Paul Fuzz Presents: Flew In From Miami Beach BOAC
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Top 5 Beatle Songs: My contribution to the Normblog Poll
.1. Rain (B-Side of Paperback Writer')
.2. Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver)
.3. I Am The Walrus (Magical Mystery Tour)
.4. Helter Skelter (The Beatles, aka 'The White Album')
.5. Revolution 9 (The Beatles, aka 'The White Album')
Notes, justifications, ideas etc:
(a) I arrived at this Top 5 because it reflects the chronological arc of my favourite Beatles period, bookended by the super-heavy bronze hammer psyche-funk of Rain (1996) and the dark avant-garde cut 'n' paste-adelia of the White Album's Revolution 9 (1968). This self-imposed time frame made making my choices easier - I told myself I could only pick songs which fell between the recording of these two tracks, and I wanted to pick 5 songs which worked well together, back-to-back. As these lists are abitary anyway, (I'd probably pick 5 entirely different songs next week) it's fun to come up with a system like this.
(b) The list suffers from a predominance of what are largely Lennon authored tracks. With the exception of Helter Skelter, entirely McCartney's experiment, each of my choices are identified most closely with Lennon. Revolution 9 is almost exclusively a LenOno production, while Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows and I Am The Walrus are all quintessentially John, though of course each benefit from stunning contributions by the other Fabs - especially so in the case of Rain. (Lennon's dominance stretched even to my pre-Top 5 shortist, which included Strawberry Fields Forever (Anthology 2 Version) , Glass Onion, and I've Got A Feeling...but also Paul's Rocky Raccoon.)
(c) With due respect to I've Got A Feeling, Come Together, The Word, Sgt Pepper's Reprise, and Flying, two of my choices - Rain & Tomorrow Never Knows (both 1966) - are hands down the funkiest motherthumpers The Fabs ever laid down. Ringo excels on both tracks; Rain edges it for sheer heavy-bottomed fonk, while TNK's off-kilter groove has entranced dance producers for years (The Chemical Brothers having spent half their career trying to recreate it). Macca's bass on Rain is simply phenonemal, laying down the blueprint for every freakbeat group who bought wholesale into the Rain sound, and is still being ripped off regularly to this day. Both tracks are heavily lysergic, psyche masterpieces, but are included here to remind people that the hugely underrated McCartney/Starr rhthym section was capable of grooves as danceable and as influential as Clyde Stubblefield's break on James Brown's Funky Drummer.
(d) Helter Skelter has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years; when I was growing up, the general pop concensus was that Charles Manson's fave Fabs rave-up was an example of Macca over-reaching himself, attempting an unconvincing, uncharacteristic, Who-aping wig-out in the New Heavy Style, and not really pulling it off. Beatles scholar Ian MacDonald called it "ridiculous, McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing." This critical attitude seems now to have been almost completely dropped, and Helter Skelter almost entirely rehabilitated, regarded as a White Album highlight, and a Macca live favourite.
(e) Wot, no Sgt Peppers? Sgt Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band has never been my favourite Beatles LP, and despite the fact that it falls slap-bang in the middle of my Top 5 chronology, I include no tracks from it here because I still think Peppers is a relatively weak collection when compared to Rubber Soul, Revolver and The White Album. I actively dislike With A Little Help From My Friends and Good Morning, Good Morning. The drumbreak at the beginning of '...Reprise' is pretty cool. And clearly A Day In The Life is a wonderful, wonderful song. But on the whole, I'm not a huge fan.
(f) I guess the most controversial choice here is Revolution 9. Partly I've included it because it worked in terms of my list, being the penultimate track on the White Album and thus bookending my self-imposed time-scale. Partly I've included it because I think it's a fascinating piece of music, and easily the the most extreme thing the Fabs ever put out. It's also pretentious, self-indulgent, silly and far less clever than it thinks it is...but nevertheless, the effort that went into its construction (Lennon said he spent more time on it than half the songs he wrote), its proto-hip-hop patchwork of samples and the fact that you can listen to it a million times and still hear something new make it, if not a favourite song, then certainly a highly rewarding listen.
Anyway, there you have it. I look forward to everybody else's lists...there are few things I enjoy more than a good ol' Beatles debate.
.2. Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver)
.3. I Am The Walrus (Magical Mystery Tour)
.4. Helter Skelter (The Beatles, aka 'The White Album')
.5. Revolution 9 (The Beatles, aka 'The White Album')
Notes, justifications, ideas etc:
(a) I arrived at this Top 5 because it reflects the chronological arc of my favourite Beatles period, bookended by the super-heavy bronze hammer psyche-funk of Rain (1996) and the dark avant-garde cut 'n' paste-adelia of the White Album's Revolution 9 (1968). This self-imposed time frame made making my choices easier - I told myself I could only pick songs which fell between the recording of these two tracks, and I wanted to pick 5 songs which worked well together, back-to-back. As these lists are abitary anyway, (I'd probably pick 5 entirely different songs next week) it's fun to come up with a system like this.
(b) The list suffers from a predominance of what are largely Lennon authored tracks. With the exception of Helter Skelter, entirely McCartney's experiment, each of my choices are identified most closely with Lennon. Revolution 9 is almost exclusively a LenOno production, while Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows and I Am The Walrus are all quintessentially John, though of course each benefit from stunning contributions by the other Fabs - especially so in the case of Rain. (Lennon's dominance stretched even to my pre-Top 5 shortist, which included Strawberry Fields Forever (Anthology 2 Version) , Glass Onion, and I've Got A Feeling...but also Paul's Rocky Raccoon.)
(c) With due respect to I've Got A Feeling, Come Together, The Word, Sgt Pepper's Reprise, and Flying, two of my choices - Rain & Tomorrow Never Knows (both 1966) - are hands down the funkiest motherthumpers The Fabs ever laid down. Ringo excels on both tracks; Rain edges it for sheer heavy-bottomed fonk, while TNK's off-kilter groove has entranced dance producers for years (The Chemical Brothers having spent half their career trying to recreate it). Macca's bass on Rain is simply phenonemal, laying down the blueprint for every freakbeat group who bought wholesale into the Rain sound, and is still being ripped off regularly to this day. Both tracks are heavily lysergic, psyche masterpieces, but are included here to remind people that the hugely underrated McCartney/Starr rhthym section was capable of grooves as danceable and as influential as Clyde Stubblefield's break on James Brown's Funky Drummer.
(d) Helter Skelter has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years; when I was growing up, the general pop concensus was that Charles Manson's fave Fabs rave-up was an example of Macca over-reaching himself, attempting an unconvincing, uncharacteristic, Who-aping wig-out in the New Heavy Style, and not really pulling it off. Beatles scholar Ian MacDonald called it "ridiculous, McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing." This critical attitude seems now to have been almost completely dropped, and Helter Skelter almost entirely rehabilitated, regarded as a White Album highlight, and a Macca live favourite.
(e) Wot, no Sgt Peppers? Sgt Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band has never been my favourite Beatles LP, and despite the fact that it falls slap-bang in the middle of my Top 5 chronology, I include no tracks from it here because I still think Peppers is a relatively weak collection when compared to Rubber Soul, Revolver and The White Album. I actively dislike With A Little Help From My Friends and Good Morning, Good Morning. The drumbreak at the beginning of '...Reprise' is pretty cool. And clearly A Day In The Life is a wonderful, wonderful song. But on the whole, I'm not a huge fan.
(f) I guess the most controversial choice here is Revolution 9. Partly I've included it because it worked in terms of my list, being the penultimate track on the White Album and thus bookending my self-imposed time-scale. Partly I've included it because I think it's a fascinating piece of music, and easily the the most extreme thing the Fabs ever put out. It's also pretentious, self-indulgent, silly and far less clever than it thinks it is...but nevertheless, the effort that went into its construction (Lennon said he spent more time on it than half the songs he wrote), its proto-hip-hop patchwork of samples and the fact that you can listen to it a million times and still hear something new make it, if not a favourite song, then certainly a highly rewarding listen.
Anyway, there you have it. I look forward to everybody else's lists...there are few things I enjoy more than a good ol' Beatles debate.
Labels: Beatles
¶ 12:20 PM 5 Comments
Monday, November 20, 2006
Beatles: Love
...I'm freaking out....George Martin has made the best Beatles mix tape ever...currently trying to get my head around it...mind slightly fried round the edges...the insane super heavy metal psychedelia of the Being For The Benefit of Mt Kite/I Want You (She's So Heavy)/Helter Skelter coda is stoned BBC Workshop perfection...sitars and backwards masked vocals buzz and swirl throughout...the flotsum and jetsum of the Beatles universe washing up on the cast iron shore...a dark kelidoscopic miasma of forgotten voices and lost chords...a thick, ghostly fog shrouds the entire LP...it is a curtain call for pop music...you have been listening to...it's like the moment 'She Loves You' appears in the 'All You Need Is Love' coda, stretched to an entire LP... I've just re-wound Strawberry Fields Forever a dozen times trying to spot every snatch of music which bubbles up from from it's crazed aural soup...oh, man...
Normal service will be resumed shortly. 'Proper' review to follow...
Normal service will be resumed shortly. 'Proper' review to follow...
Labels: Beatles
¶ 12:17 PM 1 Comments
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, Record Collections etc
Oh, man! It's one of those posts that invites a response from the blogging community! Like the 'Fave Beatles Song' thing! Hey, remember the 'Fave Beatles Song' thing?
..."I like Maxwell's Silver Hammer best!" "Maxwell's Silver Hammer sucks! I like 'Flying' best!" "Flying sucks! I like The Ballad Of John & Yoko best!" "The Ballad Of John & Yoko sucks!"... Good times.
When I returned home from work today my old lady was Having A Big Sort Out of all my records, reason being that due to post - DJing sloppiness on my part we are increasingly plagued by that most irritating of music geek phenonema:
That thing where you suddenly really wanna hear a particular song (let's say it's Dark Star by the Grateful Dead) you rush to your record collection, spend 20 minutes starring at row after row of LP spines muttering "I put it here...I know it was here...I just saw it the other day...oh, man...I swear to God these things move themselves....(shouting upstairs to girlfriend who has 'just got out of the shower') REBECCA! REBECCA! I'm trying to find Live/Dead! WHAT? NO! The one with the cartoon guy smashing an ice cream cone over his head is Live in Europe '73! This is just Live/Dead! Yeah, they're both live albums! They did quite a lot of 'em! They're the most widely bootlegged live act in rock history! I'm tying to find the one with the title in big medieval script on the front! Yeah, the one with 'Dark Star' at the start! WHAT? Dark Star is certainly not a dull hippy jambourie which at 18 minutes is about 17 minutes too long...OH, MAN! FOUND IT!" Only. To. Discover...that the record isn't in the sleeve. DUH DUH DUHHH!
So I was wondering if anybody has a system for filing their CDs / LPs / C90s / Wax Cylinders. I've 'genre-ised' my collection a couple of times after I've moved house, but I've only ever managed to keep it up for a week or so. I've NEVER alphabetised or chronologicised. Does anyone have a particularly interesting system? Or one which is super easy to maintain? Does anybody have any hilarious record collection related anecdotes they would like to share?
"So I said to him, 'uh, I think you'll find that 'Revolver' was released in the US a week later than it was in th UK, and yet here on your February 1966 - June 1966 shelf you've got the US version filed before the UK version?!' Yeah! Way to be chronologically accurate!"
..."I like Maxwell's Silver Hammer best!" "Maxwell's Silver Hammer sucks! I like 'Flying' best!" "Flying sucks! I like The Ballad Of John & Yoko best!" "The Ballad Of John & Yoko sucks!"... Good times.
When I returned home from work today my old lady was Having A Big Sort Out of all my records, reason being that due to post - DJing sloppiness on my part we are increasingly plagued by that most irritating of music geek phenonema:
That thing where you suddenly really wanna hear a particular song (let's say it's Dark Star by the Grateful Dead) you rush to your record collection, spend 20 minutes starring at row after row of LP spines muttering "I put it here...I know it was here...I just saw it the other day...oh, man...I swear to God these things move themselves....(shouting upstairs to girlfriend who has 'just got out of the shower') REBECCA! REBECCA! I'm trying to find Live/Dead! WHAT? NO! The one with the cartoon guy smashing an ice cream cone over his head is Live in Europe '73! This is just Live/Dead! Yeah, they're both live albums! They did quite a lot of 'em! They're the most widely bootlegged live act in rock history! I'm tying to find the one with the title in big medieval script on the front! Yeah, the one with 'Dark Star' at the start! WHAT? Dark Star is certainly not a dull hippy jambourie which at 18 minutes is about 17 minutes too long...OH, MAN! FOUND IT!" Only. To. Discover...that the record isn't in the sleeve. DUH DUH DUHHH!
So I was wondering if anybody has a system for filing their CDs / LPs / C90s / Wax Cylinders. I've 'genre-ised' my collection a couple of times after I've moved house, but I've only ever managed to keep it up for a week or so. I've NEVER alphabetised or chronologicised. Does anyone have a particularly interesting system? Or one which is super easy to maintain? Does anybody have any hilarious record collection related anecdotes they would like to share?
"So I said to him, 'uh, I think you'll find that 'Revolver' was released in the US a week later than it was in th UK, and yet here on your February 1966 - June 1966 shelf you've got the US version filed before the UK version?!' Yeah! Way to be chronologically accurate!"
Labels: Beatles
¶ 11:13 AM 8 Comments
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
THE BEATLES AT SHEA STADIUM!!!!!
Aw!!! It's The Beatles! At Shea Stadium! With John playing the Organ! If this don't make you smile, ain't nuffin gonna shake dem blues. This just makes me really, really happy. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6RRBeR0Ko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6RRBeR0Ko
Labels: Beatles
¶ 11:18 AM 2 Comments
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Billy Preston 1946-2006: The Fifth Beatle
A couple of years ago I bought a very ropey bootleg video of The Beatles infamous 'Let It Be' documentary from a record fair in Doncaster. Most people I meet, even Beatles fans, tell me they don't really think much of the LP, but since watching the film that day I've always replied 'Ah. But you've gotta see the film to really understand it.' 'Cos I'm a pretentious jerk. But I'm also right.
An old friend of The Beatles since their Hamburg days, black American keys player Billy Preston was invited to play with the band during the tense and fractious Let It Be sessions at George Harrison's behest, the Quiet One believing that the laid back organist's presence would force everybody to be on their best behaviour - the same had worked during the White Album sessions when George drafted Eric Clapton in for 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.' I loved watching Billy in the documentary, 'cos he just seemed to be so damned happy to be playing funky RnB music with the Fabs, at a time when the Fabs themselves had long forgotten how to do the same. I identified with him - this, you felt, was exactly how you would feel if you'ld been invited to jam with the Beatles. You couldn't even imagine being Paul or John. But you could easily imagine how it might feel to be Billy; a little nervous maybe, not wanting to take sides or step on anybodys toes, wary of Paul's snake charmer charm, warier still of John's violent temper...but also quietly confident, desperate to help the Beatles make some great soul music, your music, and if possible just have a good time, drink some wine, play your piano and JAM WITH THE BEATLES!
'Let It Be' is a flawed LP (like The White Album, that's a huge part of it's charm for advocates of it like myself), but it also contains some of their greatest RnB groovers, notably 'Get Back' and 'I've Got A Feeling,' the latter being one of my all time fave raves. Preston is integral to the dry, laidback funk they nailed on these tracks, and was awarded for his wonderful electric piano break on 'Get Back' by being only artist ever to recieve a co-credit with the Beatles, the single baring the legend: 'The Beatles with Billy Preston.' Pretty cool, huh? From the same sessions, his playing on 'Don't Let Me Down' (another fave) - heard on Anthology 3 - is magnificent. And he played with them during their last ever live performance on top of the Apple building. Pretty cool, huh?
There's a scene in 'High Fidelity' when Rob has made his 'Top 5 jobs', and lists 'Musician' at No1 - with the caveat that he would be happy being 'one of the Memphis Horns - not asking to be Hendrix.' That's how I felt about Billy when I watched 'Let It Be.' I'm not asking to be Macca, but it must have been nice, even preferable, to have been Billy Preston during those few weeks. Many have their claims to Fifth Beatle status, Billy deserved it more than most. He passed the audition.
An old friend of The Beatles since their Hamburg days, black American keys player Billy Preston was invited to play with the band during the tense and fractious Let It Be sessions at George Harrison's behest, the Quiet One believing that the laid back organist's presence would force everybody to be on their best behaviour - the same had worked during the White Album sessions when George drafted Eric Clapton in for 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.' I loved watching Billy in the documentary, 'cos he just seemed to be so damned happy to be playing funky RnB music with the Fabs, at a time when the Fabs themselves had long forgotten how to do the same. I identified with him - this, you felt, was exactly how you would feel if you'ld been invited to jam with the Beatles. You couldn't even imagine being Paul or John. But you could easily imagine how it might feel to be Billy; a little nervous maybe, not wanting to take sides or step on anybodys toes, wary of Paul's snake charmer charm, warier still of John's violent temper...but also quietly confident, desperate to help the Beatles make some great soul music, your music, and if possible just have a good time, drink some wine, play your piano and JAM WITH THE BEATLES!
'Let It Be' is a flawed LP (like The White Album, that's a huge part of it's charm for advocates of it like myself), but it also contains some of their greatest RnB groovers, notably 'Get Back' and 'I've Got A Feeling,' the latter being one of my all time fave raves. Preston is integral to the dry, laidback funk they nailed on these tracks, and was awarded for his wonderful electric piano break on 'Get Back' by being only artist ever to recieve a co-credit with the Beatles, the single baring the legend: 'The Beatles with Billy Preston.' Pretty cool, huh? From the same sessions, his playing on 'Don't Let Me Down' (another fave) - heard on Anthology 3 - is magnificent. And he played with them during their last ever live performance on top of the Apple building. Pretty cool, huh?
There's a scene in 'High Fidelity' when Rob has made his 'Top 5 jobs', and lists 'Musician' at No1 - with the caveat that he would be happy being 'one of the Memphis Horns - not asking to be Hendrix.' That's how I felt about Billy when I watched 'Let It Be.' I'm not asking to be Macca, but it must have been nice, even preferable, to have been Billy Preston during those few weeks. Many have their claims to Fifth Beatle status, Billy deserved it more than most. He passed the audition.
Labels: Beatles
¶ 12:41 PM 4 Comments
