It’s Record Store Day!

The concept was founded in 2007 as a celebration of the art of music. Over 700 independent record stores in the U.S. and hundreds of international stores celebrate every third Saturday in April, with special vinyl and CD releases.

Enter to win a sweepstakes for CDs, LPs and a Sony USB Turntable at touchtunes.com/

There’s also a Record Store Day pop-up store at the Coachella Music Festival with Zia Records!

Hundreds of artists and bands around the world make special in-store appearances and some perform an intimate show for customers. Some special releases this year include…a John Lennon 7-inch single box set, Them Crooked Vultures 10-inch Picture Disc, and 7-inch singles from The Doors People Are Strange movie.

We’re especially excited about the new Jeff Beck album ‘Emotion & Commotion.’ If you’re lucky you might even capture a limited edition vinyl 12-inch from Rhino Records.

Warner Brothers also has the Flaming Lips, Stardeath & White Dwarfs performing ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ on exclusive 12-inch seafoam green vinyl. CD goes on sale May 4th!

Go shop for great music at your local record store today! There’s a list of participating stores at recordstoreday.com/

Go shop your local record store this Saturday and check out what you might be missing; limited vinyl singles, EP’s and special releases from hundreds of bands!

Your local indie record shop is THE place to discover great music, gather with your friends, hang out and listen to something new.

Record Store Day celebrates this atmosphere of discovery, and so does a long list of artists and bands that create special limited releases just for this event!

A short list…

• Atlantic: Paolo Nutini LIVE EP CD
• Captiol: John Lennon single box set with postcards and poster
• Interscope: R.E.M. Chronic Town EP & Them Crooked Vultures 10-inch Picture Disc
• Nonesuch: Wilco 4 LP vinyl set, Kicking Television, 1st time available
• Rhino: 12-inch vinyl of Jeff Beck’s new album ‘Emotion & Commotion’
• Rhino: 12-inch reissue vinyl of Pantera
• Rhino: The Doors 7-inch singles from the new movie People Are Strange
• Universal: The Rolling Stones unreleased track from Exile on Main Street sessions;
  1st time available “Plundered My Soul” & “All Down The Line” 7-inch single.
• Warner Brothers: Flaming Lips/Stardeath/White Dwarfs performing
  Dark Side of the Moon

recordstoreday.com has a complete list (which keeps growing) of those special goodies you just can’t wait to get your hands on!

Follow on Twitter @recordstoreday

Record Store Day YouTube Channel

Chris Brown from Bull Moose gives us a preview of
special limited releases for Record Store Day.

He’s recorded with all four of the Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Donovan, Jeff Beck, Jefferson Airplane, Steve Miller Band, Cat Stevens and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

You’ve heard Nicky Hopkins on The Beatles’ “Revolution,” The Stones “Gimme Shelter” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon.

Nicky Hopkins has an amazing discography. He’s played piano on some of rock’s biggest albums:
Truth and Beck-Ola with the Jeff Beck Group; My Generation, Who’s Next & The Who By Numbers; Exile on Main St., Their Satanic Majesties Request & Black and Blue with The Stones; Walls and Bridges with John Lennon; and Living in the Material World with George Harrison.

Sadly, Hopkins passed away in September 1994 after surgery for Crohn’s disease. Poor health was a major reason why he mainly was a studio and session player, but he did tour with the Rolling Stones on several of their tours in the early seventies.

It’s been a decade since Julian Lennon has released any new music to the public, so it will be interesting to see what he has to say. This new single is dedicated to his childhood friend, Lucy Vodden, who inspired Julian to draw his famous “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” picture. As the legend goes, Julian showed his drawing to his dad, John Lennon, who wrote the famous song that appeared on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

Julian Lennon and current musical partner James Scott Cook decided to release this single for “Lucy” as their part in raising funds and awareness in the search for a cure for lupus. James’ 92-year-old grandmother, Lucy Cook, has lived with lupus for many years, and Julian’s childhood friend, Lucy Vodden, recently passed away at the age of 46 after a long battle with the disease. This new single for “Lucy” honors both women.

In this video, Julian explains the associations between his childhood friend, one of his father’s most famous songs, and the autoimmune disease lupus. Then Julian and James perform an acoustic version of “Lucy.”

100 percent of the proceeds from each download of the full version of “Lucy” from iTunes will be donated to lupus research, thru March 15, 2010. The proceeds will be shared equally between the Lupus Foundation of America and Saint Thomas’ Lupus Trust in Great Britain.

Also a related story…
Julian Lennon finally forgives his dad, and says working on a new album and song about his childhood friend, Lucy, has brought him full circle to this point in life.

“After recording the song “Lucy,” almost by nature, it felt right to fulfill the circle, forgive dad, put the pain, anger and bitterness in the past, and focus and appreciate the good things. “Writing is therapy for me and, for the first time in my life, I’m actually feeling it and believing it. It also has allowed me to actually embrace Dad and the Beatles.”

Source: www.cbsnews.com/stories/

Join the Revolution! therevolution.com

Learn more about lupus at www.lupus.org

Peace be with you John, as we remember December 8th, the day you left this earth and became Free As A Bird.

Here’s some of my favorite Lennon links and fan sites:

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus @ lennonbus.org provides hands-on audio and video experience to high school and college students by using state-of-the-art mobile recording studio technology.

Official Website @ johnlennon.com

John Lennon Imagine Peace

John Lennon Songwriting Contest @ jlsc.com
an international songwriting contest since 1997, open to amateur and professional songwriters with 12 categories.

A Tribute to John Lennon by NellieOapple

The Beatles Official Website @ beatles.com

Here’s a few of my favorite Lennon links:

johnlennon.com

imaginepeace.com

lennon.net

bbc.co.uk/music/lennon

A few of my favorite fan sites:

John Lennon Imagine Peace

A Tribute to John Lennon

Abbey Road Studios supports the release of Curvebender’s latest title,
Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Day In The Life of Sgt. Pepper. The book’s images were taken by photographer Henry Grossman during a 1967 Beatles session in Studio Two. www.curvebender.com

Read more on Abbey Road’s website.

They went through the entire original Beatles catalog and digitally remastered each album for the very first time. Our original post is here.

The magic number was 09 09 09, as the entire set of remastered albums were released on September 9th, along with two box sets, one in stereo and one in mono.

If you fancy more detail about how the project was conducted, you can read it on www.abbeyroad.com/

Abbey Road Studios also played a big part in the development of The Beatles: Rock Band video game.

After hearing a sample of the remastered works, we were impressed by it’s sonic purity. It’s most noticeable on “Hey Bulldog,” where George’s lead guitar track really stands out.

This is not a definitive writing, as we’ve not heard all the remastered tracks yet. I have read that Abbey Road is the number one best selling album of all the remastered catalog, with Sgt. Pepper’s being number two, and the white album number three.

We were feeling the buzz of Beatlemania after 09 09 09, so we watched the Anthology series, to hear these stories from The Beatles themselves. It’s fascinating to discover how some of their albums and songs were recorded, and the studio effects that were used.

A lot of those secrets were revealed in the new book Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums.

www.thebeatles.com

www.thebeatlesrockband.com

The Beatles Albums – MusicRamble Amazon Store

Author Brian Kehew spent years researching and putting together a new book called Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums. It’s a very interesting peek behind the studio console at how John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr recorded their classic albums.

Forthcoming is a never before seen, behind the scenes book about the making of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Peppers has been called the defining album of a generation, and considered as one of the most influential albums of all time. This should be one of the most highly awaited books in years. I’ve heard there is a short video special that will be aired on VH1, but the book will have great detail about the Sgt. Pepper’s album.

There’s a short interview with the author on
blog.seattlepi.com/

September 9th will be the very first time the Beatles catalog has been digitally remastered, so this world wide event has caused a new wave of Beatlemania.

Naturally we want the stereo box set, because the stereo box features all twelve original Beatle albums, plus Past Masters I & II (combined into one CD now,) and Yellow Submarine. There’s also a DVD of mini-documentaries from the studio of the making of each album. Quick time videos are embedded into each stereo album.

Word has it that the stereo tracks were digitally enhanced to improve the listening experience, without changing or removing any sound artifacts that would alter music history. In other words, the Abbey Road engineers didn’t mess with the mixes, they just enriched The Beatles’ sound.

That’s fine with us, because we’ve really enjoyed the LOVE album, which remixed some Beatles songs in digital 5.1 sound, and the improvement in sound was amazing! Thanks to Fifth Beatle George Martin and his son Giles Martin for their fantastic feel, ear and timing, and it’s those engineers at Abbey Road studios that carry on that great tradition of caring and sharing The Beatles music for generations.

The mono box is geared for the collector, the purist. It contains all ten of the Beatles original mono albums, plus two extra CDs of mono masters kinda like Past Masters. In addition the mono editions of “Help!” and “Rubber Soul” also include the original 1965 stereo mixes, previously unreleased until now. The albums are designed as mini-vinyl CD replicas of the original sleeves with all original inserts.

Press Release about The Beatles remastered catalog:
Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music are delighted to announce the release of the entire original Beatles catalog, which has been digitally re-mastered for the first time, for worldwide CD release on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (9-9-09), the same date as the release of the widely anticipated “The Beatles: Rock Band” video game. The process took a team of engineers at Abbey Road Studios four years of utilizing state of the art recording technology, alongside vintage studio equipment, to create these amazing re-masters.

More articles on The Beatles Digital Remasters:

USA Today article: “Remastered Beatles catalog comes together”

TheBeatles.com

FansOnTheRun.com

Follow The Beatles On Twitter:

@beatlesnews

@BeatlesTweets

@thebeatles

@TheBeatlesMusic

@TheTweatles

It’s just too bad it took place at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which is best suited to football games and not concerts. The acoustics were just awful, but the sound crew did an excellent job of hanging extra speakers around the upper balconies, which minimized the nagging echo of the mammoth structure.

Paul does a really great live show for age 67. He and his band played two and a half hours of music, sprinkled with amusing stories. His interaction with the fans really makes a connection with young and old. The audience was a mixed bag of several generations, some danced and some just sat and listened.

But I think everyone enjoyed the evening. Especially the fat drunk chick who pretended to be a go-go dancer from the sixties, and picked the empty seats in front of us to demonstrate “there’s something in the way she moves!”

I heard songs I’ve never heard performed live before, like “Mrs. Vanderbilt” and “I’m Down.” It was a nice change from the set list Paul’s been doing for years. FansOnTheRun.com has the complete set list posted from this show, along with links to the local Dallas and Fort Worth newspaper’s concert reviews.

During “My Love,” it occurred to me how 20 years ago we used to see a sea of lighters during a slow ballad like this. Now we see tiny screens glowing like electronic fireflies as fans wave their cell phones in the air, trying to capture a bit of the magic for someone at home.

During the songs dedicated to John and George, how many people felt the same thing I experienced? Did we come together in a communal conscience like The Beatles sang so much about? All we need is love, and we get by with a little help from our friends. Something like that.

Not real impressed with the opening band The Script, but in all fairness, they played to a really tough room. I would have enjoyed them better in a pub setting, or a smaller venue or festival stage.

There were a few surprises. We enjoyed a couple of minutes of jamming on “Purple Haze” with Paul playing lead guitar. He followed with a story about pal Jimi Hendrix opening a concert with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” on a Sunday following the Friday release of that very album.

Another one from left field was “It’s So Easy,” because the Beatles were Buddy Holly fans. And he’s playing in Texas. ‘Nuff said.

“A Day in the Life” lead right into “Give Peace A Chance,” a nice segway and a pleasant surprise. My favorite is the way they merged the last encore songs together; “Sgt. Pepper’s” and “The End.”

His funniest story is about him reading the signs that fans along the front rows were holding up, trying to capture his attention, but distracting him from remembering his song lyrics. One sign read “Fireman welcome!”

“Live & Let Die” could have been a show-stopper of a closing number with all the dazzling pyrotechnics, but McCartney and company plugged on with nine more Beatle songs to actually close out the evening. The only negative crowd reaction came when Paul and his band said goodnight and goodbye.

But the good vibes are still ringing in our ears today, and will linger in our hearts for years. Thanks to Paul McCartney and his Band On The Run for The Long and Winding Road of Beatles and Wings hits, solo songs and Fireman tunes.

Cheers to the band…you guys made these songs come alive. There’s long time collaborator Paul “Wix” Wickens on keyboards and accordion, Brian Ray on bass and guitar, Rusty Anderson on guitar, and the amazing Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums.

paulmccartney.com

thebeatles.com

The couple also recorded “Give Peace a Chance” in the hotel room on June 1st. The song became an instant anti-war protest anthem and was released as a single credited to the Plastic Ono Band.

The press conference and resulting live recording was a media circus, drawing dozens of famous celebrities and journalists, including Allen Ginsberg, Derek Taylor, Dick Gregory, Murray the K, Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers (on acoustic guitar) and Petula Clark.

Also in May of 1969, The Beatles released “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” mainly written by Lennon, describing the events happening around his marriage to Yoko, including their first bed-in for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton.

In December 1969, John and Yoko continued their message of peace by putting up billboards in eleven major cities around the world.

“WAR IS OVER! (If you want it.) Happy Christmas from John and Yoko.”

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed-In

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_Peace_a_Chance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_John_and_Yoko

www.johnlennon.com/

The Rock Hall Annex in New York City just opened a great new exhibit; John Lennon: The NYC Years. It captures the spirit of John Lennon as he lived and worked in NYC in the early seventies. Should be something to see, especially with the handwritten lyrics, artwork and photos. Details are on the website www.rockannex.com/lennon

The Rock Hall Annex in NYC is also on Twitter at twitter.com/rockannex

Twitter’s Rocking with Rick Derringer too! twitter.com/rickderringer

Did you know Rick Derringer was only 17 years old when he recorded the hit song “Hang On Sloopy” with his band “The McCoys?” That was the summer of 1965. Two years before the “summer of love.” Wow!
www.rickderringer.com/

It took all three of them to make it happen, but Apple Corps Ltd., MTV and Harmonix have announced the official release date for The Beatles: Rock Band on September 9th, or 09-09-09.

It seems odd to see a Beatles video game coming out before their management company will officially license the band’s music for worldwide digital distribution. But that won’t matter when this first-of-it’s-kind-interactive-music-video-game is released to the world at large. Beatle fans, myself included, will snap it up in record numbers, no matter which price point you ponder.

There’s three versions, two of which will include new guitars, bass, microphone or drums, and all versions will be available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii. The company won’t say what the instruments are like, but we can dream of John’s Rickenbacker or George’s Telecaster. How about a Hofner bass or a Ludwig drum controller?

The Beatles: Rock Band (MSRP:)
Software alone $59.99
Game & Standalone Guitars $99.99
Limited Edition Premium Bundle $249.99

Of course, the best part is the music, which was supervised for this project by Giles Martin, whose father George I consider to be the real “fifth Beatle.” The Martins were behind the Grammy winning LOVE soundtrack album, so you know this is going to be good.

mtv.com also has a great write up about it.

www.thebeatlesrockband.com

The Charity Begins Within concert is a benefit for the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness Based Education and World Peace, and takes place on April 4th.

Wow, will all that fit on a business card? What’s it mean?

The David Lynch Foundation promotes transcendental meditation (TM) in schools, and this concert aims to involve over a million children worldwide in a global introduction to the simple natural technique of TM.

This will be the first time Paul and Ringo have performed together since 2002. But they’re not strangers to TM. They both studied transcendental meditation in 1968 under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, when they trekked to India along with George Harrison and John Lennon. Remember? They were just trying to get some peace. Then they wrote and recorded the white album. Savoy Truffle, anyone?

Source: popwatch.ew.com/

“Don’t Let Me Down?” Fans have been hoping for the past forty years to finally get a studio produced, fully sanctioned Let It Be movie with additional footage, including the famous roof top concert with Billy Preston.

2008: Sources for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr say that because the Beatles are a world brand, and the Let It Be movie shows the band in something other than a positive light, the film will never be officially released. express.co.uk/

2009: We say Let It Be told. This story is part of rock and roll history, and it’s been so well documented that all Beatle fans know this dark side of the band anyway. I’m a Beatle fan and always will be, so as far as I’m concerned, I’ll still buy a copy of the film, if it is ever officially released on DVD.

Apple Corps could do a fantastic job on it, especially if it were re-sequenced and remastered. Look, this is the last big piece of Beatle history, so let the band go out with a big bang. Give it to the fans, the ones who supported the band in the first place. Remaster the film footage, clean up the audio, include the full roof top concert, plus footage of the band recording the rest of the album at their Apple Studios, and clip out most of the long and winding footage filmed at Twickenham film studios.

There’s a video game under development where fans can remix the band’s music, and there’s the LOVE soundtrack album with it’s remixes and mashups, created by Sir George Martin and his son Giles, so why couldn’t that be done for a Let It Be movie?

For that matter, do a video remix and let fans reshuffle film clips to create their own home versions of the movie. It sure would beat all the crappy bootleg copies that have circulated for years. C’mon Apple, if you want a happy ending, give the Beatles back to their fans, and Let It Be interactive!

P.S. Do You Want To Know A Secret? Paul McCartney had sanctioned a new version of Let It Be, that was to be closer to the intended version he had imagined for the band back in 1969, when the sessions began. Originally titled Get Back, the project was supposed to be the Beatles getting back to their rock and roll roots by playing together as a combo, instead of the fragmented recording process that had been taking place over the past few years, like with the white album.

Abbey Road studios then released ‘Let It Be…Naked’ in 2003. The album was much closer to the live sound that The Beatles had originally intended, than the lush studio album Phil Spector had produced in 1970. Much of the audio was cleaned up and edited for a possible DVD release of the movie, but instead became the Naked album.

Let It Be...interactive

Video From the Roof Top Concert:
“Don’t Let Me Down”

Rooftop Concert part 1 of 3

Rooftop Concert part 2 of 3

Rooftop Concert part 3 of 3

Excerpt from Beatles Anthology

Recording Outtakes

Control Room Chatter, part 1

Control Room Chatter, part 2

Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_it_Be…Naked

express.co.uk/

beatles.com/core/films/letitbe

Metallica Collectors Box Set Double DVD

Classic Rock Legends Studios are releasing three special “In Performance” DVDs on January 13th…

Metallica DVD Collectors Box Set is a Double Disc set with a book, featuring rare documentary footage of the band on tour including their live performance at the new Woodstock. The Classic Rock Legends studio taps into Metallica’s own archive of promotional interviews from radio and television. Also included are interviews with band members Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, along with Jason Newstead.

Paul McCartney “In Performance” DVD features a retrospective of McCartney solo performances, along with live performance clips of Wings and The Beatles.

John Lennon “In Performance” DVD showcases a retrospective of rare Lennon live solo performances, and also with The Beatles.

First, I would think John Lennon would be proud to say to Paul McCartney, (imagine after all these years,) “Well mate, you finally got past those Silly Love Songs and back to your rock and roll roots. I’m proud of ye!” Almost as if McCartney was going though the primal scream phase that Lennon went through in the early seventies. The first few rockers on the Fireman album harken back to “Helter Skelter” and possibly even McCartney’s “Rockestra Theme,” recorded by Wings along with an all-star cast of British musicians. That was a year before McCartney recorded his “Wonderful Christmastime” single in 1979.

Secondly, there’s a new Christmas track. Or at least it sounds like a new Christmas song, even though the title is “Dance ‘Til We’re High.” (Track # 8 on the CD.) Not exactly a holiday title, but let’s just go with the music, ok?

The song has bells that give it that Christmas feel, plus a light hearted chorus with cheery lyrics, like…”Light up the sky with your message, Fly with your message, Bells will ring out for our love.”

How many of us are tired of hearing “Wonderful Christmastime” from 1979? If I were a radio station I could just announce it as a new Christmas song and you would believe it. In the yesterdays of the music business, once a radio station made a stance on a record, all the local record stores would get phone calls from fans asking for “that new Christmas record?”

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

www.thefiremanmusic.com

From Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)…”

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

…I wish we could add the part about war is over.

Here’s a few of my favorite fan tribute sites:

John Lennon Imagine Peace

A Tribute to John Lennon

A final interesting note about Lennon…The Vatican finally forgave John Lennon for declaring that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ (1966,) calling the remark a “boast” by a young man grappling with sudden fame. This was reported last month during the 40th anniversary of The Beatles’ White Album.

Lennon Links:
http://johnlennon.com

http://imaginepeace.com

www.lennon.net

www.bbc.co.uk/music/lennon

So what was Christmas like forty years ago? What musical gifts did you get (or give) in December 1968? Let’s see…I was a freshman in high school, 15 years old and really excited about the music and groups I was listening to that year.

The Beatles had just released the white album, so that was the big one. But there were so many other phenomenal albums and artists that debuted that year, or were just releasing their second records. In 1968 it was LP’s baby, the long players were king then. The world revolved at 33 and 1/3 RPM for most of us deeply into the music revolution that was unfolding around us.

“Born To Be Wild” was Steppenwolf’s first hit single, and it was a monster for me. I sat-in on drums for a friend of mine’s garage band at a VFW dance, and when we played that song, it changed the world for me. Suddenly I was cool instead of a nerdy geek because I could play drums, and the bad kids stopped pushing me around. That’s when I became a Steppenwolf fan, and stepped aboard their “Magic Carpet Ride.”

What else happened in December 1968? Police confiscated 30,000 copies of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Two Virgins album at Newark Airport, saying that the cover was pornographic. Detective Sgt. Pilcher busted John and Yoko for drugs at Ringo’s flat in London, after busting the Rolling Stones. This detective was on a roll, you might say, by busting all the high profile musicians in and around London. Even Donovan got busted that year. I guess that’s why he was “Mellow Yellow.”

There’s so much more that went down that year, we’ll just have to tune in for our next post about Christmas 1968.

What do you remember?

Regardless of your opinion, this album continues to endear The Beatles to millions of fans worldwide. And there’s always interesting stories surrounding some of these wonderful songs. This was the first album issued on the Apple record label, which was a brand new business venture in 1968.

I just dug out my copy of the LP with The BEATLES embossed on the glossy white cover, with the number stamped in the bottom right corner; A 3025387. It’s ironic that most of the songs are credited to the writing team of Lennon/McCartney, when it’s common knowledge that most of these great songs were recorded separately by Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and even Ringo Starr got his own song included on the album, “Don’t Pass Me By,” credited to Richard Starkey.

It’s hard to pick one favorite song, there’s so many great ones here, but among my favorites are:
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” one of my favorite Harrison tunes with guest guitarist Eric Clapton;
“Blackbird” one of McCartney’s best acoustic songs, and a favorite for guitar pickers;
“Yer Blues” has a fantastic groove to it that Lennon really poured his soul into;
“Honey Pie” has a great oldies feel to it, like going back to a dance hall in the forties.

My vintage double LP still has the original poster inside. Of course, it’s mostly worn out from years of handling, but like the records inside, they’re like old friends coming back home for a visit.

Resources:
beatles.com

en.wikipedia.org