I’m not a hockey fan, but the Boston Bruins are playing a wicked good game in Vancouver. They’re in the lead, 3-0, and I’m switching between watching that and Turner Classic Movies, where Chris Isaak is tonight’s guest programmer.
I haven’t seen Isaak live in a few years, but I’m a fan of his and these are exactly the movies I would have expected him to pick. They’re in keeping with the tone of his best known song, Wicked Game.
I’m working on some too-ambitious posts that are getting away from me, so I’m letting them sit in the drafts bin for a while. In the meantime I’m just going to enjoy some books, music, and movies.
I’m listening to Neil Innes’ Rutles follow-up, called Archaeology, and it’s really good. Innes displays an uncanny ability to be insightful and funny at the same time, while turning a catchy tune that turns Rock and Roll musical conventions on their side. He could be called a completely unique talent if not for Ray Davies. Give a listen to Hey Mister!
Innes does an inspired twist on McCartney’s When I’m Sixty Four, called Back in ’64. This is the closing of the second Rutles mockumentary, Can’t Buy Me Lunch.
http://youtu.be/LZiWqI3lZqE?t=2m30s
Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold brings back memories of my time in the radio biz. Gold died a couple of days ago.
Before the Velvet Underground there was the Velvet Fog.
Note: Starting today, A Hard Day’s Night is available on Netflix Watch Instantly.
For lack of a better descriptive word, the Beatles were magical. The Rolling Stones were cool, the Beach Boys were fantastic, and the Motown singles were super, but there was just something about the four fabs that elevated them above and beyond anything and everything else.
There was sooooo much anticipation before The Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, and when we saw them (“Sorry, girls: he’s married”) they vastly exceeded even the most hopeful, optimistic expectation… and that’s what they kept doing! They got better and better, and they never, ever disappointed, unless you’re one of those who doesn’t care for Mr. Moonlight.
What really cemented it all, the breakthrough that elevated the Beatles beyond a teen craze to THE BEATLES as a lasting social phenomenon, was A Hard Day’s Night. The doubtful parents and cynical critics who were so certain the Beatles were just a “yeah, yeah, yeah” fad really had to admit that John, Paul, George, and Ringo were indeed the greatest thing since Schubert and the Marx Brothers put together.
I was not quite nine years old when I saw A Hard Day’s Night, and it had an incalculably powerful effect on me. I couldn’t believe that the girls in the audience were screaming as if the Beatles were there live! Even though I couldn’t hear everything that was said because of the screaming, let alone get all of the jokes because of my age, I enjoyed the experience of seeing the movie so much that the feeling of being there has never left me. In my mind I still can relive the sensation that ran through me when the helicopter lifted off and the end credits started to roll. Mary Poppins was released at almost the same time, and I really enjoyed it, but as delightful as it was it didn’t imprint on my psyche the way A Hard Day’s Night did. (The most uninformed opinion I have ever heard about the movie came from, of all people, my friend Bismo, who said he’s never gotten all the way through it, and he thinks of A Hard Day’s Night as being like an Elvis movie. That’s equivalent to me telling Bismo that I think The Blues Brothers is just a car chase movie with some music thrown in.)
My eldest sister bought all of the Beatles albums as they came out. It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized the American albums before Sgt. Pepper were at best variations of the UK Beatles LP’s and, at worst, complete fabrications. There were two Beatles songs from the UK AHDN album that caught my interest in a particularly unique and vivid way. The thing was, I didn’t know they were both done with A Hard Day’s Night, because this one is on side 1, track 1 on Something New…
http://youtu.be/Z1e-Yk0cAmg
…and this one is on side 2 of Beatles ’65, released months later.
http://youtu.be/q3nksQSRYCI
Things We Said Today and I’ll Be Back had a mood that seemed to come from some place much deeper and different than She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand. They were, to my young ears and mind, strange and compelling. They felt as though they belonged together, and in fact they did. I’ll Be Back was recorded on June 1, 1964, and Things We Said Today was recorded the next day. (“I’ll be back” was later a hit for Arnold Schwarzenegger. ;-)) What Dave Dexter, Jr. did to the Beatles catalog at Capitol Records was both good and bad, and eventually I’ll devote the time and effort to present the material I’ve collected about the much-maligned Dexter.
