Two Garage Sale Books

Posted on May 28, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Sometimes when you go out to garage or yard sales hunting specifically for vinyl records you never actually see any. Not one. No Beatles records. No records at all. It can be very disheartening.

That was the case a couple of weekends ago for me. There seemed to be something of a drought of vinyl for some reason. None of the four or five places I called into that morning had a thing.

However, I did mange to get two quite interesting and collectable books – one of which I know is controversial, but more on that later….

Starting with the non-controversial book first. The guy selling it didn’t have it out on display. Because I couldn’t see any records at his sale I asked (as I always do): “You don’t have any records or CD’s do you?”. This is just in case they have some discs, but haven’t thought to put them out. It happens more than you think….

“No,” he replied. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m after anything to do with the Beatles. I’m not a dealer, I’m just a collector,” I said.

“Well, I do have a Beatles book if you’re interested”, and with that he shot off inside the house and emerged again with this:

The Beatles Forever is a vintage Beatles picture book and it was in really good condition. It’s a British publication dating from 1981. The author is Helen Spence, and as you can see from the front cover image above it has a foreword by legendary US disc jockey Alan Freedman. It is a loose chronology of the band’s journey from unknowns to super stardom and contains lots of great colour photographs on every page:

The basic premise for the book is detailed on the inside flap of the dust jacket:

It begins “The Beatles Forever is an outstanding collection of photographs dating back some twenty years to the beginning of a phenomenon which changed the face of the sixties and the sound of popular music for all time. These photographs, many published here for the first time, have been carefully gathered together to present a scrap-book of the Beatles”. And that’s a pretty acurate description:

And here is the rear cover:From this garage sale I moved on to another. These people didn’t have any vinyl or CD’s either….but they also had a book. A very thick book. A book about John Lennon:

This was a US hardback, a first edition of Albert Goldman’s much-maligned work which came out in 1988. As Wikepedia says, “The book is a product of several years of research and hundreds of interviews with many of Lennon’s friends, acquaintances, servants and musicians. Notwithstanding, it is best known for its criticism and generally negative representation of the personal lives of Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. [It is] controversial because of its portrayal of Lennon in a highly critical light. Lennon was presented in the book as a talented but deeply flawed man who manipulated people and relationships throughout his life, flinging them aside when they were no longer useful to him. Goldman also suggested that Lennon was an anti-Semite and a heavy drug-user and that he was dyslexic and a schizophrenic. The author even went into detail about the long-rumored homosexual affair between Lennon and the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, as well as alleging a number of liaisons by Lennon with other men, including a claim that he solicited underage male prostitutes in Thailand. This latter assertion greatly angered Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney. The book was criticised by Lennon fans for allegedly containing much unsubstantiated conjecture, and tending to present worst-case scenarios when doing so.”

I had a paperback copy of this book, but a first edition hardback in excellent condition was tempting despite it’s critical reputation. Like I said, it is very thick:

And so I bought it. I like the cover, too. A great Iain Macmillan photograph of John Lennon. If you don’t think you know Macmillan’s work, you do. He’s the guy who took the famous photos for the cover of Abbey Road. He also did a lot of other work for John and Yoko including:

The cloud on the album cover for Live Peace in Toronto
Photos on the album Some Time in New York City
The wedding cake in the Wedding Album
The merging heads label of John and Yoko’s vinyl single “Happy Xmas (War is Over)“

On the rear cover of the Goldman book Macmillan’s portrait of John his is presented simply like this:

The Beatles “20 Greatest Hits” – plus an Australian “23 Number Ones”

Posted on May 20, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I scored a couple of copies of the Beatles’ 20 Greatest Hits LP the other day – but not the typical British or US versions. One is Korean, the other from Brazil.

20 Greatest Hits was released in 1982 to mark the 20th anniversary of the group’s first record release “Love Me Do” in the UK. It was the last Beatles album to be released with different variations for the US and UK markets (because some Beatle hits in the US were not released as singles in the UK and vice-versa, such as “Eight Days a Week” and “Yesterday”).

The Korean and Brazilian versions I got both have the US artwork and the same running order of songs. First up the Korean cover, front and rear:

The Korean copy has a plastic “Oasis Records” inner sleeve. Oasis manufactured Parlophone records in South Korea:

And here is the label:

I don’t know if you can make out the small print around the outside, but is says: “Approved by the K.E.C.P.P. Ministry of Culture and Information Registration 16”. (Click on the image to see a larger version)

Next up, the pressing from Brazil:

The Brazilian copy comes with a nice printed cardboard inner sleeve:

And it’s on the EMI label, not Parlophone:

Meanwhile, in Australia a very similar album with practically the same cover art came out a year later (in 1983) – but with a completely different title and running order of songs to both the US and UK versions. Here it was called The Number Ones, and our version contains twenty-three hit songs, not twenty. The extra three songs came on a special three-track 45rpm single included only with the set. Here’s the Australian cover, front and rear:

And here’s the label of the LP:

And this is the unique extra 3-track single:

It came in two different variations. One with a printed sleeve with a cut-out (above) to show the label, and one variation (below) without the cut out:These are the labels of the bonus Australian single, A and B sides:

And some copies in Australia came with a bright neon-orange sticker on the front:

Help! – Coming on BluRay in June

Posted on May 17, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Help!, will be the next Beatle film to be released on Blu-ray. It will join last year’s releases of digitally restored copies of the Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour feature films on Blu-ray, DVD and on iTunes. Presumably, as this is a Blu-ray only release, the 2007 DVD release of Help! remains current.

The group’s second feature film makes its June 24 Blu-ray debut as a single-disc package, pairing the digitally restored film and 5.1 soundtrack with an hour of extra features including an introduction by the film’s director, Richard Lester, and an appreciation written by Martin Scorsese to be included in the booklet.

The Beatles official site has the full press release with details.

Pre-order details will be published shortly.

The Beatles – The Uncut Ultimate Music Guide

Posted on May 16, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I know. I’m always a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to getting on top of the latest Beatle magazines.

I literally stumbled across this one today on the shelf at one of my local newsagent stores. I genuinely hadn’t seen it before, but it looked pretty impressive and so I bought it.

I get home, look it up, and it turns out it was actually released back in January….

It’s a 148-page Beatles special edition, published by the UK’s highly respected Uncut magazine. The magazine traces the rise of the band, its massive success, and then the eventual demise. It features interviews from the archives of Uncut, NME and Melody Maker. Looking back, the levels of access and revelation contained in the archives of these three journals is quite impressive. Their journalists sat in on meetings with Elvis Presley, travel round the United States with the Beatle touring party during the first tour, and are there as the band starts to fall apart. Alongside all these features Uncut’s current team of writers contribute in-depth new analyses of every Beatles album.

Here are some page scans from the mag, which includes unusual photos and great information on the band and their releases:

And this great photo of Beatle manager Brian Epstein – which should qualify for our Beatles With Records series of posts as well:

Beatles Books – Hardcover….and Electronic

Posted on May 13, 2013 by beatlesblogger

The general consensus from Beatle fans so far is unanimous: the cover art for Mark Lewisohn’s first volume in his series of three books is really quite amateur-looking, and I agree:

This is a very disappointing cover, one that doesn’t do justice to the high expectations surrounding the release of this long-awaited Beatles book. Someone of Lewisohn’s standing should get better than this. It comes out later this year.

Meanwhile, the Linda McCartney book Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs has been released in electronic/digital form on iTunes.

Linda McCartney – Life in Photographs features:

over 170 photographs selected from Linda’s archive of over 200,000 images—most of which users can pinch to zoom
forewords by Paul, Stella, and Mary McCartney, texts by Annie Leibovitz and Martin Harrison, and excerpts from interviews with Linda from BBC’s highly acclaimed 1994 “Behind the Lens” profile
a bonus video interview with Paul McCartney and his daughters, Stella and Mary

The collection was produced in close collaboration with Paul McCartney and his children. When it first came out in hard copy the McCartney family released a YouTube video talking about the book.

George Harrison and Hamilton Island

Posted on May 9, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Apologies for the long delay in posting anything on Beatlesblogger but I’m on vacation.

As it happens I’m on a resort island off the coast of Australia – and funnily enough there is actually a Beatles connection to this place.

I’m sitting on beautiful Catseye Beach on Hamilton Island off the Queensland coast and it occurs to me (dredged from somewhere deep in the back of my mind) that George and Olivia Harrison once had a luxury holiday home on this very island….and here it is:

A quick search on Google confirmed that vague memory and led me to this comprehensive article in Architectural Digest outlining the full story of how George ended up owning a little piece of Australia. The article is penned by writer and Harrison family friend Paul Theroux – who contributed the Introduction to the book “Living in the Material World“, and whose work also appears in the very limited (and expensive) Genesis Publications anniversary book about the “Concert for George“. The Harrison home was sold in 2008, apparently for $8 million – setting a new sales record for the island at that time. I just wish George was still around to enjoy this very beautiful part of the world….

You can see a Google Map satellite image of the house here.

A New Addition to the Collection – Ringo the 4th

Posted on April 28, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I have found an interesting second-hand record store not far from my local area which I didn’t even know existed.

It is called Audiomania. It’s a bit oddly located in a semi-industrial area and, unusually, is only open two day’s a week for four hours at a time! On one side of the shop there’s an extensive selection of good quality vinyl (pop, rock, blues, lots of jazz and a bit of a specialty of the store – reggae). On the other side of the space they have vintage hi-fi (amps, turntables, CD players, etc.) and – wait for it – restored motor cycles….

It is the most eclectic record shop I’ve come across in some time.

My son and I descended on Audiomania on the weekend a couple of weeks ago. He was on the hunt for jazz vinyl, and me in search of the Beatles (or anything else Beatle-related).

I ended up with three items. An Australian copy of Paul McCartney’s Red Rose Speedway; a copy of his Give My Regards to Broad Street; and Ringo Starr’s Ringo the 4th.

I wanted the McCartney LP’s because the Red Rose Speedway (Australian pressing) had a cover which didn’t have the Braille writing on the back, and the Broad Street was a US copy on the Columbia label (in Australia this LP came out on Parlophone).

Like I said in the previous post, I seem to moving from not having much of Ringo solo on vinyl to now having quite a few of his releases all of a sudden. I didn’t have this LP at all in my collection. Despite the ringwear on the cover (which you cane see below), this one being both a US pressing and a promo copy, it seemed worth the A$5.00 asking price:

As you can see it has a big black and white Atlantic Records “Promotional Copy” sticker on the front containing a track-listing with composers, song publishers and running times (for use by radio stations I guess), plus a gold-embossed stamp on the upper left-hand side saying “Promotional Copy NOT FOR SALE”.

You can see the rear cover above (pardon the pun). I don’t know who that is sitting on his shoulders or why they are there….if you know please drop us a line. There is also a paper inner sleeve with a photo of Ringo and his co-writer of many tunes on the album Vini Poncia:

The album came out in 1977 on the Atlantic label and has a cast of top session players and guest artists of the day including David Spinozza (guitar), the great Steve Gadd on drums, Chuck Rainey (bass), Michael and Randy Brecker (horns), and Bette Midler, Melissa Manchester, Jim Gilstrap and Luther Vandross (background vocals).

So, one more Ringo Starr for the collection – and a promo copy at that.

Record Store Day, and a Record Fair…

Posted on April 25, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I had a goooood Record Store Day last weekend.

For starters I managed to pick up copies of the Wings 12″ 45 of “Maybe I’m Amazed“, and I also scored the Ringo Starr three x 7″ box set. I got the Wings at one of Sydney’s longest-running, best-known and best-stocked independent record stores – Red Eye Records. We had to queue up in pouring rain outside the shop from opening time (9.00am Saturday) to get in. There were so many people hunting for RSD product it was a bit nerve-wracking wondering if they’d sell out of the Wings title. But, no problems. They still had some left when I finally got to the sales counter.

The Ringo box-set was another matter though. Red Eye hadn’t been able to secure any copies at all, and a quick phone around to just about every other likely outlet in town was the same story. I don’t think any copies of this actually made it into the country. So then it was a matter of just waiting for RSD to roll around in the USA and some copies to begin appearing on eBay. Which, due to the time difference between here and there, they eventually did late on Saturday night.

The Ringo Starr Singles Collection is three 7” vinyl singles in a lift-top box. You get “Photograph” b/w “Down And Out” / “It Don’t Come Easy” b/w “Early 1970” / “(It’s All Down To) Goodnight Vienna” b/w “Oo-Wee”, presented with replicated original picture sleeve artwork, a poster, and a bonus custom record spindle adapter.

Meanwhile….the rest of Saturday was taken up largely by attending the Glebe Record Fair. This is one of the big second-hand record fairs on the Sydney calendar and this year it did not disappoint. The heavy rain on Saturday did not deter people coming out in their droves:Crate digging at the Glebe Fair I actually found quite a lot of things. First was a Beatles eight-LP box set I’ve been seeking out for some time – The Beatles Box – From Liverpool:

It’s the Australian edition from 1981 on the Parlophone label, and it came with the original poster too! I already had the Readers Digest Australian edition of this set (with different labels) – but having a mint copy on the orange Parlophone label has been an aim for a very long time:

From the same dealer I also got what I think is a quite rare Ringo Starr LP from 1983 called Old Wave. You can read the story of why there aren’t a lot of copies of this one around on Wikipedia. Because I’d purchased The Beatles Box – From Liverpool set he sold this one to me for A$10 – which I think was a bargain:

This copy is on the Australian gold RCA label:

I seem to be going from having hardly any Ringo Starr solo to now having quite a few. At the Glebe Fair I also spied a reasonable copy of the budget Music For Pleasure edition of his Blast From Your Past:

This “best of” compilation originally came out on Apple in 1975. In fact it was the last record to be released on Apple (before the label re-emerged in the 1990’s). This MFP re-issue comes from 1981. See the post Budget Beatles for more info on this and other budget labels which feature the Beatles as a group and as solo artists.

On the topic of budget Beatles, my final purchase for the day was a copy of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl on the Australian EMI budget label Axis:

This LP came out in 1987 in a single sleeve (as opposed to the original EMI/Capitol issue from 1977 which had a gatefold cover). This is nice copy in very good condition.

So, a really productive (if somewhat expensive) Record Store Day.

It’s Here. Record Store Day 2013

Posted on April 20, 2013 by beatlesblogger

This is fun:

Beatles Collecting – The Nice Things People Do

Posted on April 14, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Sometimes you don’t go looking for Beatle records. Sometimes, Beatle records come looking for you. That was my experience about three weeks ago when an old friend asked me if I was still interested in collecting the Beatles because she had a couple of records and would I like them?

Well, yes of course I would! Always open to donations. She dropped them in a couple of days later, and you’d have to say it’s a mixed bag of goodies….

The first one wasn’t even the Beatles. It was Wings. Well, not even Wings really, just an obscure band called P.K. and the Sound Explosion doing covers of Wings:

I think there are only two saving graces about this one. One is the daggy cover design featuring a (poorly) stylised version of the official Wings logo of the time. This is what the real thing looks like:

The other saving grace is that this copy is still sealed in protective plastic and is in mint condition. This is a US copy that came out on the Pickwick Records budget label back in 1977. It is so bad, it’s good! (P.K. and his group have also done a Disco Christmas LP, the Beach Boys Songbook, a Paul Williams Songbook, and the Bee Gees Songbook).

Next came three of the real thing, some it has to be said in better shape than others. For instance this very well-used example of the Australian-only cover of Beatles For Sale:

You’d have to say this is a copy that has had a good life. I’m not sure about you, but it has so much patina of age that I’m tempted to keep it just because it looks so pre-loved and lived-in. There was one other intriguing thing. When I took out the vinyl it’s the mono pressing, but not the Australian version. Here’s what I got:

This is what it should look like:

Clearly the original Aussie pressing has been played to death and someone, over the course of the long history of this particular copy of the album, has sought out another to replace it – that being the UK mono we see above….

There was another Australia-only cover in the four records my friend donated. It’s the 1972 release The Essential Beatles on the Apple label. This is a “best of” compilation and as its catalogue number suggests (TVSS 8), it was associated with a TV advertising campaign by EMI in Australia:

This copy of The Essential Beatles has a well-used cover but the vinyl inside is actually in pretty good shape.

Finally a double LP of the soundtrack to the documentary movie Imagine John Lennon:

This is a gatefold album of twenty-one Beatles and Lennon songs. It is in what I would describe as good (G) to very good (VG) condition. The Internet Movie Database says of the film: This “biography” evolves around the nearly 240 hours of film and videotape fortuitously taken by Lennon of his life. The archive footage is transformed into a fascinating life story of one of the most complex and fascinating men of the modern music era….Includes some very personal and insightful footage, never before made available to the public.

The gatefold has some nice photos:

This is the Australian pressing, on the black and silver Parlophone label:

So, some varied, interesting and unusual donations from a friend. Sometimes you don’t have to go looking too far. Beatle records just come to you.

Beatles Blog

Adventures in collecting Beatles music

Category Archives: Beatles Music

Two Garage Sale Books

The Beatles “20 Greatest Hits” – plus an Australian “23 Number Ones”

Help! – Coming on BluRay in June

The Beatles – The Uncut Ultimate Music Guide

Beatles Books – Hardcover….and Electronic

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