Rarities

Hey, today we're looking at Rarities. Rarities is a British compilation album featuring a selection of songs by The Beatles. The album was originally released as part of The Beatles Collection, a box set featuring all other Beatles records, but was later released individually. The album has not been released on CD, but all of the tracks are available on the double CD compilation Past Masters.

The album contains some really nice tracks, the first Harrison single "The Inner Light" (which was released as the B-side of the Lady Madonna single).  You Know My Name (Look up the number), a pretty cool track, which was released on the B-side of the 1970 Let It Be single.

The awesome "I'm Down" track, which consists of Paul screaming out the lyrics, very rock n' roll. A track which The Beatles used a lot at live shows, as far as I know. I'm Down is, ironically, followed by Long Tall Sally, which is pretty much the same as I'm Down, some even calls I'm Down "Beatles' rewriting of Long Tall Sally) 

Two funny pieces are the German versions of I Wanna Hold Your Hand and She Loves You, Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand and Sie Liebt Dich, respectively.

Full track list:
Across The Universe
Yes It Is
This Boy
The Inner Light
I'll Get You
Thank You Girl
Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand
You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
Sie Liebt Dich
Rain
She's a Woman
Matchbox
I Call Your Name
Bad Boy
Slow Down
I'm Down
Long Tall Sally

Have fun with that one!

Download link: http://letitbit.net/download/1525508/f9c711818727/The-Beatles-Rarities-Album1978.rar.html

Cheers!

A Toot and a Snore in '74

Hey guys, today we're looking of the only known recording of Lennon and McCartney performing together after the Beatles-breakup. It is the recording of a jam session from 1974 where John was on his Lost Weekend, his period in which John was separated from Yoko. The thing is recorded in Los Angeles
The session includes the two ex-Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Harry Nillson, Jesse Ed Davis and Bobby Keyes.

The record starting with John asking Stevie: "You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It's goin' round", the are obviously doing cocaine.
Anyway, they start to jam a bit, and later do some pretty interesting versions of Stand By Me. Lennon keeps complaining about how his headphones aren't working and whatnot.

While this is one of the lesser interesting bootleg recordings, in my opinion, it is in some way pretty cool and kinda historic, I guess. Since it is, as mentioned earlier, the only known recording of Lennon and McCartney jamming together after the breakup.

Here's the download: http://www.mediafire.com/?o4lt13kbt9ryh1y

Enjoy, and stay tuned for more.


Source

The Decca Tapes

Hey guys, today we're looking at The Decca Tapes, these are from The Beatles' audition, at the Decca record company, of January first,1962.

The Beatles preformed a number of 1950's tracks, a couple of early 1960's tracks and a few Lennon/McCartney tracks. However, Decca rejected The Beatles with the famous quote "We don't like their sound, and electric guitars are on the way out".
Lots of people obviously poke fun of that in retrospective, as it would have been a great deal to have The Beatles in your record company, but this audition hardly showed their true potential. Plus the repertoire were kinda silly with George doing Sheik of Araby and Paul doing Besame Mucho.
It would take another year before The Beatles got their record contract with Parlophone for the Please Please Me album.

Anyway, for the tracks on The Decca Tapes:

1. Like Dreamers Do" (Lennon/McCartney)
2. "Money (That's What I Want)" (Gordy/Bradford)
3. "Till There Was You" (Meredith Wilson)
4. "The Sheik of Araby" (Smith/Wheeler/Snyder)
5. "To Know Her Is to Love Her" (Phil Spector)
6. "Take Good Care of My Baby" (King/Goffin) (not released)
7. "Memphis, Tennessee" (Chuck Berry) (not released)
8. "Sure to Fall (In Love with You)" (Cantrell/Claunch/Perkins) (not released)
9. "Hello Little Girl" (Lennon/McCartney)
10. "Three Cool Cats" (Leiber/Stoller)
11. "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" (Buddy Holly) (not released)
12. "Love of the Loved" (Lennon/McCartney) (not released)
13. "September in the Rain" (Warren/Dubin) (not released)
14. "Bésame Mucho" (Consuelo Velázquez)
15.  "Searchin'" (Leiber/Stoller)

Source 

Here's the download link: http://www.filestube.com/42a9d694dd5d75c903e9/go.html

Enjoy these

Cheers

Chaos and Outtakes in the Backyard

Hey guys, we're jumping five years back in time for these recordings, these are some songs that didn't made it to Paul McCartney's 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.

We have seven tracks in here, and they are as follows:
Comfort Of Love
We Were Growing
She Is So Beautiful
Good Taste (The Summer of '59)
I Wanna Be You
This Loving Game
Instrumental

To talk a bit about the tracks, Comfort Of Love, We Were Growing and Good Taste are a bit like McCartney looking back on what it is/was like to be young. Good Taste describes the style, the people and the feeling of the summer of '59. Comfort Of Love is a song which tells us the story of a materialistic guy, perhaps himself, who seems to think that all he needs is a car, a house and so on, but in the end he learns that he needs the comfort of love.

I Wanna Be You is a song which starts with some psychedelic elements, in a slow tempo, the tempo is increased a ends up in some kind of big finale. Really cool song.

What I really like, and what really impresses me, about these songs is how they actually fit the style and sound of the Chaos and Creation in the Backyard album. So have fun with that one.

On a related note, if you like the Chaos and Creation album, then you should check out Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road. It is an intimate concert in the Studio 2 of Abbey Road, where most of The Beatles' songs were recorded, the concert includes Paul talking about Beatles stuff and his music in general.
If you haven't already seen it, check it out on Youtube, click here for part 1.

Now for the Chaos and Creation out-takes:

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?rqi00zb7azv9q5z

Cheers

Revolution: Take... your knickers off! Including Revolution 1 take 20

Hello guys, today we're looking at a bootleg album which got a lot of attention when it surfaced around a year ago, in 2009. It is the bootleg album Revolution: Take... Your knickers off, the title is a quote from Lennon on the first track of the album.

 

 
The most significant track on this album is Revolution 1 take 20, now let's take a little look at the Revolution song before we carry on.


We have three distinct songs here, two are very alike:
Revolution: This is the hard-rock song with two very distortion-sounded guitars, it was released on the B-side of the "Hey Jude" single, in late August 1968.
Revolution 1: Is the more blues-styled version of Revolution, this piece was featured on The White Album, which was released in November 1968.
Splitting of Revolution 1 (take 20) and Revolution 9: The first minutes of Revolution 1 take 20 is pretty much the same as the one released on The White Album, even though it lacks the electric guitar and horn overdubs of the final version, and adds a distorted siren-like tone that is faded in and out at various times throughout the song. 


Beyond the point where the album version fades out, the basic instrumental backing keeps repeating while the vocals and overdubs become increasingly chaotic, including distorted screams from Lennon, feedback, and sound effects. Paul McCartney and Harrison repeatedly sing "Dada, Mama" in a childlike register. As the music concludes, Ono quietly says "maybe... it's not that" followed by Harrison emphatically stating "It is that!" Lennon then mumbles "Gonna be alright" a few times, and Ono's prose is heard among other sounds during the final portion.


Lennon soon decided to split the song into two parts, the Beatles styled Revolution 1 and a psychedelic avant-garde sound collage, Revolution 9. Lennon used the last six minutes of Revolution 1 take 20 as his starting point and added numerous sound effects, overdubs and whatnot, ending with the Revolution 9 we have on The White Album.
To make a long story short, Revolution 1 take 20 is some sort of bridge between Revolution 1 and 9.


Anyway, take your knickers off and let's go! There are a lot more stuff on these albums, here's the track list:

Disc one holds an early take of the Revolution single version, Julia, Across the Universe and Dear Prudence. And features quite a few takes of Step Inside Love.



Step Inside Love is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited as "Lennon/McCartney") for Cilla Black in 1967 as a theme for her TV series Cilla, which first aired in the beginning of 1968. Her version was released as a single on 8 March 1968. It reached number eight in the British charts. The recording was also featured on Black's third solo studio album Sher-oo!

As for Come And Get It. The original demo of Come were completely done by Paul, these are the Badfinger sessions for the recording of their version of Come And Get It. And maybe, we’re not sure, this is the first time it’s revealed that Paul was in the studio with Badfinger “directing” the sessions, which explains why Badfinger’s version is identical to Paul’s.

No Escaping Your Love is an Iveys/Badfinger song, being sung by Tommy Evans

Some of these tracks are pretty interesting, but if you aren't a huge Beatles fan, then I guess you could skip this download, or just stick to the first disc. However, I highly recommend that you check these recordings out. 

Cheers

Downloads:

Disc 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?85313nd5y5snjx7

Disc 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?k794bq4q4rkxd1m

Sources:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_%28song%29

Acoustic submarine - Bootleg album of greatest hits caliber

Today we're checking out a great bootleg album called The Acoustic Submarine. It is a set of unreleased outtakes from some of the Beatles biggest hits, from 1964-1969. You can look at it a is an addition to the official Anthology discs. Some of theses takes are, in my opinion, even better than the official releases :)

I managed to find some album art related to this album at BootlegZone, and these will be uploaded as well. The picture above seems to be the two options for the cover, as you can fold it on the middle.
 

I really enjoy hearing these less studio-filled recordings, a little more raw, but still in great audio quality. So it combines the best of two worlds: the raw sound of bootleg recordings and the good audio quality of, I guess, official recordings.

The tracks are spread out on two discs, and the track-list is as following:

Disc 1

01 Do You Want to Know a Secret
02 And I Love Her
03 I'm a Loser
04 Help!
05 Yesterday
06 yes It Is
07 Norwegian Wood
08 I'm Looking Through You
09 We Can Work It Out
10 I'm Only Sleeping
11 Yellow Submarine
12 A Day in the Life
13 The Fool on the Hill
14 Christmas Time is Here Again
15 The Happy Rishikesh Song
16 Jubilee
17 Child of Nature
18 Goodbye
19 Everyone Had a Hard Year
20 What's the New May Jane

Disc 2

21 Heather
22 Back in the USSR
23 Dear Prudence
24 Ob-la-di Ob-la-da
25 While My Guitar Gently Weeps
26 Blackbird
27 Rocky Raccoon
28 Julia
29 Mother Nature's Son
30 Hey Jude
31 Because
32 I Lost My Little Girl
33 Teddy Boy
34 Mama, You've Been on My Mind
35 For You Blue
36 Two of Us
37 Across the Universe
38 I Me Mine
39 Maggie Mae

Note: the file I found has a little messed up part, as the three first tracks of disc 1 aren't the ones listed there, but the rest is right.

Download link Acoustic Submarine: http://www.mediafire.com/?38lmg02278f3e5u

Album art: http://www.mediafire.com/?ovuphp8a668apdm

Have fun with these great tracks.

Cheers

Kum Back: Bootleg Beatles album from 1969

Hey guys! Today we’re looking at a rather interesting bootleg album, by The Beatles. This album, Kum Back, appeared in September 1969, and contains recordings from the Get Back sessions, which took place in January 1969.

It is the first ever Beatles bootleg album, and apparently the second bootleg album ever (The first one being Bob Dylan’s Great White Wonder, which appeared in July 1968). 

This album was, according to the grapevine, an early mix of the Let It Be album, and is rumored to have been spread by Lennon, who apparently brought this early mix to America, on one of his visits in 1969, and traded it for some unreleased recordings. 

Kum Back includes early takes of Get Back, Two of Us, I’ve Got a Feeling, Don’t let Me down, The Long and Winding Road, For You Blue and I Dig a Phony, these tracks are all found on the Let It Be album. The second track is The Beatles’ version of Jimmy McCracklin’s “the walk”, from 1957. The third track on Kum Back is “Teddy Boy”, a really McCartneyish song (I’m sure Lennon would classify it as a case of “Paul’s Granny shit”). This song would later be included on the b-side on McCartney’s first solo album, titled McCartney, released in 1970.

Back cover/track list, funny thing is that some of the tracks are identified wrong,

Back cover/track list, one small correction: The second track is The Walk, not Can You Dig It, which this cover states.


Download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EB80TUT6


Cheers

Beatles on the ukulele

It is no secret that my favourite instrument is the ukulele, and The Beatles is obviously my favourite band, so combining these two was pretty sweet for me.


For a little kind of brief history lesson, Harrison was a good ukulele player and he loved to play the uke. He and Paul used to jam together, and Paul played Harrison's Something on the ukulele, Harrison wasn't impressed (according to McCartney), but McCartney thought it sounded pretty good.

George passed away in 2001 (All things must pass, eh?), and on the one year anniversary of his death day there was this memorial concert, in Alberts Hall, called Concert For George. During this concert Paul McCartney took the stage with his ukulele, which he had gotten from George, and played Something.
Paul is, later in the song, joined by Marc Mann, Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr's drums eventually.

Something and Paul's ukulele has been a successful part of Paul's live shows in the past few years, and I think this is some of the reason for the rise in popularity which the ukulele has gotten in the last couple of years.

                           "I want you to play the ukulele!"

Anyway, the point of this post is to give you a good start, if you are considering to play the ukulele or in particular playing some Beatlish on your ukulele.

For some pretty basic stuff you should visit: 
http://www.youtube.com/user/yourukesage

This channel is basically ukulele lesson for the very beginner, really helpful lessons, nicely explained, and the guy has a pretty cool e-book about ukulele and basic music theory, which is worth checking out as well.

For Beatles ukulele tutorials you should visit:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BeatlesUkuleleMike

Most likely THE best channel on youtube for Beatles songs for the ukulele. You can see the chords, the lyrics and it will be told, most of the time at least, which strum-pattern is the recommended. 
While you are there, you might as well check out Mike's other channels, some of the best ukulele tutorials you will find :)


My last site is awesome and annoying at the same time:
http://beatlesite.info/


It is a site which contains the chords for around 60 Beatles songs. The site shows a ukulele and shows you how to take the chords, in real time! Which is awesome. The non-awesome thing, is that you cannot view the full chord diagram for the whole song, which can be pretty annoying at times :)
Nice site anyhow, most definitely worth checking out.


As the grand finale of this post, here's Paul McCartney on his ukulele at the memorial concert:





Cheers!