IOL | McCartney 'revisits' Beatles and Linda in song

Paul McCartney said today his concerts are a way of making contact with other Beatles members and his late wife Linda. The singer was at a bar in London to launch his new CD and DVD set, titled 'Good Evening New York City', recorded during his three-night stint in New York’s Citi Field, formerly the site of the Shea Stadium which was the location for a famed appearance by the Beatles in the mid-1960s. Sir Paul was asked if his concerts were in some way a tribute to his deceased Beatles bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison and his late wife Linda. He replied: “Yeah, it is you know. If I’m doing songs by the Beatles I obviously remember the sessions we recorded, there’s always an element of that. [read more]

Harrison Too Humble To Front The Heartbreakers

Late BEATLES star GEORGE HARRISON almost landed TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS as his backing band but was too reluctant to play the frontman for a world tour. After performing with Bob Dylan on the Temples in Flames tour in the late 1980s, Petty offered his band's services to Harrison - but the Brit was too humble to lead one of the world's greatest rock groups, and Petty will always regret not pushing his old friend harder. He says, "He loved the Heartbreakers, especially (guitarist) Mike Campbell. He told me once that Ry Cooder and Mike were the best slide players... I told Mike that. I don't know if he believed me." Petty tells Rolling Stone magazine Harrison knew a tour with the Heartbreakers would be a big draw: "He knew that. But I said, 'You have to play lead guitar. People would be very disappointed if you didn't.' "It just never happened. Thinking back on it, it should have. But I don't think any of us really tried to make it happen... It wasn't meant to be. It didn't go that way." Petty and Harrison did become bandmates, however, in supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, opposite Dylan, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison. Source - Contactmusic News

Stars turn out for premiere of John Lennon film Nowhere Boy in Liverpool

STARS of a new movie about John Lennon’s early life turned out for the film’s charity premiere at the Odeon in Liverpool One. Nowhere Boy, which closed the London Film Festival last month, covers the Beatle’s teenage years in Liverpool during the 1950s. One of the original members of Lennon’s first group The Quarrymen, Pete Shotton, said the movie “captured the era”. The film will go on general release on Boxing Day, but its northern premiere brought the cast and crew back to the city last night. Proceeds will go to the city’s Alder Hey Imagine appeal. Liverpool actor David Morrissey, who plays Lennon’s stepfather Bobby Dykins, was welcomed by flashing cameras when he made an appearance on the red carpet. [read more]

CTV Acquires North American Broadcast Premiere of Beatles Special

CTV has acquired the North American broadcast premiere of The Beatles on Record, a new, in-depth and revealing special. Giving viewers an intimate glimpse of the creative process behind their musical masterpiecess, The Beatles On Record is narrated entirely by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Sir George Martin, and features never-before-heard outtakes of studio chat from the band’s first recording sessions at the infamous Abbey Road studios. broadcastermagazine.com - Broadcaster Magazine - 11/25/2009

Julian Lennon Teams With Birch and Meagher To Launch “theREVOLUTION”

You say you want theRevolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the music world… Tapping the reach of the Internet and a power-shifting business model, musician Julian Lennon and digital pioneers Michael Birch and Todd Meagher today officially announced the launch of theRevolution LLC, a full-service, artist-focused, music services company. In the vanguard of theRevolution is the single “Lucy,” co-written by Lennon and James Scott Cook, to be released on a four-track EP on December 15. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to two charities focused on lupus, an autoimmune disease afflicting Cook’s Grandmother Lucy, as well as Lennon’s late childhood friend Lucy Vodden, a watercolor painting of whom led John Lennon to write “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” [read more]

Rock of ages

WHEN people remember the stars of the British rock scene in the 1960s and ‘70s, Eric Clapton and George Harrison are two names almost certain to rate a mention. But what about Pattie Boyd? Never heard of her? Boyd was married to Harrison for seven years from 1970, and two years later tied the knot with Clapton, a friend of her former husband. But Boyd wasn’t just a random rock groupie. She was a successful fashion model who found herself in an enviable position. As a budding photographer, she was able to take intimate pictures of some of the world’s greatest musicians, building up an archive that, until recently, was left to gather dust. “I didn’t want to open boxes of accumulated photos that I had taken over the years; I believed they would remind me of times of both sadness and happiness that I wasn’t ready to look at,” she said. [read more]

New Music Company Releasing Julian Lennon's Lucy

Tapping the reach of the Internet and a power-shifting business model, musician Julian Lennon and digital pioneers Michael Birch and Todd Meagher today officially announced the launch of theRevolution LLC, a full-service, artist-focused, music services company. On December 15, the company will mark its first release with the four-song EP Lucy, featuring the same-named title track written by James Scott Cook and Julian Lennon. Produced by Todd Meagher, the lead single "Lucy" is Lennon's first single in close to a decade. [read more]

20 Beatles Buried Treasures

Let’s face it: there’s no such thing as a “buried treasure” in the Beatles catalogue. How could there be? This is the most picked-over band in the history of music. Every single thing they ever released is readily available in the form of an official CD—and, yes, I know there are reams of bootleg materials out there, but for a band that was so focused and deliberate in the studio, such experiments, outtakes, and gestures hardly seem to count. Unlike with, say, Elvis Costello or the Who, or the Rolling Stones—each of whom have both a canon of songs which (ahem) your mother should know and a raft of top-flight material that, while officially released, is often overlooked by casual listeners—the Beatles’ work is pretty much all über-famous. And, while you might be able to make a case for a very limited number of tracks—“You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” springs to mind—that people at large might not know very well, in the case of the Beatles this is usually because (and again, I’m looking at you “You Know My Name”) they are gawdawful. [read more]

Sgt. Pepper Sets the Stage: The Album as a Work of Art

The most popular group in the history of popular music made many masterpieces. George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr created artistic works of untold musical, technological and cultural significance during their eight short years together as The Beatles. Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, numerous others. But one album in particular caused more commotion than any one of their other long-players. It was an album that introduced relatively new ideas to the group’s immense audience in the form of an overall “concept,” intended to give the songs a unified, cohesive feel. This album was Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, thirty-nine minutes and thirteen songs performed and packaged in the most outlandish and unthinkable way at the time. When the album was released on 1 June, 1967, in the midst of the “Summer of Love,” the world stood up and took notice, for better or worse (MacDonald, 1994). [read more]

Paul McCartney Doesn't Understand the Internet

What's Paul McCartney's doomsday scenario? Someone, somewhere, somehow manages to leak the Beatles' music onto the internet, where it will be stolen by everyone, all the time. This must be prevented! Notice a problem there? Yeah, it gets worse. A few days ago, we found out that Apple Corps and EMI would finally release the Beatles' catalog in a digital format. It's not that we couldn't have just purchased CDs and ripped them—that's what everyone's been doing for years now—it's just that it felt like progress. In reality, it was just the near-random actions of someone who has no idea what's going on, at all. From the Guardian via Ars, Paul McCartney's view on selling the Beatles' music online: [read more]

Listen Up: Rock and Roll Artifacts Under Surveillance

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex keeps decades of music alive through rare videos of rock's greatest musicians playing on wall-sized screens, along with a display of prized artifacts including guitars, clothing and original sheet music from legends like John Lennon and Mick Jagger. Guarding the extensive collection, which is located in New York City's SoHo area, is a priority. Guards with Motorola radios and chic black suits man their posts, while shatter-resistant transparent casings surround many items (though not the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible owned by Bruce Springsteen . [read more]

MACCA'S FINAL CHOICE

X Factor chiefs have lined up Sir Paul McCartney to be the special guest star on the show's live final next month. The former Beatle is in talks to take to the stage on December 13 for his first appearance on the hugely popular ITV series. If Macca signs, the theme for the grand final would be Beatles week, which has been postponed from tonight's show. An X Factor insider revealed: "The big plan by Simon Cowell is to get Sir Paul for the final, which would be just fantastic. "Everybody knows the Beatles wrote some of the best songs in history so it would be a sensational end for the series." [read more]

Beatles documentary on History channel

Beatles fans will be giving thanks next week for some holiday TV specials featuring the Fab Four. The documentary "The Beatles on Record," debuts at 10 p.m. Wednesday on the History channel, focusing on the group's recorded works. Director Bob Smeaton, who also helmed the celebrated "Beatles Anthology" series, weaves together commentary by the four band members and producer George Martin as the program's sole narration, while the 60-plus song clips include previously unreleased studio material. An hour-long portion of the new Paul McCartney DVD, "Good Evening in New York City," follows at 10 p.m. Thanksgiving on ABC.[read more]

Walk in the footsteps of The Beatles

The first guided tour app of Beatles locations is released on the App store for the Apple iPhone® this month. Fully digital and downloadable, it celebrates the 40th anniversary this November of the band’s Abbey Road LP topping both UK and US album charts. Beatles Walk London includes 16 key Fab Four locations from Abbey Road’s zebra crossing to the Savile Row rooftop.

Incorporating maps, written content and pictures, the app has been created by designers Clay Interactive with writers David Roberts and Martin Downham and is available for download.

The app can operate independently as an informative look at London’s Beatle locations or enjoyed as a walking tour guide with easy to follow instructions street by street.

The app is the first of a series of literary and pop walks to be launched soon. Visit http://www.itunes.com/app/beatleswalklondon

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Goo goo g'joob: The Beatles still rule

I n the past few months, it's been like that whole deja vu thing all over again. Or, at the very least, a second wave of Beatlemania. On Sept. 9, the complete Beatles catalogue — every album, every single — was rereleased, brilliantly remastered and digitally scrubbed pristine. It was timed to coincide with the release of a new video computer game, "Rockband — The Beatles," which introduced The Fabs to a whole new generation in the brand new millennium. Beatle freaks will appreciate the irony: Sept. 9, 2009, was the ninth day in the ninth month in the ninth year of the 21st Century. (No. 9 ... No. 9 ... No. 9 ... Get it?). Smart, those Apple executives. As a first generation Beatles fan, I'd already single-handedly made the Beatles millionaires by buying every album and every single record 40 years ago, then, in turn, every subsequent 8-track, cassette and CD release. [read more]