Hello all;
We are in that countdown to the Power To The People box set’s arrival, long discussed around here and elsewhere, coming online October 10. As a number of people have noted, Walmart of all vendors had been offering a pre-sale deep discount: what normally retails for over $200 went for $81. I would hesitate to speculate on the reasoning behind this, or the strategy (beyond any obvious connecting-of-dots suggesting a Walmart customer might not align with this particular product and therefore, why not offer an incentive?). What does interest me is seeing how the release plays out in the media, and whether any outlets who’ve slept through the promotion thus far will be shocked! SHOCKED!! at the omissions we’ve discussed.
Personally, I am a little surprised that the video released to showcase “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (extended by two minutes from all previous issues) seems, to my ears anyway, a little too clean and sterile, as compared to the last remaster (2010).Shouldn’t agitprop music be more raucous and less soothing? The visuals are good though.
News
If anyone doesn’t already subscribe to the John Lennon YouTube channel, maybe they should, because, for anyone interested, they have been dripping out more excerpts from the 1972 Irv Kupcinet talk show appearance discussed in this page some weeks back. (While you’re at it, you can subscribe to mine, because I guarantee you it will be fast growing with shows, video and playlists in the weeks ahead.)
Ringo’s 2025 All-Starr tour wrapped up for the year with a residency at The Venetian in Las Vegas. The drummer told media that he will now devote his energies to completing work on the country-flavored sequel to this year’s Look Up. Hard to imagine that more tour dates won’t come next year, or at least some promotional appearances.
The other performing Beatle, Sir Paul, has begun his full on tour. As noted here last week, the warm-up gig in Santa Barbara clocked in at just under two hours: the official tour under way is up to standard McCartney length, as reported here. Beyond opening with “Help!,” there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of surprises for anyone who’s seen him live in recent years, but that’s probably indicative of his crowd-pleasing bent: if he skipped the “I’ve Got A Feeling” duet with John, the George “Something” tribute, or the “Live and Let Die” pyrotechnics, someone would likely be disappointed and that would be too much to bear.
On the subject of Paul, remember that news story back in March this year, regarding that Vancouver man who found a reel tape copy of the Decca audition? Well, Rob Frith has parlayed his 15 minutes into a hang with Paul lasting three times as long: Frith flew to LA to deliver the tape to Paul, who then invited him and his family to take in their rehearsal.
Revisiting this Decca tape story leads to questions and lots of them: on the one hand, the contents of the tape is no mystery. The songs recorded that day have been bootlegged, the subject of a quai-legal early ‘80s release, and - in part - official release on Anthology 1. We know what the music sounds like. But there’s plenty we don’t know exactly about the provenance of the tape, asserted to be a record store purchase circa 1971 and said, by some, to be a 1st-gen dub of the actual session reel. But we don’t know this for certain, and the word back in March had been that this was better sound quality than anything previously heard publicly. If you don’t think there’s much to analyze and discuss about this tape, just wander over to the Steve Hoffman forum some time: that’ll kill the next several hours…
It would be wonderful to think that the acquisition of this reel could be put to real fan-pleasing use, as - for instance - part of a package built around the concept of Beatles ‘62: beginning with Decca, ending with the Peter Jackson-treated Star Club tapes, and folding in the extant EMI recordings - that would happen in a perfect world (or if say The Beatles catalog were curated as smartly as The Monkees is). The Decca tape could also serve as bonus material for a Please Please Me album SDE; again, in a world better than the one we’re currently living in. I guess time will tell, and as much as I like to be optimistic, as often as not they show us that pleasing the hardcores is not a priority.
As noted here last week, Julian Lennon. He’s just issued another video from the current project (of past material).
Oh, and for anyone who missed the Ethan Hawke thing last week (because it got taken down), this.
SATB
As a follow on to my most recent conversation with Candy Leonard discussing that song, there were some who suggested that I solicit input from someone of color, to cover all bases I suppose. To that end, I reached out to a couple of women who would have been top tier guests; however, I got no bites. One was this woman who might be familiar: she told me that she really didn’t have an opinion on the subject. The other, who I fully expected to have an opinion, did not respond, unfortunately. So I remain open to suggestion if anyone has any leads on an interview subject that’s willing to talk.
Hope everyone has had a chance to hear 311: Dear Beatle People with Sara Schmidt and Allison Bumsted. (And if you hadn’t, you can see it now as well. Just as a word to those who care about such distinctions: the podcast is the more precise cut of the show, with appropriate sound bites added. The video versions of the shows going up on YouTube are just the talk, no bells and whistles, although for some I add visuals to the show’s intro. I may or may not continue to do this.)
RE Dr Bumsted: she also appeared this week on a Rolling Stones podcast, Hang Fire, and - no surprise - did a terrific job discussing that band in the context of their coverage in ‘60s teen fan magazines, which you should all know by now is her area of research. You’ve heard her on my show (here and here) doing something similar with The Fabs, but for anyone who’s a Stones fan, it was a terrific conversation so do check it out. And if you are a Springsteen fan, check out this upcoming live event on October 15 with her. (It’s free - and here’s a bonus free article)
Back to me! A conversation I had with the guys who host the Note By Note podcast, Kenyon Rosewell and Peter Pisano, has just gone live. If you don’t already know, this Beatles show features guests who take a deep dive with the hosts into a single Beatles song, in this case, the A Hard Day’s Night album closer, “I’ll Be Back,” long a fave of mine and one that I was quite happy to discuss at length.
I will also be appearing on another show, Robert Miller’s Follow Your Dream podcast. It will be going live this week, I’m told - I’ll post a direct link when it’s up. With this, I am following at least three previous SATB guests, Ms. Bumsted as well as Debbie Gendler and Christine Feldman-Barrett, as well as tons of renowned folks - just check out his site.
It’s Johnny’s Birthday
Thursday marks what would’ve been his 85th birthday and if that’s unimaginable, consider that another former Beatle reached that milestone in July and is still touring and recording. There’s always another angle to discuss John Lennon’s life and art and I am expecting that there will be another show dedicated to some aspect before the year is out. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of made-for-tv documentaries you may not have seen. The first one is from 2003, I believe: I Knew John Lennon. It features an array of interviewees who have since departed, which in itself makes it valuable. Details here (including an editor who really had a wonderful life.)
The other is from 2021 and produced by the BBC: John Lennon: A Life in Ten Pictures. It too features some terrific guests, among them several who appeared in Alan G. Parker’s recent film, Borrowed Time: John Lennon’s Last Decade. (For those who’ve been asking: the current word is that US availability will be coming in December. More details to follow…)
Back when SATB was still in double digits and in its previous iteration, the first show taped at The Fest happened. The theme was compiling solo best ofs by John and Paul; I did one (well two actually) and the other guy did the other (on Macca, for whom his disposition toward was broadcast loudly at every turn). I recently revisited my own picks and found that I was still pretty happy with them, so presented here as YouTube playlists. (No, I don’t remember why I was moved to produce two very separate comps, but why not? They’re still better picks than anything official, IMHO.)
History
We’ve just passed the 56th anniversary of Abbey Road’s release (September 26 in the UK and October 3 in the US). It has been revered in popular memory pretty much ever since, with the added poignance of it being their last full-band project, though they have hemmed and hawed through the years about whether or not they believed it would be their last while they were making it. (Even if not a conscience thought, make what you will of their final collective studio project concluding with a composition called “The End.”) It is therefore worth looking back at how it was received in its day, coming when big changes were afoot in the very industry that they had reshaped for the last seven years.
Posted here: an interview with Paul, discussing the new record, conducted by David Wigg and taped at Apple one day before John’s “I want a divorce” declaration.
Heard here: an interview with John for Radio Luxembourg, discussing the new record.
Posted here: George’s Abbey Road talk with Ritchie Yorke.
These self-assessments of their work capture the group at an interesting time, when the door was still open to future collective activity, though in what form was uncertain.
As far as mainstream press in the states went, Nik Cohn in the New York Times outdid himself in his assessment, distilling the entirety of the release down to Side Two's 15 minutes of pleasure and the remainder, meh. His review ran one day after a largely positive one in the same publication by Mike Jahn.
Likewise, Rolling Stone couldn't make up its mind about the release, running competing positive (John Mendelsohn) and negative (Ed Ward) responses to the album too; as usual, such extreme reactions said more about the reviewer than the reviewed.
From the latter:
"What's it like? Well, I don't much like it, but then I have a thing about the Beatles. Since Revolver I've been buying their albums, playing them a couple of times, and then forgetting about them. The last album was, admittedly, exciting in places, but I still don't play it much because there's still too much stuff on it that should have been edited...Of course, the Beatles are still the Beatles, but it does tread a rather tenuous line between boredom, Beatledom, and bubblegum...
...Side two is a disaster...The slump begins with 'Because', which is a rather nothing song...the biggest bomb on the album is 'Sun King', which overflows with sixth and ninth chords and finally degenerates into a Muzak-sounding thing with Italian lyrics. It is probably the worst thing the Beatles have done since they changed drummers. This leads into the 'Suite' which finishes up the side. There are six little songs, each slightly under two minutes long, all of which are so heavily overproduced that they are hard to listen to...
...It is tempting to think that the Beatles are saying with this album that the only alternative to 'getting back' for them is producing more garbage on this order, and that they have priced it so outrageously so that fewer people would buy it. But if that's so, then why bother to release it at all? They must realize that any album they choose to release is going to get a gold record just because so many people love, respect and trust the Beatles. They've been shucking us a lot recently, and it's a shame because they don't have to. Surely they must have enough talent and intelligence to do better than this. Or do they? Tune in next time and find out."
Not for no reason did Rollingstone.com scrub this review from their website. What these conflicting reactions speak to is the rise of rock criticism and its accompanying value system, wherein music created purely for the sake of pleasure was frivolous; anything not deemed "authentic" and art with a capital A (or god forbid, commercial) was simply not worth the reviewer's time.
Passing Noted
The Yardbird’s Chris Dreja 1945 - 2025
Only three men who played on The Yardbirds’ debut (live) album were also heard on their final (studio) long player: singer Keith Relf - drummer Jim McCarty - rhythm guitarist (later bassist) Chris Dreja. Only Jim is left now, and as is well-known, the band’s lead guitarists - on record - included Eric Clapton, the late Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. The original bassist was Paul Samwell-Smith, who left to become a producer (Cat Stevens, Jethro Tull, and Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” among other credits).
But Chris was the unsung glue that held the group together. He did his part well and wasn’t known for being particularly flashy; rather, he provided a foundation (along with the rhythm section) for the series of guitarists to do their thing. He would also provide whatever was necessary and stay out of the way if need be. (See this TV performance of their 1965 “I’m A Man” single, where he’s on maracas.) He also drew the picture that graced their untitled 1966 studio album (universally known as “Roger the engineer”).
Briefly, the band contained two flash guitarists (Beck and Page) after Samwell-Smith’s departure, whereupon Dreja switched to bass. But years of non-stop touring and an under-appreciation of their increasingly groundbreaking recordings took a toll: when the band wound down in 1968, Dreja was ready to hang it up, rather than join Page’s “New Yardbirds” project which of course morphed into Led Zeppelin.
Circa 2000: L-R Jim McCarty - (unidentified hanger-on) - Chris Dreja
Instead, Dreja became a photographer, shooting the group photo gracing the back cover of Led Zeppelin’s debut. He worked with Warhol in New York City for a time. Come the 1980s, he, Samwell-Smith and McCarty reconnected as a Yardbirds offshoot, Box of Frogs. (Their two albums contain contributions from Beck and Page respectively.) In the early 2000s, a new iteration of Yardbirds toured (and even released a new Yardbirds album in 2003) but after suffering a series of strokes, Dreja retired from performing in 2013.Here’s a pictorial tribute.
As you undoubtedly know, Jim McCarty has maintained a fairly high profile as the last original Yardbird standing. He was a SATB guest just after the passing of Jeff Beck, and we reconnected at The Fest this year. He’s authored two books, you may recall: one a memoir, but the other an exploration of his experiences with the level of existence beyond this one. We discussed having him back to talk about the second book. I can’t imagine a better time.
All best,
RR
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