The beatles were fucking fantastic!

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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Brian Peacock » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:13 pm

The Beatles actually stole most of their ideas from The Rutles...

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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Scot Dutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:22 pm

Not poking a stick just my memories.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Hermit » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:24 pm

Rum wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:48 pm
I remember 'radiograms' as a small kid with a lit up glass 'screen' and the names of exotic sounding places printed on it. You turned a dial and a pointer would move along to the required station. Luxembourg played 'pop music' before the BBC ever did. You could just about find it in the east of the UK but it went in and out of tune and you got an awful lot of hiss!
Before the Beatles broke in my source for pop music was AFN (American Forces Network). The nearest station to me was located in Frankfurt/a.M., only 28 km north from us, so reception was really good. Its call tune consisted of the first two bars of the main theme of Beethoven's violin concerto. Damn diplomatic, that. Unfortunately most spoken words were in American and most programs were spoken word, occasionally interspersed with great music. Another network was RIAS (Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor), but the nearest transmitter kept tuning in and out the way distant shortwave stations do. I found it too frustrating to spend much time with it.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Hermit » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:27 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:13 pm
The Beatles actually stole most of their ideas from The Rutles...

Except for The Rutles being created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes as a parody of The Beatles, but I guess you knew that all along. ;)
Last edited by Hermit on Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Scot Dutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:33 pm

Rum wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:48 pm
I remember 'radiograms' as a small kid with a lit up glass 'screen' and the names of exotic sounding places printed on it. You turned a dial and a pointer would move along to the required station. Luxembourg played 'pop music' before the BBC ever did. You could just about find it in the east of the UK but it went in and out of tune and you got an awful lot of hiss!

You could play records too - I remember one when I was about 7 or 8 that still played 78s!
I and my sister listened to Luxembourg in the 50's. At 11pm on a saturday was the Top 20. We did not have headphones so it had to be very low. As you say it went in and out so we missed bits.
A friend in the street had a load of Elvis records and a couple of Cliff's on 78. The dynamics were not great.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by laklak » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:56 pm

Hermit wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 5:43 am
Pretty cool? Try "fucking fantastic!", exacly as this thread's title says. People like animavore and you, who have not gone through the early sixties as tweens or teens have no fucking idea just how insufferably buttoned up, conformist, not to say oppressive the social ambience was at the time. In TV terms, think of watching an uninterrupted stream Father Knows Best, Bonanza and Dragnet.

Most of our parents loathed those unruly moptops. Even better, they absolutely hated the Rolling Stones. Their music was a rebellion against conformist stupor, and we revelled in it.

I guess you had to be there to understand.
Gods yes. Pat Boone and Doris Day ruled the airwaves. Luckily my Dad was into Les Paul and Sinatra. Plus my aunt was raised by my parents, she was 12 years older than me, and I cut my musical teeth on her old 45s, artists like Elvis, Roy Orbison, Little Richard, and Chubby Checker. I remember the "Meet The Beatles" album when I was in the 4th or 5th grade, and I loved it, but then I heard the Stones first U.S. release, "The Rolling Stones, England's Newest Hit Makers" and life would never be the same again. Not Fade Away, Walking the Dog, Route 66, Carol - I'd never heard white boys do anything like that, not even Elvis. Blew my 10 year old mind.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Tero » Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:21 pm

Hermit wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:27 pm
Brian Peacock wrote:
Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:13 pm
The Beatles actually stole most of their ideas from The Rutles...

Except for The Rutles being created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes as a parody of The Beatles, but I guess you knew that all along. ;)
Eric Idle was the script and idea guy. Innes did a fine Lennon and wrote lyrics. But the Rutles genius was actually Ollie who did not appear..much.... in the film. He did all those Beatles-like arrangements.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ollie_Halsall
”....he plays many of the instruments and provides lead and backing vocals – most notably on the tracks "Doubleback Alley", "With a Girl Like You" and "Get Up and Go". Eric Idle was cast in his place in the accompanying film and Halsall only featured in a very minor cameo role as Leppo, the fifth Rutle who became lost in Hamburg.”
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Hermit » Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:26 pm

Yeah, The Stones were tops. Right until Sticky Fingers. Maybe Exile on Main Street. With their next album, Goats Head Soup, they went off the deep end. The Rolling Stones became a business brand rather than a bunch of blokes who love to make music. Pop for the sake of the money. From the Wikipedia:
Members of the band set up a complex financial structure in 1972 to reduce the amount of their taxes. Their holding company, Promogroup, has offices in both The Netherlands and the Caribbean. The Netherlands was chosen because it does not directly tax royalty payments. The band have been tax exiles ever since, meaning they can no longer use Britain as their main residence. Due to the arrangements with the holding company, the band has reportedly paid a tax of just 1.6% on their total earnings of £242 million over the past 20 years. [...] Near the end of 1974, Taylor began to lose patience after years of feeling like a "junior citizen in the band of jaded veterans".
When Bill Wyman finally told Mick Jagger that he had decided to leave the band, Jagger said something like "You realise that you'll miss out on 20 million pounds a year." Musical concerns were apparently irrelevant to the impending departure.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by laklak » Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:54 pm

I bought Goats Head Soup when it came out, disappointed wasn't the word, it sucked goat balls. If you want to see exactly when they became parodies of themselves just listen to "Angie". Exile was their last gasp as a real R&R band. Pretty much everything up to that point was brilliant, I've got it all on MP3 and most of it on vinyl. There were odd flashes of old Stones in the newer dreck, like Neighbors and Shattered, but they were few and far between and most definitely not worth the cost of the albums.
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Scot Dutchy » Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:07 pm

Why does Mick crank up his old well used body? "It is the money my son".
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Tero » Fri Jul 06, 2018 12:58 pm

I was discussing 2 albums on another forum:
I really enjoyed both Magical Mystery Tour and Pepper’s when they came out, but I was just a kid. I was not much into ”arts” and read books that were aimed at teens or were similar to James Bond thrillers. So the lyrics were just something to learn the song by, to memorize or hum along to. It took 2 more years to analyze them at high school level.

I still continued to enjoy the music as just fun sounds, but at 15 started to examine lyrics of She’s Leaving Home. I also gathered that there was more to A Day in The Life.

It took me years to make more of the other Lennon songs on the album. He was not writing about himself so I kind of dismissed Lucy as another song in that ”psychedelic” category that was mainly about ”seeing things.” You could describe these ”trips” within record company accepted rules.

I did not really think of the songs of that era as much of John or Paul songs. They were more like polished Beatle product.

I think I liked All You Need is Love (saw the world broadcast) and I am the Walrus best. The latter was a fun sound experiment.

I liked Paul’s songs on both albums. I took some effort to sort out lyrics on when I’m 64. Scrimp and save I even asked someone to explain.

The singles of the time were all fine pop music, but I really had liked the very early stuff and material through Help best. The orchestrared stuff with Martin was fine, I just preferred a rock band. Pretty sophisticated at 13-14!
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by laklak » Fri Jul 06, 2018 1:49 pm

I was banging about the TV channels last night and the documentary "Crossfire Hurricane" was on, it's a 2012 film about the Stones. I'd seen it before but watched it again. Jesus, what a life those dudes have had, they really are the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the world. The footage from the Altamonte "festival" was shocking. If you've never seen it it's well worth a watch. One of the most interesting things was the reaction of "The Establishment" to the early Stones, particularly the gutter press.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane
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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Tero » Fri Jul 06, 2018 2:11 pm

Keef’s son Marlon was his keeper for one tour. Got him out of bed and dressed.
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Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late

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Turn stone to bread right away...

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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by laklak » Fri Jul 06, 2018 2:43 pm

Keef's a fucking legend. In the movie Mick was talking about when they all lived in this big house together in Morocco, where they cut Exile on Main Street. They weren't getting any work done because the recording engineers were so strung out on heroin, acid, and booze, because they idolized Keef and were trying to be like him. Mick said "They wanted to be Keith, but they weren't Keith".
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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Re: The beatles were fucking fantastic!

Post by Rum » Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:13 pm

Tero wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 12:58 pm
I was discussing 2 albums on another forum:
I really enjoyed both Magical Mystery Tour and Pepper’s when they came out, but I was just a kid. I was not much into ”arts” and read books that were aimed at teens or were similar to James Bond thrillers. So the lyrics were just something to learn the song by, to memorize or hum along to. It took 2 more years to analyze them at high school level.

I still continued to enjoy the music as just fun sounds, but at 15 started to examine lyrics of She’s Leaving Home. I also gathered that there was more to A Day in The Life.

It took me years to make more of the other Lennon songs on the album. He was not writing about himself so I kind of dismissed Lucy as another song in that ”psychedelic” category that was mainly about ”seeing things.” You could describe these ”trips” within record company accepted rules.

I did not really think of the songs of that era as much of John or Paul songs. They were more like polished Beatle product.

I think I liked All You Need is Love (saw the world broadcast) and I am the Walrus best. The latter was a fun sound experiment.

I liked Paul’s songs on both albums. I took some effort to sort out lyrics on when I’m 64. Scrimp and save I even asked someone to explain.

The singles of the time were all fine pop music, but I really had liked the very early stuff and material through Help best. The orchestrared stuff with Martin was fine, I just preferred a rock band. Pretty sophisticated at 13-14!
I was pretty much the perfect age for them. I was 13/14 when their early stuff came out and I loved it - and knew it was different and that they were something truly different. And as they matured and their music did, I was growing up. I was 17 when Sgt Pepper came out - and of course it hung around for a couple of years it was that big a deal. At one point I could recite or sing the whole album from beginning to end and occasionally did to myself. I bought into the whole thing and appreciated them for what they were - a pop band that made it huge, didn't know what hit them but took the whole thing on and made it their own. Their impact on culture was almost beyond calculation. It is arguable if the hippie thing and psychedelia would have happened in the way it did or in as big a way without their later music being around almost as a soundtrack.

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