The Beatles Appreciation Thread

[HarmonicGenerator]

It's the fiftieth anniversary (to the day, I think) of the recording of Please Please Me so Radio 2 are staging a day-long re-recording of the album at Abbey Road, in real time, if anyone's interested.

 

Jeremus Vine also had an item on The Beatles on his show, asking people what their first memory of The Beatles was. Radio 2 being Radio 2, the only people who responded were people who were around in the early 60s. But it's a good question, so:

 

What was your first memory of The Beatles?

 

Mine was in either playgroup or the reception class at first school. A lady called Marian used to come in and play the guitar and get us all to sing along, and her favourite song was 'Yellow Submarine'.

 

But on another level, and I think I probably said this near the start of the thread, I feel like I've always unconciously known The Beatles, they're just embedded in my mind. When I was a bit older and getting into music and discovering their albums, I'd keep coming across songs that I was sure I'd never heard before, but that I already knew somehow. Not just the famous singles, but album tracks on Rubber Soul and everything. I don't know how, but I did. Many was the time a song would come on and I'd think, bloody hell, this was The Beatles as well?! Did they write everything?!

 

Anyway, let us take our lead from Mr Vine and discuss. See if anyone saw them live on here as well...

[Maverick]

My first big memory (obviously they were always around in some sense, though not popular in my house) of The Beatles has always really stuck with me for whatever reason. It was the 2nd year of Secondary school and we were forced to take music class, all that recorders and the like that everyone hates. Anyway, our music teacher was playing tapes to show us different types of music in different genres or whatever and she stuck on Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and I remember being surprised at how awful it was, remember thinking this was the band many hyped as the biggest and best of all time and THAT was their music. So basically when I got home I decided to investigate and downloaded a few albums off WinMX or whatever it was in those days and became a huge fan, still am and love all their stuff and most of their solo stuff (Even Ringo's!) really want to get to Liverpool in the next few years and do all the touristy stuff that goes with it.

[Monkee]

Good question! I genuinely can't remember though.

 

My dad's a drummer and my uncle was a guitarist and they played in the same band together when they were younger. They would tour a lot and even supported names such as Joe Cocker and Bonnie Tyler back in the day. So I've always been around music from a very young age. My brother is 6 years older and plays guitar so I was always listening to him play The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Jim Croce, Jimi Hendrix, etc. too. I can roughly pin-point discovering other music (being aged about 6 when I discovered the Beach Boys after watching Teen Wolf and my brother got me to sing harmonies while he played Surfin' USA or being around the same age when I first saw The Buddy Holly Story) but I can't remember first time I heard The Beatles.

 

I've seen Paul McCartney live twice now but obviously not in his hey-day. I might be old but I'm not that old!

[bAzTNM#1]

My first Beatles memories were when "Free as a Bird \ Real Love" came out in the mid-nineties. I wasn't really into music before hand, but I got right into it from there and learned all about them. I had heard of the Beatles (obviously) but wasn't actively looking out for their stuff before then.

Edited February 12, 2013 by bAzTNM#1

[martyngnr]

I didn't really hear much Beatles stuff when I was younger (mainly because my Dad is a Stones fan and thought the Beatles were too soft). So I only really got into them when someone at secondary school loaned me the Red and Blue albums and I started from there.

When the Anthology was on ITV that was what really got me hooked on them. After that I was desperately hunting around for anything of theirs I could find. I remember being ridiculously excited when I got a copy of Let It Be on what looking back must have been a 5th generation copied video.

Edited February 12, 2013 by martyngnr

[Chest Rockwell]

Still never got around to listening to a whole Beatles album from start to finish.

[Sphinx]

I couldn't pinpoint a time either. I feel like I've known them for as long as I can remember in some capacity. I'd wake up to Wogan on Radio 2 in the morning where there was bound to be Beatles playing at some point. My brother got into them when I was about 5 or 6. I remember copying Beatles lyrics from a book onto an A4 pad when I was little and feeling like I knew a lot already. It probably helped reinforce the lyrics in my head for years to come too.

 

My brother basically bullied me into asking for Help! and Abbey Road for my birthday when I was about 7 too so that he could nick it off me.

[HarmonicGenerator]

The radio I bring in to work does an odd thing with Beatles songs. It only plays half the audio - quite often you won't be able to hear the lyrics, just the music in the background. It's only The Beatles it does it with, as well. Don't know if this is something to do with the way the songs were remastered, or what, but it's quite nice in that you'll pick up on things, in the instrumentation, particularly, that you wouldn't normally hear (at least, not without a really good audio system).

 

For example, 'Let It Be' was just on, and rather than the solo you normally hear in the middle, the radio gave me a completely different guitar solo that's just lurking underneath it that I hadn't ever really heard before. It's a bloody good solo too, and I may in fact prefer it to the one I'm used to hearing!

[Monkee]

I get this when listening to stuff ripped from Beatles' CDs. It's to do with the mixing - you only get certain bits through certain headphones. For example, on Eleanor Rigby you get the music through one ear but the singing through the other. Is it a mono/stereo thing? Strange for that to happen on a radio station though, you'd think it'd all be the same.

 

On another note, I'm going to Abbey Road tomorrow. Woohoo!

[Chilly McFreeze]

I get this when listening to stuff ripped from Beatles' CDs. It's to do with the mixing - you only get certain bits through certain headphones. For example, on Eleanor Rigby you get the music through one ear but the singing through the other. Is it a mono/stereo thing? Strange for that to happen on a radio station though, you'd think it'd all be the same.

 

On another note, I'm going to Abbey Road tomorrow. Woohoo!

 

The Beatles albums (and other 60's bands) are renowned for their hard stereo panning, especially in the early albums when stereo was a new thing. So you'll get all the instruments one side, and the vocals on the other for alot of songs. Sometimes it works (usually the latter albums when they had more tracks to play with, and had a better grasp on how stereo hi fis worked), and other times its painful.

 

It's a real pain sometimes, would always suggest Mono Beatles for headphone listening. I would have thought radio stations would only play mono on 60's records for this reason. But obviously they don't.

 

Monkee: I'd love to go someday, let us know how you get on.

[Monkee]

Abbey Road was absolutely fantastic. We saw a lot of vintage equipment as well as video footage from different musicians who have played there. It was brilliant to learn about the history if the studios and the innovation to sound recording and music that were brought about as a direct result of the people there. It was one of the men who worked there who invented/developed stereo (binaural) recording. It was such a privilege to be in a space where do many great musicians have been. And I had a photo on the crossing outside

 

EDIT:

 

Some photos HERE but here's a comparison showing Studio 2 when The Beatles recorded there and today:

 

 

Edited March 9, 2013 by Monkee

[HarmonicGenerator]

If anyone is in the Edinburgh area, there's a discount bookshop on Princes Street selling the massive coffee table book George Harrison: Living in the Material World for

[HarmonicGenerator]

Yesterday was the anniversary of the announcement that the band had split up, so Rolling Stone posted their cover story from a few years ago about The Beatles' final year. It's a long article which is why I'm only linking it and not posting it all here.

[pryko]

I've sat and read this entire thread over a 2 or 3 day period and its made me stick all the Beatles albums on my phone to listen too when I can.

 

Just wanted to ask though, on the subject of Tribute Bands, has anyone ever seen The Parrots? They're a Japanese Beatles tribute band and they're bloody good. They played at Lancashire cricket club a few years ago as part of an Arctic Monkeys gig

[hitman89762000]

Sky arts 1hd from midnight tonight has paul mccartneys concert from shea stadium (good evening new york) followed by john lennons concert from new york at 1:15am and then a beatles documentary from 2:30am (becoming the beatles)