Mike's Essential Beatlegs

As some of you know, I'm a freak for The Beatles, especially for "Beatlegs," unreleased or otherwise unofficial recordings. These are studio tapes--composing tapes, alternate mixes, or unreleased songs--concert recordings, or demos. I discovered Beatlegs around 1981, and have gotten a huge amount of enjoyment out of listening to them in the 25 years since. Not only do they provide one with a break from the official material (which, if you're anything like me, you've heard to death), nothing is more encouraging to a fellow creative person than hearing The Beatles--The Beatles!--screwing up and singing weak, half-finished songs.

I'm far from the only fan interested in this stuff (witness the site Bootleg Zone) but I've never seen any attempt to assemble a list of the creme de la creme. It is the nature of Beatlegs for there to be a large percentage of dross to diamonds, and I have spent more than my fair share of time and money on crappy stuff I only listened to once. (Especially in the bad old pre-internet days, when everything was on vinyl and cost a boatload of cash. You can't imagine how pissed I'd get after spending $45 on something awful. Of course, the fact that I was making $5.50 an hour working at the local drug store had a lot to do with it.)

In an effort to share my hobby, I thought I'd post the Beatlegs that I have found most enjoyable (or most illuminating). Discussion is encouraged; the links go to the CD's page on Bootleg Zone, if it exists. Obviously I can't burn you copies, so don't ask, but everything I'm going to list is available on the web, newsgroups, eBay, et cetera. And trust me: the hunt is half the fun!

Wildcat
Madman 13-14
Two discs' worth of The Beatles jamming in 1960, before they were The Beatles. Not great listening, but certainly worth having for historical interest.

The Early Years, 1962, Decca Tapes Revised, Right Speed
Yellow Dog 101
The best version of the group's unsuccessful audition for Decca.

The Complete BBC Sessions (ten discs)
Great Dane 9326
Most fans would be satisfied with the official Beatles at the BBC release. This gives you everything--including interesting stuff not on the official set, including Lennon (not Ringo) doing "Honey Don't." I've seen collections that boast improved sources for some recordings, but this is what I've got, and it's quite nice.

The Complete Ed Sullivan Shows
Yellow Dog 062
More a historical document than something that's always in my player, but given that The Ed Sullivan Show played such a huge role in the legend of The Beatles, it's nice to have.

Turn Me On Dead Man/The John Barrett Tapes
Vigotone 178/9
In 1983, so the story goes, an EMI engineer battling cancer was allowed to make the first-ever catalogue of all Beatle-related recordings in the EMI vaults. This two-disc set is the best of what he uncovered. The highlight of the first disc is an awesome unreleased version of "What You're Doing." The second disc has a bunch of excellent White-era stuff, including "Step Inside Love/Los Paranoias/The Way You Look Tonight."

The Beatles Christmas Album
MO 6369
From 1963 to 1969, The Beatles recorded an annual Christmas message to be sent out to their fans. These discs are extremely fun (and some are even musically interesting). Anyway, it's a tradition in the Gerber/Powers household to play this every Christmas morning while drinking big bowls of Soy Nog.

Live at the Hollywood Bowl
STAO 2222
The Beatles' great lost live album! In 1964, Capitol Records recorded several Beatles concerts at Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl, in hopes of producing a live album for the Christmas season. Unfortunately after hearing the tapes, The Beatles and George Martin nixed the project over concerns about the sound quality. I dunno--sounds great to me. (This version was reputedly mixed by the legendary Dr. Ebbetts, so that may be the reason.)

Shea!/Candlestick Park
Spank 108
Taken from a television film, the (semi-live) recording of The Beatles' epochal '65 concert at Shea is surprisingly good. Historically important, and a good listen, too. You can't say the same about the recording of their last concert, which comes courtesy of press agent Tony Barrow's tape recorder. But it's nice to have, regardless. (By the way, some people would add Budokan from the same tour, but there's only so much "God we're so tired of this and they're not even LISTENING" live Beatles I can stand.)

The Alternate Revolver
Walrus 021
Demos, mono mixes, and interesting fragments related to The Beatles' greatest album.

It's Not Too Bad
Pegboy 1008
The evolution of one of The Beatles' most fascinating songs: "Strawberry Fields Forever." This disc contains every meaningful step along the way, from the earliest demos, to edit pieces, and then finally the tracks that eventually coalesced into the finished song. Another one you won't listen to constantly, but it's really worth having.

Sgt. Peppers monomix
PMC 29567
A must for any true Beatles fan. The monophonic mix of Sgt. Pepper's--the only mix supervised by The Beatles themselves--is significantly different than the official (stereo) version. The guitars are more present, "She's Leaving Home" is at the right speed, there are more and different sound effects...And there are even ten bonus tracks. Truly one of my desert-island discs.

From Kinfauns to Chaos (Disc 1)
Vigotone 183
This disc collects the best available versions of the White Album demos recorded in May 1968 at George's house in Esher. Some really lovely stuff here, including early versions of John's "Jealous Guy" and two unreleased Harrison songs, "Circles" and "Sour Milk Sea." Sometimes I like this better than the actual album, which is full of bad vibes; Paul with a backing group, John with a backing group, et cetera.

The Beatles ("White Album")
Mono PMC 7067-8
Not as revelatory as Sgt. Pepper's, there are still enough differences between the mono and stereo mixes of the White Album to make the mono version worth getting. (No link because I got mine off eBay and it is not listed at Bootleg Zone.)

As Nature Intended
Vigotone 122
The Glyn Johns' mix of Let It Be, plus the entire rooftop concert. The best of a bad lot, in my humble opinion.

Artifacts I/5 Get Back to Abbey Road
BIG 1022
The sessions that later became the movie Let It Be are incredibly repellent to me; it's awful to listen to the band breaking up. Still, this disc collects the gems from the hours and hours of tape. You get all the highlights--"Commonwealth," "Fancy Me Chances," and a ripping version of Get Back done in German, among others. This disc also has a few nice tracks from the Abbey Road sessions that followed. Only one quibble: where's "No Pakistanis"?

Movie-crazy

It's been brutally hot in California--even here in usually cool Santa Monica. Lucky for me, movie theaters provide air-conditioning free-of-charge. (They don't like it when you sleep there, but we're negotiating.) Here's what I thought about...

...Who Killed the Electric Car? Interesting story, and a well-made documentary, but nothing will surprise you if you have half a brain. Guess what? GM is stupid and short-sighted, the oil companies are greedy bastards determined to wreck the world's climate for a couple more bucks, and the Bush White House eagerly fellates them both. However, there's a grizzled pair of inventors that rock, and the smokin' hot Tesla electric sports car. B.

...Little Miss Sunshine. Awesome. Go see it. A.

...Wordplay. Imagine "Spellbound" but with obsessive, shaggy adults rather than cute, stressed-out kids. Once again, well made, but more about the post-Spellbound pitch meeting than a story that really needed to be told. If you worship NPR and especially the NYT, run don't walk. Everybody else: feh.B-.

...Clerks II. Would've been better if the two male leads were more natural in their acting. Luckily, the female lead is appealing, and Jay and Silent Bob are funny as usual. I laughed hard at some jokes; it's loose and outrageous and real(ish), which makes it worth seeing, but probably a rental. B.

And two DVDs:
...The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This could've been flat and cartoonish, a la "Wedding Crashers," "Old School," or "American Pie," but it wasn't. It was quite authentic, which made it tremendously funny and surprisingly sweet. Great screenplay full of excellent touches. Highly recommended. A+.

...The Squid and the Whale. A fine 2/3rds of a movie. Hard to watch, because it was such an unblinking portrait of a self-destructing marriage between two assholes and the children trapped in the middle, but at the same time, I must admit I was fascinated. Unfortunately, the movie ends without resolving anything, and while that may be more "realistic," it's fundamentally unsatisfying. Assuming it's more or less autobiographical, I suspect that since the filmmaker's own life did not resolve neatly, he didn't know how to make the movie do any better without feeling inauthentic. B.

Reality: A dissenting view

Several bloggers that I read and admire (okay, Jon Schwarz and Dennis Perrin) have posted recently about the crushingly bleak nature of reality. Jon linked to this Woody Allen interview in the Washington Post where, among other things, Allen reduces life to a concentration camp. Dennis, on the other hand, describes having a massive panic attack as a result of following the current situation in the Middle East. Obviously, these two things aren't the same--Woody's straight-out insane, and has been for years, while Dennis is a victim of his own laudable intensity--but both reactions are object lessons for all us thinky types.

Here's something I've learned: knowing things is not for the faint of heart. Too much of the wrong type of knowledge can poison a mind, and we all must be the guardians of our own mental ecology. Especially now, when there is more information, and less filtering, than ever. The structure of media--as well as the structure of our brains--skews relentlessly towards exceptional things. And by exceptional, I of course mean horrific. We are wired to notice potential threats, not common pleasures.

The unbroken chain of nasty stuff (tumult, malfeasance, sickness, death) we call news is no more "reality" than a similar chain of sweetness would be. Pick any place on the globe: at this moment there is fear and death, and also happiness and life. Suffering and injury and despair is balanced by joy and health and contentment. The fear/death is larger and easier to spot--a war, explosions, injustice--while the joy/life is smaller and more personal--prosperity, natural beauty, great sex.

Acknowledging only the negative aspects of existence is a distortion, and I disagree with the idea that indulging in that distortion is somehow more realistic or more responsible. Woody Allen's whining about existence devalues not only his absurd good fortune, but also all those people who suffer more than he. And he's mistaken even if you accept his absurd view; if life really IS a concentration camp, isn't it inspiring how we all carry on? How we all struggle to wrench some happiness from our time on Earth? If Woody had said, "For me, life is a neverending orgasm," wouldn't we consider that a reflection of a distorted mental process? We wouldn't think, "He's right" or "Ah yes, Pagliacci." We'd think, "Uh, maybe I shouldn't let Woody around my six-year-old."

Which some of us already do. Feel better, Dennis.

As proof that the Beatles didn't always suck when playing live...

...I submit this video, taken from the 1965 NME Pollwinners' Concert. They perform "Ticket to Ride" quite well, nobody seems too miserable, and the shots of John and Paul harmonizing on the same mike (a rare sight) are nice, too.

George Washington

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, I just discovered this incredibly funny cartoon tribute to our first President, George Washington. Brad Neely, I salute you.

BTW, like everything I really enjoy, it's NSFW.

Fear the Rotarians...

In the midst of a summer vacation, but I wanted to direct everybody to a funny interesting piece that Jon Schwarz did for Slate, on Al Quaeda's sworn enemy, The Rotarians...

Lawrence of Arabia

I had the great good fortune to watch the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" in 70mm at the Aero Theater last night. I decided to do it on a whim, and the theater was packed, but it was really a wonderful experience. It reminded me of other times, mostly as a boy, when a movie has so filled my head that for a few hours it has become as powerful as reality. Those are sweet memories, and now I have another.

If you haven't seen it, you should, preferably in a theater, and preferably in 70mm. I just read Roger Ebert's review/appreciation, which does far more justice to the picture than I ever could.