A Visit to Some San Francisco Record Stores – Part 2

Posted on August 14, 2013 by beatlesblogger

OK. In Part One I detailed the four main record stores I was able to visit while in San Fran.

Now some detail on what I found and brought home to join the collection. Firstly, the vinyl.

At Rasputin Music on Powell (near Union Square) I found a very clean copy of George Harrison’s Living in the Material World. It was a US pressing I didn’t have – a budget re-issue on the green Capitol label:As you can see, it’s a nice clean copy and the vinyl is mint.

Also at Rasputin there were two Ringo Starr LP’s I liked the look of and they were both very reasonably priced. I have Australian pressings of both of these, but good US copies like these were a welcome addition to the collection. They are both on the Apple label and original throughout. This gatefold copy of Ringo (1973) was complete with its book of lyrics and wonderful line drawings by Klaus Voormann (who also played bass on the album):

The Fab 4 Free 4 All Beatle podcast recently reviewed the Ringo album and raved about it (see episode 60, “Ringo” – Analysis and Review). Also at Rasputin was a copy of Ringo’s Blast From Your Past which came with the original inner sleeve of photos on one side and lyrics on the other:

Later in the week I got over to the Haight-Ashbury district were there were three stores in close proximity (Recycled, Rasputin and Amoeba – all on Haight Street).

The first I visited was Recycled Records. They had some vintage Beatles LP’s, but to be honest they were fairly expensive….and so I concentrated on the Beatles as solo artists. I’ve always been keen on collecting variations of Paul McCartney’s “Russian” album called Choba B CCCP. Well, Recycled was a bit of a treasure trove as they have numerous copies in their bins and tucked away underneath on shelves. There were thirty to forty copies in all, and so I set about identifying some versions I didn’t have. There are so many variations of this particular record because it came out firstly as an 11-track album, followed later by a 13-track version. And they were pressed in about six different Russian pressing plants, each with its own label styles and variations (sometimes subtle) within those labels. I turned up four distinct copies I wanted, and they were all very reasonably priced (between US$6.00-$10.00 each). There was one 11-track version (from the Aprelevka pressing plant), two 13-track versions (Tbilisi plant and Riga plant), and one “hybrid” that had an 11-track cover but a 13-track LP inside (which I didn’t realise until I got home). Both the cover and LP are from the same factory (the Riga plant) so I’m not sure if this is legit or just a mistake….

The rear cover of the 11-track version is identified by its yellow colour:

However, this one has a 13-track LP inside – on a plain white Melodyia Records label, made at the Riga pressing plant where the cover was made too:

So. A mystery there. If anyone knows if any other copies like this exist let me know. These are the labels from the other copies of Choba B CCCP purchased at Recycled:

Of course for the full detail on all Russian Beatle and Beatle-related vinyl releases you need to visit this one, fantastic central repository.

Further down Haight Street is another Rasputin Music store and so I ducked in for a look. No vintage Beatles here, but lots of copies of the latest remastered vinyl at good prices. I did find an interesting re-issue copy of the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’s Live Peace in Toronto LP however, complete with a reproduction of the 1970 calendar which was included with original copies. It is brand new, still sealed, looked like a good buy and so I got it:

I think this re-issue was released in 2012 through a company called Hi Horse Records (which is a subsidiary of City Hall Records). It’s on the original Apple label and has the same SW 3362 catalogue number. If anyone has any other info on this one it would be very welcome. Please drop us a line.

Then it was on to Amoeba Music’s Haight Street store – which is an enormous warehouse of a building with thousands of LP’s, CD’s and books…however, not a lot of vintage Beatles on display here either, but two very good vinyl buys none-the-less. The first was Paul McCartney’s first solo LP simply called McCartney. It is a US copy, a re-issue in very good condition and on the black Capitol label:

And last but not least a really nice copy – practically mint throughout – of George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh. I already have an Australian and an unusual South African pressing of this, but have been on the lookout for a good UK copy, and of course a US example as well, which is what we have here. Amoeba had this priced at just US$14.99, which for a triple album set in such excellent condition was an absolute bargain. It came with a mint copy of the original 64-page book, and all the LPs were housed in their original brown paper inner sleeves:

So, that was a quick summary of the vinyl found in four San Francisco record stores during a short visit there last week. Next time a look at the CD’s and DVD’s I found and added to the collection.

George Harrison – Two New Rare Tracks on the Way

Posted on July 21, 2013 by beatlesblogger

For those George Harrison completists among us there are a couple of new rare tracks to be aware of.

Bob Dylan is about to release another volume in his continuing Bootleg Series, and it contains two songs where Harrison makes an appearance.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) comes out on August 27 and the trailer for the compilation (below) says it features unheard collaborations between Dylan and Harrison:

Rolling Stone says the two songs, “Time Passes Slowly” and “Working on a Guru,” come from Dylan’s one-day session in New York with George in May, 1970. “Most of the songs from that day suck,” says a quoted source. “The story we heard from the engineer is that they were just messing around as they waited for Elvis, and Elvis never showed up. They were just treading water. But these two songs are very nice.”

The Harrison session marked the first day of recording for the Dylan album which followed Self Portrait called New Morning.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) will be released as a 2CD Standard Edition, a 3LP Standard Edition, and a 4CD Deluxe Edition:

Fundraiser Book and CD Fair – Some Good Beatle Finds

Posted on June 8, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Almost a year ago to the day I posted on a big book and CD fair where I found a couple of Beatle-related items of interest. This fair is held by a local classical music/jazz radio station (2MBS-FM) as a much-needed fundraiser. It has now become a well-established annual event.

This week saw the opening of the 2013 fair and again I got in on the very first day. Once more there was a huge selection of CDs and books on offer, especially good quality music books. This time around I tackled the CD tables first and after just a minute or two of browsing the first Beatle item I found was this:

The Best of George Harrison was released in 1976 and is a CD I don’t have. It’s one I’ve been on the lookout for for some time though so the evening was definitely off to a very good start. It was released in a number of countries, and has a unique cover. This one is the Australian pressing:

Next came George Martin’s In My Life, from 1998. I’ve been aware of this CD since it was first released but, until now, I didn’t have a copy in the collection:

In My Life is very much Beatle-related. Their producer invited into the studio a wide range of what he describes as his “heroes and friends” to record versions of Beatle songs. It has to be said the results are patchy at best, but at just $5.00 it seemed like a good time to finally get it.

The final two CDs I found I already have four versions of….

The Beatles 1 gathers together 27 of their number one singles. It was originally released in 2000, and I have a UK CD copy, a Taiwanese CD version, a copy on vinyl, and it was remastered and re-issued again in 2011 in a gatefold cardboard cover. However, at the fair I found two Australian pressing CD’s of the disc (the jewel case version) from 2000. One had a black sticker on the front, the other had a white variation:

Of course I had to have both. I know. Do I really need another two copies? Call me crazy. Enough CDs already!

From there it was over to the book section of the fair and as 2MBS-FM is a classical and jazz music station their book stall always seems to have a wide selection of music books on offer. This year did not disappoint. They had stacks of sheet music too, and in one of the piles I found some practically mint copies of two Beatles songbooks – one large thick one for the Beatles “blue” album, The Beatles 1967-1970:

No, I didn’t pay $41.99 for this!

The other find was a much slimmer songbook, one which I’d never seen before. It was published only in Australia and New Zealand by Northern Songs. The Colourful Beatles – Souvenir Song Album contains the sheet music for twelve of their songs and, despite its age, was in near-new condition:

Here’s the index page:

Next it was across the room to the books proper, and this one caught my eye immediately. It’s a really thick paperback called Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles, Britain and America by US author Jonathan Gould. It was published in 2007.

Again, I didn’t pay $45.00, or anywhere near it. The New York Times book review of Can’t Buy Me Love says in part: “Gould aims to meld the three primary, often distinct strands of Beatle bibliography — biography, music appreciation and pop sociology — into a single volume, a mother ship of Beatles books, with, as the subtitle implies, a special emphasis on the divide between the country that gave them birth and the country that arguably loved them best….Happily, the effort paid off: Gould has written a scrupulous, witty and, at times, appropriately skeptical study, which drew me back into a subject I thought I was sick of. The book lacks the intimacy of a full-fledged biography — if you want to know who John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr really were, you’ll do better elsewhere — but it compensates with an imaginative intelligence and a lively breadth of knowledge.” You can do one of those Amazon “Look Inside” reads to get a taste of Gould’s style and insights if you want.

Well, that was just about it. I was headed to the counter to pay, already thinking I’d probably gone overboard a bit on the purchases, when I saw this 1993 large-format book.

Inside are lots of great photos of George Harrison, including many unusual ones:

I tossed up whether to get this book as I know author Geoffrey Giuliano has a mixed reputation amongst Beatle and other fans (see his entry in Wikipedia for more). In the end it was the broad and eclectic photo selection which did it for me.

So, a successful Thursday evening trawling for Beatle treasure. Even by my standards I probably went a bit overboard this time – but how could you leave this sort of quality behind? And they were all at fantastically low prices (well, thats what I keep telling myself…..)

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:

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.

The Ballad of John and Yoko – By the Editors of Rolling Stone

Posted on April 18, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I was in Armidale, NSW (Australia) last week and managed (in between work meetings) to duck out to the recycled book and record store in town. I picked up a nice, used copy of book which looks to be a companion to the Rolling Stone magazine book I found earlier this year in Sydney about George Harrison. It’s similar in style and scope, only this time the editors of Rolling Stone have John Lennon and Yoko Ono as their focus:

This is the paperback edition and it came out in 1982. The book details (from the pages of Rolling Stone over the period 1967 to 1980) the love, the life and the activities of John and Yoko. It looks to be a fantastic compendium of some of the best writing about the pair as individuals, as a couple, and of course John as a member of the Beatles.

There are some great colour and black and white photos throughout, some of which I’d not seen before – like this one of Yoko.

The photograph above is an interesting composition. As you look at it you realise those are John’s hands.

Articles by the likes of Jonathan Cott, Jann S. Wenner, and Chet Flippo; photos by Annie Leibovitz; and a section just called “Remembering John” – with contributions from Gerry Marsden, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Jim Keltner, David Geffen, Bobby Keyes, Carly Simon Norman Mailer, Chuck Berry, Mick Jagger and Harry Nilsson – to name just a few. It is going to be a very interesting read.

Harrison – By The Editors of Rolling Stone

Posted on March 9, 2013 by beatlesblogger

This blog is sub-titled “Adventures in Collecting Beatles Music”, and that’s exactly what happened to me this week.

I had some colleagues in town for a conference and on Tuesday we all went out for a drink in the city. On the way there our cab went past a second-hand book and CD shop called T.Kelly Books on George Street, which is the main thoroughfare through the Sydney CBD. I’ve known about this store for some time but not visited it for years. Its a bit of an institution. The reason I noticed it this time was a very big sign out the front: “ALL STOCK 50% OFF”. Hmmm….looks like it is closing down, which is sad. Mental note – “Try to get time to come back later this week….”.

When I did I discovered this book at half the marked price (i.e. $20.00):

I’d never seen this book before and so it was a surprise. It was first published in 2002 by Simon and Schuster, and is as its title suggests a collection of articles about the late George Harrison that have appeared in Rolling Stone magazine over the years. This is the rear cover:

The Google Books review says it is “….a definitive tribute that features a new foreword by Olivia Harrison, the editors have drawn on their archives and hundreds of photographs, both the iconographic and the rarely seen, to celebrate the life and career of one of the most important musicians in rock & roll history.”

“Compiled by the editors of ROLLING STONE, Harrison chronicles the guitarist’s life before, during and after the Beatles. Contributing editor Mikal Gilmore offers an expansive, thoughtful new essay, “The Mystery Inside George.” ROLLING STONE senior editor David Fricke tells the stories behind Harrison’s best-known songs, and offers a guide to twenty-five essential Harrison recordings. Harrison also features news stories and interviews with the guitarist from throughout ROLLING STONE’s history — from his first Q&A with the magazine, in 1968, to his last, a 1987 interview with ROLLING STONE contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis”.

Its kind of a nice retrospective precursor (if that isn’t an oxymoron!) to the “Living in the Material World” book and Scorsese documentary from 2011.

For a “Look Inside” experience of Harrison – By the Editors of Rolling Stone go to Amazon.

Beatles with Records – Part Seventeen

Posted on February 16, 2013 by beatlesblogger

First up we have another answer to the questions posed in The Beatles with Records Fifteen and The Beatles with Records Sixteen.

We got that Paul was carrying a copy of Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um: The Best of Major Lance, but not the record that we can see Ringo holding while getting off the plane in London after their famous first US tour.

Thanks to Andrey in Russia we now have this one solved too. He put out the word amongst his collector friends asking what this record could be:

And they quickly came up with the correct identification:

Andrey’s mates are fantastic. They also provided the answer to this unusual and obscure LP John Lennon had on the end of his bed:

(See The Beatles with Records Part Fourteen for the answer).

Andrey also sent these next couple of photos. This Beatles photo, clipped from a newspaper, looks like it comes from the same photo shoot as the photograph used in Beatles with Records Part Three, but it’s a different pose and this time in black and white:

Next, from the height of the Apple days, Paul and Apple PR man Derek Taylor in the band’s offices at number 3 Savile Row, London. Paul is holding an unidentified acetate recording:

Here’s another of Paul (much later), this time proudly holding a copy of his 2006 classical release, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart):

He’s also got a copy of this DVD, which also made an appearance in The Beatles with Records Part Seven:

And here’s one with Ringo holding his solo CD Ringo Rama (2003):

And signing a copy as well:

Finally, a couple of interesting photos of Beatles with records from the website Kenwood. Kenwood revels in discovering and detailing places that the Beatles (especially John Lennon) have lived. It tries to give “then” and “now” comparisons of how rooms and buildings have changed, often involving great detective work. This recent post looks at 57 Green Street, London – where all four of the lads lived for a short period in 1963. There are two photos of them there with records. This one of Ringo sorting through 45’s:

And this one of John, seated in front of the same record player that Ringo is using above:

(click images to see a larger version)

Behind him on the left-hand side, upside-down, is a yellow LP cover. Could it be The Fabulous Miracles (Tamla 238, 1963)?

This LP contains the Motown group’s second Top Ten single, “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me”, which became such a smash that the album was soon reissued and renamed. However, this is the original cover art. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” was of course covered by the Beatles on their second UK album With the Beatles (1963).

Thanks once more to everyone who has sent in further photos and information. You can see the other parts in “The Beatles with Records” series here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7 , 8, 9 , 10 , 11, 12, 13 and 14, 15 and 16

Beatles with Records – Part Fifteen

Posted on January 29, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Masses of photos sent in recently – especially from Andrey in Russia. This series is about finding photographs of the Beatles actually holding the product they sold so prolifically – either their own records or those of other artists. We also accept photographs of those close to the Beatles in the proximity of records or CDs.

Back in Part 8 and in Part 10 we identified a very early photo of the band playing on a stage that had a backdrop consisting of a black curtain with LP covers pinned to it. Turns out these were taken in 1961 at a hall with the very grand title of The Palais Ballroom in place called Aldershot in the south of England. Pete Best is still their drummer and this was the band’s first foray to the south of the country. A mere 18 people turned up for the gig! Despite that, the Beatles look to be giving the performance their all. These were the photos we had so far:

From these we were able to identify the following records:

Well, Andrey has sent a couple more photos from that same 1961 Aldershot show:

(Click on some images to see larger versions)

From these its possible to identify at least three more LPs pinned to the backdrop. From the first photo, just above Paul’s microphone you can see this one:

And in the final photo, hanging upside down at an angle just behind Pete Best and above the guitar amp:

Just below the Bobby Darin, also on an angle, is one called Sing It Again No.2. I can’t find an image of that exact disc, but did find Sing It Again No.4 which has very similar artwork:

Also in Part 8 we had a small photo which was taken in 1963 at EMI headquarters for the launch of the Please Please Me LP. The band is on a stage with lots of album covers behind them:

Here are a couple more from that same day – and much larger, too:

This one below is also a fairly early photograph. Adoring fans seeking autographs on their Beatles singles. Maybe they are copies of “From Me To You”, the first 7″ single released in the plain green Parlophone paper sleeve?

These next two show the Beatles arriving back in the UK in 1964 after their tour to America – with Ringo, George and Paul each having records under their arms. To identify just what they are though will need your help:

If you can help identify Paul and Ringo’s records (its hard with George because his are in a paper bag!) please post a comment below or email me here

Once the band started to sell some records and earn some money they purchased the latest gadgets to play records – including in their cars:

Dick James formed the music publishing company Northern Songs (with Brian Epstein, John Lennon and Paul McCartney) and became the publisher of all the Beatles songs. As the photo caption says – he kept a close eye on the fortunes of his key partners:

(That’s some letter opener he has there!)

Finally, a photo of Klaus Voormann, the man who designed the Beatles Revolver cover art in 1966. Here he is more recently signing a copy of the CD for a fan:

As usual thanks to all those who have sent in content and further information. You can see the other parts in “The Beatles with Records” series here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7 , 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17.

COMING SOON – The Beatles with Gold Records – and believe me there are LOTS of those.

(Click on many of the images above to see larger versions)

Beatles with Records – Part Fourteen

Posted on January 10, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Since the last instalment we’ve been swamped with some great content – enough for at least two or three more posts featuring the Beatles (or people close to them) photographed or filmed with records or CDs – either their own or those of other artists.

This first one comes from beatlesblogger.com reader Ariel, who sent in this great YouTube clip of John Lennon and Yoko Ono strolling past a crowd of reporters and photographers:

The footage was clearly taken in 1970 when John and Yoko were publicising this Plastic Ono Band album:

The footage comes from a 1977 film by French film-maker Gérard Courant, whose website says of the film: “The year punk music exploded, Courant gave his most avant-garde outburst by relating for the first time the shattering experiences that took place in the second half of the 20th century…with the rock culture that clamored that same idea of rupture…”. Lennon and Ono can also be seen publicising the same LP in Part Five and also in Part Two.

Staying with John Lennon for a moment here’s an image sent in by Andrey in Russia of the Lennon’s in New York – holding court with assembled media and hangers-on in their apartment in February, 1972 in Greenwich Village:

There’s obviously a record you can see sitting there at the foot of the bed:

But what and who is it? I was having real trouble identifying this one. Well, thanks to Andrey’s Russian-speaking friends we’ve been able to find that LP. He asked one of the Beatles.ru forums for some help. Which artist could it be? Andrey says he got the answer in about ten minutes:

The Power Pop website says that the group Soup was from Wisconsin in the USA and the members were Doug Yankus, Rob Griffith and David Faas . The band released a self-titled album in 1970, however what we can see here is the bands second LP, The Album Soup, from 1971. How it came to the attention of John Lennon, and what he thought of it we’ll probably never know.

Continuing on the Lennon theme – this time with Yoko and a gentleman named Kristofer Englehardt, author of the book “The Beatles Undercover“, holding a copy of her solo LP from 1971 called Fly:

In Part Six there’s a terrific photo of George Harrison in the back of a limo holding up a copy of his All Things Must Pass LP. Here’s another good one from around the same time:

Could it be that this photo below was taken on the same day and location? It looks very much like the same shirt George is wearing above. Perhaps he’s playing one of the sides from All Things Must Pass on his record player at home?

One final shot of George taken in 1972 according to the caption, this time with his triple LP from 1971 The Concert for Bangladesh:

When you are Paul McCartney, just getting into a building you are visiting can have it’s challenges. The photo below shows the type of crush which can eventuate when everyone wants a photograph or an album signed – including one fan bravely holding up a copy of the 1988 Russian release Снова в СССР:

Here he is again – this time with fans thrusting forward copies of (amongst other things) Help! and Tug of War (you can see the cover of Tug of War at the very bottom right-hand side of the photo):

One other final shot of Paul holding a 45 single, this time with Ringo and John. It is what is reported as a test acetate recording (printed in limited quantities and used by the band and engineers for checking the quality and the mix) – it is supposedly of a song from Sgt Pepper:

There’s another photo from the studio on the same day below – from a different angle with George also in attendance and more acetates lined up on the piano:

One final photo for this instalment – again of the Beatles as a group and possibly arriving in Rome. I say that because the gentleman in the light coloured jacket, moustache and glasses (who is a fellow named Alf Bicknell – the Beatles chauffeur between 1964-1966) is holding a copy of the Italian version of A Hard Day’s Night. You can tell it’s the Italian cover of the LP because the large type across the top saying “The BEATLES” is distinctively different to the standard UK release:

Thanks to all those who have sent in content and further information. You can see the other parts in “The Beatles with Records” series here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7 , 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 17.

There will be more “Beatles with Records” soon….

Beatles Blog

Adventures in collecting Beatles music

Category Archives: George Harrison

The Beatles – The Uncut Ultimate Music Guide

The Ballad of John and Yoko – By the Editors of Rolling Stone

Harrison – By The Editors of Rolling Stone

Beatles with Records – Part Seventeen

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