Category: Music

  • Beatles Concert

    When I drive my daughter to school, we have started to listen to the Beatles. There is such a deep joy that I receive as my kid is starting to listen to my favorite band. I have tried to not push this on her. I want her to develop her own taste in music, and I don’t want to influence her to or from any type of music. Both the wife and I try to play as may different styles and bands for her to listen to. I think it has been paying off because she wanted a guitar for Christmas this year, which Santa brought to her.

    Now, in the car ride to school, the kid gets to pick what she wants to listen to. For the past three months it has been Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts music. On the way home, she has to listen to what I want, which I do try to make a choice of music I feel will broaden her horizons. Sometimes the Beatles come up.

    By talking to my daughter about music and bands, she has come to learn the names of the Beatles, and asks me who is my favorite or who plays the guitar, or is signing. Sometimes, she will ask me if we can go and see them play, which is when I will pull YouTube videos for her. Then the other night she asked me is we can go and see them play. I explained to her that they don’t play together anymore, and that we have to listen to them and watch their videos. She wasn’t happy with that answer.

  • The Beatles (The White Album) Super Deluxe Edition

    I listened to the 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition of The White Album yesterday and today. I have been waiting for this to come out for some time, as I am a super Beatles fan. Over all, I am very happy with what they put out in this edition.

    My first impression is that the remixing of the original album is great. The music on this mix is much sharper, clearer, and also, they pulled forward sounds that had been lost in the background due to the use of a four track in the initial recording.

    The other treasure is the Esher Demos on the third disk, which were recordings made at George Harrison’s house of the songs that John, Paul and George had been working on for the new album. Some of these tracks had been released on the Anthology Three way back in the 90’s, but on this edition, 27 tracks were included. In these demos, we are given an amazing insight to the first drafts of some of these songs; some songs evolved, while others were pretty much complete and ready to go.

    The final three disks are outtakes from the studio, a few jams, and instrumental tracks. It is interesting to get a glimpse of the building of these songs, but in this presentation of this material, a false reality is created. These outtakes leave one feeling that The Beatles were having a great time recording in the studio, when the reality was quite different.

    Of the 30 original songs on The White Album, only 16 tracks had all four playing on them. The real sessions had arguments, and walk outs, and lots and lots of tension that would start the process of the band’s eventual breakup. I know the recording exists, as I have heard stories about it, and I wanted to hear the tape where John calls Paul a “fucking idiot,” because they were a band that was making great music while they didn’t like each other. That is an amazing accomplishment as well, and I want to hear how they did that, but that is not what is being presented. What we have is a celebration of a great album, and not a historical document.