Our copy of the recent Record Store Day Black Friday Beatle EP release has finally arrived. Copies were not brought into Australia, and so an overseas purchase was required.
This is a limited edition, and (like the recent Mono LP re-issues) faithfully reproduces the original British release, down to the labels and the old-fashioned tabbed rear cover:
And here’s a close-up of that sticker on the front:
We just received an email from paulmccartney.com letting us know that the extended EP of Paul McCartney’s ‘Hope for the Future‘ is now available for download from iTunes.
There will also be a physical release in the form of a 12″ vinyl single. No track listings for that are available as yet, but it will come out on January 12 in the UK, and January 13 in the US.
Spincds.com in the UK and the Amazon US store have place-holders for the vinyl release and it can be pre-ordered now.
And there’s an official video to accompany the song where a holographic Paul McCartney sings the song in the world of Destiny:
Also check out this exclusive in Wired magazine.
paulmccartney.com has confirmed a December 8 global release for Paul McCartney’s song ‘Hope for the Future’.
It will be a digital download only, and the original version of the track (which is taken from the best-selling ‘Destiny’ video game credits) will be made available alongside four other special mixes of the song:
1) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Main)
2) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Thrash)
3) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Beatsession Mix)
4) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Jaded Mix)
5) ‘Hope For The Future’ (Mirwais Mix)
Since we reported back in September on a new series of books detailing the history of the Beatles Apple company, there’s been a flurry of activity and a lot of further information coming through.
The authors of A is For Apple now have a cover for Volume 1, which is due for publication in April next year:
And they’ve produced a YouTube video, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3qAfck5r8&feature=youtu.be
There are a couple of further very interesting draft sample pages now available here and here. (These come with a “big file” warning and may take some time to download).
For Apple fans these both contain great info and photos.
And there are now details about some special offers and bonus material which will come with Volume 1 of A is For Apple.
One Apple artist has given the publishers permission to release two rare recordings with the project. Jackie Lomax, just a couple of days before his tragic death in 2013, signed an agreement to include an exclusive 7“ vinyl of his previously unreleased track ‘Land Of People’, and the demo version of ‘Is This What You Want?’. Both songs will be included with Vol. 1 of A is For Apple.
Additionally, if you pre-order Volume 1 before December 3, you not only save €5 Euro on the purchase price but also receive a strictly limited edition bonus flexi disc of The Iveys‘ unreleased 1968 Christmas Record:
In late 1968 The Iveys (later to become Badfinger) taped a Christmas message for their fans just like the Beatles had done since 1963. But contrary to the Beatles‘ annual Crimble messages this one has never been released. Only very recently the A is For Apple people got permission to include this Christmas flexi disc that never was.
For the whole story of the project so far see the A is For Apple website.
Wog Blog is reporting a new budget label release collecting some of Beatle producer George Martin’s output over his many years in the recording industry.
It is a double CD set and there are two Beatle songs included (‘Love Me Do’ and ‘P.S. I Love You’) plus thirty others by a wide range of artists. It’s a pretty good overview of his work:
Every track listed (except the two Beatle tunes) is also available on the 2001, six CD set Produced by George Martin. That box set contains 150 titles, but if you can’t find it (or can’t afford it!), this new release from Not Now Music looks like a bargain at just £5.99.
We raved about a new podcast called Something About the Beatles back when it first came out. SATB is hosted by two Beatle experts and authors Robert Rodriguez and Richard Buskin.
If you need any convincing to make this a regular download, have a listen to Episode 11.
It’s a great example of how interesting this podcast is. The two look into the instruments that the Beatles used on stage and in the studio – and how these directly impacted the sound and their creative push to always try new ways of making music. Buskin interviews Andy Babiuk, author of Beatles Gear (and the newly-published Rolling Stones Gear), but also talks with his co-host Rodriguez, delving into their own extensive knowledge and understanding of the music. Great stuff.
It is episodes like this that make it well worth subscribing to this podcast – which comes out roughly once a month:
See also our post on Beatles 101, Richard Buskin’s latest book.
There was a big car boot sale just around the corner from us this last weekend, and we were able to find quite a few nice additions to the collection. One vendor just had boxes and boxes of CD’s, 7″ vinyl 45’s and 12″ LP’s on their stall – and so quite a bit of our Saturday morning was spent trawling….
It was time well spent though as it turned up a few gems.
First up was a Australian vinyl single taken from the John Lennon and Yoko Ono album Double Fantasy. ‘Watching the Wheels’ was the third single from this LP (the first two were ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ and ‘Woman’). We didn’t have a copy of ‘Watching the Wheels” so this was a good find.
Next was another 7″ single we didn’t have – Badfinger’s ‘Come and Get It’ on the Apple label. It dates from 1969 and is a Paul McCartney composition written for the band, and it makes an appearance on the soundtrack for the film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. This is an Australian pressing. There’s a lot of writing on the label – but still…..
Further hunting through the boxes revealed another Apple single – this time from George Harrison. It’s an Australian copy of ‘My Sweet Lord’ b/w ‘Isn’t It A Pity’. In Australia this was a double A side as both titles have green Apple labels:
Our good luck continued in the multiple boxes at this car boot sale. Next out were two singles – a US copy of McCartney’s ‘Coming Up’, and ‘Say Say Say’ with Michael Jackson – both on the Columbia label, then a division of CBS. In the late 70’s/early 80’s McCartney was briefly (six years) on the Columbia label for his releases in America. He’d temporarily turned his back on Capitol Records, enticed by one of the most lucrative recording contracts around at the time, a deal which included as a sweetener the ownership of Frank Music, a CBS owned publishing company consisting (amongst other things) of Frank Loesser’s songs (think of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, etc.). Frank Music is now of course folded into McCartney’s highly successful MPL Music Publishing business.
The two singles we found came out on the Parlophone label in Australia, so it’s good to have these US versions:
The final 45 we discovered was Billy J. Kramer’s ‘From a Window’ – which sadly is kind of beat up, but worth having because it is a song from 1964 written specifically for Kramer (and his band the Dakotas) by John Lennon and Paul McCartney: 
The last purchase of the day was a bit of a find. It’s Jools Holland’s 2001 CD Small World Big Band, which is an important one to have in the collection because it contains George Harrison singing and playing on his last ever recording. George passed away just two months after this recording. He does a song called ‘Horse to the Water’, co-composed with his son Dhani.
Holland’s CD is sub-titled “….his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and friends”, that’s because for each track he invites various stars to join him for a track each. These include the likes of Sting; Paul Weller; Dr John; Mark Knopfler; Van Morrison; Steve Winwood; and Eric Clapton, amongst many others.
To quote two of the poignant reviewers on Amazon:
“For me, the big reason to buy this CD was the George Harrison contribution, ‘Horse to the Water’. It is a GREAT song, and a brilliant Harrison song at that. George sounds weak, and I am not sure if Clapton has stepped in on some of the guitar parts, but what a brilliant and fun piece of music, worthy to be held in the highest esteem among its author’s ouvre. IT is reason enough to buy the CD.”
And this one:
“I purchased this CD for one reason. I had seen the DVD Concert for George and loved it. Among the best offerings on the DVD was the Sam Brown/Jools Holland rendition of ‘Horse to the Water’ by George. Except for the words, I would never have guessed that it was a Harrison song. It was too R&B. So I was curious to see how he handled it. Well, he does not have the powerhouse voice of Sam Brown, but I was in fact really surprised at how well he did, helped greatly by the superb backup band. I would not have recognised his voice. I am sure his throat cancer was behind that.”
There’s a small picture of George in the booklet:
We love it when you’re browsing a bookshop and discover some Beatle titles you weren’t previously aware of – and that they are at hugely discounted prices….
That’s what happened this week when we found two new Beatle books. We also took delivery (via The Book Depository online store) of a brand new Beatle book – but more on that one later.
The first book we found at the bargain basement store was The Unreleased Beatles by Richie Unterberger. This book dates back to 2009, and it contains a wealth of material about the band and the many sought-after rarities and non-official gems which remain in the Beatle vaults. Unterberger has documented the incredible breadth of music the band recorded but didn’t release, as well as film footage of the group that hasn’t been made commercially available. He examines a huge array of material, including unreleased studio outtakes, BBC radio recordings from 1962-1965, live concert performances, home demo recordings, fan club Christmas recordings, and other informal demos done outside of EMI’s studios. The unreleased gems encompass the Beatles entire career, from a recording the Quarrymen made on July 6, 1957, right up to outtakes from the final sessions of Let It Be in 1970:
The Unreleased Beatles includes a general overview of Beatle bootlegs, their songs recorded by other artists in the 1960s, never-recorded material, and contains more than 100 photos.
Beatles Examiner conducted a Q&A session with Richie Unterberger about the book when it was first released, and Amazon has a “Look Inside” feature if you’d like to see more.
Also – Glass Onion reports that an updated and fully revised Kindle version of this book has just been released. Worth checking out if you like electronic books.
The second bargain book find was Give Peace A Chance, a hardback book dedicated to the eight-day long bed-in for peace mounted by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Montreal, Canada in May/June of 1969:
Compiled by journalist Joan Athey, and based around a fantastic series of photographs taken by Gerry Deiter during the course of the bed-in, Give Peace a Chance presents as a wonderful chronicle of just what happened in their suite on the 17th floor of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. Photographer Deiter was on assignment for Life magazine and had extraordinary access because Lennon and Ono asked him to stay by their bedside for the duration of the event. As it turned out his photographs were never actually published in Life. He tucked away the negatives soon after John and Yoko vacated the famous Room 1742 – the place where the song ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was recorded – and so they are being seen in all their glory, many for the first time here.
There really are some amazing photos and recollections from all sorts of people in this book. It is well worth the A$4.99 we paid for it!
One page amongst many which caught our attention was the one below – taken at the very end of the eight days with hotel employees cleaning up the suite after the John and Yoko entourage had moved on:
I really like this book. It captures an historic moment in time in a remarkable way.
For a couple of further unique insights into the Montreal John and Yoko peace bed-ins see also I Met the Walrus by Jerry Levitan, and Give Me A Chance by Gail Renard.
The final book added to the collection this week is a 2014 publication called Meet the Beatles from Souvenir Press in the UK.
And here’s the rear cover:
The Wogblog first alerted us to this one. In this the 50th anniversary year of the the Beatles, Meet the Beatles is a hardback publication which faithfully reproduces a magazine originally issued in the hey-day of the Beatles first flush of success in 1963. No need for us to go into too much detail here as Wogblog has covered it pretty well in his post.
At paulmccartney.com there’s a further free, previously unreleased track which has been made available for download. That makes three so far….we’re heading towards the makings of an EP.
In November 1974 Paul and Wings were in the process of recording the album that came to be known as Venus and Mars. As with all recording sessions there are songs and different versions of tracks that don’t make the final release.
The exclusive Venus and Mars outtake track now available is a previously unreleased and unheard version of the song ‘Rock Show’. Listen to it below:
I think you can hear why this version was passed over in favour of the one that eventually made it to the LP, but it’s still great to hear how the song went through the process of being more finely crafted.
See also the exclusive versions of ‘Letting Go’ and ‘Love My Baby’ – both still available for download at paulmccartney.com
Another trip to the NSW Central Coast, and some time available to check out a couple of the local opportunity shops (or “op shops”) there – like The Salvation Army and the St Vincent de Paul (or “Vinnies” as this chain is more commonly known in Australia – they are similar to Goodwill in the US).
It’s usually a long-shot to look for Beatle items in these places as they tend to be pretty well picked over already. But you never know…..
This time around we did come away with two small finds. First, at the Salvation Army store, was a cassette of A Collection of Beatles Oldies but Goldies:
This one is on Axis, which was EMI’s budget label in Australia. We don’t even have a cassette player anymore – but for just 50c how could we leave this little gem from the past just sitting on the shelf? 
Then, from the same store, a 3-track CD single of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ by Band Aid 20. This was released in 2004 and is the twentieth anniversary fundraising re-make of the 1984 song which kicked off the whole Live Aid charity phenomenon. The CD features Paul McCartney on bass:
As you can see in the official video from the time, Sir Paul is obviously having a good time providing the bass line for this remake of the famous song.
BTW, Paul McCartney, U2’s Bono, Bob Geldof, Midge Ure, and Sarah Dallin and Keren Woodward (from Bananarama) are the only artists to have appeared on both the 1984 recording and on this one from 2004.
The CD single features the 2004 recording, the original from 1984, and a version taken from the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium on July 13, 1985.
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