Tongue": [Excerpt: Tommy Quickly, "Tip of My Tongue"] The Remo Four would later, after a lineup change, become Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, who would become one-hit wonders in the seventies, and during the Wonderwall sessions they recorded a song that went unreleased at the time, and which would later go on to be rerecorded by Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke. "In the First Place" also features Harrison on backing vocals and possibly guitar, and was not submitted for the film because Harrison didn't believe that Massot wanted any vocal tracks, but the recording was later discovered and used in a revised director's cut of the film in the nineties: [Excerpt: The Remo Four, "In the First Place"] But for the most part the Remo Four were performing instrumentals written by Harrison. They weren't the only Western musicians performing on the sessions though -- Peter Tork of the Monkees dropped by these sessions and recorded several short banjo solos, which were used in the film soundtrack but not in the soundtrack album (presumably because Tork was contracted to another label): [Excerpt: Peter Tork, "Wonderwall banjo solo"] Another musician who was under contract to another label was Eric Clapton, who at the time was playing with The Cream, and who vaguely knew Harrison and so joined in for the track "Ski-ing", playing lead guitar under the cunning, impenetrable, pseudonym "Eddie Clayton", with Harrison on sitar, Starr on drums, and session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan on bass: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "Ski-ing"] But the bulk of the album was recorded in EMI's studios in the city that is now known as Mumbai but at the time was called Bombay. The studio facilities in India had up to that point only had a mono tape recorder, and Bhaskar Menon, one of the top executives at EMI's Indian division and later the head of EMI music worldwide, personally brought the first stereo tape recorder to the studio to aid in Harrison's recording. The music was all composed by Harrison and performed by the Indian musicians, and while Harrison was composing in an Indian mode, the musicians were apparently fascinated by how Western it sounded to them: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "Microbes"] While he was there, Harrison also got the instrumentalists to record another instrumental track, which wasn't to be used for the film: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "The Inner Light (instrumental)"] That track would, instead, become part of what was to be Harrison's first composition to make a side of a Beatles single. After John and George had appeared on the David Frost show talking about the Maharishi, in September 1967, George had met a lecturer in Sanskrit named Juan Mascaró, who wrote to Harrison enclosing a book he'd compiled of translations of religious texts, telling him he'd admired "Within You Without You" and thought it would be interesting if Harrison set something from the Tao Te Ching to music. He suggested a text that, in his translation, read: "Without going out of my door I can know all things on Earth Without looking out of my window I can know the ways of heaven For the farther one travels, the less one knows The sage, therefore Arrives without travelling Sees all without looking Does all without doing" Harrison took that text almost verbatim, though he created a second verse by repeating the first few lines with "you" replacing "I" -- concerned that listeners might think he was just talking about himself, and wouldn't realise it was a more general statement -- and he removed the "the sage, therefore" and turned the last few lines into imperative commands rather than declarative statements: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "The Inner Light"] The song has come in for some criticism over the years as being a little Orientalist, because in critics' eyes it combines Chinese philosophy with Indian music, as if all these things are equally "Eastern" and so all the same really. On the other hand there's a good argument that an English songwriter taking a piece of writing written in Chinese and translated into English by a Spanish man and setting it to music inspired by Indian musical modes is a wonderful example of cultural cross-pollination. As someone who's neither Chinese nor Indian I wouldn't want to take a stance on it, but clearly the other Beatles were impressed by it -- they put it out as the B-side to their next single, even though the only Beatles on it are Harrison and McCartney, with the latter adding a small amount of harmony vocal: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "The Inner Light"] And it wasn't because the group were out of material. They were planning on going to Rishikesh to study with the Maharishi, and wanted to get a single out for release while they were away, and so in one week they completed the vocal overdubs on "The Inner Light" and recorded three other songs, two by John and one by Paul. All three of the group's songwriters brought in songs that were among their best. John's first contribution was a song whose lyrics he later described as possibly the best he ever wrote, "Across the Universe". He said the lyrics were “purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don't own it, you know; it came through like that … Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It's not a matter of craftsmanship, it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed. I didn't want to write it … It's like being possessed, like a psychic or a medium.” But while Lennon liked the song, he was never happy with the recording of it. They tried all sorts of things to get the sound he heard in his head, including bringing in some fans who were hanging around outside to sing backing vocals. He said of the track "I was singing out of tune and instead of getting a decent choir, we got fans from outside, Apple Scruffs or whatever you call them. They came in and were singing all off-key. Nobody was interested in doing the tune originally.” [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] The "jai guru deva" chorus there is the first reference to the teachings of the Maharishi in one of the Beatles' records -- Guru Dev was the Maharishi's teacher, and the phrase "Jai guru dev" is a Sanskrit one which I've seen variously translated as "victory to the great teacher", and "hail to the greatness within you". Lennon would say shortly before his death “The Beatles didn't make a good record out of it. I think subconsciously sometimes we – I say ‘we' though I think Paul did it more than the rest of us – Paul would sort of subconsciously try and destroy a great song … Usually we'd spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul's songs, when it came to mine, especially if it was a great song like ‘Strawberry Fields' or ‘Across The Universe', somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in … It was a _lousy_ track of a great song and I was so disappointed by it …The guitars are out of tune and I'm singing out of tune because I'm psychologically destroyed and nobody's supporting me or helping me with it, and the song was never done properly.” Of course, this is only Lennon's perception, and it's one that the other participants would disagree with. George Martin, in particular, was always rather hurt by the implication that Lennon's songs had less attention paid to them, and he would always say that the problem was that Lennon in the studio would always say "yes, that's great", and only later complain that it hadn't been what he wanted. No doubt McCartney did put in more effort on his own songs than on Lennon's -- everyone has a bias towards their own work, and McCartney's only human -- but personally I suspect that a lot of the problem comes down to the two men having very different personalities. McCartney had very strong ideas about his own work and would drive the others insane with his nitpicky attention to detail. Lennon had similarly strong ideas, but didn't have the attention span to put the time and effort in to force his vision on others, and didn't have the technical knowledge to express his ideas in words they'd understand. He expected Martin and the other Beatles to work miracles, and they did -- but not the miracles he would have worked. That track was, rather than being chosen for the next single, given to Spike Milligan, who happened to be visiting the studio and was putting together an album for the environmental charity the World Wildlife Fund. The album was titled "No One's Gonna Change Our World": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] That track is historic in another way -- it would be the last time that George Harrison would play sitar on a Beatles record, and it effectively marks the end of the period of psychedelia and Indian influence that had started with "Norwegian Wood" three years earlier, and which many fans consider their most creative period. Indeed, shortly after the recording, Harrison would give up the sitar altogether and stop playing it. He loved sitar music as much as he ever had, and he still thought that Indian classical music spoke to him in ways he couldn't express, and he continued to be friends with Ravi Shankar for the rest of his life, and would only become more interested in Indian religious thought. But as he spent time with Shankar he realised he would never be as good on the sitar as he hoped. He said later "I thought, 'Well, maybe I'm better off being a pop singer-guitar-player-songwriter – whatever-I'm-supposed-to-be' because I've seen a thousand sitar-players in India who are twice as better as I'll ever be. And only one of them Ravi thought was going to be a good player." We don't have a precise date for when it happened -- I suspect it was in June 1968, so a few months after the "Across the Universe" recording -- but Shankar told Harrison that rather than try to become a master of a music that he hadn't encountered until his twenties, perhaps he should be making the music that was his own background. And as Harrison put it "I realised that was riding my bike down a street in Liverpool and hearing 'Heartbreak Hotel' coming out of someone's house.": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel"] In early 1968 a lot of people seemed to be thinking along the same lines, as if Christmas 1967 had been the flick of a switch and instead of whimsy and ornamentation, the thing to do was to make music that was influenced by early rock and roll. In the US the Band and Bob Dylan were making music that was consciously shorn of all studio experimentation, while in the UK there was a revival of fifties rock and roll. In April 1968 both "Peggy Sue" and "Rock Around the Clock" reentered the top forty in the UK, and the Who were regularly including "Summertime Blues" in their sets. Fifties nostalgia, which would make occasional comebacks for at least the next forty years, was in its first height, and so it's not surprising that Paul McCartney's song, "Lady Madonna", which became the A-side of the next single, has more than a little of the fifties about it. Of course, the track isn't *completely* fifties in its origins -- one of the inspirations for the track seems to have been the Rolling Stones' then-recent hit "Let's Spend The Night Together": [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Let's Spend the Night Together"] But the main source for the song's music -- and for the sound of the finished record -- seems to have been Johnny Parker's piano part on Humphrey Lyttleton's "Bad Penny Blues", a hit single engineered by Joe Meek in the fifties: [Excerpt: Humphrey Lyttleton, "Bad Penny Blues"] That song seems to have been on the group's mind for a while, as a working title for "With a Little Help From My Friends" had at one point been "Bad Finger Blues" -- a title that would later give the name to a band on Apple. McCartney took Parker's piano part as his inspiration, and as he later put it “‘Lady Madonna' was me sitting down at the piano trying to write a bluesy boogie-woogie thing. I got my left hand doing an arpeggio thing with the chord, an ascending boogie-woogie left hand, then a descending right hand. I always liked that, the  juxtaposition of a line going down meeting a line going up." [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Lady Madonna"] That idea, incidentally, is an interesting reversal of what McCartney had done on "Hello, Goodbye", where the bass line goes down while the guitar moves up -- the two lines moving away from each other: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hello Goodbye"] Though that isn't to say there's no descending bass in "Lady Madonna" -- the bridge has a wonderful sequence where the bass just *keeps* *descending*: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Lady Madonna"] Lyrically, McCartney was inspired by a photo in National Geographic of a woman in Malaysia, captioned “Mountain Madonna: with one child at her breast and another laughing into her face, sees her quality of life threatened.” But as he put it “The people I was brought up amongst were often Catholic; there are lots of Catholics in Liverpool because of the Irish connection and they are often religious. When they have a baby I think they see a big connection between themselves and the Virgin Mary with her baby. So the original concept was the Virgin Mary but it quickly became symbolic of every woman; the Madonna image but as applied to ordinary working class woman. It's really a tribute to the mother figure, it's a tribute to women.” Musically though, the song was more a tribute to the fifties -- while the inspiration had been a skiffle hit by Humphrey Lyttleton, as soon as McCartney started playing it he'd thought of Fats Domino, and the lyric reflects that to an extent -- just as Domino's "Blue Monday" details the days of the week for a weary working man who only gets to enjoy himself on Saturday night, "Lady Madonna"'s lyrics similarly look at the work a mother has to do every day -- though as McCartney later noted  "I was writing the words out to learn it for an American TV show and I realised I missed out Saturday ... So I figured it must have been a real night out." The vocal was very much McCartney doing a Domino impression -- something that wasn't lost on Fats, who cut his own version of the track later that year: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, "Lady Madonna"] The group were so productive at this point, right before the journey to India, that they actually cut another song *while they were making a video for "Lady Madonna"*. They were booked into Abbey Road to film themselves performing the song so it could be played on Top of the Pops while they were away, but instead they decided to use the time to cut a new song -- John had a partially-written song, "Hey Bullfrog", which was roughly the same tempo as "Lady Madonna", so they could finish that up and then re-edit the footage to match the record. The song was quickly finished and became "Hey Bulldog": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hey Bulldog"] One of Lennon's best songs from this period, "Hey Bulldog" was oddly chosen only to go on the soundtrack of Yellow Submarine. Either the band didn't think much of it because it had come so easily, or it was just assigned to the film because they were planning on being away for several months and didn't have any other projects they were working on. The extent of the group's contribution to the film was minimal – they were not very hands-on, and the film, which was mostly done as an attempt to provide a third feature film for their United Artists contract without them having to do any work, was made by the team that had done the Beatles cartoon on American TV. There's some evidence that they had a small amount of input in the early story stages, but in general they saw the cartoon as an irrelevance to them -- the only things they contributed were the four songs "All Together Now", "It's All Too Much", "Hey Bulldog" and "Only a Northern Song", and a brief filmed appearance for the very end of the film, recorded in January: [Excerpt: Yellow Submarine film end] McCartney also took part in yet another session in early February 1968, one produced by Peter Asher, his fiancee's brother, and former singer with Peter and Gordon. Asher had given up on being a pop star and was trying to get into the business side of music, and he was starting out as a producer, producing a single by Paul Jones, the former lead singer of Manfred Mann. The A-side of the single, "And the Sun Will Shine", was written by the Bee Gees, the band that Robert Stigwood was managing: [Excerpt: Paul Jones, "And the Sun Will Shine"] While the B-side was an original by Jones, "The Dog Presides": [Excerpt: Paul Jones, "The Dog Presides"] Those tracks featured two former members of the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith, on guitar and bass, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. Asher asked McCartney to play drums on both sides of the single, saying later "I always thought he was a great, underrated drummer." McCartney was impressed by Asher's production, and asked him to get involved with the new Apple Records label that would be set up when the group returned from India. Asher eventually became head of A&R for the label. And even before "Lady Madonna" was mixed, the Beatles were off to India. Mal Evans, their roadie, went ahead with all their luggage on the fourteenth of February, so he could sort out transport for them on the other end, and then John and George followed on the fifteenth, with their wives Pattie and Cynthia and Pattie's sister Jenny (John and Cynthia's son Julian had been left with his grandmother while they went -- normally Cynthia wouldn't abandon Julian for an extended period of time, but she saw the trip as a way to repair their strained marriage). Paul and Ringo followed four days later, with Ringo's wife Maureen and Paul's fiancee Jane Asher. The retreat in Rishikesh was to become something of a celebrity affair. Along with the Beatles came their friend the singer-songwriter Donovan, and Donovan's friend and songwriting partner, whose name I'm not going to say here because it's a slur for Romani people, but will be known to any Donovan fans. Donovan at this point was also going through changes. Like the Beatles, he was largely turning away from drug use and towards meditation, and had recently written his hit single "There is a Mountain" based around a saying from Zen Buddhism: [Excerpt: Donovan, "There is a Mountain"] That was from his double-album A Gift From a Flower to a Garden, which had come out in December 1967. But also like John and Paul he was in the middle of the breakdown of a long-term relationship, and while he would remain with his then-partner until 1970, and even have another child with her, he was secretly in love with another woman. In fact he was secretly in love with two other women. One of them, Brian Jones' ex-girlfriend Linda, had moved to LA, become the partner of the singer Gram Parsons, and had appeared in the documentary You Are What You Eat with the Band and Tiny Tim. She had fallen out of touch with Donovan, though she would later become his wife. Incidentally, she had a son to Brian Jones who had been abandoned by his rock-star father -- the son's name is Julian. The other woman with whom Donovan was in love was Jenny Boyd, the sister of George Harrison's wife Pattie.  Jenny at the time was in a relationship with Alexis Mardas, a TV repairman and huckster who presented himself as an electronics genius to the Beatles, who nicknamed him Magic Alex, and so she was unavailable, but Donovan had written a song about her, released as a single just before they all went to Rishikesh: [Excerpt: Donovan, "Jennifer Juniper"] Donovan considered himself and George Harrison to be on similar spiritual paths and called Harrison his "spirit-brother", though Donovan was more interested in Buddhism, which Harrison considered a corruption of the more ancient Hinduism, and Harrison encouraged Donovan to read Autobiography of a Yogi. It's perhaps worth noting that Donovan's father had a different take on the subject though, saying "You're not going to study meditation in India, son, you're following that wee lassie Jenny" Donovan and his friend weren't the only other celebrities to come to Rishikesh. The actor Mia Farrow, who had just been through a painful divorce from Frank Sinatra, and had just made Rosemary's Baby, a horror film directed by Roman Polanski with exteriors shot at the Dakota building in New York, arrived with her sister Prudence. Also on the trip was Paul Horn, a jazz saxophonist who had played with many of the greats of jazz, not least of them Duke Ellington, whose Sweet Thursday Horn had played alto sax on: [Excerpt: Duke Ellington, "Zweet Zursday"] Horn was another musician who had been inspired to investigate Indian spirituality and music simultaneously, and the previous year he had recorded an album, "In India," of adaptations of ragas, with Ravi Shankar and Alauddin Khan: [Excerpt: Paul Horn, "Raga Vibhas"] Horn would go on to become one of the pioneers of what would later be termed "New Age" music, combining jazz with music from various non-Western traditions. Horn had also worked as a session musician, and one of the tracks he'd played on was "I Know There's an Answer" from the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "I Know There's an Answer"] Mike Love, who co-wrote that track and is one of the lead singers on it, was also in Rishikesh. While as we'll see not all of the celebrities on the trip would remain practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, Love would be profoundly affected by the trip, and remains a vocal proponent of TM to this day. Indeed, his whole band at the time were heavily into TM. While Love was in India, the other Beach Boys were working on the Friends album without him -- Love only appears on four tracks on that album -- and one of the tracks they recorded in his absence was titled "Transcendental Meditation": [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Transcendental Meditation"] But the trip would affect Love's songwriting, as it would affect all of the musicians there. One of the few songs on the Friends album on which Love appears is "Anna Lee, the Healer", a song which is lyrically inspired by the trip in the most literal sense, as it's about a masseuse Love met in Rishikesh: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Anna Lee, the Healer"] The musicians in the group all influenced and inspired each other as is likely to happen in such circumstances. Sometimes, it would be a matter of trivial joking, as when the Beatles decided to perform an off-the-cuff song about Guru Dev, and did it in the Beach Boys style: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Spiritual Regeneration"] And that turned partway through into a celebration of Love for his birthday: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Spiritual Regeneration"] Decades later, Love would return the favour, writing a song about Harrison and their time together in Rishikesh. Like Donovan, Love seems to have considered Harrison his "spiritual brother", and he titled the song "Pisces Brothers": [Excerpt: Mike Love, "Pisces Brothers"] The musicians on the trip were also often making suggestions to each other about songs that would become famous for them. The musicians had all brought acoustic guitars, apart obviously from Ringo, who got a set of tabla drums when George ordered some Indian instruments to be delivered. George got a sitar, as at this point he hadn't quite given up on the instrument, and he gave Donovan a tamboura. Donovan started playing a melody on the tamboura, which is normally a drone instrument, inspired by the Scottish folk music he had grown up with, and that became his "Hurdy-Gurdy Man": [Excerpt: Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man"] Harrison actually helped him with the song, writing a final verse inspired by the Maharishi's teachings, but in the studio Donovan's producer Mickie Most told him to cut the verse because the song was overlong, which apparently annoyed Harrison. Donovan includes that verse in his live performances of the song though -- usually while doing a fairly terrible impersonation of Harrison: [Excerpt: Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man (live)"] And similarly, while McCartney was working on a song pastiching Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys, but singing about the USSR rather than the USA, Love suggested to him that for a middle-eight he might want to sing about the girls in the various Soviet regions: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Back in the USSR"] As all the guitarists on the retreat only had acoustic instruments, they were very keen to improve their acoustic playing, and they turned to Donovan, who unlike the rest of them was primarily an acoustic player, and one from a folk background. Donovan taught them the rudiments of Travis picking, the guitar style we talked about way back in the episodes on the Everly Brothers, as well as some of the tunings that had been introduced to British folk music by Davey Graham, giving them a basic grounding in the principles of English folk-baroque guitar, a style that had developed over the previous few years. Donovan has said in his autobiography that Lennon picked the technique up quickly (and that Harrison had already learned Travis picking from Chet Atkins records) but that McCartney didn't have the application to learn the style, though he picked up bits. That seems very unlike anything else I've read anywhere about Lennon and McCartney -- no-one has ever accused Lennon of having a surfeit of application -- and reading Donovan's book he seems to dislike McCartney and like Lennon and Harrison, so possibly that enters into it. But also, it may just be that Lennon was more receptive to Donovan's style at the time. According to McCartney, even before going to Rishikesh Lennon had been in a vaguely folk-music and country mode, and the small number of tapes he'd brought with him to Rishikesh included Buddy Holly, Dylan, and the progressive folk band The Incredible String Band, whose music would be a big influence on both Lennon and McCartney for the next year: [Excerpt: The Incredible String Band, "First Girl I Loved"] According to McCartney Lennon also brought "a tape the singer Jake Thackray had done for him... He was one of the people we bumped into at Abbey Road. John liked his stuff, which he'd heard on television. Lots of wordplay and very suggestive, so very much up John's alley. I was fascinated by his unusual guitar style. John did ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun' as a Jake Thackray thing at one point, as I recall.” Thackray was a British chansonnier, who sang sweetly poignant but also often filthy songs about Yorkshire life, and his humour in particular will have appealed to Lennon. There's a story of Lennon meeting Thackray in Abbey Road and singing the whole of Thackray's song "The Statues", about two drunk men fighting a male statue to defend the honour of a female statue, to him: [Excerpt: Jake Thackray, "The Statues"] Given this was the music that Lennon was listening to, it's unsurprising that he was more receptive to Donovan's lessons, and the new guitar style he learned allowed him to expand his songwriting, at precisely the same time he was largely clean of drugs for the first time in several years, and he started writing some of the best songs he would ever write, often using these new styles: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Julia"] That song is about Lennon's dead mother -- the first time he ever addressed her directly in a song, though  it would be far from the last -- but it's also about someone else. That phrase "Ocean child" is a direct translation of the Japanese name "Yoko". We've talked about Yoko Ono a bit in recent episodes, and even briefly in a previous Beatles episode, but it's here that she really enters the story of the Beatles. Unfortunately, exactly *how* her relationship with John Lennon, which was to become one of the great legendary love stories in rock and roll history, actually started is the subject of some debate. Both of them were married when they first got together, and there have also been suggestions that Ono was more interested in McCartney than in Lennon at first -- suggestions which everyone involved has denied, and those denials have the ring of truth about them, but if that was the case it would also explain some of Lennon's more perplexing behaviour over the next year. By all accounts there was a certain amount of finessing of the story th

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woodstock cream carpenter spotlight pink floyd jamaican catholics temptations catholicism circles johnston rolls mumbai no time gardner domino mother nature goodnight ac dc pops stanley kubrick yogi aquarius j'ai mister yorkshire jimi hendrix monty python warner brothers scientology beach boys delhi andy warhol angus boxing day autobiographies beaver heartbeat esquire grateful dead ussr i love you cox nevermind pisces mick jagger alice in wonderland anthology hinduism eric clapton heinz statues rolls royce townsend capricorn ravi ski george harrison sanskrit pretenders nina simone rockefeller virgin mary pulp blackbird tilt bee gees general electric peers tm first place mccartney monterey ringo starr bottoms fats yoko ono ringo sex pistols bombay emi glass onion voltaire chuck berry krause blackpool beatle tramp monkees revolver ella fitzgerald roman polanski deep purple strangelove lancashire partly abbey road walrus blue monday cutler kurt vonnegut duke ellington spiritualism bohemian jeff beck nilsson buddy holly john smith prosperity gospel royal albert hall inxs hard days trident romani grapefruit farrow robert kennedy musically gregorian transcendental meditation in india bangor king lear doran john cage i ching sardinia american tv spaniard capitol records shankar brian jones lute dyke new thought inner light tao te ching ono moog richard harris searchers opportunity knocks roxy music tiny tim peter sellers clapton george martin cantata shirley temple white album beatlemania hey jude all you need lomax helter skelter world wildlife fund moody blues got something death cab wonderwall wrecking crew terry jones mia farrow yellow submarine yardbirds not guilty fab five harry nilsson ibsen rishikesh everly brothers pet sounds focal point class b gimme shelter chris thomas sgt pepper pythons bollocks marianne faithfull twiggy penny lane paul jones fats domino mike love marcel duchamp eric idle michael palin fifties schenectady magical mystery tour wilson pickett ravi shankar castaways hellogoodbye across the universe manfred mann ken kesey schoenberg united artists gram parsons toshi christian science ornette coleman psychedelic experiences maharishi mahesh yogi all together now maharishi rubber soul david frost sarah lawrence chet atkins brian epstein eric burdon kenwood summertime blues orientalist strawberry fields kevin moore cilla black chris curtis melcher richard lester anna lee pilcher piggies undertakers dear prudence duane allman you are what you eat fluxus micky dolenz lennon mccartney scarsdale george young sad song strawberry fields forever norwegian wood emerick peggy sue nems steve turner spike milligan hubert humphrey soft machine plastic ono band kyoko apple records peter tork tork macarthur park tomorrow never knows hopkin rock around derek taylor peggy guggenheim parlophone lewis carrol ken scott mike berry gettys holy mary bramwell merry pranksters easybeats pattie boyd peter asher hoylake richard hamilton vichy france brand new bag neil innes beatles white album find true happiness anthony newley rocky raccoon tony cox joe meek jane asher georgie fame jimmy scott richard perry webern john wesley harding esher massot ian macdonald david sheff french indochina geoff emerick incredible string band warm gun merseybeat bernie krause la monte young do unto others lady madonna bruce johnston sexy sadie mark lewisohn apple corps lennons paul horn sammy cahn kenneth womack rene magritte little help from my friends northern songs music from big pink hey bulldog mary hopkin rhyl bonzo dog doo dah band englebert humperdinck philip norman robert freeman stuart sutcliffe robert stigwood thackray hurdy gurdy man two virgins david maysles jenny boyd cynthia lennon those were stalinists jean jacques perrey hunter davies dave bartholomew terry melcher terry southern honey pie prestatyn marie lise magic alex i know there david tudor george alexander om gam ganapataye namaha james campion electronic sound martha my dear bungalow bill graeme thomson john dunbar my monkey stephen bayley barry miles klaus voorman mickie most jake holmes gershon kingsley blue jay way jackie lomax your mother should know how i won in george hare krishna hare krishna jake thackray krishna krishna hare hare get you into my life davey graham tony rivers hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare tilt araiza
Hard Rocking Trivia Show
Hard Rocking Trivia Show #240

Hard Rocking Trivia Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2023 37:32


The world's longest Rock trivia podcast broadcasting from two separate states in North America. On this episode we play the following bits: Intellectual Poetry, Rapid Fire, and Cover This. Artist mentioned in this episode: AC/DC, Devo, Scorpions, Ozzy Osbourne, Joan Jett, 38 Special, Dokken, The Easybeats, and many, many more. Please go to Spotify and like our various playlists.Hairnation Xtra, HRTS Rock Playlist, Hard Rocking 70's, and Hard Rocking 80's.

Singles Going Around
Singles Going Around- The Everlasting Now (The Sixties on 45rpm)

Singles Going Around

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2023 63:11


Singles Going Around- The Everlasting Now (The Sixties on 45rpm)The heat is on! And with this episode we are staying cool with some great tracks from the sixties!The Anglos- "Incense"The Chiffons- "Nobody Knows What's Going On"The Leaves- "Too Many People"The Spades- "We Sell Soul"Ray Sharpe with The King Curtis Orchestra- "Help Me (Get The Feeling) Pt. 1The Freaks Of Nature- "People! Let's Freak Out"The Action- "Never Ever"The Third Bardo- "I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time"The Picadilly Line- "At The Third Stroke"The Easybeats- "The Music Goes Round My Head"The French Fries- "Danse A La Musique"Aretha Franklin- "I Say A Little Prayer"Kak- "Rain"The Everly Brothers- "Lord of the Manor"Savoy Brown- "Train To Nowhere"The Pretty Things- "London Town"Donovan- "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)"The Wheel-A-Ways- "Bad Little Woman"The Seeds- "The Other Place"Gladys Knight & The Pips- "Take Me In Your Arms & Love Me"Sharon Tandy- "Hold On"The Kinks- "Wonderboy"*All selections taken from XXQLP2 060This podcast is also available on Apple podcasts.

Gavin Wood's Countdown Podcast
Bill Armstrong Part Two - Gavin Woods Podcast Bonus

Gavin Wood's Countdown Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 6, 2023 17:37


Bill Armstrong - Legendary Music Producer was born  in 1929.   The Melbourne audio technician-turned-producer has been at the forefront of the local music industry for more than 60 years.   In the mid-50s, Armstrong was working as a "balance officer" at ABC Radio, producing live-to-air programs, outside broadcasts and variety shows and working with the likes of Graham Kennedy. In 1956, he was charged with overseeing the PA system at the main stadium of the Melbourne Olympic Games.   In 1965, Armstrong opened his own studio in a small terrace house in Albert Rd, South Melbourne. One of the first pop recordings made there was the backing track for The Easybeats' 1965 breakthrough hit "She's So Fine", which was overseen by British-born engineer Roger Savage.   Over the next few years the studios  expanded into six adjoining properties, including four studios equipped with 4-track machines. In 1968 Armstrong installed one of the first 8-track recorders in Australia, followed by 16 and then 24-track machines, together with state-of-the-art mixing desks in the early '70s. During this time, many of Australia's most distinguished producers and engineers worked there. The original engineering team were Roger Savage, Allan Pay and Philip Webster. Armstrong's studios soon overtook two other major studios in Australia at the time - the EMI and Festival Records facilities in Sydney - to become the most sought-after recording venue in the country, and the "engine room" of Australian pop and rock recording. Many of the most popular and successful Australian recordings from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s were made there, including hit albums and singles by The Masters Apprentices, The Twilights, The Groove, The Groop, Zoot, The Aztecs, Russell Morris, Brian Cadd, Daddy Cool, Franciscus Henri, Hans Poulsen, Spectrum, John Farnham, Skyhooks, Little River Band, The Sports, Models and many others. Many famous overseas artists also recorded there while visiting Australia, including Earl Hines, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, and Stephane Grapelli.[2]   Armstrong left the company in 1977 and stuck with the music industry, working as the manager of SBS Radio in Sydney and Melbourne before establishing the first commercial FM radio station in 1980, EON FM, now Triple M. His contribution to the industry has been well recognised – an ARIA for Lifetime contribution to the Australian Music Industry, the Advance Australia Award for outstanding contribution to the industry and commerce, an APRA for Outstanding Contribution to the music industry and the National Film and Sound Archive's Cochrane-Smith award for his contribution to Sound Heritage, among them.

The Face Radio
Blow Up // 02-07-23

The Face Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2023 119:45


Matt & Rich return for 2 hours of banging ska, 60s r&b, soul and garage.We've got some 60s Australian gems plus a sprinkling of gospel and jazz. Featuring music from The Easybeats, Barbara Lynn, Hank Jacobs and The Yardbirds.Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up, Sunday from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.For more info visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up///Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gavin Wood's Countdown Podcast
Bill Armstrong Part One - Gavin Woods Podcast Bonus

Gavin Wood's Countdown Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2023 22:07


Bill Armstrong - Legendary Music Producer was born  in 1929.   The Melbourne audio technician-turned-producer has been at the forefront of the local music industry for more than 60 years.   In the mid-50s, Armstrong was working as a "balance officer" at ABC Radio, producing live-to-air programs, outside broadcasts and variety shows and working with the likes of Graham Kennedy. In 1956, he was charged with overseeing the PA system at the main stadium of the Melbourne Olympic Games.   In 1965, Armstrong opened his own studio in a small terrace house in Albert Rd, South Melbourne. One of the first pop recordings made there was the backing track for The Easybeats' 1965 breakthrough hit "She's So Fine", which was overseen by British-born engineer Roger Savage.   Over the next few years the studios  expanded into six adjoining properties, including four studios equipped with 4-track machines. In 1968 Armstrong installed one of the first 8-track recorders in Australia, followed by 16 and then 24-track machines, together with state-of-the-art mixing desks in the early '70s. During this time, many of Australia's most distinguished producers and engineers worked there. The original engineering team were Roger Savage, Allan Pay and Philip Webster. Armstrong's studios soon overtook two other major studios in Australia at the time - the EMI and Festival Records facilities in Sydney - to become the most sought-after recording venue in the country, and the "engine room" of Australian pop and rock recording. Many of the most popular and successful Australian recordings from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s were made there, including hit albums and singles by The Masters Apprentices, The Twilights, The Groove, The Groop, Zoot, The Aztecs, Russell Morris, Brian Cadd, Daddy Cool, Franciscus Henri, Hans Poulsen, Spectrum, John Farnham, Skyhooks, Little River Band, The Sports, Models and many others. Many famous overseas artists also recorded there while visiting Australia, including Earl Hines, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, and Stephane Grapelli.[2]   Armstrong left the company in 1977 and stuck with the music industry, working as the manager of SBS Radio in Sydney and Melbourne before establishing the first commercial FM radio station in 1980, EON FM, now Triple M. His contribution to the industry has been well recognised – an ARIA for Lifetime contribution to the Australian Music Industry, the Advance Australia Award for outstanding contribution to the industry and commerce, an APRA for Outstanding Contribution to the music industry and the National Film and Sound Archive's Cochrane-Smith award for his contribution to Sound Heritage, among them.

Paisley Stage, Raspberry & Rhyme
Episode #187: Crossover Episode with the JFJ Conspiracy Podcast-The Easybeats, ”Volume 3”

Paisley Stage, Raspberry & Rhyme

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2023 43:11


On this episode, Jeff and Soraya continue their crossover episode with Frank, Jim, and Jerry of the JFJ Conspiracy Podcast to discuss The Easybeats, "Volume 3".

The Face Radio
Blow Up // 07-05-23

The Face Radio

Play Episode Listen Later May 7, 2023 119:45


This week Rich & Matt feature some of the tracks that filled the dancefloor at our recent Blow Up night. Tune in to hear The Who, Spencer Davis, The Easybeats and The Supremes. Plus we have another fantastic Catalan Connection from Fidel Socias Sanchez in Barcelona.Tune into new broadcasts of Blow-Up, Sunday from 8 - 10 AM EST / 1 PM - 3 PM GMT, in association with Brisbane's 4ZZZ.For more info visit: https://thefaceradio.com/blow-up///Dig this show? Please consider supporting The Face Radio: http://support.thefaceradio.com Support The Face Radio with PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/thefaceradio. Join the family at https://plus.acast.com/s/thefaceradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rock N Roll Pantheon
Love That Album Podcast - The Easybeats "Absolute Anthology 1965 to 1969"

Rock N Roll Pantheon

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2023 168:41


Easybeats April continues at LTA HQ. Welcome to episode 165 of Love That Album. On the last episode, I spoke with author Jeff Apter about his book Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young. His book looks at Young as musician with The Easybeats, and Young as songwriter and producer for Alberts Productions after the band broke up. This time around, I am joined by host of Let It Roll podcast, “Kid” Nathan Wilcox to discuss the actual music of The Easybeats. Of course as in any of these shows, we had digressions to talk about the band's history, art versus commercial reality, and much conjecture as to why the band didn't translate to Beatlesque levels of popularity outside of Australia beyond THAT one hit single. Rather than discuss a specific album of the Easybeats catalogue, Nate and I selected 5 songs each from the excellent Glenn A. Baker double LP compilation from 1980, "Absolute Anthology 1965 to 1969". We discussed the songs in order (mostly) of release to present an arc of the band that went from recording songs in a rock and roll vein, to one that became more experimental with their sounds to one that returned back to their rock and roll roots by the end. In discussing these songs, Nate and I try to make sense of their development. I had an absolute blast recording this episode and I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. Let It Roll (also part of the Pantheon family) is dedicated to the discussion of recorded music history via conversations with authors of music related books. At two episodes per week, the number of books Nate reads and researches is staggering. The subject matter is diverse – Bob Marley, the Brill Building, Texas gospel, and the mob's involvement in the music business are just skimming the surface of what's offered in Let It Roll. Give Nate's show your attention. Get episodes from your favourite podcast app or at https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/letitroll If that's not enough, he's also the head honcho at http://BloodyElbow.com, a website dedicated to martial arts and boxing journalism. Download this episode of LTA from your podcast app of choice. The wider back catalogue of episodes can also be found at http://lovethatalbumpodcast.blogspot.com Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to http://pantheonpodcasts.com to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum Proudly Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Love That Album
Love That Album Podcast 165 - The Easybeats "Absolute Anthology 1965 to 1969"

Love That Album

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2023 168:41


Easybeats April continues at LTA HQ. Welcome to episode 165 of Love That Album. On the last episode, I spoke with author Jeff Apter about his book Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young. His book looks at Young as musician with The Easybeats, and Young as songwriter and producer for Alberts Productions after the band broke up. This time around, I am joined by host of Let It Roll podcast, “Kid” Nathan Wilcox to discuss the actual music of The Easybeats. Of course as in any of these shows, we had digressions to talk about the band's history, art versus commercial reality, and much conjecture as to why the band didn't translate to Beatlesque levels of popularity outside of Australia beyond THAT one hit single. Rather than discuss a specific album of the Easybeats catalogue, Nate and I selected 5 songs each from the excellent Glenn A. Baker double LP compilation from 1980, "Absolute Anthology 1965 to 1969". We discussed the songs in order (mostly) of release to present an arc of the band that went from recording songs in a rock and roll vein, to one that became more experimental with their sounds to one that returned back to their rock and roll roots by the end. In discussing these songs, Nate and I try to make sense of their development. I had an absolute blast recording this episode and I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. Let It Roll (also part of the Pantheon family) is dedicated to the discussion of recorded music history via conversations with authors of music related books. At two episodes per week, the number of books Nate reads and researches is staggering. The subject matter is diverse – Bob Marley, the Brill Building, Texas gospel, and the mob's involvement in the music business are just skimming the surface of what's offered in Let It Roll. Give Nate's show your attention. Get episodes from your favourite podcast app or at https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/letitroll If that's not enough, he's also the head honcho at http://BloodyElbow.com, a website dedicated to martial arts and boxing journalism. Download this episode of LTA from your podcast app of choice. The wider back catalogue of episodes can also be found at http://lovethatalbumpodcast.blogspot.com Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to http://pantheonpodcasts.com to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum Proudly Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rock N Roll Pantheon
Love That Album Episode 164 - Interview with Jeff Apter about "Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young"

Rock N Roll Pantheon

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2023 67:28


Ask any Australian rock fan who is the greatest Australian performer or band over the history of the last 70 odd years and you'll get a multitude of answers (as you would anywhere). It's a subjective question and there are generational factors to be taken into account. However, an Australian Performing Rights Association panel declared “Friday On My Mind” by The Easybeats to be the greatest Australian song ever. That's gotta put The Easybeats somewhere in the pantheon of the greats, right? Welcome to episode 164 of Love That Album. The history of pop music is littered with artists who if lucky enough to achieve popularity and acclaim for their work have a limited shelf life before audiences and critics move onto the next thing. It's extremely rare for a musician or group to get a second wind. Harry Vanda and George Young are in that rare company. First finding Beatlesque levels of popularity in the Southern Hemisphere with The Easybeats, and then becoming songwriters and producers for other successful acts within the Alberts Productions “House of Hits” including George's kid brothers' band..... I welcome back to the podcast biographer, Jeff Apter to discuss his book “Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young”. It's a terrific read that looks at George's life as an immigrant from Scotland to the outskirts of Sydney and being determined to make it as a rock and roll musician. We discuss The Easybeats success and poor management, his advice to younger brothers Malcolm and Angus, Vanda and Young's second apprenticeship with “fake” bands, the tragedy of Stevie Wright post Easybeats and the empire Vanda and Young built. My huge thanks to Jeff for coming back to the show. You can order his multitude of biographies on Australian musicians from http://jeffapter.com.au. Part 2 of this special is coming in a week or so and will be a discussion with Nathan Wilcox of the Let It Roll Podcast about The Easybeats Absolute Anthology 1965 to 1969. Download this episode of LTA from your podcast app of choice. The wider back catalogue of episodes can also be found at http://lovethatalbumpodcast.blogspot.com Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to http://pantheonpodcasts.com to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum Proudly Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Love That Album
Love That Album Episode 164 - Interview with Jeff Apter about "Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young"

Love That Album

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 16, 2023 67:28


Ask any Australian rock fan who is the greatest Australian performer or band over the history of the last 70 odd years and you'll get a multitude of answers (as you would anywhere). It's a subjective question and there are generational factors to be taken into account. However, an Australian Performing Rights Association panel declared “Friday On My Mind” by The Easybeats to be the greatest Australian song ever. That's gotta put The Easybeats somewhere in the pantheon of the greats, right? Welcome to episode 164 of Love That Album. The history of pop music is littered with artists who if lucky enough to achieve popularity and acclaim for their work have a limited shelf life before audiences and critics move onto the next thing. It's extremely rare for a musician or group to get a second wind. Harry Vanda and George Young are in that rare company. First finding Beatlesque levels of popularity in the Southern Hemisphere with The Easybeats, and then becoming songwriters and producers for other successful acts within the Alberts Productions “House of Hits” including George's kid brothers' band..... I welcome back to the podcast biographer, Jeff Apter to discuss his book “Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young”. It's a terrific read that looks at George's life as an immigrant from Scotland to the outskirts of Sydney and being determined to make it as a rock and roll musician. We discuss The Easybeats success and poor management, his advice to younger brothers Malcolm and Angus, Vanda and Young's second apprenticeship with “fake” bands, the tragedy of Stevie Wright post Easybeats and the empire Vanda and Young built. My huge thanks to Jeff for coming back to the show. You can order his multitude of biographies on Australian musicians from http://jeffapter.com.au. Part 2 of this special is coming in a week or so and will be a discussion with Nathan Wilcox of the Let It Roll Podcast about The Easybeats Absolute Anthology 1965 to 1969. Download this episode of LTA from your podcast app of choice. The wider back catalogue of episodes can also be found at http://lovethatalbumpodcast.blogspot.com Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to http://pantheonpodcasts.com to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at rrrkitchen@yahoo.com.au (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum Proudly Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Section 138
What’s going on with the Blue Jays’ pitching? (Ep. 258)

Section 138

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2023 55:59


The regular season is here! Mark, Bryson and Jacob recap the Toronto Blue Jays' series against the St. Louis Cardinals and some of the biggest storylines. The first: What's going on with the Blue Jays pitching? Is there any reason to be concerned about Alek Manoah and Chris Bassitt? What about the hitting -- especially that terrible Saturday? Also discussed: whether Bo Bichette should be moved to second base and elite outfield defence. Subscribe to Section 138 on YouTube for video podcasts. Follow @section138pod on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Join the Discord community or support our podcast at linktr.ee/section138pod.Music: "St. Louis," The Easybeats.

95bFM
Friday Morning Glory with Tuva'a

95bFM

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2023


Lucia is away this week so Tuva'a is filling in. We have an amazing performance from Elliot and Vincent for Fancy New Band who have a show coming up on the 13th of April at the Audio Foundation. I play some music, and at one point talk about the connection between The Easybeats and AC/DC.

El sótano
El sótano - Aquellos maravillosos años (X) - 03/03/23

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2023 58:32


Nueva entrega del coleccionable dedicado a rescatar canciones que dieron forma al pop de la primera mitad de los años 60. Playlist; (sintonía) HERB ALPERT and THE TIJUANA BRASS “Lonely bull” BO DIDDLEY “You can’t judge a book by its cover” THE PRETTY THINGS “Honey I need” THE EASYBEATS “She’s so fine” PAUL REVERE and THE RAIDERS “Just like me” DAVIE JONES with THE KING BEES “Louie Louie go home” EDDIE COCHRAN “Three steps to heaven” OTIS REDDING “Pain in my heart” ERNIE K DOE “Mother in law” AL HIRT “Java” ANN MARGRETT “I just don’t understand” ELVIS PRESLEY “C’mon everybody” TIMI YURO “What’s the matter baby (is it hurting you)” JOHNNY KIDD and THE PIRATES “Baby you’ve got what it takes” FABIAN “Kissin’ and twistin’” THE JORDANAIRES “I walk the line” PETER and GORDON “Lucille” BOBBY RYDELL “A world without love” BRENDA LEE “Emotions” Escuchar audio

Metal Mayhem ROC: A Heavy Metal Podcast
Author Jesse Fink: BON: LAST HIGHWAY-The story other people are too afraid to tell.

Metal Mayhem ROC: A Heavy Metal Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2023 61:38


In A SPECIAL EDITION episode, we observe the death date (2/19/1980) of the late great Bon Scott. We present an  interview with Jesse Fink, the author of BON: LAST HIGHWAY. Unlike other ACDC or Bon Scott books, BON: THE LAST HIGHWAY concentrates solely on the last two years of Bon's Life. late 1977- Feb 1980.   We discuss Jesse's extensive research process, the measure he took to interview people THAT met Bon during this period. Dozen's of underlying questions  that have never been addressed , let alone answered. Jesse concludes that Scott died of much more than the official cause: acute alcohol poisoning. New information regarding the widespread speculation that Scott contributed uncredited lyrics to the AC/DC album Back in Black. Why was Back in Black included on the Bonfire boxed set if Bon wasn't involved? Why does the Scott family collect royalties for Back In Black?  A great unique conversation filled with in-depth antidotes and disclosures found only here at Metal Mayhem ROC. We welcome comments, good or bad on this discussion. Hit us or Jesse up on Facebook, twitter or send a direct message at our website's.    Jesse Fink Socials: For more info on Jesse and his books please visit his website Visit Jesse Fink's website: https://jessefinkbooks.com   http://www.facebook.com/groups/bonscottforum  Visit the new website and join the Metal mayhem ROC community. Sign up for our weekly newsletter keeping you updated on all new  podcast episodes as well as reminders for our live Radio show on Monday nights. Thank you for the support and remember to always KEEP IT HEAVY!!  https://metalmayhemroc.com/ https://metaldevastationradio.com/ https://metalmayhemroc.podbean.com https://twitter.com/MetalmayhemR https://www.facebook.com/groups/metalmayhemroc Music and Artists mentioned in Interview. https://youtu.be/oxqreCG0htQ Australian Crawl - "Unpublished Critics" Very Similar to Gun's N Roses Sweet Child O' Mine https://youtu.be/8yMswt56fvQ - George Youngs Early Band  https://youtu.be/8Hj8BRV8Jls  Stevie Wright- Lead singer of the EasyBeats. Rumored replacement for Bon before Brian Johnson. 

El sótano
El Sótano - Nuggets II; freakbeat y psicodelia desde UK y más allá (I) - 26/12/22

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2022 59:05


Primer episodio de una miniserie dedicada a la edad dorada de la psicodelia británica. Lo hacemos guiados por el contenido de una caja deliciosa editada hace 20 años, “Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964–1969”, cuatro CD’s que dibujaron un lienzo perfecto para retratar aquella escena global de sonidos psicodélicos y freakbeat. Playlist; THE CREATION “Making time” FIRE “Father’s name was dad” THE SMOKE “My friend Jack” THE MOVE “I can hear the grass grow” TOMORROW “My White bicyicle” THE ACTION “I’ll keep holding on” THE EYES “When the night falls” THE EASYBEATS “Sorry” THE LA DE DAS “How is the air up there?” LES FLEUR DE LYS “Mud in your eyes” THE SORROWS “Take a heart” THE MICKEY FINN “Garden of my mind” THE MOCKINGBIRDS “You stole my love” Q’65 “The life I live” THE MASTER APPRENTICE “War or hands of time” THE MARMALADE “I see the rain” Escuchar audio

The Occupational Philosophers - A not-so-serious business podcast to spark Creativity, Imagination and Curiosity
Ep.48 - Guest episode with Dr Barbara Doran and Rodger Watson: Authors, Innovators & Creative Rebooters

The Occupational Philosophers - A not-so-serious business podcast to spark Creativity, Imagination and Curiosity

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 31, 2022 96:09


In Episode 48, The Occupational Philosophers chat with a ‘delight' of guests, Dr Barbara Doran and Rodger Watson.    Mmmm, sound interesting. Tell me more….   Barbara Doran (PhD) specialises in identifying creative opportunities that respond to complex challenges and putting them in action. She is an experienced speaker, mentor, educator, project innovator, and artist who directs her energies to building our collective capacities to improve how we live. She has worked with some of Australia's leading practitioners and award-winning productions, including Jungle Boys, Australia's largest TV commercials production company; Mythbusters in San Francisco; and alongside key filmmaking professionals whose credits include The Matrix, Moulin Rouge, and Gatsby.  Rodger Watson is an innovator for public good and has worked as a public servant, a strategic human-centred design consultant, bartender, pizza deliverer, emu farmhand, and the leader of an academic research centre. He is now Course Director of the Master of Creative Intelligence and Strategic Innovation at the UTS Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation and is about to complete a Doctorate in Transdisciplinary Innovation and Philosophy.  In this episode they explore:  How we need to get out of analysis paralysis - in life and organisations Why reframing the way we look at things can bring new solutions  Why we are all creatively intelligent  How innovation needs to start with a playful space and why we need to globally embrace play  How the opposite of play is depression  Design Abduction - different ways of thinking - put aside the ‘what' and the ‘how'  Why their new book is just such an amazing read  Building on the above, they dive into why we all need to embrace more:  Creativity/Play and Flow Probing and Blitzing  Visualising  Conversations  Scaling Stories As always, there are some great thought experiments including:  Guess the school report (yes, the name needs some work)  Something's afoot Moriarty!  Links:  Creative Catalyzer course https://open.uts.edu.au/uts-open/study-area/communication--media/critical--creative-thinking/creative-intelligence-catalyser/  Book - Creative Reboot https://open.uts.edu.au/uts-open/study-area/communication--media/critical--creative-thinking/creative-intelligence-catalyser/ Transdisciplianary course uts.edu.au/about/td-school Rodger's Dads band - The Easybeats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Easybeats  About our guests Rodger Watson  https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodger-watson/ https://profiles.uts.edu.au/Rodger.Watson  Dr. Barbara Doran https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-barbara-doran-9196a114/  https://www.drbd.com.au/ https://profiles.uts.edu.au/Barbara.Doran-1   The Occupational Philosophers hope you enjoy the show (they really enjoyed making this episode of their not-so-serious business podcast.) And as The Occupational Philosophers always say: stay curious, make stuff, play more, have fun, and date life. Say Hello to the OP's www.occupationalphilosophers.com Their day jobs JOHN: https://www.bowlandconsulting.com/ SIMON: www.simonbanks.com.au SIMON SHOWREEL: https://youtu.be/YZQdJI6qGvg  

Produce Like A Pro
Shel Talmy

Produce Like A Pro

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2022 32:21


Shely Talmy is a record producer, songwriter, and arranger. His credits include The Kinks, The Who, David Bowie, and The EasyBeats. Shel Talmy was an important figure in the British Invasion, cutting sessions that had a harder and more distorted guitar sound than anything else that had been heard before the mid-'60s. Check out Shely Talmy's Website here: https://www.sheltalmy.me Subscribe to the email list and get yourself some free goodies: https://producelikeapro.com  Want to create radio ready mixes from the comfort of your home? Go check out https://promixacademy.com/courses/  Check out all other services here: https://linktr.ee/producelikeapro

Produce Like A Pro
Shel Talmy

Produce Like A Pro

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2022 32:21


Shely Talmy is a record producer, songwriter, and arranger. His credits include The Kinks, The Who, David Bowie, and The EasyBeats. Shel Talmy was an important figure in the British Invasion, cutting sessions that had a harder and more distorted guitar sound than anything else that had been heard before the mid-'60s. Check out Shely Talmy's Website here: https://www.sheltalmy.me Subscribe to the email list and get yourself some free goodies: https://producelikeapro.com  Want to create radio ready mixes from the comfort of your home? Go check out https://promixacademy.com/courses/  Check out all other services here: https://linktr.ee/producelikeapro

Real Punk Radio Podcast Network
The Big Takeover Show – Number 403 – October 10, 2022 [Half Usual/Half a Special Lookback Show!]

Real Punk Radio Podcast Network

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2022


This week's show, after a brief 1979 Dickies revisit: brand new Weyes Blood, Ron Sexsmith, Damned, Black Watch, Daniel Wylie, I Was a King, and Reds, Pinks and Purples; plus The Beatles, Easybeats, John Phillips, “Little” Jimmy Dickens, Merseys, Derric...

El sótano
El Sótano - Viviendo el presente - 05/09/22

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2022 59:04


Arranca una nueva temporada en Radio 3 con nuevo horario para el Sótano (de 20:00 a 21:00 h.) y con las intenciones claras; disfrutar del pasado, trabajar para el futuro y vivir el presente. Cocinamos el menú con una selección de canciones favoritas que invitan a saborear el momento. Porque hoy es el ayer de mañana. Playlist; THE CYNICS “Here we are” THE GRASS ROOTS “Let’s live for today” THE THYRDS “No time like the presents” THE EASYBEATS “Today” THE FLESHTONES “Living today” THE BARRACUDAS “Dealing with today” REDD KROSS “Where I am today” MUDHONEY “Today is a good day” THE BEACH BOYS “Here Today” LAS KASETTES “Yo vivo en presente” Versión y Original; THE CONTINENTAL CO ETS “Let’s live for the present” THE WORD D “Today is just tomorrow’s yesterday” THE VELVET CANDLES “Today” THE MR T EXPERIENCE “You today” RAMONES “Here today, gone tomorrow” THE OHIO PLAYERS “Here today gone tomorrow” Escuchar audio

Triple M Rock Interviews
"You have to play well, dress well and be able to fight!" Krams's advice from Harry Vanda

Triple M Rock Interviews

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2022 3:48


Kram takes us behind the makings of our greatest Super group ever, "The Wrights" that was a tribute to Stevie Wright. The band was made up of  members from Jet, Powderfinger, Spiderbait, The Living End, You Am I, Grinspoon and Dallas Crane.He and Matty both share what it was like working with Legendary Producer Harry Vanda plus some tips from Harry and how The Easybeats would sometimes get chased out of town!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

InObscuria Podcast
Ep. 136: Aussie Pub Rock with Craig Elvin - No.2

InObscuria Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2022 115:48


No worries this week as we once again say G'Day to our number 1 guest from Down Under; CRAIG ELVIN! We Americans may know AC/DC and a few select other Aussie bands, but the CEO of Pub Rock is back to take us further on our continuing sonic journey across the continent to hear where that meat and two veg rock originated. Grab a pint and get ready to rock - - - Aussie-style!What is it we do here at InObscuria? On most shows, Kevin opens the crypt to exhume and dissect from his personal collection; an artist, album, or collection of tunes from the broad spectrum of rock, punk, and metal. This go-round we turn the microphone over to Craig Elvin to give us all a schooling on more lost, forgotten and should have beens selections of Aussie Pub Rock. Our hope is always that we turn you on to something new.Songs this week include:Buffalo - “Sunrise (Come My Way)” from Volcanic Rock (1973)Australian Crawl - “Things Don't Seem” from Sirocco (1981)The Radiators - “Comin' Home” from Feel The Heat (1980)Baby Animals - “Working For The Enemy” from Baby Animals (1991)Sunnyboys - “Happy Man” from Sunnyboys (1981)Skyhooks - “Women In Uniform” from Guilty Until Proven Insane (1978)Johnny Diesel & The Injectors - “Parisienne Hotel” from Johnny Diesel & The Injectors (1989)Please subscribe everywhere that you listen to podcasts!Visit us: https://inobscuria.com/https://www.facebook.com/InObscuriahttps://twitter.com/inobscuriahttps://www.instagram.com/inobscuria/Buy cool stuff with our logo on it!: https://www.redbubble.com/people/InObscuria?asc=uCheck out Robert's amazing fire sculptures and metal workings here: http://flamewerx.com/If you'd like to check out Kevin's band THE SWEAR, take a listen on all streaming services or pick up a digital copy of their latest release here: https://theswear.bandcamp.com/If you want to hear Robert and Kevin's band from the late 90s – early 00s BIG JACK PNEUMATIC, check it out here: https://bigjackpnuematic.bandcamp.com/

El sótano
El sótano - Canciones para la carretera - 28/07/22

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2022 59:51


Una sesión de canciones aptas para viajar por el asfalto. Playlist; (sintonía) BILLY PRESTON “King of the road” GRATEFUL DEAD “Truckin’” TRAVELLING WILBURYS “Handle with care” THE OZARK MOUNTAIN DAREDEVILS “Walking down the road” JONATHAN RICHMAN “Roadrunner” IGGY POP “Highway song” THE EASYBEATS “Hit the road Jack” CHUCK BERRY “Down the road apiece” THE ROLLING STONES “Country honk” THE LORDS “On the road again” THE TRAVOLTAS “One for the road” CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL “The Midnight Special” THE LOST CRUSADERS with LAURA CANTRELL “Have you heard about the world?” CRACKER “Been around the world” TED HAWKINS “Country roads” Escuchar audio

My Alien Life
Marshall Crenshaw - My Rock and Roll Hero - Inside the Guest Studio!!

My Alien Life

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2022 61:07


A Place For My Stuff - Yes I have/had another podcast.  A couple of podcasts actually.  With the rising price of everything, I opted not to pay to have Inside the Guest Studio available forever.   I have this convenient landing spot called My Alien Life Podcast which WILL remain forever - thus, this is part of my life, as will be the episodes of Inside the Guest Studio.  A podcast that is graced by some unique and very talented people that live slightly off the grid. Enjoy Cameron In 1982 I walked into a music store in Kalispell Montana and heard his hit Someday Some Way...  I was hooked.  From that day forward, the cassette I purchased before going to Bible camp, was in every car I ever owned until 2015.  I mailed the cassette to my friend who had gotten out of drug treatment.  We listened to that cassette so many times in my car during high school.  The cassette arrived in his mailbox, SMASHED...   I was crushed. It was my indeed pleasure to interview, Marshall Crenshaw.  My hero.   Marshall Howard Crenshaw (born November 11, 1953) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for hit songs such as "Someday, Someway," a US Top 40 hit in 1982, "Cynical Girl," and "Whenever You're on My Mind." He is also the co-author of one of the biggest radio hits of the ‘90s, the Gin Blossoms, "Til I Hear It From You." His music has roots in classic soul music and Buddy Holly, to whom Crenshaw was often compared in the early days of his career, and whom he portrayed in the 1987 film La Bamba. Born in Michigan, Crenshaw performed in the musical Beatlemania before releasing his self-titled album in 1982. Crenshaw could not replicate the commercial success of Marshall Crenshaw and follow-up Field Day (1983) with later albums. Crenshaw has also contributed songs to other artists, writing singles for Kirsty MacColl and the Gin Blossoms. A quote from Trouser Press summed up Marshall Crenshaw's early career: "Although he was seen as a latter-day Buddy Holly at the outset, he soon proved too talented and original to be anyone but himself."[   Marshall Crenshaw on Marshall Crenshaw — “One of the fundamental things about the project was that I set out to not make an album,” Marshall Crenshaw notes. “So I did this project, and now at the end of it, there's this album, for the album fans!….” The celebrated singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer is discussing #392: The EP Collection, his new CD on the Red River Entertainment label. The 14-track set collects a dozen standout tracks drawn from the innovative series of six 10” vinyl EPs that Crenshaw released between 2013 and 2015, plus a pair of never-before-heard rarities chosen especially for this collection. The EP series was the product of Crenshaw's decision to break away from the standard album/tour cycle by recording and releasing a steady stream of new music over an extended period. The endeavor proved wildly popular with his fans, and brought in lots of “I really did love the EP project, and I'm kind of sad that it's over,” Crenshaw comments. “I was looking for a different way of working that would keep me motivated; it was cool, because it had a sense of urgency; there was always something that had just come out and always something that was on the way. It was an inspiring way to work.” #392: The EP Collection's twelve studio recordings encompass six new Crenshaw originals and six cover songs. The former group includes the bittersweet and beautiful “Grab the Next Train,” the surging and howling “Move Now,” and the hypnotic and atmospheric “Driving and Dreaming”, while the cover numbers include a reverent remake of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David/Carpenters chestnut “Close to You,” James McMurtry's “Right Here Now,” longtime Crenshaw favorite Bobby Fuller's classic “Never to Be Forgotten” and vintage numbers by the Easybeats, the Move and the Lovin' Spoonful. Rounding out #392: The EP Collection are two previously unreleased tracks: a powerful live version of the Everly Brothers classic “Man with Money,” recorded with Crenshaw's frequent touring partners the Bottle Rockets, during the week after Phil Everly's passing, and the infectious “Front Page News,” a '90s recording of a previously-unheard original that Crenshaw wrote with noted country tunesmith Leroy Preston (“I can't remember when I did it, or why, but I like it!”, says Crenshaw). “I was fortunate to have lots of brilliant people helping me on these tracks, and they really lifted the proceedings,” Crenshaw reports. “I'm proud about the range of super-excellent musicians who came on board for these sessions.” #392: The EP Collection includes contributions from avant-jazz trumpet icon Stephen Bernstein, noted jazz vibraphonist Bryan Carrott, versatile Nashville bassist Byron House, Daniel Littleton of the band Ida, renowned composer/keyboardists Rob Morsberger and Jamie Saft, along with longstanding Crenshaw cohorts like guitarists Glen Burtnick and Andy York, bassist Graham Maby, Brian Wilson/Beach Boys sideman Jeffrey Foskett, and acclaimed indie troubadour Dan Bern, who co-wrote four songs with Crenshaw. Meanwhile, on several tracks, Crenshaw worked on his own in his home studio, overdubbing all or most of the instruments and vocal harmonies himself. Crenshaw states, “I've been into the Narcissist, solitary-genius thing for a long time. For instance, “‘Cynical Girl,' on my first album, is just me, and ‘Someday Someway' is my brother on drums and me on everything else. So working alone sometimes is standard procedure for Over the course of a recording career that's spanned three decades, 13 albums and hundreds of songs, the Michigan-bred artist's musical output has maintained a consistently high level of artistry, craftsmanship and passion, endearing him to a broad and loyal fan After getting an early break playing John Lennon in a touring company of the Broadway musical Beatlemania, Crenshaw began his recording career with the now-legendary indie single “Something's Gonna Happen.” His growing notoriety in his adopted hometown of New York City helped to win Crenshaw a deal with Warner Bros. Records, which released his self-titled 1982 debut album. That collection established Crenshaw as one of the era's preeminent rock ' n' rollers, and that was confirmed by such subsequent albums as Field Day, Downtown, Mary Jean & 9 Others, Good Evening, Life's Too Short, Miracle of Science, #447, What's in the Bag? and Jaggedland. Along the way, Crenshaw's compositions have been covered by a broad array of performers, including Bette Midler, Kelly Willis, Robert Gordon, Ronnie Spector, Marti Jones and the Gin Blossoms, with whom Crenshaw co-wrote the Top 10 single “Til I Hear It From You.” He's also provided music for several film soundtracks, appeared in the films La Bamba (in which he portrayed Buddy Holly) and Peggy Sue Got Married, and was nominated for Grammy and a Golden Globe awards for writing the title track for the film comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Since 2011, Crenshaw has hosted his own radio show, The Bottomless Pit, on New York's WFUV. He's currently working on Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger's much-anticipated HBO series Vinyl, doing “some session work, a little bit of songwriting..” His eclectic resume aside, songwriting and record-making remain at the center of Marshall Crenshaw's creative life, and #392: The EP Collection confirms that his musical flame continues to burn as brightly as ever. “I still love recorded music and believe in it as an art form, whether it's a single or album, or vinyl or CD,” Crenshaw asserts, adding, “I think I'll probably stick with it.”

Take 5
Fran Kelly's life (so far)

Take 5

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 3, 2021 44:11


When Fran Kelly announced she was leaving RN Breakfast after 17 years, everyone I know had a little cry. Maybe it was the same for you too, because this legendary journalist has been waking up with us for a long time. Fran has held those in power to account and told stories we may never have heard otherwise. But it's not often you hear Fran's stories. That's why I was so stoked and honoured to have her Take 5 with me, the day after she wrapped her final show on RN Breakfast. The theme was simple; life, so far. And from singing around the kitchen table, to hitting the road to get to her great love, this is a beautiful capture of an extraordinary human. The Tokens – The Lion Sleeps Tonight The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind Lucinda Williams – I Just Want To See You So Bad Yothu Yindi – Treaty Gurrumul - Wiyathul

Hall of Songs
1967-1970 Veterans Committee: The Stones, Simon and Garfunkel + Our Personal Picks

Hall of Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 14, 2021 82:07


"You Can't Always Get What You Want." "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Big songs, but we didn't nominate them for the Hall of Songs before. Now we have. We come together as the Veterans Committee to put four more tunes on the ballot for the Hall of Songs. Join us as we discuss these songs from 1967 to '70, then talk about some personal favorites ... including the Beatles and the Grateful Dead. Visit our website at hallofsongs.com and follow us on social media at @hallofsongs.Hosts: Tim Malcolm and Chris JonesGenre: Music Commentary, Music History