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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 8, 2016 18:23:26 GMT -5
The New Beatles Album of 1976
The Story: In 1976, Capitol Records released an album and this single by a group calling themselves Klaatu
There was no publicity associated with the album
There were no pictures of the band members
There were no names of the band members on the album
The song credits themselves simply said Klaatu
And it sounded uncannily like The Beatles
Rumors of such started to arise and the album's sales did as well. Was this finally a Beatles reunion album, under the radar, to see if they still had selling power without the use of their magical name?
Was this the rumored album recorded between Revolver and Sgt Pepper right before Paul McCartney died and a replacement was found? Supposedly the band shelved the last album that McCartney had worked on with them and instead released Sgt Pepper which went in new directions now that Billy Shears was a member
The rumors regarding the Klaatu album persisted for awhile. Finally some rock journalists investigated the story, looking up information to be found within the US Copyright offices for the song's registrations and found that the members were Canadians who had formed a progressive rock band. The members were
John Woloschuk - vocals - bass - guitar - keyboards
Terry Draper - vocals - drums - guitar - keyboards - slide trombone
Dee Long - vocals - guitar - keyboards
There were no Beatle connections whatsoever. Klaatu wound up releasing 4 albums, none selling as well as the one involved with the rumor
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 8, 2016 18:43:12 GMT -5
I am very glad to use the Beatles thread to talk about stuff that isn't the Beatles.  (A) Bob Dylan did not invent talking blues, and (B) talking blues had very, very little influence on rap. Unless I missed something, a) no one said Bob Dylan invented talking blues, and b) no one said it had an influence on rap either. Oh, and c), "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is not talking blues. At all. Not by a long shot. While it's true that Dylan wrote and recorded many examples of the talking blues, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is much more indebted to the quick-fire lyrical whit of the likes of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene", but amped up to an even more intense and rapid delivery. Also, for the record, I called "Subterranean Homesick Blues" an important early example of proto-rapping, which it undoubtedly is. I never said it was the first rap record or some such. The same can be said for some of the spoken "raps" (for want of a better term) that Lou Rawls would pepper his songs with in the mid-60s. Of course, it isn't until you get to artists like Gil Scott-Heron or the albums put out by The Last Poets in the early '70s that you really hear anything properly approaching the genre that would become hip hop in the late '70s. But, there's little doubt that a record like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was an important early step along that road. I could be terminologically wrong - I always considered it a fast talking blues, with a little bit of the cadence of scat singing. It says "Blues" in the title! Re: It being an influence on rap. I've heard the same thing quite often from people from a rock background, but never anyone who's working from a hip-hop background, scholarship-wise, nor have I heard any actual rapper cite Subterranean Homesick Blues specifically as an influence until after the year 2000. I honestly can't find any documentation that Gil-Scott Heron was an influence on early rap - he kind of got folded back in once the topical reach of hip-hop moved beyond party music (this took a couple years) into stuff like "The Message" and Public Enemy - he was an influence on individual rappers, but insignificant to the origins of rap. Rap came from party DJs trying to get the crowd worked up through talking into the microphone - The vocal stylings of rap don't really come from music at all, (Well, sort of...some of the early DJs would talk in the style and cadence of specific (black!) musicians.) But if Bob Dylan never existed Rap would sound exactly the same. If the Beatles never existed... well, everything would be different, so rap would probably be different, but there's no direct influence from the Beatles to rap music. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 8, 2016 19:39:18 GMT -5
I am very glad to use the Beatles thread to talk about stuff that isn't the Beatles. Thread drift is a specialty in this forum! Unless I missed something, a) no one said Bob Dylan invented talking blues, and b) no one said it had an influence on rap either. Oh, and c), "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is not talking blues. At all. Not by a long shot. While it's true that Dylan wrote and recorded many examples of the talking blues, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is much more indebted to the quick-fire lyrical whit of the likes of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene", but amped up to an even more intense and rapid delivery. Also, for the record, I called "Subterranean Homesick Blues" an important early example of proto-rapping, which it undoubtedly is. I never said it was the first rap record or some such. The same can be said for some of the spoken "raps" (for want of a better term) that Lou Rawls would pepper his songs with in the mid-60s. Of course, it isn't until you get to artists like Gil Scott-Heron or the albums put out by The Last Poets in the early '70s that you really hear anything properly approaching the genre that would become hip hop in the late '70s. But, there's little doubt that a record like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was an important early step along that road. I could be terminologically wrong - I always considered it a fast talking blues, with a little bit of the cadence of scat singing. It says "Blues" in the title! Well, it's undoubtedly got the word "blues" in the title because, technically speaking, it is a blues song. That is to say that musically it follows standard blues chord changes, which are predominantly based on the I-IV-V progression of chords in a given key. The so-called "talking blues", on the other hand, is traditionally and rather bizarrely (given its name) a folk or country music form, not a blues one. There are exceptions to that, obviously, but as a general rule of thumb, talking blues are much less structured melody-wise and they don't adhere to strict twelve bar blues changes either. Re: It being an influence on rap. I've heard the same thing quite often from people from a rock background, but never anyone who's working from a hip-hop background, scholarship-wise, nor have I heard any actual rapper cite Subterranean Homesick Blues specifically as an influence until after the year 2000. I'm sure that you're right about rappers prior to 2000 not citing Dylan's song as an influence. I certainly won't be able to provide a quote. But to me, the song, along with the aforementioned Lou Rawls' "raps", is clearly an early example of that kind of scatter-shot, half-talked vocal style. I'm not saying that it necessarily directly influenced a lot of rappers to pick up the mic, so to speak, but the influence was absorbed into pop music from 1965 onwards. I honestly can't find any documentation that Gil-Scott Heron was an influence on early rap - he kind of got folded back in once the topical reach of hip-hop moved beyond party music (this took a couple years) into stuff like "The Message" and Public Enemy - he was an influence on individual rappers, but insignificant to the origins of rap. Rap came from party DJs trying to get the crowd worked up through talking into the microphone - The vocal stylings of rap don't really come from music at all, (Well, sort of...some of the early DJs would talk in the style and cadence of specific (black!) musicians.) Hmmm...this is a more difficult thing to discuss because, lyrically speaking, you may well be right about Scott-Heron not influencing very early hip-hop. Although having said that, no one is going to tell me that there isn't a direct line of influence going from a record like "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" to "The Message", as you yourself hint. Musically though...I dunno. I do know that an awful lot of the records that early hip hop DJs would spin at parties to rap over were early '70s jazz-funk records by the likes of Richard Groove Holmes, Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock. That's why so many of those jazz-funk records eventually ended up being sampled in hip-hop records. Scott-Heron was a jazz musician first and foremost, so I can well imagine some of his more up-tempo cuts like "When You Are Who You Are" or "The Bottle" getting spun by hip-hop DJs in the late '70s. But if Bob Dylan never existed Rap would sound exactly the same. Oh, I don't know. I think that's impossible to say one way or the other. But Dylan's impact on popular music at large is simply incalculable, whether later artists realise it or not. I'm not just talking about the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" now, I'm talking about his whole '60s output. Just as with white musicians, Dylan influenced black musicians who wanted to say something more meaningful than "Do You Love Me", "I'm a Soul Man" or "You Send Me", whether we're talking about Richie Havens's "The Klan", Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On", or Grandmaster Flash's "The Message". If the Beatles never existed... well, everything would be different, so rap would probably be different, but there's no direct influence from the Beatles to rap music. Well, I sort of agree with this because when I said that "you can also hear the roots of hip hop in the drums and tape loops of the Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows'", I meant that the Beatles had such a pervasive impact on pop music that innovations like the hypnotic, incessantly rhythm driven music of that track very quickly got absorbed into the DNA of popular music. Not that a load of early hip-hop practitioners were necessarily sitting around listening to "Tomorrow Never Knows" specifically. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 8, 2016 19:54:44 GMT -5
The Story: In 1976, Capitol Records released an album and this single by a group calling themselves Klaatu There was no publicity associated with the album There were no pictures of the band members There were no names of the band members on the album The song credits themselves simply said Klaatu And it sounded uncannily like The Beatles Rumors of such started to arise and the album's sales did as well. Was this finally a Beatles reunion album, under the radar, to see if they still had selling power without the use of their magical name? The thing about the whole Klaatu rumour that blows my mind is that, right from the first line of the first song on the album, this clearly isn't the Beatles. I mean, I don't know whether a lot of people really weren't listening to the Beatles very closely in the '60s, but the voices on the Klaatu record don't sound anymore like the Beatles than any number of other early-to-mid-'70s power pop bands did. Anybody who actually believed that Klaatu were the Beatles for any more than a few seconds after hearing the singer's open their mouths must've had s**t in their ears! The same also goes for The Moles who released a record on Parlophone in 1968 called "We Are The Moles". Rumours soon began to circulate in the music press that this was actually the Beatles secretly releasing a record under a pseudonym to see whether it would sell without the Beatles name being attached to it. Almost exactly like the Klaatu thing, but some 8 years earlier. But again, within 15 seconds of "We Are The Moles" starting, anyone who even entertained a vague suspicion that this was indeed the Fab Four must've had serious hearing problems. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 8, 2016 20:05:02 GMT -5
Wow, I would never be fooled that The Moles were The Beatles in disguise but I get a kick out of that song
"We are The Moles and we stay in our holes". Fantastic
Do take into consideration that back in that time, many people had crappy sound systems and awful speakers. Quality stereos were a luxury and quite expensive. Many if not most people didn't even have FM when the Moles burrowed out of their holes. Hey, in 1968 there wasn't many FM rock stations outside of the biggest cities. Some people did most of their listening with transistor radios. The dolby sound system wasn't even invented yet.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 8, 2016 21:26:44 GMT -5
Do take into consideration that back in that time, many people had crappy sound systems and awful speakers. Quality stereos were a luxury and quite expensive. Many if not most people didn't even have FM when the Moles burrowed out of their holes. Hey, in 1968 there wasn't many FM rock stations outside of the biggest cities. Some people did most of their listening with transistor radios. The dolby sound system wasn't even invented yet. Yes, you're quite right about sound quality an all, but still...even on a cheap transistor radio or a crackly, mono Dansette record player I reckon I could've told the Beatles and the Moles apart. Actually, here in the UK the mainstream popular music radio station, the BBC's Radio 1, didn't begin broadcasting in FM until the mid-'80s. Talking of mid-'60s listening experiences, check out this broadcast from Los Angeles' KHJ radio station in August 1966. I was listening to this a few weeks back, pretending it was 1966 and that I was in L.A. with a transistor radio. It's fascinating... pastdaily.com/2016/02/20/august-1966-you-live-in-l-a-youre-in-high-school-tina-delgado-is-alive-alive/ |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 8, 2016 21:36:04 GMT -5
Do take into consideration that back in that time, many people had crappy sound systems and awful speakers. Quality stereos were a luxury and quite expensive. Many if not most people didn't even have FM when the Moles burrowed out of their holes. Hey, in 1968 there wasn't many FM rock stations outside of the biggest cities. Some people did most of their listening with transistor radios. The dolby sound system wasn't even invented yet. Yes, you're quite right about sound quality an all, but still...even on a cheap transistor radio or a crackly, mono Dansette record player I reckon I could've told the Beatles and the Moles apart. Actually, here in the UK the mainstream popular music radio station, the BBC's Radio 1, didn't begin broadcasting in FM until the mid-'80s. Talking of mid-'60s listening experiences, check out this broadcast from Los Angeles' KHJ radio station in August 1966. I was listening to this a few weeks back, pretending it was 1966 and that I was in L.A. with a transistor radio. It's fascinating... pastdaily.com/2016/02/20/august-1966-you-live-in-l-a-youre-in-high-school-tina-delgado-is-alive-alive/That's how I grew up, listening to AM radio from 1961 till 1968 and making the switch to FM in 1969. Although sometimes you can be stuck, lets say in a car after 1969 and only had AM available. Fortunately I was in New York City which had a large selection, for that time , to choose from Here is a great website with the history of the individual rock stations, both AM and FM from NYC. It includes embedded audio broadcasts, posters and advertisements, magazine article etc. You can spend a week on this website easily. lhttp://www.nyradioarchive.com/index.htmlink |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 9, 2016 2:44:00 GMT -5
My Piece of Beatle MemorabiliaSad to say, I never actively bought all the Beatle related products that were flooding the market when they around back in the 1960s. Sure I had all the albums, probably all the original printings with all the insets too. But I played them so often over the years that when I bought the CD versions, I either gave them away or threw them out I still have a box of 45RPM singles including many Beatle songs. But the paper sleeves they came in are totally destroyed and a long time back I bought plain sleeves to replace them. Besides which, I tried to play my 45s again quite awhile ago and they are so scratched up that they are unlistenable. Still I kept them around for nostalgia's sake I remember having Beatle trading cards but who knows where they went. Might have traded them for baseball cards Had a Beatles lunchbox. Had Beatle magazines. All gone But there is one item I have even if it's not strictly Beatles but related Sometime in the early 70s when I was a teen I had a friend who worked for a summer job at the Apple Studio offices in Manhattan. He was a go-fer or an office boy, something for a young entry level kid. The summer he was there it was announced that the Apple office will be closing and the company was dissolving. He saw in the final days that employees were taking home anything they could as mementos. So he grabbed a few things and took it with him. I don't recall what he kept for himself but he gave me one item. It was an LP and since my friend was really only into blues music at the time, he gave me the LP instead It was from the group Badfinger who at the time was signed to Apple Records. It was their best album in my opinion.It was the 1971 Straight Up album which had the hits Day After Day and Baby Blue. FM radio stations also constantly played I'D Die Babe and Perfection. I liked every track on that album. Still enjoy it to this day But this was not a normal version of the album.It was superheavy, really thick vinyl. The center label was just typing that ID'd the songs. The record jacket was plain white, no artwork. The inside sleave was a bit different from the normal paper sleeve you would get, this had a lot of clear plastic to it. Not until the internet was around did I bother to try to ID what this version could have been. Seems it's what they call a test pressing. They would make about a half dozen copies as such and give it out to those who needed to check for quality issues and do the final sign off before it was mass produced. I guess the members of the band as well as management would get them, play them, and then pass it on to the next in line. And when its all finished, the record company just keeps it in their vaults. It sounds just fine. I guess with the heavier vinyl it will stand up for a much longer time than most LPs. The official album cover for Badfinger's Staright Up from Apple Records-no verbiage on the front 
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2016 4:03:14 GMT -5
Speaking of the Beatles, it looks like producer George Martin passed away today at age 90... Washington Post obit-M |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 9, 2016 4:20:36 GMT -5
Speaking of the Beatles, it looks like producer George Martin passed away today at age 90... Washington Post obit-M Good grief, that puts a damper on this thread. There has been a few people that were dubbed "The 5th Beatle". He's the one I would bestow that honor to. His contribution to the sound of their music could not be overestimated. They were just young kids when they began to work with him. he treated them with respect and they grew to admire him. He taught them all he knew around a recording studio and as the years went by he got lessons from them as well. He was open to experiment. He had no former involvement with rock n' roll and he never treated it as a stepchild musical format. To George Martin's spirit and family members-I wholeheartedly send my condolences and best wishes. Each time I hear a Beatle song played, I know I'm listening to Mr. Martin's talent as well |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 9, 2016 4:29:36 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2016 4:41:29 GMT -5
Speaking of the Fifth Beatle, and bringing this to comics for a moment...has anyone read this...?  The Untold True story of Beatles manager Brian Epstein in graphic novel format by Vivak J. Tivary, Andrew Robinson and Kyle Baker that came out in 2013 from Dark Horse (and was just optioned as a tv minis-series this week...) The Fifth Beatle on DH pageAs for my strange but true Beatles moment... the night before The Beatles Anthology documentary was set to air on network TV in the States, I was at a King Crimson show in New Haven, CT. The band's frontman, Adrein Belew had played with the Plastic Ono Band and remained friend with Yoko Ono after John's death, and had received permission from her to do a cover of Free As a Bird (the unreleased Beatles single that was at the center of the hype for that documentary) since he had helped her with some of he production on the song over the years, and they debuted their cover of that song the night I was there at the concert, so I was among a small group of people at that show who got to hear the song a full day before it made its television debut. Hearing a Crim cover of a Beatles song is kind of a surreal experience to begin with, as there is not a lot of common ground in their styles, and Fripp's overlays played in his new standard tuning didn't quite fit the Beatles' melody, but it was one of those musical moments I will never forget. -M |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 9, 2016 7:09:37 GMT -5
Speaking of the Beatles, it looks like producer George Martin passed away today at age 90... Washington Post obit-M Well, that's some bad news to wake up to.  George Martin was without doubt the "5th Beatle". Without him, the band's music would've sounded completely different, many of their technical innovations would've been impossible and they might not have ever been signed up. His contribution to the Beatles' music is simply incalculable. I was lucky enough to meet him once, when he was having dinner in a little country pub not far from where I live, of all places. Of course, I totally blew my cool and was a gushing fanboy in front of him, but he was very gracious and friendly to me. RIP Sir George, and thanks for making some of my all-time favourite records sound as good as they do. |
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Post by berkley on Mar 10, 2016 1:36:59 GMT -5
Love that Badfinger album, Straight Up. As Ish said, every song on it is really good. Baby Blue probably remains my favourite track, but another special stand-out for me is the very first one, Take it All, which sounds to me like it could and should have been a hit radio single itself, except maybe there's something about it that's too sad, in spite of it's sing-along qualities.
It's been a long while since I read it but according to that book I mentioned earlier (Without You) they were ripped off left, right, and centre by their management. IIRC, there was a bit in there that said at the very time when Day After Day was a worldwide #1 hit, Ham (or maybe it was another member) was walking around with holes in his shoes because he couldn't afford to buy new ones.
RIP George Martin.
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Post by Farrar on Mar 10, 2016 12:15:51 GMT -5
In Fantastic Four #34 a couple of months earlier (real time), Ben had received a Beatles wig as a gift...which he then wore towards the end of the Strange Tales #130 story. Nice scripting by Stan to connect the two. FF #34  Strange Tales #130 (OK, so the wig is now black not brown...)  |
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