www.paulfrasercollectibles.com Weekly Collecting News: Ich bin ein Hamburger Paul Fraser Saturday 27 April 2019 Ich bin ein Hamburger In 1960, before the Beatles became chart sensations, they spent a formative 18-month stretch in Hamburg. The city was a wild place – still is – but it was particularly chaotic in those post-war years. This is a crucial piece of the Beatles story The band played amphetamine-fuelled shows to drunken crowds along the Reeperbahn until the early hours of the morning… Mixed with racketeers and prostitutes… Got into scrapes with vicious bouncers… John Lennon said of the experience: "I might have been born in Liverpool – but I grew up in Hamburg". On June 12, Bonhams will sell the Futurama guitar George Harrison used there. You’ll see it in many of the photographs taken of him onstage. Harrison bought it in Liverpool in 1959. At the time it was all he could afford. He switched to a higher quality Rickenbacker when he returned to the UK. In 1964, Harrison gave the guitar away as a competition prize for Beat Instrumental Magazine. When the winner chose a cash prize, the magazine’s editor Sean O’Mahoney held on to it. It remained in his collection until his death. The estimate is £200,000-300,000 ($258,206-387,309). But when you compare it to other Beatles guitars at auction, those figures look extremely conservative. º John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E sold for $2.4m in 2015 º Paul McCartney’s first guitar (a Rex acoustic) made $633,440 in 2006 º And Harrison’s 1962 Rickenbacker 425 realised $610,000 in 2014 With those sums in mind, I can’t see this going for less than £500,000 ($645,515). Click here for a wonderful piece of Beatles memorabilia.
You Gave Me The Answer - PaulMcCartney.com asks...
Everyone loves having a secret talent (although we're often too shy to show off the amazing party tricks we've got up our sleeves!). Here in the PaulMcCartney.com office some of us can juggle (just like the MPL logo), others can dance the Macca-rena to any song, and (the prize winner) one of us can freestyle a rap about llamas! This got us thinking, we know Paul is a man of many talents, but are there any skills he might have been hiding from us? We'd already heard whispers that he can do impressive yoga poses, so we had to ask him if the rumours were true...
PaulMcCartney.com: We've heard that you can do headstands. Are there any skills that you're proud of that fans might not be aware of?And, is the headstand thing true?
Paul: Oh yeah, I'll show you! Come on, I've already done it today at the gym... [Paul does the headstand] YEAH! Come on! I've often thought about videoing it and singing a song upside down!
PMc.com: That is seriously impressive!
Paul:It's just an old trick I learnt...
PMc.com: Thank you so much for showing us your headstand, some of us are keen yogis and haven't mastered it yet.
Paul:I can show you how to do it. You need to bring your hands together and interlock the fingers. And your elbows and hands should form a triangle. Put your head in there and then you just walk up slowly untill you get to a pivot point. From there, you crouch and straighten your body out, remembering where your head and triangle is.
PMc.com: So, that's a yes to the headstand then!
Paul:That's a yes to the headstand! To any other things? The one that came to mind was horse riding. A lot of people might not know that I enjoy horse riding a lot and I have my own Appaloosa horse...
PMc.com: Do you get to ride much?
Paul:Yeah, that is still very much something I love to do because it is the complete opposite of touring. It proabably tends to be me out in the woods, on my own, on a western saddle, on an Appaloosa!
PMc.com: You ride western?
Paul: Yeah, there you go - there's another skill!
So, not only has Paul written some of our favourite songs, he has mastered the headstand and loves to relax whilst riding western. Let us know if you have any hidden talents in the comments below…
beatlesblogger.com Digging For Some Beatle LPs by beatlesblogger Posted on April 27, 2019
A recent post featured some Apple and Beatle-related 45 singles found on a recent crate digging trip to Melbourne. Here are the LPs found during that same trip.
In the early 1980s in Australia and New Zealand the Polydor label issued a series called Rock Legends. Included were a range of artists as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, The Easybeats, The Velvet Underground, Maggie Bell, The Allman Brothers, Thunderclap Newman and Roger Daltry – to name a few.
Polydor Records has long held the rights to the earliest of all Beatle studio recordings. Made while they were as yet unknowns in Germany in 1961, the band was enlisted to back Tony Sheridan, a singer they’d fallen in with while playing the clubs in Hamburg. At the Sheridan sessions they got to record a couple of cover songs themselves, and those tapes have been a goldmine for Polydor ever since. The label could therefore include in its Rock Legends series many years later a coveted Beatle title. It is of course a record that has seen many an iteration around the world, but this version of it is unique to the Australia/New Zealand market.
What we have here though is a little bit different again – it is a re-issue of a re-issue. Once the Polydor Rock Legends albums had run their course the budget Australian music publishers, the Rainbow Music Group, somehow acquired the rights and put out the Beatle recordings one more time on their own Rainbow label. It has the very same cover art (front and rear) as the Polydor release, just the labels are different
Rainbow seems to have picked up a few other Polydor artists over the years because in 1976 they released Ringo Starr’sRotogravure album too.
Quite coincidentally we also stumbled across a nice Japanese pressing of the very same material – but this time on Polydor. It has the exact same track listing and running order as the Rainbow release above, but on the original Polydor label and in a thick cardboard gatefold cover, with an insert:
Here’s the gatefold: And the insert, front and back:
Sadly the OBI is missing, but otherwise this record is in great shape.
For some time now we’ve been on the lookout for a couple of early Beatle albums on the Capitol label with cover artwork unique to the Canadian market. There are three main titles that qualify: Twist and Shout, Long Tall Sally, and this one – Beatlemania!
Of course this one isn’t a first pressing (it originally came out in 1963 on the Capitol ‘Rainbow’ label). The purple Capitol label dates this example to around 1978. It was pretty hard to resist though as it is in near mint condition. If you’re interested in Canadian pressings have a look at The Capitol 6000 website which is terrific.
Finally, a record that we’ve wanted to have in the collection for some time – and quite surprisingly discovered what is probably a more rare Australian pressing:
This is the film soundtrack to The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. The movie was released in 1969 and featured songs by Apple recording artists Badfinger, one of which (‘Come and Get It’) was written and produced by one Paul McCartney.
Paul McCartney at LIPA - May 2018 www.alternativenation.net Paul McCartney Devastated After Losing Huge Money By Brett Buchanan Apr 26, 2019
The Beatles icon Sir Paul McCartney has reacted to the UK government taking away £16 million in funding away from his Liverpool’s Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) in a new statement.
“I helped to bring LIPA into life during very difficult times for Liverpool. It is now a highly respected institution all over the world.
Our funding was recently affected by what to me, and the heads of every university in Liverpool, was a flawed process.
LIPA is my passion and part of my legacy. It would not be fair to allow injustice to affect its future. I sincerely hope the Government will correct this error and help us to continue our work successfully into the future.”
An Office for Students spokesperson admitted the process but didn’t want to comment any further, saying:
“The OfS is cooperating with the Ombudsman’s ongoing investigation into decisions made by HEFCE which pre-date the creation of the OfS.
This is a live investigation and it would not be appropriate to comment any further.”
Billie Eilish recently told Ellen about the time she met Paul McCartney over the phone, she said: “I was in a meeting with Stella McCartney and she FaceTimed her dad, who is Paul McCartney! My mom cried, my dad cried.”
Offering another “unreal” moment from her career so far, Eilish revealed that Spice Girls‘ Mel C once attended one of her shows.
“In London, Sporty Spice came backstage,” she said. “When I was growing up, we would watch Spice World. I watched that movie, like, 40 times.”
www.nme.com Paul McCartney slams the government after his Liverpool arts school loses funding Damian Jones Apr 25, 2019 Paul McCartney
"Our funding was recently affected by what to me, and the heads of every university in Liverpool, was a flawed process"
Sir Paul McCartney has slammed the UK government after Liverpool’s Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) reportedly lost £16 million in funding.
The institution, which the former Beatle co-founded, claims a “series of errors, made in 2016, cost the institute in potential funding and a further £160,000 for the initial steps of a judicial review.”
The Office for Students (then the HEFCE) is said to have failed LIPA at the first stage of the process in 2016.
Despite being allowed to proceed to the next stage of the funding process – following a subsequent successful appeal – LIPA discovered that all of the funds had already been allocated, according to the Liverpool Echo.
An investigation has now been launched by the Parliamentary Ombudsman over how the Office for Students disqualified LIPA.
“I helped to bring LIPA into life during very difficult times for Liverpool. It is now a highly respected institution all over the world,” said McCartney.
“Our funding was recently affected by what to me, and the heads of every university in Liverpool, was a flawed process. LIPA is my passion and part of my legacy. It would not be fair to allow injustice to affect its future. I sincerely hope the Government will correct this error and help us to continue our work successfully into the future.”
An Office for Students spokesperson confirmed an investigation is underway, but did not elaborate further.
“The OfS is cooperating with the Ombudsman’s ongoing investigation into decisions made by HEFCE which pre-date the creation of the OfS. This is a live investigation and it would not be appropriate to comment any further,” the spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, Billie Eilish recently recalled the moment Paul McCartney FaceTimed with her parents.
She added: “I was in a meeting with Stella McCartney and she FaceTimed her dad, who is Paul McCartney! My mom cried, my dad cried.”
FRESHEN UP U.S. TOUR 2019 KICKS OFF MAY 23rd IN NEW ORLEANS
Paul has confirmed a May 17th release for Egypt Station – Explorer’s Edition on Capitol Records. This expanded version of Paul’s #1 charting Egypt Station will arrive a week prior to the start of the U.S. leg of Paul's Freshen Up Tour — his first extended stateside run since the One On One tour that played to some two million fans around the world.
Egypt Station was released September 7th, 2018 to stellar reviews. Rolling Stone raved, “Macca keeps adding new gems to his songbook, with nothing to prove except he’s the only genius who can do this… And, oh yeah — in his spare time, he happens to still be the greatest live performer on Earth,” while Entertainment Weekly described the album as, “the still-vital life force of a superstar who has been there and everywhere and is glad just to be here now.”
Egypt Station – Explorer’s Edition is comprised of the original record plus a second album, Egypt Station II. The bonus disc collects all songs released during the Egypt Station voyage (tracklisting below), from studio tracks including the surprise single 'Get Enough' to live performances captured at stops such as Abbey Road Studios, The Cavern and Grand Central Station.
The complete track listing for Egypt Station II is:
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk The colourful history of Penny Lane pub The Dovedale Towers It's been open since the 1800s and has hosted famous faces and travellers from around the world By Elle May Rice 22 APR 2019 The Dovey on Penny Lane (Image: Livepool Echo) A staple in the history of Penny Lane, The Dovedale Towers, affectionately known as The Dovey, is loved throughout Liverpool. The gastropub stands tall on the busy street, with people popping in for breakfast, lunch and often more than a few drinks after work. And while many will know some of the much-loved pub's history, there’s more to the incredible story than you’d think. The pub was originally known as Grove House, before being taken over by Andrew Kurtz, a renowned patron of the arts in Liverpool and a talented pianist. It’s clear from the start that The Dovey would be a place for musicians to perform - just as Andrew did; he’s even featured in The Walker Art Gallery. Inside The Dovey (Image: The Dovedale Towers) After he passed away, Grove House became an orphanage, The Home for Incurable Children. Operations Manager for Old Ropewalks Ltd, who own The Dovedale Towers, Jonathan Maguire said: “The Home became the parochial hall for St Barnabas’ Church in 1914 and became a vital part of the local community, providing the area with a community hub during the difficult times that spanned two World Wars.” It was during World War Two that the venue became known as ‘Barneys’, hosting dances and balls for locals and visiting troops as St Barnabas' Church Hall. This is why The Dovey's musical links come as no surprise; it has always been a community space, where musicians would come to play - just as The Quarrymen did. John Lennon and Paul McCartney played the venue several times with The Quarrymen in 1957; Paul even sung in the St Barnabas’ Church choir, which he revealed during his Carpool Karaoke with James Corden last year. However, The Dovey’s link to The Beatles is not its only claim to fame, by far. In the ‘60s, the property passed into the hands of the Higgins family, who renamed Grove House to The Dovedale Towers after a long demolished tower that could be viewed from the Mersey. This is where the pub's musical roots grow deeper. The Higgins’ son, Geoff, was a prominent member of the local music scene who became a roadie and manager for band Ibex, later The Wreckage - which was lead by Farrouk Bulsara. Inside The Dovey (Image: The Dovedale Towers) Jonathan went on to say: “Farrouk had moved to Liverpool from London to find fame and Geoff offered him digs above his parent's pub. “The offer was gratefully taken by the man who would go on to become Freddie Mercury, and he lived in what is now our events space from 1969-1970. “The Wreckage didn’t last too long, but on September 9, 1969 Freddie was joined on stage by guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor for the first time at The Sink on Hardman Street.” Now the room that was formerly Freddie’s bedroom is a 180-seat event space that pays homage to the building's past. Throughout the 70s and 80s The Dovey was home to many different venues - and featured many different names - before closing its doors in 2009. Inside The Dovey (Image: The Dovedale Towers) Jonathan said: “Old Ropewalks and Michael Girling took over in 2010 and brought The Dovey back to life as a thriving community and destination pub. “We have close relationships with local businesses such as Homebaked and breweries such as Red Star Brewery, as well as our guests, to help create a sense of identity and character, a sense of being someplace, not just any place. Not unlike Liverpool itself.” These days, The Dovey is as much a staple of the Penny Lane community as ever - and it's stunning beer garden certainly doesn't go amiss on a sunny day.
