Plastic Assault
paramucho
what it would be like if they were still active and John were still
with us.
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And so you thought Beatlemania was so Yesterday . . .
It's back! leading the way is the official
Fab Four autobiography -- and that's
just the tip of the iceberg
JAMES ADAMS
The Globe and Mail
Friday, September 1, 2000
Toronto -- Compared to the rest of us, the Beatles seemed to find
breaking up very easy to do. When the four Liverpudlians decided to
call it a hard day's night 30 years ago, that was pretty much all
there was to all that. But since then the original fans of the band,
and the sons and daughters of the original fans, and the musicologists
and the magazine editors and the record companies have been staggering
around like that besotted wretch in Willie Dixon's I Can't Quit You,
Babe.
Beatlemania has always been with us, in one way or another, for the
last three decades, contradicting the question posed in the song title
How Can I Love You If You Won't Go Away? But now, with the looming of
the first autumn of the millennium, the signs are everywhere of one of
those periodic spasms of interest in all things Fab that hearken back
to the intensity the quartet provoked between 1963 and 1970.
The most obvious indicator is, of course, the release at midnight on
Oct. 5 of the so-called Beatles official autobiography, The Beatles
Anthology. Whether after all these years George Harrison, Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr have anything fresh to say about their lives
that others haven't revealed before remains beside the point. (After
all, it's the artist who often knows the least about his or her life
and art.) With its 340,000 words, 368 pages and 1,400 illustrations
inserted in a silver-sheathed slipcase retailing for the suggested
Canadian retail price of $92, Anthology is one of those sui generis
events that promises to blow away the jaded irony that has
distinguished so much pop culture in the past 15 years, while
transcending notions of good and bad, historic worth and literary
merit, truth and falsehood. By the time Jan. 1, 2001 rolls around,
Anthology's publisher, San Francisco-based Chronicle Books, hopes to
have sold 20 million copies worldwide, including more than 50,000 in
Canada.
Not surprisingly, it's not the only book on the Beatles and
Beatles-related individuals to be released in the next four months.
Here's a taste of what you can expect:
In 1970 John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, gave a famous two-part
interview to Rolling Stone, complete with photographs by a newcomer
named Annie Leibovitz, in which Lennon proclaimed the Beatles "dead"
and his intention to become "a working-class hero." Lennon's
interviewer, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, later angered the
ex-Beatle when, without his permission, Rolling Stone published the
interviews in a book titled Lennon Remembers. Long out of print, the
book is being reissued in October by England's left-wing Verso Books,
and it will include material Rolling Stone deemed "too sensitive" to
publish 30 years ago (reportedly stories about the homosexuality and
mental health of the group's manager Brian Epstein, and the group
members' drug and sex lives). Lennon Remembers is being rereleased
with the permission of Lennon's widow. She's written the introduction
for it in which she calls the interviews "a jolt on your nerves like
bad, bad espresso."
Also being reprinted in October is In His Own Write, which Lennon
wrote and published in 1964 at the height of the first wave of
Beatlemania. Like a Spaniard in the Works and Skywriting by the Mouth,
another of Lennon's early non-music works, Write features his loopy
illustrations and punny, Joycean flow of words. Yoko Ono provides a
new introduction.
Yoko gets her chance on the periphery of the Beatles limelight, too.
Grapefruit, her 1970 book of drawings and "instructions" (Yoko, before
she met Lennon, had a reputation in the avant-garde circles frequented
by the likes of John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Allan Kaprow), is
being reissued, with a new introduction and autobiographical passages
by the author. Serious Yoko buffs -- and there certainly are a few --
will be interested in Yes Yoko Ono, a lavish retrospective of her
artwork assembled by Alexandra Munroe and Jon Hendricks for the
prestigious New York art publishing house, Abrams.
In addition to being the most written about group in pop music -- 400
books so far and counting -- John, George, Paul and Ringo were also
the most photographed. Over the years we've had photo books on the
early days (Astrid Kirchherr, Dezo Hoffman), the middle period (Robert
Freeman, Reg Whittaker) and late period (most notably Ethan Russell's
shoot of the Get Back sessions).
Coming this fall is The Beatles in Rishikesh, a collection of 75
previously unpublished photographs of the lads, their wives and
girlfriends, Mia Farrow, Donovan and the Beach Boys taken by Paul
Saltzman at their famous two-month visitation with the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi in early 1968. The ever-photogenic McCartney is
highlighted in two books, Paintings, a collection of his artwork,
interspersed with photographs by his late wife, Linda; and Paul
McCartney: I Saw Him Standing There, a pictorial survey of the cute
one's 58 years.
Beatle buffs know that while the group was holding its first meeting
with the Maharishi in Wales in August, 1967, its manager Brian Epstein
was dying from an overdose of sleeping pills in his London apartment.
Epstein's story is covered in In My Life by Debbie Geller, who has
written the biography for St. Martin's Press, a New York publishing
house famous for its quickie tomes on things Beatles, including the
recent publication of Danny Fields's biography of Linda McCartney.
Lest we forget in all this flurry of literary activity, the Beatles
were a music group. One publication that hasn't forgotten is England's
hipper-than-thou Mojo magazine which, in its latest issue, polled 40
songwriters and critics (Carole King, Hal David and Brian Wilson among
them) on "the 100 greatest songs of all time." The Beatles placed six
songs in the list, including the No. 4 pick (Here, There and
Everywhere, from 1966's Revolver) and "the toppermost of the
poppermost," In My Life (from Rubber Soul, 1965).
There's "new" Beatles music, too -- if you want it -- in the form of
Liverpool Sound Collage, released just this week by Paul McCartney. It
was created by him as an aural accompaniment for an exhibition of
collages at the Tate in Liverpool, done by Peter Blake, the man
responsible for the famous Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
cover. Almost 60 minutes in duration, it's an undeniably interesting
recording, but one most likely to appeal to those who tripped on
Revolution Number 9 from 1968's White Album, or the various
non-Beatles sonic experiments that McCartney, Harrison and Lennon did
in the late sixties and seventies. It is, as advertised, a sound
collage of the sounds of Liverpool (including McCartney's interview
with "the lady who gets me my chips when I'm back in the Pool"),
intercut and mixed with outtakes from and snippets of Beatles music,
McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio and his famous return-to-the-Cavern
concert of last year.
If all this still isn't enough, have you considered a visit to
Cleveland on the Ohio side of Lake Erie? This October, to commemorate
the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death, the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and Museum is mounting an exhibition on Lennon's life. This show,
which will include memorabilia, symposiums, teacher workshops, films
and concerts, will run through the summer of 2001. Museum staff are
still assembling material for the exhibition and no official launch
date has been set.