Monday 25 March 2019

The Revolver album cover deconstruction


Unhappy with the censoring the album cover of Yesterday and Today in June 1966, the Beatles asked their German friend and artist  Klaus Voormann to create an artwork for their forthcoming album Revolver.





Klauss had a very specific idea since from the start how his artwork was going to be like, even if he went through a few changes during the process: at first he created a painting on caves with some pictures recalling the good ol' times in Hamburg, but he scrapped that idea with a black and white collage of drawings and photos (inspired from the work of the nineteenth-century illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, "The Yellow Book"), a bit unusual for the psychedelic period the fab four were going through, but certainly very effective.






His working desk was covered of photographs from magazines, most of them photos going from 1963 to 1965 taken by Robert Whitetaker and Robert Freeman. Let's take a look a look at all of them individually.

 
 
Starting from the top left of the album cover we have a couple of photos already appearing on other Beatles records: John's and George's were previously featured on the back cover of Rubber Soul.



While Ringo's was taken from the Long Tall Sally EP (the original photo was taken in Stockholm in October 1963) by Robert Freeman.




Sandwiched in between there are a couple of cut-outs that don't exactly resemble the Beatles, in fact to me one of them looks like Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones).



Moving clockwise, there is a photo of Paul, but I can't tell when or where it was taken.




Next to this there's one of George which was already featured in the inner sleeve of Beatles for Sale.

Below there's one of John at Abbey Road studios (I guess it is at Abbey Road due to a lack of background, if it was a TV studio I would expect to see lights or other things).



And a mirror reflection of Ringo paying more attention to his tie than what seems to be The Dave Clark Five on TV.





A bit further on the right there is a warped photo of Ringo cut out from the 1963 beach photoshoot by Dezo Hoffmann in Weston-super-Mare.


But the actual image comes from the photograph of this Beatles super-fan room ceiling.
  

Yet another photo of Ringo of unknown origin, possibly from the Help! period.



and next to it another of John as well from the Help! period (possibly taken at the Bahamas).




A row below we have a 1963 photo of Paul talking to Dick James.



A bit further on the right there is another photo taken in Stockholm (Sweden) in October 1963, possibly by Bo Trenter (PS: please note, I'm note a Beatles historian, on the best of my research that's a name I found along Robert Freeman).




Below another picture of George.



A fish-eye lens picture of the band … 





… with Ringo resting his arms on John's head. John is wearing an Abraham Lincoln-like fake beard.
The photo was taken during the filming of A Hard Day's Night.





Next to the left there is a photo of Paul laying on the floor at abbey Road studio, maybe doing some in-between-song gymnastic.


and on the right there is another photo taken in Stockholm in October 1963, this time of Paul wearing a traditional Irish hat.




A bit further up, on John's ear there a very small picture of John standing behind an armour with some of his own drawing in the background.





Some of the photos can also be seen in the poster seen behind George Martin in this photo.




Straight down below there is an unknown picture of John smoking a cigarette.




and one of Ringo posing sideways sitting on his drums-kit stage.





and finally a photo of the artist of this iconic album cover, Klaus Voormann.
This same image also appears on the Anthology Vol.2 and he also included another one of himself in the Anthology Vol.3.


While the main faces are drawing, 
George's eyes and lips were taken from this photograph



his photo was drawn out of this picture;



Paul's from this one;




John possibly from this photo-film-strip of Robert Freeman (TBC);




and Ringo's definitely from this one


There are some alternative artworks of Revolver. Let's have a quick look at them.






And finally a photo of Klaus proudly holding his artwork.




Klaus also draw a short comic to commemorate the event. 





There is an alternate cover for a Russian edition, but I doubt this is an artwork made by Klaus, so the one next to it. 



Let's not forget that Klaus made a similar collage in 1995 for the 3 Anthology collections.


while George re-used his own drawing of the album cover for his single When We Was Fab in 1988.


You may be surprised to know that the original design artwork is wonder by Joe Walsh (NOTE: just the design, not the collage, this is the official photo presented to the Beatles for their authorisation/confirmation to be used, the photo was shrieked to match the size of an LP cover).


Since we're here, I might just throw in a last picture: here what the Alternate Revolver bootleg vinyl looks like.

Let's not forget Klaus is the artist behind the 3 volumes of the Anthology.
Here'a deconstruction of the collage he made for the book cover.



Blog by Billy Shears
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BillyShearsPepper
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SgtPepperChannel/


Friday 18 May 2018

Beatles parodies in TV variety show sketches


Please note: this is not a generic collection of Beatles appearance in live TV shows, it only features scripted sketches; interviews and songs as live performance aren't included.





PARODY CLIPS IN FULL

Harry and Paul made a few shorts of the old Beatles that never took drugs and instead visit regularly the doctor for a prostate check, they also can convert square daughter to Beatlemania.





And this one is a commercial for YELP!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bc6vh


Another of my favourite TV shows parodies is the one on episode 6 of the first series of Big Train where George Martin is kidnapped by terrorists, then later released for annoying them with his never-ending Beatles-stories.


or you can watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMKlz2TDihs

The next one from Smith and Jones is very funny even if the real Beatles parody comes at the end, which may already have seen in the main video collection; however, the whole 10 minutes clip is worth watching if you fancy a laugh.




Not as funny as the previous clips is one made by Matt Lucas & David Walliams (Lucas & Walliams) parodying George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Barbara Bach and Ringo Starr in Rock Profile with Jamie Theakston. Directed by Michael Cumming. 1999.




Another two clips featuring Peter Serafinowicz, the famous Ringo Remembers and The Beatles Box (AKA John Lennon invented the Apple iPod in the 60's)






Similar, but with a more shallow humour is this next clip by the Channel 4 British comedy Star Stories featuring another George Harrison parody. No further comments.




While the above clip is so-so, this other one from Star Stories is much, MUCH better.
It is known as "the (real) story of the Beatles", perfectly representing the the bossy attitude of Paul McCartney towards the rest of the band.



The clip above is taken from the episode from Star Stories - Season 3, Episode 2: Heather Mills, it gives a good idea of what's type of humour it is all about. You can watch the episode in full here below .... and here's just the trailer .. or a clip in HD : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9Vi91rS4I





The next two clips are Jimmy Fallon's Lennon impersonation on Saturday Night Live.
The first one is a fixed YouTube video upload; it was filmed from the TV with a shaky mobile phone and, however did it thought it is a good idea! 
It is kind hilarious how most people spends a lots of money on TVs and mobile phones and then they completely fail at using them.




The next clip, always from Saturday Night Live is best known as John Lennon and Jerry Garcia Memorials; it is a very funny sketch featuring Jimmy Fallon as John Lennon's spirit and Horatio Sanz as Jerry Garcia's spirit. Also starring Vince Vaughn, Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri.
Original Airdate: 12/05/1998




Last but not least, another Saturday Night Live sketch offered by Jimmy Fallon & Fred Armisen.




CLIPS MISSING FROM THE MAIN COLLECTION

Rob Newman's The history of the world backwards is a mock history programme set in an alternative world, where time flows forwards, but history flows backwards. It was shown on BBC Four, starting on 30 October 2007, and later shown on BBC Two. It was Newman's first television project for 14 years.



And finally The Dana Carvey Show - Leftover Beatles Memories  from 1996, featuring Stephen Colbert.



There's also a singing parody sketch featuring Rick Moranis as Ringo Starr on SCTV's Lee Iacocca's Rock Special (Second City Television) from 1982, let's call this clip "Rings".
Short's somewhat unclassifiable uber-nerd Ed Grimley (later featured on Saturday Night Live when Short became a regular) is an SCTV fixture, appearing on numerous assorted shows, commercials, promos, and "behind-the-scenes" dramas. His hair is styled using an upside-down funnel, and he plays the triangle, for which he took lessons. Grimley has an obsession with the game show Wheel of Fortune and host Pat Sajak. The SNL version of the character is the same, except the sketches have Grimley getting involved in weird situations: meeting a perpetually unlucky man (played by Ringo Starr), being targeted by the Devil (played by Jon Lovitz), and having a near-death experience. As of 2012, Grimley is the only SNL and SCTV character to have his own children's cartoon show: The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley.




SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE REAL BEATLES APPEREANCES

Paul McCartney has been a guest of the TV show SNL in many episodes, and still appears regularly (well, once in a while, maybe once every two years). As we previously seen in the video collection The Beatles as actors, him and Ringo did a few memorable funny sketches that can be watched in full in the previous blog. I won't post the full clips again, but you can visit THIS PAGE to watch them, if you fancy so. (sgtpepperchannel.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-beatles-as-actors.html)


In fact, I suggest you to visit the blog linked above for any real-Beatle appearance in TV shows!


I will only share this for now, which is a supercuts of Ringo's appearance at the Rowan & Martin's Laugh In show.




... and the extracts from the Rutland Weekend Television featuring George Harrison


.. and this is the unedited version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpGENCOWeoE

The two mock/fake interviews with Paul and George at the "Weird Al" Yankovic television  show, also known as Al TV, are two interesting clips to show in this blog:






This last clip is from a short TV documentary. This is a reenactment of the meeting between the Beatles and Elvis from a 1992 videotape.  Since everybody who was there (both the Beatles and Elvis' entourage) recall things differently, we will probably never know just exactly what happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb9NW4QbGg4 





TBC


Tags:
#Beatles #The Beatles #TVShow #Parody

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Monday 30 April 2018

TV shows featuring the Beatles

It was obvious that the SgtPepperChannel blog would have covered this subject too.
After going thought 200 movies, 100 cartoons and all the biographical movies it was time for more references featured on TV screens.
I would like to say that I do not own a TV and don't like watching movies, cartoons and least of all TV series. While I had a blast creating the collection from references in song, I got extremely bored watching some of this TV series episodes By the way, to avoid misinformation similar to that I encountered while researching for the movies compilation and the acting compilation, this time I did my own research. What you see in this video and blog is 100% my own research. No forums were consulted! And, how odd it may sound, it actually sped the process up. For example, behind the first 100 Beatles reference in movies video collection there was almost a 6 month period of research, while for this one more or less a month! I ain't lying!



The saddest part of creating these videos is bumping over confused people: those that start a comment with "you forgot" ... oh, dear! I don't mind so much the comment, either the dislike they leave on the video ... what really bothers me is the fact that many of them are over-reacting, and responding with "that clip is another video" is seen as an insult. Unfortunately my channel is mostly visited by man over the age of 50. The problem at that age is they do not want to hear them saying "you're wrong", the more you grow old, the more you become wise, therefore you deserve more respect ... that's works in the same way for idiots. The stupider a person is, the less is aware its mistakes.
typical idiotic comment
typical idiotic comment
At some point I had to stop searching for clips to add to the collection TV Series collection, as you can see HERE the list is infinite and the search is only referred to Beatles, I did not dare doing further searching with other keywords. So, yeah, that's one of the methods I use to search for material to add these sort of video-collections. The technique I cannot share is how I obtain these videos ... I'll let you guess, just know that it is not 100% legal! All you need to know is I do not monetize my videos. If you see adverts on my videos is because the owner of the clips I used kindly placed adverts on the video rather than taking it down.


TV SERIES CLIPS

One my childhood favourite TV series was The Wonder Years and I remember very well the episode 10 of season 3 titled Rock N Roll where Kevin formed a band with some friends. I especially remember the last scene where he lays in bed holding the album cover of the Beatles' Abbey Road.



A very cool re-enact of the Beatlemania in the US in 1964 is featured in the episode 11 of the series one  of American Dream I wanna hold your hand, aired 5 January 2003: The Beatles' arrival in America sends the country and the Pryor household into a frenzy, except for a concerned J.J., who receives word that Notre Dame has denied him a full scholarship. Determined to afford his son's college education, Jack seeks financial help from his successful and slightly distant older brother Ted, despite Pete and Helen's concerns.
This clip reminds me a lot of the movie called I wanna hold your hand.


Here's a link to the video in case it doesn't show up in your browser: https://www.bitchute.com/video/m5dqAAczTOHH


Some TV Series such as Mad Men has featured a full length Beatles track ... I wonder how much it costed it !!!!




The second upload of the video collection (at the top of this blog) got blocked worldwide by Apple Corps because the song I wanna hold your hand performed at the Ed Sullivan show was manually detected, and for manually detected it means that an Apple Corps Ltd employee watched the video appositely to find copyrighted music; I don't think the song and video is copyrighted as the full version is available on YouTube and there are many uploads of the same event. So, evidently Apple is playing the asshole corporation with my channel. In case, the next clip from U.F.O. was cut short in the video collection while you can watch it in full one on YouTube!
This is the episode 9 of Andersons' first live-action TV series and it is titled "Ordeal" and this episode was aired in 1969. The Beatles' song used (Get Back) was released the same year.


extended version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_iFrAe9Jwk

Talking about the cost to use Beatles music in film, here's a funny clip from Portlandia season 4 episode 6 titles Bahama Knights where Fred has the idea to make a Beatles documentary (even if Netflix has hundreds of them), so he flies to London only to find out that it's going to cost him one billion dollars regardless of how many songs he uses or how long a song it plays.




When I was a kid I used to love the American science-fiction television series Quantum Leap, and whilst working on this video project I was absolutely trilled to find out about the clip in which Scott Bakula sings Imagine. I wanted to use the whole song in the video collection, but, to avoid having the video blocked in Canada I had to cut it short like all the rest of the clips I used. So, here's the full clip.



This one and Mad Men are going to be the only clips containing music that I will share in this post.
The TV series Glee has lots of Beatles covers, probably too many (well, it never too many) and probably would have taken too much spotlight in the video collection, so, I intentionally left a few clips out. And by the way, who of you saw the ballet show for LOVE and actually enjoy the dances? Not many I would bet ! Glee covers are even worst than the Bee Jees musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! Ok, I'll stop ranting now.
There's also a curious similarity between the logo of Quantum Leap and the font/style used in the title of McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street ... or at least, that's my impression.

 


Another great vocal performance can be seen in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where Carlton sings "Silly Love Songs" in the shower.



The episode 6 of the season 2 of Joanie Loves Chachi from 1983 is dedicated to the Beatlemania.




Same for Drake and Josh, throughout the episode 16 of season 4, titles Battle of Panthatar there are a lot references to the Beatles.




In an episode of Vinyl there is a sort of re-enactment of John Lennon's lost weekend in Los Angeles in company of May Pang. I think May Pang in particular has been portrayed pretty well.




Even if the next clip isn't particularly funny I would still have shared in full.
This is taken from The Kids in the Hall series 4 episode 7.




Unexpectedly, the clip of Drake & Josh from the episode Battle of Panthatar got my video blocked in Canada only, I had to edit it shorted to pass through the copyright fair use. Still I don't understand why the full episode is available on Dailymotion. (PS: this video may be blocked in Canada)



Last, but not least (for now), a sketch by Eddie Murphy called "The Fifth Beatle"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ilQZi_weI

the fifth beatle.. from Chris Greene on Vimeo.



I will take a break for now with the clips in full, but I will update this blog regularly (just like I do with all the previous blogs posted on the SgtPepperChannel blogspot.
So, if you would like to see anything not included in this blog, leave a comment with your request and I will post it; or come back next week to check the updated page.
And if you would like to suggest a clip to add to the next collection, let me know in the comments below or in the comment section of the main video collection.

Bye !


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