The Beatles DeAgostini Vinyl Collection Has Been Extended

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Looks like the newsagent and mail order Beatles Vinyl Collection series from DeAgostini has recently been extended to five more countries: Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Spain and Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=IodYkYmq9CI

These re-issues (all beautifully pressed on 180gram vinyl at the French MPO plant) are still going strong in Italy (where they are now up to On Air – LIve at the BBC Vol.2, which is issue 18 in the 23-issue series), and in the United Kingdom (where they are up to issue 15 –Anthology 2).

A friend just sent us this photo – a news agency window in Spain:

Another Beatle Podcast Worthy of Your Consideration

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We’ve just discovered another great Beatle podcast. It’s called Fabcast – A New Way of Talking About The Beatles…

Fabcast is three highly opinionated but very well-informed Beatle fans sitting together and discussing a set topic at length. The three are music writer Howie Edelson, musician Stephen Bard, and veteran record company publicist and executive Dave Morrell.

Their podcast started last year and they are now thirteen episodes in – and counting.

The trio begin each show with these words: “The only home of intelligent, cool and forward-thinking Beatles discussion…”, and yes – they have very strong and often unique opinions. But they back this up with great knowledge, a passion for the band and, in Dave Morrell’s case, first-hand insider experience having worked with and for a number of the Beatles directly – notably John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Overall, across this podcast there’s a reverence for and love of the Beatles’ music throughout.

Episode Thirteen is one of their longest, and best. They had as their guest eminent Beatle historian Mark Lewisohn. The Fabcast trio talked with him (and sometimes at him) for nearly two and a half hours! Yes, it’s a long episode, but it is great stuff. 

Hear all the guy’s podcasts on Soundcloud, or subscribe using Apple iTunes.

P.S. The other great podcast we’d highly recommend is Something About The Beatles by Richard Buskin and Robert Rodriguez. They’re now 120 episodes in and counting and we reckon they too are a “…home of intelligent, cool and forward-thinking Beatles discussion”!

Absolutely Amazing Sgt. Pepper Photo Research

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We saw this page a little while back in the lead-up to the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary reissues, but it has since been added to substantially and grown even more comprehensive.

The “Sgt Pepper Photos” website is a project dedicated to locating the exact source images for all the photographs and items used on the cover of The Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It is very much worthy of mention. In fact, the more that word gets around, the more likely that additional original photographs and information will emerge and the site can be updated and added to.

Here are just a few examples of what the page is trying to do:

(click on images to see larger versions)

Above each image is some research about the celebrity or person and why they were chosen for the iconic cover.

We agree wholeheartedly with the person in the “Comments” section below the research who says:

“All of this amazing research deserves to be compiled into a physical book, a full-colour coffee table-sized volume, the annotated Sgt. Pepper cover. Have you considered doing this? This is the book that should have come out on the 50th anniversary of the album. Well done, sir!”

Chris, the owner of the site, has also added a lengthy article about the photographic assistant on the day, Nigel Hartnup The Man Who ‘Really’ Took The Photo. Also fascinating and well worth reading.

More Beatle Podcasts for Your Listening Enjoyment

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More than two years ago the ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) began hosting an ongoing series celebrating the 50th anniversary of each British Beatle LP.

As each album marks its anniversary ABC Radio presenter Rod Quinn speaks to US John Lennon biographer and amazing Beatle expert Jude Southerland Kessler. Jude is the author of the extraordinary (and ambitious!) nine-volume John Lennon narrative biography. The last instalment in Jude’s series was Volume 3: She Loves You, but Volume 4: Should Have Known Better is due out soon – in March, 2018 we believe.

It’s been quite a while since we gave you an update on the ABC Radio podcast series. There have been quite a few, so here goes.  

The Rubber Soul LP is discussed in two parts. Part One (examining Side One of the LP) is here.

And you can find Part Two (examining Side Two of the LP) is here.

Revolver is also in two parts. Part One (examining Side One of the LP) is here.

And Revolver Part Two (examining Side Two of the LP) is here.Rod Quinn and Jude Sutherland Kessler discussed both Side One and Side Two of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in one long podcast here.These are all great podcasts. Very insightful and well worth a listen. Previous broadcasts have covered Please Please Me; With the Beatles; A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale and of course, Help! – in two parts: Side One here, and Side Two here.

And you can also listen to Yellow Submarine; The White Album and The Esher Demos, and Abbey Road here.

Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever RSD

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Thanks to a very kind reader of beatlesblogger.com (Koen in Belgium – you know who you are!), we now have the elusive, limited-edition Record Store Day ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’ 7-inch single re-issue.

Only 7000 copies were issued worldwide, but very few made it to Australia.

Front cover:

Rear cover (complete with original fold-over flaps):

And the RSD sticker up close:

Thanks again for sourcing and sending this to us! So good to have this in the collection.

(See also this RSD Update, and as usual, click on images above to see larger versions).

 

Sgt. Pepper – Japanese 50th Anniversary Re-issue Extras

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Got to admit, this is pretty cool and tempting:

In Japan, as they usually do, the forthcoming deluxe box set edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, will come with some neat additional extras – including a cut-out diorama of the classic cover image. Here’s what the diorama will look like when constructed:

As you can see on the advertising flyer above “assembly takes 2-3 hours (so you can enjoy the Sgt. Pepper album 3-5 times!)”. There’ll also be two mini gift cards, and this A2-sized poster included as a “first pressing bonus”:

Finally, the CD’s inside will be in the high-fidelity SHM-CD format – something audiophiles believe gives higher quality sound than just the usual CD pressing. This is also exclusive to the Japan edition of Sgt. Pepper’s.

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.

Flowers In The Dirt – What Could/Should Have Been

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As you’re no doubt aware, the deluxe Archive Collection box set of Paul McCartney’s 2017 re-issue of Flowers In The Dirt created quite an angry response amongst many fans and collectors.

The issue was around his decision to include a whole CD’s worth of B-sides, remixes and single edits, and three cassette demos as downloadable content only. No physical CD would be included in the four-disc set.

Well, no doubt many who purchased the box set have taken that download code provided and created their own CD burns to put inside the box. Here’s a look at the three CD’s and one DVD you do get (click on images to see larger versions):

And here’s what could have/should have been – one disc for the thirteen B-sides, remixes and single edits plus the three cassette demo songs:

Plus on the official Paul McCartney website there are a further three exclusive downloads (‘Distractions (Demo)’, ‘This One (Demo)’, and ‘Back on My Feet (Demo)’) not included in the box set at all, so why not a separate disc for these songs too?:

Call us pedantic and old-fashioned for wanting tactile, hard copies of this bonus material. And call us fussy for creating our own matching labels, but discs V and VI will now be filed inside our Flowers In The Dirt box alongside the other content provided in physical form to create a complete set. They’ll be in their own paper sleeves:

Russian Fake Beatle Records and Sleeves Exposed

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If you collect Beatle discs from around the world then the Russian Beatle site beatlesvinyl.com.ua is a goldmine of information for records from that country:

Alongside their already impressive catalogue and detail about every official Beatle and solo release in that country, they’ve just added a massive new section on fake pressings and sleeves:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, the detail and depth of their research and knowledge is first-rate. We’ve used it extensively to research our collection of different pressings of Paul McCartney’s Choba B CCCP for example (see here, and here).

The site is in Russian and English, and alongside all the local releases (both official and fake) it contains a comprehensive and up-to-date general catalogue of every Beatle and solo release from the UK/EU, and the US, plus a whole section on Apple Records as well.

There’s also a big section on Beatle cover versions over the years by Russian artists.