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Re: Julian Lennon - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds « Result #1 on Nov 29, 2009, 1:45am »
Julian and his father John Lennon
NEW SONG LUCY HELPED JULIAN LENNON FORGIVE HIS FATHER
spinner.com by Steve Baltin
Posted on Nov 27th 2009 2:30PM
Julian Lennon's new song, Lucy, bears a familiar name to Beatle fans. Indeed, the song, co-written with James Scott Cook, was partially inspired by his childhood friend, Lucy Vodden, the same woman his father John Lennon made famous in Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.
For Lennon to be able to musically embrace his past is a big step. "I had to be very much at a certain point in my life to be able to accept this and feel it was right to do it now," he tells Spinner. "As many out there know, for a long time I wouldn't say that I shunned dad or the Beatles, but I certainly side-stepped them and wanted to carve my own path, so to speak."
That he is ready to do this is an even bigger victory for him personally. "I think it was coming to terms with a lot of issues I felt I needed to deal with," he says. "I went through quite a few issues with dad."
Julian with his father and his father's psychedelic Rolls Royce.
Those problems have been well documented. After the elder Lennon left Julian's mother Cynthia for Yoko Ono, father and son were largely estranged for years, only reconciling shortly before his father was tragically gunned down by Mark David Chapman in 1980.
While the two did speak, Lennon admits truly forgiving his dad was something that he's only recently come to understand with age. "There's only so much bitterness and anger one can carry in life without it taking you to the grave. It was time for me to grow up in many respects," he says.
Songwriting, which he calls "a cathartic experience," has helped him come to grips with his past, particularly on his forthcoming 2010 album Everything Changes. "One has to reach a point of forgiveness -- and I'd done that, but I hadn't really taken it to heart for a long time. It's only in recent years and probably partially through the writing of this album."
The song -- which is a benefit for Lupus, the same disease that afflicted Vodden and Cook's grandmother, also named Lucy -- also helps keep this 40-year-old story alive.
"I guess you could say it's quite poignant 'cause it's bringing to light for future generations the whole history of where this came from and why I'm doing what I'm doing now," he says, regarding the charity aspect of the song. "It's a great, honest and true story -- it's like passing a story down to your children or grandchildren, except in my case it seems to be the world."
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'Lennon Naked' Drama Tackles Brian Epstein's Death « Result #2 on Nov 28, 2009, 8:53pm »
Christopher Eccleston plays John Lennon
DOCTOR WHO STAR CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON TO PLAY LENNON
bbcnews.co.uk
Friday, 27 November 2009 Page last updated at 14:05 GMT
Former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston is to play John Lennon in a BBC drama marking 30 years since the singer's murder in 1980.
Lennon Naked will tackle the death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, Lennon's developing relationship with Yoko Ono and his departure from the fab four.
The 90-minute drama ends in 1971 - the year Lennon released his album Imagine and he and Ono moved to New York.
Eccleston first came to attention in Danny Boyle's 1994 film Shallow Grave.
"Securing Christopher Eccleston to play John Lennon is further testament to the calibre of drama on BBC Four," said Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC drama commissioning.
HOUSEHOLD NAME
After Shallow Grave, Eccleston became a household name in TV series such as Cracker and Our Friends in the North in the mid-1990s.
The 45-year-old made his debut as Doctor Who in the revival of the popular BBC show in 2005, but stepped down after just one series, and later appeared in NBC sci-fi show Heroes.
Earlier this year, Eccleston appeared on the London stage in The Doll's House opposite former X Files star Gillian Anderson.
Recent film work includes big budget Hollywood projects GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra and Amelia.
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Re: The Beatles Inspire MTV Video Games-Rel. 09-09 « Result #3 on Nov 22, 2009, 11:26pm »
VH1 TO AIR BEATLES ROCK BAND DOC
tvfodder.com Posted by Rachel Cericola
November 20, 2009 8:46 PM
The Making of The Beatles: Rock Band will premiere Friday, November 27 at 7:30 p.m. (EST) on VH1 Classic.
I need to get this Beatles: Rock Band. Apparently, it's so awesome, it has spawned its own Behind the Music-type special. Sure, there probably won't be any sex and drugs in this story, but there should be plenty of rock and roll -- at least the computer-generated kind.
Next Friday, while you are avoiding Black Friday sales and wallowing in turkey gravy, VH1 will premiere The Making of The Beatles: Rock Band. The 30-minute special will include never-before-seen footage of Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at Abbey Road Studios and other behind-the-scenes material.
In case you want to create a bit of your own musical history, The Beatles: Rock Band features 45 of the group's greatest hits. It's available now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles. Users can also download additional tracks.
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"The Beatles On Record" Documentary « Result #4 on Nov 22, 2009, 9:00pm »
Brian Epstein, Beatles Manager, George Martin and George Harrison at the recording studio.
BEATLES DOCUMENTARY OFFERS INTIMATE LOOK AT RECORDING SESSIONS
spinner.com by John D. Luerssen
Posted on Nov 10th 2009 2:30PM
Get excited, Beatles fans -- a new special about the Fab Four, The Beatles on Record, is set to premiere on the History Channel later this month. Debuting on Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 10PM, the Thanksgiving Eve broadcast promises a rare and intimate glimpse of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Narrated entirely by the band members and their longtime producer, Sir George Martin, the project boasts over 60 songs, rare footage and images from the Beatles' archives and never-before-heard outtakes of the band in conversation during its original recording sessions. The Beatles on Record also promises a close look at the creative process behind each of its Abbey Road-recorded masterpieces.
The Beatles with record producer, George Martin.
Chronicling the Beatles' remarkable recording journey, from 1962's Please Please Me to 1970's Abbey Road, the documentary explores the group's evolution as musicians, how they matured as songwriters, worked together and created a body of work that continues to endure over the course of just eight short years.
The Beatles with George Martin during rehearsal at EMI in 1963.
The documentary is directed by Bob Smeaton, who helmed the landmark Beatles Anthology series and created mini-documentaries for the band's recently remastered albums on CD. Following its debut, the special is slated for repeat airings at later dates across A&E's networks.
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Re: Paul McCartney - NY Citi Field - 7-17,18, 21 ' « Result #5 on Nov 22, 2009, 6:32pm »
ABC's McCARTNEY TV SPECIAL ON THANKSGIVING RECALLS CITIFIELD, SHEA STADIUM SHOWS
Beatles Examiner Steve Marinucci
November 11, 12:48 PM
"Paul McCartney: Good Evening New York City," an hour long special featuring Paul McCartney talking about the CitiField concerts and the Beatles historic Shea Stadium show, will air at 10 p.m. PT/ET Nov. 26, the network announced Wednesday. (Check local listings.)
ABC says in the program, taken from nearly three hours of music and video, McCartney talks candidly about those early days and what it was like to return to a place where he performed at the height of Beatlemania.
The special will include footage and rare audio of the Beatles original concert at Shea Stadium.
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Re: Beatles' Catalog Re-Mastered: Release 09-09-09 « Result #6 on Nov 11, 2009, 11:01pm »
BEATLES USB LIMITED EDITION APPLE COLLECTION
limited-editions.info
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Beatles will release a new USB Drive in a limited edition of 30,000 copies on December 7th (UK) and December 8th (USA/North America), December 16th (Japan) containing 14 of their albums in high quality remastered digital audio.
The Green Aluminum Apple (50mm wide x 48.5mm high) comes with 16GB of storage and holds music in both FLAC 44.1 Khz 24 bit and DRM Free MP3 320 Kbps formats. Not only does the USB drive contain the 14 Albums of the Beatles stereo box set but it also holds 13 mini-documentary films, replicated UK album art, expanded liner notes and rare photos. The drive is supported by PC and Mac.
This edition is limited to only 30000 pieces and orders are processed on a first-come, first-serve basis so you want one then pre-order one now!
PRE-ORDER NOW AND SAVE UP TO $59.99! - Discount price $238.99 US, £199.98 UK
1. Taste Of Honey 2. I Saw Her Standing There 3. Misery 4. Anna (Go To Him) 5. Chains 6. Boys 7. Ask Me Why 8. Please Please Me 9. Love Me Do 10. I Love You 11. Baby It's You 12. Do You Want To Know A Secret 13. There's A Place 14. Twist And Shout
WITH THE BEATLES
1. It Won't Be Long 2. All I've Got To Do 3. All My Loving 4. Don't Bother Me 5. Little Child 6. Till There Was You 7. Please Mr. Postman 8. Roll Over Beethoven 9. Hold Me Tight 10. You've Really Got A Hold On Me 11. I Wanna Be Your Man 12. Devil In Her Heart 13. Not A Second Time 14. Money
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
1. I Should Have Known Better 2. If I Fell 3. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You 4. And I Love Her 5. Tell Me Why 6. Can't Buy Me Love 7. Hard Day's Night 8. Anytime At All 9. I'll Cry Instead 10. Things We Said Today 11. When I Get Home 12. You Can't Do That 13. I'll Be Back
BEATLES FOR SALE
1. No Reply 2. I'm A Loser 3. Baby's In Black 4. Rock 'n Roll Music 5. I'll Follow The Sun 6. Mr. Moonlight 7. Kansas City 8. Eight Days A Week 9. Words Of Love 10. Honey Don't 11. Every Little Thing 12. Don't Want To Spoil The Party 13. What You're Doing 14. Everybody's Tryin' To Be My Baby
HELP!
1. Help! 2. Night Before 3. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away 4. I Need You 5. Another Girl 6. You're Going To Lose That Girl 7. Ticket To Ride 8. Act Naturally 9. It's Only Love 10. You Like Me Too Much 11. Tell Me What You See 12. I've Just Seen A Face 13. Yesterday 14. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
RUBBER SOUL
1. Drive My Car 2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) 3. You Won't See Me 4. Nowhere Man 5. Think For Yourself 6. Word 7. Michelle 8. What Goes On 9. Girl 10. I'm Looking Through You 11. In My Life 12. Wait 13. If I Needed Someone 14. Run For Your Life
REVOLVER
1. Taxman 2. Eleanor Rigby 3. I'm Only Sleeping 4. Love You To 5. Here, There, And Everywhere 6. Yellow Submarine 7. She Said, She Said 8. Good Day Sunshine 9. And Your Bird Can Sing 10. For No One 11. Dr. Robert 12. I Want To Tell You 13. Got To Get You Into My Life 14. Tomorrow Never Knows
SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
1. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 2. With A Little Help From My Friends 3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds 4. Getting Better 5. Fixing A Hole 6. She's Leaving Home 7. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite 8. Within You, Without You 9. When I'm Sixty Four 10. Lovely Rita 11. Good Morning Good Morning 12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) 13. Day In The Life
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
1. Magical Mystery Tour 2. Fool On The Hill 3. Flying 4. Blue Jay Way 5. Your Mother Should Know 6. I Am The Walrus 7. Hello Goodbye 8. Strawberry Fields Forever 9. Penny Lane 10. Baby You're A Rich Man 11. All You Need Is Love
YELLOW SUBMARINE
1. Yellow Submarine 2. Only A Northern Song 3. All You Need Is Love 4. Hey Bulldog 5. It's All Too Much 6. All Together Now 7. Pepperland 8. Sea Of Time 9. Sea Of Holes 10. Sea Of Monsters 11. March Of The Meanies 12. Pepperland Laid To Waste 13. Yellow Submarine In Pepperland
THE WHITE ALBUM
DISC ONE
1. Back In The U.S.S.R. 2. Dear Prudence 3. Glass Onion 4. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da 5. Wild Honey Pie 6. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill 7. While My Guitar Gently Weeps 8. Happiness Is A Warm Gun 9. Martha My Dear 10. I'm So Tired 11. Blackbird 12. Piggies 13. Rocky Raccoon 14. Don't Pass Me By 15. Why Don't We Do It In The Road 16. I Will 17. Julia
DISC TWO
1. Birthday 2. Yer Blues 3. Mother Nature's Son 4. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey 5. Sexy Sadie 6. Helter Skelter 7. Long Long Long 8. Revolution 1 9. Honey Pie 10. Savoy Truffle 11. Cry Baby Cry 12. Revolution 9 13. Good Night
ABBEY ROAD
1. Come Together 2. Something 3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer 4. Oh Darling 5. Octopus Garden 6. I Want You (She's So Heavy) 7. Here Comes The Sun 8. Because 9. You Never Give Me Your Money 10. Sun King 11. Mean Mr. Mustard 12. Polythene Pam 13. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window 14. Golden Slumbers 15. Carry That Weight 16. End 17. Her Majesty
LET IT BE
1. Two Of Us 2. Dig A Pony 3. Across The Universe 4. I Me Mine 5. Dig It 6. Let It Be 7. Maggie Mae 8. I've Got A Feeling 9. One After 909 10. Long And Winding Road 11. For You Blue 12. Get Back
PAST MASTERS
1. Love Me Do 2. From Me To You 3. Thank You Girl 4. She Loves You 5. I'll Get You 6. I Want To Hold Your Hand 7. This Boy 8. Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand 9. Sie Liebt Dich 10. Day Tripper 11. We Can Work It Out 12. Paperback Writer 13. Rain 14. Lady Madonna 15. Inner Light 16. Hey Jude 17. Revolution 18. Get Back 19. Don't Let Me Down 20. Ballad Of John And Yoko 21. Old Brown Shoe 22. Across The Universe 23. Let It Be 24. You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
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Brian Was The Fifth Beatle - Song by Gary Murtha « Result #7 on Nov 10, 2009, 2:07am »
Mr. Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein (pronounced /ˈɛpstaɪn/) (19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was a British music entrepreneur, and the manager of The Beatles. Through his family's company, NEMS (North End Music Stores) he also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & The Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black and The Remo Four.
The Beatles recorded a demo in Decca's studios — paid for by Epstein — which he later persuaded George Martin to listen to, as Decca were not interested in signing the band. Epstein was then offered a contract (after Martin had auditioned the group) by EMI's small Parlophone label, even though they had previously been rejected by almost every other British record company.
Epstein died of an accidental drug overdose at his home in London in August 1967. The Beatles' early success has been attributed to Epstein's management and sense of style. Paul McCartney said of Epstein: "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian."
BRIAN WAS THE FIFTH BEATLE
A Song for Brian Epstein. "Brian Was The Fifth Beatle" about The Beatles Manager, Brian Epstein. Tribute song written by Gary Murtha/Strawberry Walrus. Performed by David Fox. (2:57 minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMZNgmTgHOk
« Last Edit: Nov 10, 2009, 2:12am by yerblues1968 »
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Book: "Paul McCartney: A Life" - Rel. Nov. 3, '09 « Result #8 on Nov 8, 2009, 5:14pm »
BOOKS: PAUL McCARTNEY: A LIFE
Gabrielle Pantera interviews Paul McCartney: A Life author Peter A Carlin
November 4th, 2009
Biography of Paul McCartney mixes his personal life and his music
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 11/4/2009 – “I always love talking to musicians and the producers/arrangers who work with musicians in their natural element,” says Paul McCartney: A Life author Peter A. Carlin. “They have very little interest in the media mythology surrounding a famous artist, and focus entirely on the quality of their work and the experience of working with them.”
Paul McCartney: A Life traces the origin of Paul McCartney’s life, how he met John Lennon, and how they became the Beatles. The book looks at his loves, his life with first wife Linda through to her unfortunate death, and his disastrous second marriage with Heather Mills.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon as The Quarrymen. Paul still did not have a left-handed guitar and played a right-handed guitar upside down. Paul would not buy his first left-handed guitar for another couple of years in Hamburg. Watching is Cynthia Powell, who will later become John Lennon's wife. Photo is at the Casbah Club at 8 Hayman's Green, West Derby, LIverpool.
“What really intrigues me is the interplay between an artist’s ordinary life…growing up, going to school, winding clocks, eating chocolate…and his artistry,” says Carlin. “How does one inspire or inhibit the other? Where does an ordinary life lift off into a more magical realm? Not many books seem as fixated on this as I am, so I figure, oh hell, better write it myself. When a person can describe, vividly, the experience of playing music alongside Paul McCartney, the joy in his face as the voices slide into harmony, the way he’ll lose himself in the process…dining at the astral cafeteria, according to one member of Wings…I feel like I’m hearing something extremely important and very worth capturing for posterity.”
Carlin also listened to many, many hours of music and drew on personal experiences such as seeing Wings’ biggest show in ‘76 in Seattle. Carlin conducted many interviews, read hundreds of books and looked over tens of thousands of news articles. “I was a fan and had read everything I could find about the guy.” Carlin pored through archives in London, New York and Liverpool.
Paul McCartney with Jane Asher at his brother Michael's wedding.
“Being in Liverpool, getting to know the folks there, was endlessly fascinating,” says Carlin. “Liverpudlians as a whole are witty and warm and sweet. And they know plenty of secret little nooks that contain all kinds of Beatle arcana. I talked my way into the Abbey Road studios and spent a breathtaking few hours being led from one mythical place to the next.”
Carlin has written three previous books: Brave New Bride, a magazine parody, published by Warner Books in 1992, Beyond The Limits, the autobiography of mountaineer Stacy Allison published by Little, Brown in 1993, Catch A Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, published by Rodale in 2006.
Paul with wife Linda and daughter Mary.
“My biographies are inspired by admiration for my subject,” says Carlin, “which isn’t to say that I’m blind to their flaws, or eager to look past the various moral, ethical and aesthetic shortcomings they, and we all, have. Obviously, that’s a big part of anyone’s life story. But what really matters to me is how a person persists, maintaining a connection their better self, even as they navigate the rockier shoals of existence.”
Paul McCartney: A Life is for the music lover and anyone who wants to see how people succeed. This book is inspirational as it provides glimpses into the mind of a great music icon. This revealing portrait is fresh yet sympathetic. His life and art are intertwined.
Peter Ames Carlin was born in Syracuse, New York. He’s currently based in Portland, Oregon.
All you need is Five ~ because without the Fifth, the Four ceased to exist.
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Re: 9 after 909 « Result #9 on Nov 3, 2009, 10:25am »
Hi Fred,
9 after 909 should certainly be popular with the intelligent/intellectual Beatles fans and admirers.
And...hey...it doesn't hurt you at all to be an erudite Englishman only 3 months my junior!
Here and there, mixed in with the plethora of squeeing fans and slashers, indeed there are (is?) a contingent of analytical Beatles admirers. Perhaps by sticking a little blurb in my Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal (my original internet "home" for some odd reason), the Beatle-lects can find more to contemplate and debate at your blogs.
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9 after 909 « Result #10 on Nov 3, 2009, 4:39am »
Hi, I have a Beatles Blog called 9 after 909, http://fred6368.wordpress.com/ where I write about The Beatles impact on me, and a related blog called A Beatles YouTube album where I use YouTube videos to review their albums. I am fascinated by the concept of the Fifth Beatle and I discuss Brian and Fifth Beatle ness (!) in the post Learning...With The Beatles USA http://fred6368.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/learning-with-the-beatles-usa/ As you can guess I think we still have things to learn from The Beatles and I am trying to find original ways of expressing that. Hope you enjoy it
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Re: Who should play The Beatles? « Result #11 on Nov 3, 2009, 4:24am »
I don't know if you saw the film Control by Anton Corbijn about Joy Division? They got four unknown actors with some musical ability and got them to actually play the music of Joy Division as they made the film. Consequently you got the authentic feel of them playing, rather than miming, and they actually got better as they played more songs, so reflecting how Joy Division improved and became a band instead of being four individauls. Given that The Beatles were not yet fabulous musically when Brian met them maybe young hopefuls with musical ability would give a better feel to the early parts? I think they would have to mime to The Beatles after Ringo joined and George Martin got hold of them though! I agree that the Backbeat casting was good but those guys are old now! Sex appeal, youthful energy and naivety is what you need
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Re: John Lennon Film 'Nowhere Boy' - Rel. 12-26-09 « Result #12 on Nov 2, 2009, 12:17am »
John Lennon in 1959.
JOHN LENNON'S DAYS IN THE LIFE
The Observer Craig McLean
Sunday 1 November 2009
How to tell the story of the young Lennon? First-time director Sam Taylor-Wood, rising star Aaron Johnson and Yoko Ono talk exclusively about new film Nowhere Boy.
Here in the New Clubmoor Hall in Norris Green, Liverpool, they're selling Bateman's Light Dinner Ale at 6d a bottle. The reek of Nelson's Tipped and Senior Service cigarettes fills the air. Moody boys in slim suits and slick DAs mooch about the dance floor. In front of them glamorous girls in pencil skirts and fitted jackets, their hair immobilized by spray, stare at the modest stage. Everyone is watching the boys in the group.
The teenage musicians are trying out their new guitarist. They first met him when they played at a church fête in nearby Woolton. The group's scowls who was this young pretty boy? had turned to smiles when he demonstrated a mean way with Eddie Cochran's Twenty Flight Rock. Pretty good for a left-hander. The kid was in.
Now, three months later, the group are ready to rock 'n' roll for the first time. "Next, ladies and gentlemen," says the singer by way of introducing their new guitarist, "the Scouse Duane Eddy will play Movin' 'N' Groovin'.
It is 18 October 1957 and the Quarrymen are experiencing their first modest taste of fame. This new musical partnership, between 17-year-old John Lennon and 15-year-old Paul McCartney, might be on to something.
Over 50 years later, in April 2009, in a time-capsule Irish pub in the north-west London suburb of Sudbury Hill standing in for the late 50s Liverpool social club Sam Taylor-Wood is controlling the action on day 41 of the 45-day shoot for Nowhere Boy, the artist turned director's depiction of the early life of John Winston Lennon. The screenplay is by Matt Greenhalgh, writer of Control, the acclaimed biopic of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, and is adapted from the first half of the memoir Imagine This Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon by Julia Baird.
John Lennon with his band The Quarrymen.
It has been a fairly quick-fire shoot, with filming taking place here, in Pinner, in Liverpool and at Ealing Studios. There have been myriad period details to attend to, and not just the normal issues of accurate set dressing (the number of cars in the streets in the early 50s; the brands of beer the social club would sell) because the producers know the eyes of legions of Beatles obsessives will be on them.
Did the earth move for Lennon when he heard Screamin' Jay Hawkins's I Put a Spell on You, a single he received from a "Cunard Yank" seaman down Liverpool docks, and if so, what label was it on? Did McCartney use his little finger to play the B7 chord? Would the Quarrymen have used Reslo microphones, and did the teenage Lennon favour a Zenith Model 17 guitar, the teenage McCartney a Gallotone Champion? (The answers: yes; Okeh; yes after he got a bus across Liverpool to learn it; yes; no and no it was the other way around.)
Ensuring the featured songs and the musical performances are accurate and credible has been another priority for the film-makers. "We took the decision early on," says producer Kevin Loader, "that you've got to cast the best actors you can find and then school them in the music." Thus 19-year old Aaron Johnson was given the lead role not because he was a Lennon lookalike or a natural-born rock 'n' roller. "He came in to auditions and wouldn't engage," recalls Taylor-Wood. "He was very much in his own world. He had the right intensity."
Enter Nowhere Boy's music consultant Ben Parker. He started teaching the Buckinghamshire-born Johnson how to play guitar, sing and hold himself like Lennon last December. With the aid of vocal coach Penny Dyer, they worked on emulating Lennon's particular Scouse accent, then his singing voice "John sang from the twang of his own speaking voice," says Parker, one of several self-confessed Beatles fanatics working on the production.
Eighteen months ago music supervisor Ian Neil began a "feasibility study" of the songs the soundtrack would need. He had 10% of the film's £6.7m budget to spend on securing the rights to the classic rock 'n' roll tunes fundamental to the story. Could they use Chuck Berry's Guitar Boogie, part of the Quarrymen's repertoire? Would featuring Elvis Presley tunes bust the bank? And to what degree, exactly, should the music of Lennon and McCartney feature?
Little wonder the pressure is showing here on the fringes of London on this rainy spring day. "I'm going to need a stint in an opium den in Marrakech after this," sighs Taylor-Wood. "I need some heavy drugs to disintegrate everything."
She's joking, of course. A music fanatic who's made concert films for the Pet Shop Boys, a video for Elton John and a short film named after Buzzcocks' Love You More, she lobbied hard to make Nowhere Boy after being handed the script by her friend Joe Wright (director of Atonement). The 42-year-old director admits she's sad at the prospect of the shoot ending and not just because, as it will later transpire, she has embarked on a relationship with her leading man.
Imagine that, an artist falling in love with Lennon. "I know, isn't it amazing?" says Yoko Ono when we speak a few months later. "It's not a fictitious situation," Lennon's widow says of Nowhere Boy, "it's very fateful."
How to depict a legend? How to cast fresh light on one of the greatest and most over-analyzed musicians of the rock and pop era?
"There was a point where I suddenly felt, I'm in the middle of a hell of a lot of powerful people," remembers Taylor-Wood. She means Ono, McCartney and the other keepers of the Beatles flame (a young George Harrison also features in the film). "You think, 'Oh dear God, I've just taken on one of the biggest icons in the world,'" she continues. "It's a real person. The family are still here. I want to make this as sensitive to all of them as possible. How am I going to do this without upsetting one of them?
"So I did have a moment where I just thought, 'I don't know if I can do this.' Then I got in the car and turned the ignition on and Lennon came on the radio and I thought, 'OK I'm doing this.'"
The song was (Just Like) Starting Over.
Nonetheless: what new was there to say? Taylor-Wood, a first-time feature film director, answers by saying what she wanted to avoid.
"I didn't want to make a biopic. I didn't want to do the birth and the launch and the beginning. That wasn't interesting to me. It was really the story of this relationship between these two women and how they fed into Lennon's imagination and his music. The powerful influence that these really strong women had on him."
"These two women" are Lennon's mother Julia and his Aunt Mimi, who raised him as her own. Free-spirited Julia (played by Anne-Marie Duff) had a chaotic life: John's father was away at sea for much of the Second World War, and he remained largely absent after it; during the war Julia fell pregnant to another serviceman; then Julia met a third man (played by David Morrissey) and bore him two daughters. Prim and proper sister Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) felt this was no environment for a young boy and "stole" John to live with her (at her house, Mendips, now a National Trust property donated to the nation by Yoko Ono).
In the film we see Julia wheeling back into John's life when he's 15. He's dazzled by this glamorous woman he has to see behind his auntie's back. Julia takes him to Blackpool on a day out, introduces him to rock 'n 'roll via Presley's Teddy Bear, teaches him how to play the banjo and explains that rock 'n' roll means sex. Several scenes allude to the son's Oedipal feelings for his mother, a controversial line taken in Philip Norman's recent biography, John Lennon: The Life, but not, unsurprisingly, in Lennon's sister's book.
"I didn't want to overplay that sexual stuff," says Matt Greenhalgh, "but here's a boy at 15 who was raging, as boys do at that age. And he meets this amazing, beautiful woman that he doesn't really know. OK, she's his mother but she still lights up his world."
What similarities if any does the screenwriter see between his depictions of Lennon and Ian Curtis, troubled and ultimately tragic northern icons both? "It's people trying to find love through becoming artists. A need to be loved. But whereas I love Control for its darkness, Nowhere Boy is about the joy of rock 'n' roll. It's all about love and sex. That was new to the world in the mid-50s, so there's a liberating feeling about Nowhere Boy.
Director Sam Taylor-Wood and Aaron Johnson (center) with members of the Nowhere Boy cast at the London Film Festival. Also featured are Kristin-Scott Thomas (Aunt Mimi Smith), Sam Bell (George Harrison), Thomas Sangster (Paul McCartney), Josh Bolt (Peter Shotton), Anne-Marie Duff (Julia Lennon).
Indeed there is. The film is affectionate, tender, moving, and not afraid to show the darker side of Lennon's personality. But it also explains where those shadows come from. We see the building blocks of the man and his music how Lennon's world and imagination open up as he reconnects with his mother, and how he connects with the exciting and visceral new world of rock 'n'roll. To fully lay bare the latter, the film's music team put in serious legwork.
John Gosling, the music director, enlisted session musicians who would be good enough to evoke the amateurish performances of the young Quarrymen the actors would then mime to these backing tracks. He and his team hired in vintage kit to purposefully hobble the accomplished players. Engineer/producer Emre Ramazanoglu tracked down five Reslo mics, popular in the 50s "they were our secret weapon," says Gosling, "although they required a lot of soldering." His session musicians had to convey the teenagers' progression, from skiffle merchants to nascent rock 'n' rollers, from Quarry Bank school to bedroom to Percy Phillips's rudimentary studio, where the Quarrymen recorded their only disc, In Spite of All the Danger / That'll Be the Day.
Tragically, just as he found her, Lennon lost his mother Julia was killed by a speeding car on 15 July 1958. Lennon was 17. The only non-contemporaneous song of his that Taylor-Wood wanted to use was the obvious one, Mother, written in 1970 (You had me but I never had you). Without it the film would lack its climactic, devastating emotional punch.
"To get that I had to get Yoko's approval of the film," says Taylor-Wood. Ono, who had given the film the go-ahead, maintained her distance during filming. But the director kept her appraised of progress with email updates (she also emailed McCartney regularly with fact-checking queries "would you have said group or band?").
In early September this year the film was completed to an incredibly tight schedule in order for it to appear as the Closing Gala feature at last week's London Film Festival Taylor-Wood sent the near-finished film to New York. "I didn't want to go myself, sit outside the room waiting for Yoko's reaction. But immediately after she saw it she sent me a very, very beautiful letter saying how much she liked it and saying she would give us permission to use Mother. That was a major moment of relief!"
A film that was kick started by (Just Like) Starting Over had its climax. And there was a final moment of serendipity. Taylor-Wood finished it, tweaking a final sound level, on 9 October: birthday both of John and his and Yoko's son Sean.
Nowhere Boy is brilliantly evocative and provocative, and no one is more pleased than Yoko Ono. "First of all, it is a very difficult subject because so many people think that they own John and have their own version of John. So Sam was very brave. But also she did the right job."
What does Greenhalgh want people to get from the film?
The writer pauses. "That Lennon didn't have it easy," he says. "There's a lot of issues that obviously were still going on in the Beatles and later on which, once you piece them together, this is the final piece of the jigsaw. You understand why he was how he was. His anger, and in some way neediness. It was all down to what happened to him in childhood. It's all very Freudian."
For Aaron Johnson, who is excellent at evoking Lennon's coolness, cockiness and feelings of grief, Nowhere Boy pierces the heart of an artist who, since his death in 1980, has been enveloped in fact-obscuring idolatry and conjecture. In the year running up to what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, Nowhere Boy shows us something of the essence of the man.
"After his mum's death I don't think he ever found love until Yoko," says the actor born a decade after Lennon's murder. "It kind of destroyed him and he kept that in. He'd opened up his heart so much that when she did die he had to go back to his roots how Aunt Mimi taught him: to seal it all in."
Producer Kevin Loader points out how "self-conscious Lennon was about how he presented himself later in life". It all stems back to those Liverpool streets, those women, that loss.
"John Lennon was already an artist and a poet," reflects Johnson. "But he didn't know how to express it until his mother came back into his life. It was rock 'n' roll, it was danger and sex and violence and poetry."
yerblues1968 A Cellarful of Posts! member is offline
Joined: Mar 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 955
Re: Brian Epstein: Inside The Fifth Beatle « Result #13 on Nov 1, 2009, 7:09pm »
Yes, I heard about the new Beatlesfest West. It does not surprise that it took place in San Francisco. The city did hold a parade in honor of Mr. Brian Epstein years back by the gay community. Plus, The Beatles did have a concert at the former Candlestick Park.
Oh, and by the way, I had gone to only one Fest for The Beatles Fans Convention and that was for one day last year when it was held in Chicago, Illinois in August. I had to hurry back home that evening. Chicago is extremely hot in the summer, but thankfully I stayed indoors at the hotel convention. That is where I got the Beatles Monopoly game!
syelar108 Knows Queens Dr from Chapel St member is offline
Joined: Jan 2008 Gender: Female Posts: 75 Location: Nevada
Re: Brian Epstein: Inside The Fifth Beatle « Result #14 on Oct 31, 2009, 11:49am »
Ha, ha... and there's the magic of Netflix, instead of shelling out $10-$20 for a single disc. No extra bonus features = no sale
I also just saw a Proboards advertisement for a Beatlesfest West, which was held in San Francisco at the beginning of this month? Not that I would've had a chance to go (I know Yerblues68 has been to some), but you wonder if anyone would've had any Eppy items or spoken about Brian there?
All you need is Five ~ because without the Fifth, the Four ceased to exist.
Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Female Posts: 369 Location: Michigan
Re: Brian Epstein: Inside The Fifth Beatle « Result #15 on Oct 30, 2009, 6:56pm »
So. How convenient of these people to re-release this old 2004 dvd... as if it were something new ...not a totally deceptive move, yet not really honest, either.
Gee whiz, I wonder if this has anything to do with, maybe, the Beatles Rock Band, the Remasters, and the (so-called) Brian flick (which is really just another Beatles flick) that Hollywood is slapping together and calling, "A Life In The Day"...?
How the sharks do converge to take advantage. $$$$$$$
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