Category: Music

Abbey Road notes

A few Beatles-related items:

  • Mike Smith has passed away. He was the A&R man who, on January 1, 1962, signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes to Decca Records, instead of the Beatles.
  • Back in October I noted that EMI was going to be bought by the rich Russian who bought Warner Music. But a last-minute deal between EMI and Universal Music was worked out.
  • Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, co-authors of Recording the Beatles, have sold out four talks at EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios on the 80-year history of the facility.

Hunter Davies chats about the lads from Liverpool

BBC Radio 4 has this interview with Hunter Davies, who wrote the only authorized telling of the story of the Beatles, other than their own Anthology, and he did it while they were still together as the Beatles.

[audio:http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/openbook/openbook_20120101-1750a.mp3|titles=BBC Radio 4 podcast: Hunter Davies]

Party like it’s 2009!

It’s already New Year’s Day in Belgium and the Netherlands. Three years ago K3, the Flemish Europop queens, recorded this New Year’s message.

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/2011/Dec/K3_2012.flv 640 360]

“United As One”? Well, no, because a few months later in 2009 Kathleen Aerts quit. She was replaced by “Josje” Huisman, who seems to have been the perfect choice for the girl group.

For you K3 fans here’s a recent picture of Karen, looking sort of like Lindsay Lohan did before she discovered meth, or whatever it was that wrecked her.

This was Karen about twenty years ago.