Category Archives: Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney Kicks Off His Tour Down Under

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Last night saw Paul McCartney and his band take to the stage in Australia for the first time since 1993. He played Perth’s nib Stadium, the first of six dates across the country before he ventures over to New Zealand, as part of the continuing One On One Tour.

Reviews of the Perth gig are beginning to come in, and you’d have to say they are positive, bordering on gushing! This one, from The Music.com.au, gives you a good feel for what went down, and the site has posted some concert images as well: (Photo credit: Linda Dunjey  themusic.com.au)

In the lead-up to the Perth concert, Paul invited 20 fans to an intimate Q&A session, the best part of which was a question from nine-year-old Harrison Haines. You can view and read about that here, courtesy of ABC TV News. The session ended with a live, three-song set which included ‘Drive My Car’, ‘Junior’s Farm’ and ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’. Meanwhile…..the tour rocked on through to Sydney. Here is a review of that concert by one of Australia’s best music writers, Bernard Zuel.

McCartney – ‘Man On The Run’ Book

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While in Sydney city to pick up the RSD Black Friday McCartney releases we called in to one of those pop-up discount bookshops – and found a hardback copy of Tom Doyle’s 2013 study called Man On The Run – Paul McCartney in the 1970s:

Haven’t read it yet, but it looks to be interesting. There’s a decent review of the book here from the Washington Post. If you’d like to have a sneak read here’s one of those “Look Inside” widgets.

There are some very good photos contained in a pictures section in the middle of the book, some “behind-the-scenes” shots we’ve not seen before:

If anyone has read this work and has some thoughts, let us know. Here’s the rear cover:

(click on images to see larger versions)

Paul McCartney Cover Story on ‘The Big Issue’

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The Big Issue is a fortnightly, independent magazine that is sold on the streets of Australian capital cities by homeless, marginalised and disadvantaged people. It is very good reading and contains some high-quality journalism. The idea is you give them $7 bucks, they give you a great magazine, and they get to keep $3.50. Everybody wins.

This month, on the eve of his Australian tour, their cover story features Paul McCartney: 

Issue 550 of The Big Issue contains a very personal ‘Letter to My Younger Self’ where Paul reflects on his teenage years, the music, the girls and an amazing dream he shared with John Lennon.

The magazine also invites three Beatle tragics – Yon from the band Tripod, Davey Lane from You Am I, and former Big Issue editor, Alan Attwood – to write about the Paul McCartney song that most inspired and impacted them.

So, if you are out and about and spy one of the sellers on the streets, why not grab yourself a copy.

Black Friday – McCartney’s ‘Holidays Rule Vol.2’

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Getting up early to go into Red Eye Records this morning for the two different RSD Black Friday releases of Paul McCartney’s Holdays Rule Vol.2 has paid off.

This time around we got ’em both:

(Double click images to see larger versions)

This is in marked contrast to Record Store Day proper earlier this year and the quest to find The Beatles’ ‘Penny Lane’/’Strawberry Fields Forever’ single – which you can read about in two parts here and here…..it has a happy ending, but was painful at the time!

UPDATE:  The Black Friday RSD singles above are Made in the U.S.A. We were not aware that versions of these coloured discs were also pressed in Europe – until one of our very knowledgable and well-connected readers, Andrey in Russia, sent us through scans of the EU pressings:  

If you click on the images you can pull up larger images. In the small print on the rear covers you can clearly see that these are Made in the EU. The hype stickers on the front are different to those on the US copies as well.

The Beatles ‘Hard Day’s Night’ Mystery Chord Revealed

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Sum of All Parts is an ABC Radio podcast here in Australia.

The show recently examined (from a mathematical perspective!) the famous opening chord of The Beatles’ song, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’:

The podcast episode is called ‘The Magical Mystery Chord’.

Using the research and insights of mathematician and Beatle fan Professor Jason I. Brown, and personal experiences at Abbey Road Studios by Canadian musician Randy Bachman, the podcast un-picks just how The Beatles (with producer George Martin) achieved a chord that has tantalised musicians now for over fifty years…..

There is also a very short Sum of All Parts “bonus” episode, ‘Slow Down, George Solo-son’. Also well worth a listen.

Selections from Paul McCartney’s ‘Liverpool Oratorio’

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Here’s another recent addition to the collection.

We’d been aware of course of Paul McCartney’s numerous foray’s into the world of classical music. Over the years there have been a number of his compositions released, including his first major work Liverpool Oratorio – which dates back to 1991. 

This was issued on 2 CDs, double cassette (remember them?), and as a two LP box set.

There were also two CD singles released from the work, ‘The World You’re Coming Into’ and ‘Save The Child’: 

What we weren’t aware of for quite some time was that a year after these initial releases there came a further CD called Selections From Liverpool Oratorio. This was issued in October, 1992. Despite the fact that the album is clearly represented on McCartney’s   official discography we’d completely overlooked it’s existence.

Selections From Liverpool Oratorio gathers together on one CD all the most important songs for those people who don’t want to buy the full double CD version – which has a lot of connecting pieces and incidental music included.It comes in a single jewel case with a very thick booklet containing an introduction by Paul McCartney, a longer article about the background to the work, plus a libretto with all the words to the songs:The track listing:The CD’s rear cover, and its distinctive yellow spines:The EMI Classics logo is prominently displayed throughout, but so too is McCartney’s own mpl company logo.

The Paul McCartney Collection – 1993 Reissue Series

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Before The Paul McCartney Archive Collection series first began being released in 2010 there was another, less ambitious attempt to re-issue McCartney’s extensive back-catalogue.

This was back in 1993 with a series of discs simply called The Paul McCartney Collection.

It was CD-only and just one disc per issue, and there were sixteen titles included in all. The first eight were released on June 7th, 1993, and the remainder on August 9th the same year.

Each disc (except for the albums McCartney and Wings Greatest Hits) has at least two and sometimes up to four bonus tracks – usually singles that never made it onto albums, or the hard-to-find B-sides of singles as well. There’s a complete list here.

We never purchased these back in the day, and so in recent years have slowly (and I mean very slowly) been picking them off one-by-one. As of last week we now have the complete 16 CDs.

The most difficult to track down (and as a result the most expensive) have been Wings’ Wings Wild Life and Back To The Egg. It also took us ages to secure a reasonably priced copy of Red Rose Speedway:

The easiest to find (and cheapest) are Band on the Run and Wings Greatest Hits.

Medium difficulty would be London Town and Venus and Mars. Here’s a Canadian pressing of London Town:                                         [click on images to see a larger version]

McCartney ‘Archive Collection’ Coloured Vinyl – Confusion Reigns

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Five days on from the official announcement on the Paul McCartney website that there are to be eight titles in the McCartney Archive Collection series re-issued as single discs on the Capitol label (on CD, black vinyl and limited coloured vinyl), confusion reigns about just how anyone can actually order the coloured vinyl.

Both McCartney’s own site, and the Universal Music store site included links to order these but by the weekend both had been quickly taken down. The Universal link is just dead (and again here), while the official McCartney links for each album have since been altered and only take you through to the US Amazon site where there is no mention of the coloured vinyl whatsoever. The links are clearly for the black vinyl editions only.

Many online stores over the weekend quickly put up their own images and prices – both for individual coloured LPs and bundles – but these too have since been either completely taken down (for example SoundStage Direct in the US), or now carry an apology (for example the Bull Moose store) stating that they’ve been asked by the artist and the label NOT to sell these titles online.

To quote collectors on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums thread, many of whom have preordered and paid their money before the links just disappeared:

“Seriously, what a mess. I was actually stoked about this. Now i can see it’s probably not going to be easy…..”.

and:

“Yes I’m worried about sites filling the orders. If the link was pulled from Paul’s site on the official announcement then I would worry about them being filled at any other site [too]. I have them pre ordered thru the link that was on his site and even thru that I’m worried I won’t get them. They seem very limited and none of the sites seem to be able to confirm they will honor the pre orders.”

It has to be said that this looks like a complete and utter stuff up my MPL and Capitol. They’ve gone into print and raised expectations, but they haven’t thought through what they were publicising, nor communicated how fans and collectors could get their hands on these eight coloured vinyl editions. Pretty bad form and does not auger well for the McCartney/Capitol/UMe relationship.

UPDATE: This just in from the Record Store Day site: Indie record stores are the ONLY physical retailers in the US to have the limited edition colored vinyl versions…..

Paul McCartney a Pirate?

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Paul McCartney has posted this photo on his Instagram feed:

#PiratesLife  And this on Facebook.

Release date is the same day as the newly re-mixed 50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band comes out……

Another Addition to McCartney’s ‘Flowers’ Deluxe Box Set

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In the lead up to the release the Paul McCartney Flowers In The Dirt deluxe box set, Paul Sinclair from Super Deluxe Edition was one of the people leading the charge to have a physical CD included instead of the proposed “Download Only” selection of B-sides, Remixes, Single Edits and Cassette Demos.

His role in the protest led to a call from Scott Rodger, McCartney’s manager, who laid out the reasons behind the download only decision.

It also led Paul Sinclair to publish on his site a series of interviews with the producers who, back in 1989, collaborated with McCartney on the original recordings for Flowers In The Dirt. They each gave a unique insight not only into what it was like to work on the project, but also what it was like to work with Paul McCartney.

The reaction to those interviews was such that Sinclair subsequently produced a limited edition printed booklet called In Their Own Words: The Producer’s on Paul McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt:Here’s a typical page (as usual, click on the images to see larger versions):

In a nice touch the booklet is designed to slip in alongside the other four books that come with the deluxe box set:

The booklet is a professionally designed and printed, 16-page document containing the original 9000-word interview feature (as published on SDE) along with 1200 extra words exclusive to the printed edition. Only 500 copies were initially produced and made available for sale through the Super Deluxe Edition site. Each was numbered and signed by Paul Sinclair. Ours is number 347/500:

The initial print run of numbered and signed copies sold out in less than 48 hours. In response to demand, there has been a second print run of this booklet. These are unsigned and not numbered, but otherwise identical. So if you’d like one, get in fast.

See also our solution to the “Download Only” issue.