Strawberry Fields, Central Park, New York

He was one of four British teens who forever changed the face of rock & roll. An advocate for peace, politically outspoken and senselessly murdered — but his words continue to inspire. For these reasons, among others, in 1981 New York City Council allocated 2.5 acres in Central Park for Strawberry Fields, a tribute to John Lennon’s music and vision. Yoko Ono’s donation made it possible to redesign the landscaping and continue its maintenance. On the day that would have been Lennon’s 45th birthday, October 9, 1985, the city’s mayor dedicated Strawberry Fields at the opening ceremony. Since then, it has attracted thousands of visitors from all over the world, and 121 countries have sanctioned it a Garden of Peace. [read more]

Beatles catalog is temporarily banned from music website BlueBeat

A federal court in Los Angeles this week issued a temporary restraining order against a music website that recently had been offering the entire Beatles catalog for downloading at 25 cents per song. The Santa Cruz-based BlueBeat earlier in the week was hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit by EMI's Capitol Records, the group's U.S. label. The order set back a novel legal argument by BlueBeat that songs produced through digital regeneration are akin to songs performed by cover bands and therefore do not run afoul of copyright law. BlueBeat had argued in court filings that its downloads were legal because the company had created entirely new versions by computer through a process called "psychoacoustic simulations" that makes the re-created songs sound just like the original recordings. [read more]

Dhani Harrison: Rock Band 3 will Teach You to Play Music

Now Harrison is working on the inevitable Rock Band sequel. "I'm working on 'Rock Band 3' and making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game," he said. "Give me a couple years, it's going to happen." Rock Band 3 as both a party game and an educational tool? Sounds a little too convenient... Like Baconnaise. For the uninitiated, that's bacon flavored mayonnaise, and yes, it really exists. So would you want your videogames to teach you things, or should developers keep their learnin' out of your home? [read more]

Yoko Ono, forever a force for peace

Even before she married John Lennon, even before she embarked on a career as an avant-garde and conceptual artist, Yoko Ono was under scrutiny, first by her teachers and peers, later by people of a different region as her family fled the fire-bombings of Tokyo. When asked if it was discouraging to have her character questioned and her work strongly criticized after she became the wife of the beloved Beatle, Ono didn't even pause before responding. "I was not particularly affected by what people were saying about my work. It was kind of a normal procedure for my work in a way. I mean, I had been criticized all the time up until then." [read more]

Beatles German Tour

This is the first book dealing with the sole German tour! The Beatles took quite some time after they had said goodbye to Hamburg on January 1st,1963 after their last Star-Club engagement. It wasn‘t until June 23, 1966 that they returned to Germany for five days and six concerts in Munich, Essen and Hamburg. This book deals with this German tour in a chronological order. It explains the difficulties everybody had to pull the tour through as well as the actual preparations by the promoter and the police. Every little thing that happened in those hot five days is described in great detail in a minute-by-minute-coverage. [read more/pre-order signed book]

Eric Clapton Interview - Quotes on Addiction, Tears in Heaven, and Layla

One of the most beneficial things I’ve ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut. Up until I became a father, it was all about self-obsession. But then I learned exactly what it’s all about: the delight of being a servant. Olivier wrote that the greatest thing you could aspire to in life was to be a good servant. From the beginning, I knew intuitively that if nothing else, music was safe, and that nobody could tell me anything about it. Music didn’t need a middleman, whereas all the other things in school needed some kind of explanation. I don’t put something on tape until I’ve played around with it for a couple of weeks. I heard someone else say this -- it may have been Quincy Jones. That he gets an idea, but he doesn’t really act on it unless it keeps coming back and starts to annoy him. [read more - Esquire]

Emi Wins Injunction Over Beatles Tracks

Songs by THE BEATLES have been pulled from the internet after record label bosses at EMI won a temporary injunction against a U.S. website for allegedly selling the tracks without permission. A copyright violation lawsuit was filed at a Los Angeles court on Tuesday (03Nov09) to prevent the sale of "unauthorised content" after Bluebeat.com allegedly began offering Beatles' tracks for download at discounted prices. The Fab Four's music is not licenced for internet downloads, and last year (08) Sir Paul MCCartney announced he would like to see the band's songs available on Apple's iTunes store, but admitted negotiations had "stalled". Executives at EMI, the company that owns the Beatles' recordings, need to agree a deal with the surviving bandmates and Apple Corps before the catalogue can be made available online.
Now Bluebeat.com has been banned from streaming or selling tracks by the band, as well as other EMI artists. [read more]

Beatles fans blast outrageous fiction Nowhere Boy

A film detailing the early life of John Lennon has been condemned as "outrageous fiction" by Beatles experts. Nowhere Boy, directed by artist Sam Taylor-Wood, and premiered at the London Film Festival, depicts Lennon's famous Auntie Mimi as a domineering harridan. The screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh - who wrote the script for the 2007 Joy Division film 'Control' - is accused of distorting Lennon's childhood and adolescence. [read more]

Emi Sues Over Beatles Downloads

Record label bosses at EMI have filed suit against a U.S. website after a string of BEATLES tracks appeared online. The Fab Four's music is currently not licenced for internet downloads. Last year (08) Sir Paul MCCartney announced he would like to see the band's songs available on Apple's iTunes store, but admitted negotiations had "stalled". Executives at EMI, the company that owns the Beatles' recordings, need to agree a deal with the surviving bandmates' Apple Corps company before the catalogue can be made available online. But bosses filed legal papers to prevent the sale of "unauthorised content" after American website Bluebeat.com allegedly began offering Beatles' tracks - including recent digitally remastered versions - for download at discounted prices. The copyright violation lawsuit was filed at a Los Angeles court on Tuesday (03Nov09). SOURCE - Contactmusic News

Bootleg Beatles interview

He’s met Paul McCartney a couple of times and spent a happy two hours at a party with George Harrison once, but still his voice falters when I ask if he ever saw the Beatles in action during his childhood in Liverpool. “I could have seen them but I didn’t. I was living with my parents. I wouldn’t have gone on my own but I could have seen them at the Liverpool Empire. But my parents . . . I was up in boarding school when they were playing one time. So I didn’t actually see them live. I would absolutely love to have seen them.” His girlfriend, however did see The Beatles. “She saw them in Denmark. She’s Danish and she saw them when she was very, very young, 12 I think. But she said it was all screaming. She wanted everybody to shut up, she couldn’t hear the songs.” [read more]

US site selling Beatles' back catalogue despite EMI investigation

BlueBeat, an American website, continued selling MP3 files of every single Beatles track for 25 cents (15p), even though the group's record label, EMI, has launched an urgent investigation into the unauthorised sale. The site has also continued to stream each of the group's albums, including the recently released remastered versions, in their entirety, free of charge. [read more]

Former The Beatles drummer in India

Pete Best, the original drummer of The Beatles before they became famous, is in India. On Tuesday evening, Best was spotted in the Capital performing some hit nostalgic numbers for his fans. Ringo Starr had replaced Pete in 1962, just after two years of association with the band. "I basically played numbers from the 60s and 70s because I knew that's what my audience will look for and I hope they were not disappointed," Pete was quoted by a website, as saying. [read more]

Solving mystery of the John Lennon bench

OUR columnist Pete Chambers, who writes Backbeat each week, answers a query raised by reader Veronica Hammond about the disappearance of a garden seat John and Yoko placed at Coventry Cathedral in 1968. “John and Yoko felt they had something of a verbal mauling from then Cathedral Canon (Cannon Verney), who considered their planting of two acorns and placing a cylindrical bench in the Cathedral grounds was neither art or indeed appropriate. The couple returned to London, with a very angry Lennon in tow. Within a week the acorns had been stolen, and the bench was later removed by Les Anthony (Lennon’s chauffer) and taken back to Kenwood in Weybridge, Surrey, Lennon’s home at the time. [read more]

The Beatles offer catalog on USB drive without DRM

The Beatles on Wednesday surprised the music industry by offering their collection outside of a disc for the first time. The Limited Edition USB Stick carries the entire LP collection of the British band in a stereo mix along with the mini-documentaries, album art and liner notes from the remastered CDs. Significantly, all of the songs come both in unprotected 320Kbps MP3 as well as in a similarly unguarded, lossless FLAC and should work on most any computer or portable player. The 16GB, Apple Records-themed drive is for now only being sold in a 30,000-copy run and will ship December 8th for $280. Pre-orders start today. [read more]

Mccartney's Son To Make U.S. Musical Debut

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY's son JAMES is set to make his U.S. music debut later this month (Nov09) - at a benefit gala hosted by filmmaker DAVID LYNCH. British musician James MCCartney - the son of the Beatles legend and his late first wife, Linda - accompanied his father on his American tour in 2005. And now the 32 year old is set to step into the spotlight himself with a solo set at Lynch's fourth annual Change Begins Within charity event, held at Iowa's Maharishi University. Proceeds from the 14 November benefit will go toward teaching at-risk kids to meditate, reports the New York Post.SOURCE