Cover Story Interview - The making of the "Yellow Submarine" sericel, with new designs & artwork by Jon Blosdale

With the news of the Yellow Submarine remake, this is the perfect time to repost a feature I posted about a year or so ago. I have exclusive rights to reprint this feature from Michael Goldstein over at RockPoPGallery.com and you can look for these amazing behind the scenes stories about classic album covers every Saturday from now on. Enough said, let's explore the making of the Yellow Submarine album cover:



Cover Story for November 19, 2008

Subject - The making of the sericels based on the original artwork for The Beatles' Yellow Submarine film soundtrack, released in 1969 on Apple Records, with new artwork and layout done by artist Jon Blosdale.

Released in 1968 and nominated for a Grammy (TM) for its Soundtrack, Yellow Submarine was a departure for The Beatles from the live-action films they had made to that point. Using a very simple animation technique and a psychedelic palette of colors, the film and its animation was directed and supervised by George Dunning, the director of The Beatles’ TV cartoon series, and was art directed by Heinz Edelman. It took a production team of over 200 over 11 months to create the sequences used in the film.

Sir George Martin composed the film’s instrumental score, and in addition to the title song, other songs featured included “Baby You’re A Rich Man”, “Hey Bulldog”, “Only A Northern Song”, “When I’m Sixty-Four”, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and the previously-mentioned “All Together Now”.

A large troupe of artists, animators and voice-over artists worked on the film (including many who also worked on the TV series) and, contrary to popular belief, Peter Max did not participate in the production, although it seems clear that his approach to painting was greatly influenced from that point forward by the film’s style and color palette.

The film’s plot was simple and in keeping with the band’s peace and love through music world view. A magical, musical place under the sea – Pepperland – is attacked by an army of music-hating Blue Meanies, who seal Pepperland’s protectors – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – inside a bubble and then go about their business of paralyzing the populace and draining the land of all its color.

In an effort to enlist help to save the land, Pepperland emissary Old Fred sets off for Liverpool in a yellow submarine to try and convince The Beatles to come back with him. The journey back takes them through the Seas of Time, Science, Monsters, Nothing, Heads and, finally, through the Sea of Holes (meeting many strange travails and characters along the way), arriving back in Pepperland, where the band disguises themselves as the imprisoned Sgt. Pepper’s band and sets off to rescue all of the hostages and return music and color to the land. Using a hole that Ringo had taken from the Sea of Holes, they release the real band from their bubble prison and Pepperland is saved, but rather than vanquish the Blue Meanies, John offers them friendship, which so moves the Meanies that they accept and everyone lives happily ever after (music, flowers and color, included!).

In the film’s final, live-action scene, The Beatles return to Liverpool loaded with souvenirs (including the Yellow Submarine’s motor!), but John announces to the theater audience that another band of Blue Meanies has been spotted outside the theater and that the audience would need to sing – “all together now” – if they wanted to make it out safely. The lyrics of the song appeared on-screen (in many languages) and, we can assume, audiences the world over sang along.

One of the millions of young people drawn into Beatlemania early on was Jon Blosdale who, later, after a long career in the entertainment/production business, decided to “follow his dream” and focused his efforts on re-capturing a personal piece of the “Peace and Love”/”All You Need is Love” spirit by obtaining all of the necessary permissions he’d need to help him use his artistic talents to re-introduce fans to important snippets of their animated Beatles memories.

Most-recently, he’s released an awesome recreation of the iconic cover of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, and so for today’s Cover Story, I’ve asked him to take us all down the path that ultimately lead him to create this masterwork. So – “all together now” – let’s read on….

In the words of the artist, Jon Blosdale (interviewed in October/November 2008) –

I was only 8 when the Beatles invaded America on Ed Sullivan and that was it. I was hooked, along for the ride and never looked back. Like a lot of us, I grew up with the Beatles. And through the good times and bad, the Beatles and their music always kept me company. Looking back, it seemed as though my life evolved around the Beatles, each new song, album, TV appearance was what I was waiting to hear, buy or see. Nothing else really mattered.

Life went on and I was in the entertainment business for almost 20 years before embarking into the animation art business. Frustrated and burned out with the film and television production scene and, to be honest, tired of the distant locations, 5AM calls, bad catering and the ever-present Hollywood ego, I decided to follow my passion for animation and art. How was I going to start this new career? Of course, by starting with my other favorite passion – The Beatles! But that wasn’t going to happen quickly or easily - at least not for a couple more years.

In 1998, with the exception of a couple film productions in between, I quit the entertainment business (or it could have quit me), and started to learn about computer graphics and graphic arts. I took Photoshop and Illustrator courses, delved into books, took more courses, and then I took a real departure in my career - I went to work at a sign shop.

Astoundingly, working as a computer graphics person in a sign shop proved to be the most-valuable way to gain experience for what I do today. It’s those skills that I learned - layout, design, font structure, color combinations, etc. - which I applied to the animation art I do now. Unfortunately for me though, the sign shop closed and I was then out of a job. I had this new skill, a passion for creating art with my new skill, and no place to apply it. That’s when I decided to go with what always made me happy as a kid – that being The Beatles, and especially the Beatles "Saturday Morning Cartoons". Then a light went off in my head - or it may have been above it - either way, I saw something! I saw an opportunity to possibly do what I love and do it with the Beatles cartoons. Then the light went a bit dim as I thought – “How on Earth am I going to pull this off?”

Purely out of curiosity, and really not knowing what I was going to do if and when I found what I was looking for, I began my search for animation from the original King Features Beatles "Saturday Morning Cartoon" series. I quickly found there were few or no original production cels remaining in existence, nor was there much information about the original series for that matter. The reason for this was that, in the mid-1960s, there was no forethought about an aftermarket of the Beatles "Saturday Morning Cartoons", and the Beatles themselves were not in the animation art business. So, most of the original production acetates (cels) were either reused for other cartoons or simply trashed.

While doing some additional research, I came across a great book by Mitchell Axelrod called "Beatletoons, the Real Story Behind the Beatles Cartoons”. This answered a lot of my questions, but not the most important one I had, which was “how do I get the licensing rights to recreate the images from the 'Saturday Morning Cartoons'?” From that point, my plan was pretty straight-forward. I would use my newly-acquired skills to create animation cels from old 16mm films of the cartoons, commonly known as “sericels”. This decision then set me on a 2 ½ year quest to find the licensing agency that handled the Beatles merchandising and trying to convince them that I was the right person that could pull this off.

When I first made contact with the licensing agent, he had indicated to me that the "Saturday Morning Cartoons" weren’t really on Apple’s high priority list, but if I wanted to submit a proposal and some samples (then more samples, and then even more samples) to go ahead and “see if you can knock our socks off”.

That was just the challenge that I needed. I worked for 10 straight days and nights coming up 3 of 4 sample images of the "Saturday Morning Cartoons", packed them in a box with my 2 page proposal and new pair of sweat socks. That got the licensing agent to chuckle (to this day, I can say the artwork has always spoken for itself, but I think the new sweat socks didn’t hurt either).

All in all, I think I submitted over 30 sample cels to the licensing agent and Apple Corps Ltd. over those 2 ½ years, and finally my persistence paid off. In April of 2004, I signed a licensing contract with Apple Corps Ltd.! I can’t tell you the feeling I had to see my name next to “Apple Corps Ltd”, “Neil Aspinal” (then, Apple’s managing director) and, of course, “The Beatles”. They say never give up your dream, that all can be possible with hard work and passion. I say that it is possible and when it does come true, it’s time to go to work!

A couple of years into my license, Apple asked if I’d like to take on Yellow Submarine. I accepted wholeheartedly and decided the way I wanted to launch the animation art for Yellow Submarine was to start with the album cover itself as a special triple-layered over-sized animation cel. What’s interesting about my overall license is that Apple gives me ample latitude and a tremendous amount of creative license with both the cartoons and Yellow Submarine. That’s not to say I haven’t had my share of rejections when submitting art to Apple. As I’ve learned, there are reasons behind their (Apple’s) choices. I don’t take it personally – I just keep on developing, keep on submitting and do my work.

As far as the Yellow Submarine album cover idea, I had the layers visually figured out in my head. The first layer would be printed on archival paper and feature the background of just the mountain, psychedelic plants and the words “Nothing is Real”. The second layer would be a silk-screen printed cel of the support cast (the Captain, Jeremy, the Mayor, Blue Meanies, Snapping Turks, etc.) and, finally the third (top) layer would be of the Beatles, the Submarine and logo, also silk-screen printed. Finishing the art, each layer would be trimmed with a colored matte and a hidden 1/8” frame that floats between the layers – it gives the piece an almost 3D effect.














Above some sample images showing the various layers used to create the final image...

Now, that’s how I thought that I would do it. How it would actually piece together was another story altogether. Because I decided to go big with the image area, my challenges were not only the materials, but how to separate the artwork for the silk-screening process and lining it all up in the frame. Also, the art itself is over 22 colors, making the silk-screening the biggest challenge, both physically and economically. The camera-ready art process took the longest time. I had to vector every detail on the entire album cover before I could separate the art for silk-screening. Vectoring is a computer graphics process that creates line-art that I can manipulate any way I desire and get it “camera-ready”.

Once the art was vectored and the silk screens were ready for the coloring process, I had to choose a special acetate. It had to be a thicker mil weight because of the 20” x 20” image size and - most importantly - it had to fit the screen printer’s apparatus. In order to keep the manufacturing costs down, we ran the two layers side-by-side on one large sheet of 48” x 32” acetate and then trimmed it to size after the colors were done.

The framing took some trial and error, but I used the same techniques I use with the smaller framed cels and, amazingly, it framed up better than expected. I think that it turned out to be a stunning piece of art - not because of me, but because the brilliant style of the original art done some 40 years ago for the original animation still holds up. All I did was come up with a clever new way to present the Yellow Submarine album cover.

Because I also develop the "Saturday Morning Cartoon" images and the time it takes to go through the approval processes, etc., the concept and development of the Yellow Submarine album cover piece took about a year. When I presented my concepts to Apple’s head of merchandising and the licensing people, they flipped out. Apple said nobody has ever done anything remotely like this triple-layered art of the Yellow Submarine album cover.

It was a privilege and an honor to be given the opportunity to recreate the Yellow Submarine album cover and then other images from Yellow Submarine. The feedback from Apple is and has always been enthusiastic praise. I feel that I’ve earned the trust of Apple and the licensing agent. Just as long as I stay true to the original art of both Yellow Submarine and the "Saturday Morning Cartoons", they’re pretty much on board. Apple and the licensing agent have been very favorable to me in many ways. I could never thank them enough for their ongoing support.

And so, in the end, if you’d ask me what inspires me and provides my style guide for the artwork, I would have to say “the money”…just kidding!! The money may provide the oil for the engine, but the Beatles are the gas. And, as a final note, just before Neil Aspinal (Apple’s managing director and longtime friend of The Beatles) passed away, I was able to give him a finished piece of the album cover. It was delivered to his hospital room and hung on the wall for him to enjoy. I heard it brought a smile to his face. Now, that’s an honor in my books!

About the artist, Jon Blosdale –



Photo of Jon Blosdale (right) with Peter Sander, one of the original Yellow Submarine/"Saturday Morning Cartoon" illustrators

Jon Blosdale is the owner/artist for the DenniLu Company, an animation art company that is officially licensed by Apple Corps Ltd. to manufacture and market animation art of the original 1960’s Beatles "Saturday Morning Cartoon" series and Yellow Submarine.


Prior to getting involved with the Beatles animation art, Jon Blosdale had a career behind the scenes in film and television as a producer and production manager. Throughout his producing career, Jon has worked with Robert Conrad’s television company, director Charlie Matthau and on a variety of commercials. In 1998, utilizing his parent’s names (Dennis and Lucette), Jon formed the DenniLu Company and traded in his 20 year career in film and TV production for a new start in the computer graphics business.

Six years later in 2004, the DenniLu Company signed a licensing contract with Apple Corps Ltd. and has since added Yellow Submarine animation art to his company's offering.

In a matter of 4 years, the DenniLu Company has formed relationships to sell its merchandise through numerous catalogs, online stores and to a number of fine art galleries worldwide. Their animation art can also be seen at the “Love” stage show boutique at the MGM Mirage in Las Vegas, as well as the Hard Day’s Night Hotel in Liverpool.

To see more of Jon’s work, you can either visit his web site at http://www.beatlescartoon.com/

Or to see the collection of Dennilu items available at RockPoP Gallery, just click on this link – http://rockpopgallery.com/items/cartoon-beatles/list.htm?1=1

To learn more about the Yellow Submarine film and soundtrack (released in 1969 on Apple Records), please visit their website at http://www.beatles.com/core/films/yellowsubmarine/

All images featured in this Cover Story are Copyright 2008, Jon Blosdale/Dennilu Company (DenniLu Company is under license by Apple Corps. Ltd. to manufacture and market Beatles Saturday Morning Cartoon and Yellow Submarine sericels, hand-painted cels and giclees. Apple Corps Ltd. does not endorse this website) - All rights reserved. Except as noted, all other text Copyright 2008 - Mike Goldstein & RockPoP Gallery (http://rockpopgallery.com) - All rights reserved.




As always, I want to thank Michael Goldstein over at http://rockpopgallery.com for the exclusive reprint rights to his marvelous album cover art stories.

Rock/Pop Tidbits

When he thought that the crowd needed a wake up call, Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes occasionally fired off a shotgun over the heads of the fans.

In the early years the Butthole Surfers enjoyed performing while medical-curiosity films played in the background. These ‘films’ were so gory and graphic (e.g. scenes of sex-change surgery), that some people at the concerts would actually vomit; which was not always a bad thing at a Butthole gathering.

When Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in December, 1963, his abductors demanded $240,000 ransom. His father offered one million dollars for his safe return, but for some un-explained reason, his captors turned the offer down and settled for the original amount. Three men were later caught and sent to prison.

Walter Murphy's 1976 disco hit, "A Fifth Of Beethoven" was based on Ludwig van Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5 in C Minor", composed in 1807.

After Capitol records had rejected “Love Me Do”, “Please Please Me” and “From Me To You” for American release, label president Alan Livingston sent a memo to their parent company, EMI in Britain that said: “We don’t think The Beatles will do anything in this market.” A year later, in January, 1964, when “I Saw Her Standing There” was issued, it became the fastest selling single in the history of recorded music and Capitol’s pressing plant was forced to run 24 hours a day, trying to fill more than one million orders.

Although it says Diana Ross on her birth certificate, her parents and friends called her Diane until her early 20s

When Dennis Edwards of The Temptations first sang "Papa Was A Rolling Stone", he was upset by the line "It Was The Third Of September / That Day I'll Always Remember / 'Cause That Was The Day My Daddy Died", because Edwards father actually did die on September 3rd.

Robin and Barry Gibb wrote "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" for crooner Andy Williams. When he declined, the Bee Gees recorded the song themselves and scored the first of their nine number one records with it.

Listen carefully to the beginning of The Beatles' song "Come Together", from their Abby Road album. The bass guitar riff nearly obliterates John Lennon saying "Shoot me."



The flip side of Bobby Helms' Christmas favorite "Jingle Bell Rock" is called "Captain Santa Claus And His Reindeer Space Patrol".

The first song of the rock era to become a US #1 twice by different artists was "Go Away Little Girl", first by Steve Lawrence (Dec 1962), then by Donny Osmond (Aug 1971). The second to accomplish this feat was "The Loco-Motion" by Little Eva (July 1962), then Grand Funk (March 1974). Both songs were penned by the same songwriters, Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

The rock group Queen issued albums called "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races" which were named after movies by The Marx Brothers.

It was in 1966 when Richard and Karen Carpenter formed a trio and won a battle of the bands contest at the Hollywood Bowl. The trio serenaded the crowd with the song “The Girl From Ipanema” and were accompanied by drums, piano and a tuba. One record executive visionary attempted to sell the enterprising trio as a “rock-tuba super group.” To no one’s surprise, the idea did not catch on.

The Four Tops recorded their first Motown hit, 1964's "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" in the wee hours of the morning, shortly after songwriter Eddie Holland had sang it for them for the first time.

After Rick Nelson signed a one million dollar, twenty year recording contract with Decca Records in January, 1963, he had only two more hits, 1964's "For You" and 1972's "Garden Party."



Connie Francis was on the comeback trail in 1981 when her brother, George, was brutally murdered, allegedly by members of organized crime.

Pat Boone, who is a very religious man, once claimed to use his own surname in lieu of curse words when he is upset.

When Janis Joplin was in college in 1963, a local fraternity voted her "The Ugliest Man on Campus."

Mark Dinning scored a number one hit in the U.S. in 1960 with "Teen Angel". While he was growing up in Oklahoma, one of his babysitters was a girl named Clara Ann Fowler, who would go on to have a recording career of her own as Patti Page.

Bert Kaempfert, who led his orchestra on the January, 1961, number one US hit, "Wonderland By Night", would go on to produce the first recording session that The Beatles ever had. At the time, the boys were backing Tony Sheridan on "My Bonnie" and "When The Saints Go Marching In".

Classic Album Cover Art - Nivana Nevermind

Nevermind was the second studio album by the rock band Nirvana and was released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on Geffen Records, which signaled its move away from Seattle-based independent record label Sub Pop. Band leader Kurt Cobain sought to make music outside of the restrictive confines of the Seattle grunge scene, drawing influence from groups such as the Pixies and its use of loud/quiet song dynamics.

Despite low commercial expectations by the band and their record label, Nevermind became the surprise success in late 1991, largely due to the popularity of its first single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which was an MTV staple. By January 1992 it had replaced Michael Jackson's album Dangerous at #1 on the Billboard charts. The album has been certified ten times platinum (10 million copies shipped) by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The album's tentative title Sheep was something Cobain created as an inside joke towards the people that he expected to buy the record. He wrote a fake ad for Sheep in his journal that read "Because you want to not; because everyone else is." Novoselic said the title was inspired by the band's cynicism about the public's reaction to Operation Desert Storm. Cobain grew tired of the title as recording sessions for the album were completed, and suggested to Novoselic that the new album be named Nevermind. Cobain liked the title because it was a metaphor for his attitude on life and was grammatically incorrect.

The Nevermind album cover shows a baby swimming toward a US dollar bill on a fishhook. According to Cobain, he conceived the idea while watching a television program on water births with Grohl. Cobain mentioned it to Geffen's art director Robert Fisher. Fisher found some stock footage of underwater births but they were too graphic for the record company. Also, the stock house that controlled the photo of a swimming baby that they subsequently settled on wanted $7,500 a year for its use, so instead Fisher sent a photographer to a pool for babies to take pictures. Five shots resulted and the band settled on the image of a three-month-old infant named Spencer Elden, the son of the photographer's friend Rick Elden. However, there was some concern because Elden's penis was visible in the image. Geffen prepared an alternate cover without the penis, as they were afraid that it would offend people, but relented when Cobain made it clear that the only compromise he would accept was a sticker covering the penis that would say "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile."

The back cover of the album features a photograph of a rubber monkey in front of a collage created by Cobain. The collage features photos of raw beef from a supermarket advert, images from Dante's Inferno, and pictures of diseased vaginas from Cobain's collection of medical photos. Cobain noted, "If you look real close, there is a picture of Kiss in the back standing on a slab of beef." The album's liner notes contain no complete song lyrics; instead, the liner contains random song lyrics and unused lyrical fragments that Cobain arranged into a poem.

Follow Up

The baby who graced the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album has recreated the famous image 17 years on. Spencer Elden was the four-month-old baby photographed in a swimming pool reaching towards a dollar bill on the end of a fish hook.

Now a teenager, Spencer Eldon strikes a familiar pose

The picture became the cover of Nirvana's second album, released in September 1991, which went on to sell 26 million records worldwide. Seventeen years later, he has recreated the classic underwater shot, this time wearing shorts. Now the 17-year-old high school student, who lives in Eagle Rock, near Glendale, California and his ambitions are to go to art school next year.

In 1991, his parents were paid $200 for allowing their friend, underwater photographer Kirk Weddle, to photograph their baby. The original photograph and the recent recreation by the British photographer John Chapple were shot from the bottom of the pool at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Centre in Pasedena, 17 ft (five metres) underwater.

Spencer said: "It's kind of cool, knowing that I've been on an album cover"

"But I feel pretty normal about it because growing up, I've always known I was the Nirvana baby. It never really struck me like, 'Oh, ****, that's me on the cover'."

"Quite a few people in the world have seen my penis. It's kind of cool, I guess," he told the Independent. "I feel like I'm the world's biggest porn star. But I'm just a normal kid living it up and doing the best I can while I'm here."

Notes:

Nevermind not only helped popularize the Seattle grunge movement, but it also brought alternative rock as a whole into the mainstream, establishing its commercial and cultural viability. Nevermind's success even surprised Nirvana's contemporaries, who felt dwarfed by its impact and creativity. Fugazi's Guy Picciotto later commented: "It was like our record could have been a hobo pissing in the forest for the amount of impact it had. It felt like we were playing ukuleles all of a sudden because of the disparity of the impact of what they did".

In 1992, Jon Pareles of The New York Times described that in the aftermath of the album's breakthrough, "Suddenly, all bets are off. No one has the inside track on which of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ornery, obstreperous, unkempt bands might next appeal to the mall-walking millions". Record company executives offered large advances and record deals to bands, and previous strategies of building audiences for alternative rock bands had been replaced by the opportunity to achieve mainstream popularity quickly.

Michael Azerrad argued in his Nirvana biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana (1993) that Nevermind marked the emergence of a generation of music fans in their twenties in a climate dominated by the musical tastes of the baby boomer generation that preceded them. Azerrad wrote, "Nevermind came along at exactly the right time. This was music by, for, and about a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored, or condescended to."

Rolling Stone wrote in its entry for Nevermind on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, "No album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation—a nation of teens suddenly turned punk—and such a catastrophic effect on its main creator."

Nevermind has continued to garner critical praise since its release. The album was listed at number seventeen on Rolling Stone's list "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Time placed Nevermind, which writer Josh Tyrangiel called "the finest album of the 90s," on its 2006 list of "The All-TIME 100 Albums."

In 2005, the Library of Congress added Nevermind to the National Recording Registry, which collects "culturally, historically or aesthetically important" sound recordings from the 20th century.

SLAYER: New Video Interview With DAVE LOMBARDO

Metal Injection conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo on August 7, 2009 at the Camden, New Jersey stop of this year's Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Watch the chat below.

SLAYER will release its new album, "World Painted Blood", in the U.S. on November 3 (one day earlier internationally) via American Recordings/Columbia Records.

The final track listing for the CD is as follows:

01. World Painted Blood
02. Unit 731
03. Snuff
04. Beauty Through Order
05. Hate Worldwide
06. Public Display Of Dismemberment
07. Human Strain
08. Americon
09. Psychopathy Red
10. Playing With Dolls
11. Not Of This God

"As we're so excited about 'World Painted Blood'," said Lombardo, "we wanted to do something special for the packaging, and have been working with some really cool ideas. They've taken time to get just right, and with our headlining the Mayhem tour for most of the summer, it's just taken that much longer to get all these great ideas exactly the way we want them."

There will be three different editions of "World Painted Blood" —a limited-edition CD with multiple CD covers, a deluxe edition CD/DVD, and a high-quality, 180-gram vinyl edition; specifics for all editions will be detailed shortly.

"We hope our fans will like everything about 'World Painted Blood' as much as we do," Lombardo continued. "Recording this new album has been one of the greatest experiences we've had as a band. We were together during the writing process more than we had been for past albums, we worked more collectively, everyone's suggestions and ideas were heard and considered, and that camaraderie is definitely heard in the new album."

How Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover

It’s 60 years since Steinweiss’s breakthrough, but his story has lessons for us still

by John Bungey

It is one of the iconic record sleeves — on a coal-black background a piercing shaft of white light elegantly splits into the colours of the spectrum. This, however, is not Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. This is Alex Steinweiss’s 1942 cover for a recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. Great designers think alike, it’s just that Steinweiss thought alike three decades earlier.

This is not the only example of inspirational work by the American who is credited with singlehandedly creating the format, design and graphic “language” of the album cover. A book of his work — Alex Steinweiss, The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover — is published next month. Now 92, Steinweiss has designed some 2,500 sleeves.

Through the 1920s and 1930s, 78rpm discs were routinely sold in plain cardboard sleeves. When the 23-year-old Steinweiss became the first art director for Columbia Records in 1939, he convinced a sceptical management that it was worth creating packaging to reflect the beauty of the music.

Read the rest here:
timesonline.co.uk

Music News & Notes

LA Landmark Rockaway Records Holding 30th Anniversary Event

(Submitted News) Rockaway Records, a Los Angeles landmark acknowledged by collectors and experts of music memorabilia as one of "the best record stores in America," is celebrating their 30th anniversary!

In honor of their three-decade milestone, Rockaway is turning back the clock and throwing one of their famous parking lot sales Sunday, September 27th at their Silver Lake location at 2395 Glendale Blvd. 30,000 CDs will all be priced at 99 cents each while every item in the store, including collectibles, will be on sale.

While nearly every independent record store (and many chains) in Los Angeles have closed, Rockaway is flourishing. Co-founders, brothers Wayne and Gary Johnson are aggressively acquiring extensive record industry collections and purchasing personal collections of CDs, records, DVDs, concert-related items, tour programs, toys, as well as rock 'n' roll promo items and collectibles. Frequently paying five and six figures for valuable collections, Rockaway recently paid $600,000 for a single collection of vinyl and $150,000 for a CD collection.

"It's remarkable to reflect on founding Rockaway Records 30 years ago and to have actively witnessed the evolution and revolution of an entire industry in a mere three decades. We're extremely proud of our success and know how fortunate we are to be not only weathering a difficult economy, but continuing to make key acquisitions and grow during such a volatile time," said Wayne Johnson, co-founder Rockaway Records. "While we have seen a number of our independent peers come and go over the years, what we offer is more unique than any big box retailer could ever possibly undertake. We are continually looking ahead and plan to not only remain relevant in years to come, but aggressive in the retail marketplace. Trends come and go everyday, but real style and substance is always rediscovered. We feel that moment everyday we open our doors."

Wayne and Gary began re-selling albums in 1979 after attending one of the legendary record swap meets at the Capitol Records parking lot in Hollywood. What began as a hobby more than 30 years ago, quickly turned into a business when they were virtually forced to open a store, if only to house their growing collection! Expert appraisers of music memorabilia, the brothers Johnson have traveled the world buying and selling some of the most highly sought after music and collectibles.

Not only are collectibles in demand for their novelty, but also for their potential appreciation. One often-overlooked area is music memorabilia. These collectibles have yielded some impressive returns. The Johnson brothers are known throughout the world for their honesty and for paying the fairest prices for records and memorabilia. They regularly travel the United States and overseas to purchase private collections and make certain that sellers receive the highest market price.

Rockaway Records, one of the last remaining truly independent purveyors of fine music and memorabilia, is located at 2395 Glendale Blvd. in Silver Lake, one of Los Angeles' hippest neighborhoods.

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25 Years Of Punk - PENNYWISE Covers 7 SECONDS For BYO Records

LA punk label BYO Records is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with the release of 'Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records.' The release includes a 31-track compilation of songs from the extensive BYO catalog, performed by NoFX, Bouncing Souls, Pennywise, Nothington, Leatherface and many more.

Also included is a documentary on BYO and Youth Brigade's involvement in the early LA punk scene, directed by Jeff Alulis ('Do You Remember? 15 Years of the Bouncing Souls,' 'NOFX Backstage Passport').

'Let Them Know' will be available September 22 as a box set containing a colored vinyl double LP, the film and a hardcover, full-color book. It will also be available on CD (DVD included) and digitally.

The documentary is premiering in LA and will be screening across North America this fall. The Stern brothers, who created BYO, are also founding members of Youth Brigade and will be touring this fall.

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AGENT STEEL's 'Omega Conspiracy' Released On Limited-Edition Vinyl


Night Of The Vinyl Dead has reissued AGENT STEEL's "Omega Conspiracy" album on limited-edition Azure vinyl with a gatefold cover and insert. Originally issued by Candlelight Records in 1999, the LP was made available in 350 hand-numbered copies

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COALESCE Announces Details Of 'Ox' EP

Kansas City, Missouri hadrcore punk/metalcore band COALESCE will release the follow-up EP to its "Ox" album in November via Relapse Records. The "Ox" EP will include seven new tracks and will be available on CD and 12-inch vinyl.

In other news, COALESCE has announce a handful of U.S. shows, including two free shows with CAVE-IN. These Scion-presented dates will take place in Atlanta and Los Angeles on October 7 and October 8, respectively. COALESCE has also been confirmed for this year's The Fest in Gainesville, Florida as well as Austin, Texas' Fun Fun Fun Fest.

Terrorizer magazine's Jill Mikkelson conducted an interview with COALESCE vocalist Sean Ingram at this year's Hellfest, which was held on June 19-21, 2009 in Clisson, France. Watch the five-minute chat below.

"Ox", the first full-length album in 10 years from COALESCE, sold around 600 copies in the United States in its first week of release, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (Note: Internet/digital sales **ARE** included in the SoundScan totals.) The CD landed at position No. 95 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

"Ox" was released on CD and LP on June 9 in North America and June 15 internationally via Relapse Records. The CD version is housed in a six-panel digipack with an embossed front cover and contains a 24-page booklet with seven distinctive die cuts. The LP comes in a gatefold jacket with embossed front cover and a custom-printed inner sleeve with a unique die cut center.

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New Death Row Records Opens Snoop Dogg and Tupac Vaults

In January Toronto-based WIDEawake Entertainment Group acquired a bankrupt Death Row Records -- the iconic hip-hop label created by Dr. Dre and Suge Knight in the early 90s -- with the intent to reissue music from its vaults. One of the first orders of agenda for the recently re-launched label is 'The Lost Sessions Vol. 1,' an album's worth of unreleased Snoop Dogg material due this fall. 'The Lost Sessions Vol. 1,' will feature never-before-heard Snoop tracks recorded during the Long Beach rapper's initial days on Death Row. Guest apperances on the album include K-C & JoJo, Nate Dogg and Dr. Dre.

Death Row CEO, Lara Lavi, is also readying a new album of unreleased music from another one of Death Row's finest, the late Tupac Shakur, for 2010. With a new Death Row Films division in the works, Lavi told AllHipHop.com that the label will include unreleased video footage of Tupac in conjunction with the new tracks.

"We're trying to put if out as part of our birthday celebration of Tupac," Lavi said. Tupac would have turned 39 this coming June. "It isn't just the music, what's happened in the course of this whole exercise is so many people have come out of the woodwork for video content that no-one's ever seen before and suggestions for playlists, etc. The fans have been wonderful. The release will include a huge DVD of unreleased, never before seen video also."

Snoop Dogg's 'The Lost Sessions Vol. 1' will hit stores on October 13th. The rapper was recently named Creative Chairman of Priority Records, and plans to release his tenth studio album 'Malice N Wonderland' in December.

Yellow Submarine Remake In The Works

Walt Disney has officially announced that they have an agreement with Apple Corps, Ltd. and film director Robert Zemeckis to remake the movie Yellow Submarine. Here's the press release:

The Walt Disney Studios has made a deal with Apple Corps Ltd. to develop a new 3D performance capture adaptation of the 1968 hit animated film "Yellow Submarine" to be written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, it was announced today at the D23 Expo by Dick Cook, chairman, The Walt Disney Studios. The film will be created by ImageMovers Digital, Disney's state-of-the-art performance capture animation studio operated in conjunction with Zemeckis and his partners, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, who will serve as producers on the project.

For this fantastic new voyage to Pepperland, Zemeckis will incorporate the 16 Beatles songs and recordings from the original motion picture licensed from Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC and EMI-Capitol Records, respectively. The songs include "All Together Now," "All You Need Is Love," "Eleanor Rigby," "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "With A Little Help From My Friends" while combining his unique vision and style to bring this dazzling tale to life.

In making the announcement, Cook said, "This is truly an inspired collaboration, and a wonderful opportunity to revisit one of the most imaginative and memorable musical fantasies of all time. To be working with the amazing folks at Apple Corps, and to have Bob helming the sub is truly as good as it gets. With all those incredible Beatles songs and imagery, the spectacular vision of Bob and his pioneering team at ImageMovers Digital, and a classic adventure full of wit and action, we're sure that moviegoers are going to have a great time on this latest trip to Pepperland."

Zemeckis said, "'Yellow Submarine' is one of the greatest fantasy films of all time, and making this new 3D performance capture movie is a dream come true for me. With the latest advances in technology, we will be able to take moviegoers on a voyage unlike any other, and bring new excitement and dimension to Pepperland and the various sea worlds they encounter. I'm thrilled to be working with the good folks at Apple Corps and our partners at Disney on this epic retelling of one of my all time favorite films."

Jeff Jones, CEO, Apple Corps Ltd., said, "With The Beatles and Walt Disney Studios, we have a partnership between two of the best loved creative entities in the world. We're very excited about the magical fantasy that will result from this collaboration. The marriage of the music of The Beatles with the talent and technical wizardry of Robert Zemeckis and ImageMovers Digital should produce something very special. We look forward to working with Bob and his team on realising his new vision for 'Yellow Submarine'".

The original motion picture (released in the U.S. on November 13, 1968) based on the music of The Beatles was directed by George Dunning and featured the inspired art direction and design of Heinz Edelmann. The movie is set in Pepperland, an undersea paradise inhabited by music lovers who live in peace and harmony and are protected by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. That is... until they are threatened by the music hating Blue Meanies. It's up to John, Paul, George and Ringo to set off on a magical adventure in their yellow submarine and bring music and harmony back to Pepperland.

Vinyl Collective News & Notes

Here's a couple of the latest posts from Virgil over at www.vinylcollective.com Stop by the site and help him celebrate the anniversary and get some killer vinyl for your collection!!


Forget the Itunes LP, Remember the Vinyl LP

While I commend Apple and its digital retail destination, Itunes, for attempting to offer something more with the launch of the Itunes LP, what they are trying to do makes terrible assumptions about the audio/visual experience of their customers. While I agree that having liner notes, credits, and artwork is a step in the right direction, I don’t want to have “enjoy” these aspects on my computer screen. Having behind the scenes videos and interactive media are also a nice bonus, but what you get is just an enhanced CD and I don’t know about most of you, but I typically look at an enhanced CD’s contents once and that’s it. Now, let’s talk about the price tag as reports are saying that the Itunes LP might be priced in the neighborhood of $19.99 although I have also read that it could be $13.99 or $16.99. I understand wanting to increase your revenue and appease shareholders, but this added price only gives you things you can pretty much get for free by visiting Google, The Band’s website/myspace, and/or Youtube.

With nearly every Vinyl LP we have released, we bundle our records with a digital coupon that allows one to download the entire album as 320 Kbps MP3s. Most of our single LPs are priced at $10.99 (all are currently on sale at prices between $5 and $8). To recap, you can buy most Suburban Home LPs for $10.99, get the digital album for play on your Ipod and have something tangible/physical with liner notes/lyrics, credits, and big/beautiful artwork. Listen to our albums on your Ipod while driving in the car, at work, while exercising, etc. Listen to the Vinyl LP while at the comfort of your home, relaxing, having a beer. If you ask me, there is no comparison.

I may be old fashioned, but I like to listen to my records on my record player, I like to look and touch the LP jacket/Insert. Also worth noting, I have yet to hear an album on my Ipod that sounds nearly as good as the vinyl counterpart. Digital albums are great for convenient listening, but liner notes are best experienced with the Vinyl LP.

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As you more than likely know, September is Suburban Home’s 14th Anniversary. It’s pretty crazy when you think about how much has changed in the last 14 years and somehow we are still around. What were you doing in 1995? I was going to college at the University of Colorado at Boulder and during that summer, I decided to start a fanzine to write about all the incredible music that was blowing my mind. Little did I know then that I would eventually start putting out records and find myself doing music full time. Crazy how things go. The last 14 years have been chaotic and unpredictible, but I have always had fun and in the end, that is what matters right?

Well, I could go on and on about this and that, but instead, I wanted to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. I would not be here if it weren’t for the independent music supporters from all over the planet that have helped to support what we do. To show you our gratitude, I wanted to offer you 1 of 2 discount possibilities:

Spend over $50 and get $14 off your order by using the coupon code SHANNIV14

Spend any amount and take 14 percent off of your order SH14PERCENT

This offer is good til the end of the month. Here are a few suggestions on how you should spend your money:

Suburban Home’s I Celebrate Their Entire Catalog Sale – you get every in print Suburban Home CD, an I Celebrate Their Entire Catalog T-shirt, and our next 10 CD releases mailed to your house

Our Pick 5 for $25 or Pick 10 for $50 plus bonus CDs – for a short time longer, we are offering you 5 free CDs of our choice with your pick 5 for $25 or 10 free CDs of our choice for our pick 10 for $50 sale. There is a long list of great CDs, vinyl, and pint glasses available with this deal.

Suburban Home CDs are $5.00 each – for the rest of the month, every Suburban Home CD is only $5.00 each. Load up before we jack up the prices to $8.99.

SH/VC Wholesale Vinyl Sale – for the rest of the month, all of our excluse vinyl is available at either our wholesale price that we sell it to distributors for or even lower (don’t tell our distributors). These coupons make it even cheaper.

Our Bargains section – take a look at this category in our store, there is a killer Ferret vinyl sale, a few Drag the River sales, a Tim Barry sale, and more.

Those are just a few of the deals that will help you to get the best deal possible. Thanks everyone. Here’s hoping we will be around for another 14 years!

Classic Album Cover Art - Pink Floyd Division Bell

Pink Floyd: ‘The Division Bell’ The Division Bell is the final studio album by Pink Floyd, released in 1994 (March 30 in the UK and April 5 in the US), and also was the second album without original bassist Roger Waters. It was recorded at a number of studios, including guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour's houseboat studio called The Astoria. The album went to #1 in the UK and debuted at the top of the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts in April 1994, spending four weeks as the top album in the country. The Division Bell was certified Gold, Platinum, and Double Platinum in the U.S. in June 1994 and Triple Platinum in January 1999.

The cover artwork, by long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Storm Thorgerson, shows two metal head sculptures sculpted by John Robertson, each over three metres tall and weighing 1500 kilograms. They were placed in a field and photographed under all weather and lighting conditions over a two-week period, sometimes even using visual effects such as lights between them. Ely Cathedral is visible in the background, as are lights (actually car headlights on poles), shown through the sculptures' mouths. The sculptures are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The cover photograph is slightly different on each format, and between the United States Columbia and British EMI releases. The Braille writing on the EMI CD jewel case spells Pink Floyd.

Recording:

“We started off by going into Nick's studio, Britannia Row studio in London, in January 1993 with myself, Nick [Mason], and Rick [Wright], and Guy [Pratt], the bass player from our last tour. And we just jammed away at anything for two weeks, just playing anything that we had in our heads or that we made up on the spot. And then we took all that over to Astoria and started listening to all the tapes and working stuff out. We found that we had 65 pieces of music, which we worked on all of to a certain extent, and then we started adding these things. We had a couple of sessions which we called 'The Big Listen' where we listened to all these 65, and all the people involved with it voted on each track, on each piece of music as to how popular it was with them. And so we then arranged these 65 pieces of music in order of popularity amongst the band, and then we dumped 40 of them, and worked on the top 25, which in fact became the top 27 because a couple more got added in. And so the process went on from there with us working away on all these pieces of music and gradually either merging pieces together or scrapping them until we finally were down to about twelve to fifteen things that we all kind of liked. And in the end one or two of them went by the way, and we were left with eleven on the album, I think. ” -David Gilmour, Questions and Answers with David Gilmour.

Notes:

Pink Floyd took their album on tour in 1994 where most of the songs were played, but never all on the same night. "Keep Talking", "Take It Back" and "High Hopes" were a staple of the performances and were present every night, and "Coming Back to Life" nearly so; others like "Poles Apart", "What Do You Want From Me" and "A Great Day For Freedom" flip-flopped every night.

Additional album artwork. Two additional 7.5 metres tall stone head sculptures were made by Aden Hynes and photographed in the same manner; although they do not appear in the CD artwork, they appeared on the cassette cover, and can be seen in the tour brochure and elsewhere.

The artwork inside the lyric booklet revolves around a similar theme, except the heads are made up of various other objects, such as newspapers ("A Great Day for Freedom"), coloured glass ("Poles Apart"), and boxing gloves ("Lost for Words"). Pages two and three portray a picture from La Silla observatory.

The album was received mostly poorly by professional critics despite its strong sales. Jerry McCully of Amazon.com said of the album in his editorial review that "The Division Bell is not a great Pink Floyd album, but an all-too-fallible simulation".

Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly echoed McCully's sentiment, giving the album a grade of "D" and saying that "avarice is the only conceivable explanation for this glib, vacuous cipher of an album, which is notable primarily for its stomach-turning merger of progressive-rock pomposity and New Age noodling".

Tom Graves of Rolling Stone criticized lead guitarist David Gilmour's performance on the album, stating that his guitar solos "were once the band's centerpieces, as articulate, melodic and well-defined as any in rock, [but] he now has settled into rambling, indistinct asides that are as forgettable as they used to be indelible", adding that "only on 'What Do You Want from Me' does Gilmour sound like he cares.”

Rock/Pop Tidbits

A race running the route described in the song "Dead Man's Curve", from Hollywood and Vine to Sunset and Doheny, would have covered 4.5 miles. If it were extended to the real "dead man's curve" near UCLA, it would have been a drag race of 8.7 miles.

The Beach Boys' 1966 hit, "Caroline, No" was originally titled "Carol, I Know".

After Jan Berry of Jan and Dean was seriously injured in a car accident on April 12, 1966 and could no longer perform, his partner Dean Torrence formed a graphics design company that was responsible for over 200 album covers including "The Turtles Golden Hits", nine for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and several for Harry Nilsson. He won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover of the Year in 1972 for the LP "Pollution" by the group of the same name and was nominated on three other occasions.

In 1956, entertainer Jackie Gleason said of Elvis Presley, "He can’t last, I tell you flatly, he can’t last."

The Recording Industry Association of American began certifying recordings as Gold on March 14th, 1958 to recognize records that sold over 500,000 copies. The first Gold plaque was presented to Perry Como for his hit single, "Catch A Falling Star". Four months later, the cast album to "Oklahoma" sung by Gordon Macrae became the first official Gold album. In 1976, because of booming record sales, the RIAA created a new platinum award, for singles that sell in excess of 2 million copies and an album that sells 1 million units. The first platinum single was Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady", and the first platinum album went to the Eagles for their "Greatest Hits 1971-1975". On March 16, 1999, the RIAA launched the Diamond Awards, honoring sales of 10 million copies or more of an album or single. Awards were presented to AC/DC, The Eagles, and Metallica.

On February 14th, 1977, singer / songwriter Janis Ian received 461 Valentine's day cards after indicating in the lyrics of her 1975, number 3 hit "At Seventeen", she had never received any. (The valentines I never knew, The Friday night charades of youth, Were spent on one more beautiful, At seventeen I learned the truth)

According to Paul Anka, who appeared with Buddy Holly on some of the Winter Dance Party tour before the plane crash that took Holly's life, Buddy had plans to take flying lessons when the tour was over.

On Sunday, February 10th, 1964, the night that the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, an estimated 73 million viewers watched on TV, with over 45 percent of all sets in the US tuned in. The crime rate among American teenagers dropped to nearly zero that night.

Friends of The Raiders leader, Paul Revere, say that in high school, his name was Revere Dick and he had a brother named Sly.

Little Richard's 1958 Top Ten hit "Good Golly Miss Molly" says that Miss Molly "sure likes to ball..." At the time it was on the charts, Richard was enrolled a bible college.



Producer Terry Melcher called upon song writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to come up with something for Paul Revere And The Raiders. They sent him a song called "Kicks", which they had originally written hoping it would help get a friend of theirs off drugs.

In 1962, Mersyside Newspaper held a contest to see who was the most popular band in Liverpool. The Beatles were the winners, partly because they called in posing as different people, voting for themselves.

In 1972, David Bowie declared that he was a homosexual, only to deny it in the 1980’s. Finally, Bowie admitted what he really was-a ‘trisexual’. He explained: “I’ll try anything once.”

Shock rocker Sid Vicious died in February, 1979 from an overdose of heroin that was bought for him by his mother, who was present when he injected it.

George Martin, who produced The Beatles most successful recordings, first rose to prominence by recording comedy records.

In 1962, when Johnny Carson took over the NBC "Tonight Show" from Jack Parr, he commissioned Paul Anka for a new theme song. Paul suggested a song that he had already written called "Toot Sweet". After a lyric was added in 1959 it was re-named "It's Really Love" and under that title, was recorded by Annette Funicello on her LP, "Annette Sings". Under a deal with Anka, Johnny became the "author" for copyright purposes and got a piece of not only the publishing but the composer's share too. Both Anka and Carson's names were listed as writers and the two began collecting BMI performance royalties. The pair got $200 in royalties every time the show aired...and it ran for 32 years, 52 weeks a year, 5 nights a week -- which works out to $1,664,000.00 -- not bad for an old tune that had been re-cycled twice before.

There is a five way tie for the shortest title of a song to make it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The songs are: The Jacksons' "ABC", Edwin Starr's "War", Frankie Avalon's "Why", and Michael Jackson's "Ben" and "Bad".

Roberta Flack recorded "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" as an album cut for her 1969 debut LP "First Take". Three years later, Clint Eastwood remembered hearing the song and included it in his film "Play Misty For Me", causing Atlantic Records to re-edit and rush release the song as a single. Six weeks later, it was the number one song in the US, where it stayed for six weeks.

During a December, 1974 interview, TV talk show host Dick Cavett asked David Bowie what his mother thought of his act. He replied "She pretends I'm not hers."

This Date In Music History-September 11

Birthdays:

Charles Patrick - Monotones (1938)

Bernie Dwyer - Freddie and the Dreamers (1940)

Mickey Hart - Grateful Dead (1944)

Phil May - Pretty Things (1944)

Leo Kottke (1945)

Dennis Tufano - Buckinghams (1948)

Guitarist Henry Kaiser (1952)

Tommy Shaw - Styx and Damn Yankees (1953)

John Moss - Adam & the Ants, Bow Wow Wow and Culture Club (1957)

Mick Talbot - Style Council (1958)

Moby (Richard Melville Hall) (1965)

Pianist Harry Connick, Jr. (1967)

Richard Ashcroft - The Verve (1971)

Jonny Buckland - Coldplay (1977)

Ludacris (Chris Bridges) (1977)



They Are Missed:

Reggae star Peter Tosh was shot and killed in his home in Kingston, Jamaica in 1987. Police say Tosh was shot in the head after he refused to give money to robbers. He was 42.

Lorne Greene ("Ringo") died of complications of prostate cancer in 1987.

Great tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine died in 2000 (age 66).

American lyricist Fred Ebb died of a heart attack at his home in New York City in 2004. Co-wrote, ‘New York, New York’ and ‘Chicago’ and worked with Liza Minnelli.

Grammy-award winning guitarist and singer Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown died in Texas in 2005 (age 81). Recorded with Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder and Frank Zappa during a career that spanned 50 years.



History:

In 1847, "Oh, Susannah" was sung in public for the first time. Stephen Foster sold the rights to the song for a bottle of whiskey.

In 1952, Ahmet Ertegun began recording his newest signing, 21 year old Ray Charles at Atlantic Records on West 56th St in New York City. Ertegun had purchased the singers contract from the Swingtime label for $2,500.

Police were called to break up a crowd of rowdy teenagers following the showing of the film Rock Around The Clock at the Trocadero Cinema in London, England in 1956. The following day, The Times printed a reader's letter that said: "The hypnotic rhythm and the wild gestures have a maddening effect on a rhythm loving age group and the result of its impact is the relaxing of all self control." The film was quickly banned in several English cities. Damn that rock and roll!

Judy Garland started a 13-week run at #1 on the US album chart in 1961 with "Judy At Carnegie Hall."

In 1961, after George Martin insisted that session drummer Andy White took Ringo Starr's place, The Beatles returned to EMI Studios in London for a third attempt at recording their first single. ‘Love Me Do’ was selected to be The Beatles' first A-side, with "P.S. I Love You" on the flip side (a reversal of the original plan). The single that was released on October 5th featured a version of ‘Love Me Do’ with Ringo on drums, but the album ‘Please Please Me’ included a version with Andy White on drums.

A two-record "bootleg" set of Bob Dylan songs, called "The Great White Wonder" first appeared in a Los Angeles record store in 1963. It's believed to be the first bootleg album.

Beatle George Harrison formed his own song publishing company, Harrissongs, in 1964.

In 1964, a 16-year-old youth won a Mick Jagger impersonation contest at The Town Hall Greenwich. The winner turned out to be Mick's younger brother Chris Jagger. Can anyone say Ringer?

The Beatles started a nine-week run at #1 on the US album chart in 1965 with "Help!," the group's sixth US chart topper.

The Gentry's "Keep on Dancing" entered the Hot 100 in 1965 where it stays for 13 weeks. It get up to #4. It will be the group's biggest hit.



The Rolling Stones hit #1 in England in 1965 with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

Frank Sinatra was denied credit at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in 1967 and breaks two teeth in the resulting fight.

Filming began for The Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ in 1967. There was no script, nor a very clear idea of exactly what was to be accomplished, not even a clear direction about where the bus was supposed to go. The ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ bus set off for the West Country in England stopping for the night in Teignmouth, Devon were hundreds of fans greeted The Beatles at their hotel.

The Beatles's "All You Need Is Love" was certified as a million-seller in 1967.



The Beatles recorded 34 takes of "Glass Onion" in 1968.

Donny Osmond started a three week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1971 with "Go Away Little Girl." The singer's only US solo chart topper. The song had also been a #1 for Steve Lawrence in 1963.

Also in 1971, "The Jackson Five" animated TV series debuts on ABC. The show featured the voices of the five brothers.

Janis Ian earns her first gold record in 1975 for the album "Between the Lines." The album contains her single "At Seventeen," which was climbing the charts and ultimately peaking at #3.

KC and the Sunshine Band went to #1 on the US singles chart in 1976 with '(Shake Shake Shake), Shake Your Body," the group's third US #1 (a #22 hit in the UK).

In 1977, David Bowie accepted Bing Crosby's invitation to appear as a special guest on Bing's annual Christmas television special. Bowie and Bing sing duets on "Little Drummer Boy" and "Peace on Earth." The songs were recorded for Crosby's album Merrie Olde Christmas LP.

In 1979, The Who made their first US concert performance since the death of drummer Keith Moon. It's at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey and with Kenny Jones on drums.

"Valley Girl" by Frank Zappa and his daughter Moon Unit peaked at #32 on the singles chart in 1982.

In 1983, John Cougar's American Fool LP topped the charts. Cougar becomes the first artist in over a year and a half to have the #1 album, "American Fool," and two singles in the top ten, "Jack & Diane" and "Hurt So Good," in the same week.

Bruce Springsteen broke the attendance record at Philadelphia's Spectrum in 1984 when 16,800 fans attend the first of six sold-out shows.

In 1988, Michael Jackson appeared at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England on his Bad World Tour. Over 3,000 fans were treated by the St. John Ambulance service for passing out, hysteria and being crushed amongst the crowd of 125,000 fans, the largest concert of the 123-date world tour.

Mariah Carey started a eight week run at #1 on the US singles chart in 1993 with 'Dreamlover'.

In 1995, Green Day told a British magazine that they turned down an invitation to perform on "Sesame Street" because "we couldn't handle a mosh pit full of 5 year olds."

Janet Jackson's "Runaway" made history in 1995 by becoming the first single by a woman to make its debut in the top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100.

Noel Gallagher walked out on the rest of Oasis half way through an American tour in 1996 after a fight with his brother Liam in a hotel in Charlotte North Carolina. Noel flew back to London the following day. Babies.....

In 1996, for the first time, a new single by a major recording artist was released exclusively on the Internet. David Bowie's "Telling Lies" was released on Bowie's web site, where it was available for 24 hours.

In 2003, Tommy Chong, one-half of the comedy team of Cheech and Chong, was sentenced to nine months in federal prison and fined $20,000 for selling drug paraphernalia over the Internet. The 65 year-old Chong pled guilty to the charges last May. He remained free until April, 2004, when he went to jail.

In 2006, a study from the University of Leicester found that more than a quarter of classical music fans had tried cannabis. Researchers were trying to find out what people's taste in music revealed about their lifestyles. The UK study also revealed that blues buffs are the most likely to have received a driving penalty. Hip hop and dance music fans were more likely to have multiple sex partners and were among the biggest drug-takers surveyed. More than 2,500 people were interviewed for the study, which was published in the scientific journal Psychology of Music.

Music News & Notes

Rolling Stones Reissuing “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!” With Big Bonuses

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Ya-Ya’s!, ABKCO is set to release a remastered deluxe and super-deluxe edition of the live album, a three-disc/one-DVD box set complete with five unreleased songs from the MSG shows and a DVD featuring the Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out film directed by the Maysles Brothers — the documentary team behind the Stones’ classic Gimme Shelter. In the film, the Stones hang out with Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead, mess around during the Ya-Ya’s cover shoot, perform the five unreleased songs and much more.

Additionally, one disc in the set will be dedicated to the sets from the MSG shows’ two opening acts, B.B. King and Ike & Tina Turner. The set will also include a replica poster and a 56-page booklet featuring photos, essays, Lester Bangs’ original Rolling Stone review of the album and much more. The “super-deluxe” version of the box set will also house a three picture disc vinyl version of Ya-Ya’s, complete with etched cover images and the Stones’ signatures, as well as an enlarged version of the replica poster and 56-page booklet. To top it all off, the box set will come with a voucher allowing fans to download the Ya-Ya’s version of the Stones’ “I’m Free” for Guitar Hero 5.

The deluxe box will hit shelves November 3rd, while the super deluxe set arrives two weeks later on November 17th. Check out the track list below:

Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! The Rolling Stone In Concert – 40th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set

Disc 1: Get Yer Ya-Ya;s Out (remastered)
1. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
2. “Carol”
3. “Stray Cat Blues”
4. “Love In Vain”
5. “Midnight Rambler”
6. “Sympathy For The Devil”
7. “Live With Me”
8. “Little Queenie”
9. “Honky Tonk Women”
10. “Street Fighting Man”

Disc 2: unreleased Rolling Stones tracks
1. “Prodigal Son”
2. “You Gotta Move”
3 “Under My Thumb”
4. “I’m Free”
5. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

Disc 3:
1. “Everyday I Have The Blues”
2. “How Blue Can You Get”
3. “That’s Wrong Little Mama”
4. “Why I Sing The Blues”
5. “Please Accept My Love”
6. “Gimme Some Loving”
7. “Sweet Soul Music”
8. “Son Of A Preacher Man”
9. “Proud Mary”
10. “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”
11. “Come Together”
12. “Land Of 1000 Dances”
Tracks 1 - 5: B.B. King
Tracks 6 - 12: Ike & Tina Turner

DVD: Maysles Brothers’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out
1. “Prodigal Son”
2. “You Gotta Move”
3. “Under My Thumb”
4. “I’m Free”
5. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

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Special Edition Swift CD Set For Oct. Release


A new Platinum Edition of Taylor Swift’s Fearless album is headed for stores in time for the holiday sales rush. Big Machine Records will release the CD/DVD set on Oct. 27, containing new music and video extras such as her video collaboration with T-Pain on “Thug Story,” and exclusive new behind-the-scenes photos shot by Taylor’s brother, Austin K. Swift.

Fearless, named 2009’s Album of the Year by the Academy of Country Music, was originally released by Big Machine in November of 2008. Now quadruple-platinum, Fearless has spent more weeks in the No. 1 position atop Billboard’s Top 200 all-genre CD sales chart than any other album this decade. Yesterday, Fearless was nominated for Album of the Year by the Country Music Association. Swift also received CMA nominations for Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and Music Video of the Year.

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Beatles Reissues Sales Figures For UK & US

According to Britain's Official Chart Company, the Beatles will be placing five albums in the top 20 on the British Album charts and 15 albums in the top 75 when the new charts come out next week. While some were expecting that the Fab Four would top the charts, it's unlikely as sales are spread over a number of single releases and the box sets.

Abbey Road and Sgt. Peppers are dominating, but the Stereo Box Set is also selling well, coming in as the fourth biggest after one day on the market.

America's Hits Daily Double released their estimates of first week sales in the U.S. and it's extraordinary, especially for albums that are already in so many people's collections already.

Projecting on retailer reports over the first two days of availability, it is appearing that the 16 titles (14 albums plus two box sets) will sell close to 500,000 copies for the week. Individual titles are headed by Abbey Road with sales of between 70 and 75,000 while Sgt. Pepper and the White Album are looking at 50 to 55,000.

The full list with estimates:

1.Abbey Road (70 to 75,000)
2.Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (50 to 55,000)
3.Beatles (White Album) (50 to 55,000)
4.Rubber Soul (40 to 45,000)
5.Revolver (35 to 40,000)
6.Past Masters (27 to 30,000)
7.Help! (25 to 28,000)
8.Let It Be (24 to 27,000)
9.Magical Mystery Tour (24 to 27,000)
10.Stereo Box Set (24 to 26,000)
11.Hard Day's Night (22 to 25,000)
12.Please Please Me (19 to 22,000)
13.Beatles For Sale (17 to 20,000)
14.With the Beatles (17 to 20,000)
15.Yellow Submarine (12 to 15,000)
16.Mono Box Set (9 to 11,000)

Amazing for a band that broke up 40 years ago.

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Paul McCartney: 'The Beatles Took Too Many Drugs'


Sir Paul McCartney has spoken about the copious amount of drugs The Beatles consumed in their career and expressed dismay at how they managed to survive the period.

In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Tonight, he said, 'We were overdoing substances and really getting crazy, as we all were.

"We'd be falling asleep, the kinda thing when you can hardly get your head off the pillow. You go, 'Woah, I'd better get my head off this pillow.'

However some experiences on drugs led to writing The Beatles classic Let It Be.

McCartney said, "I had a dream, where my mother, who had been dead, by then, 10 years came to me in the dream and was very sort of helpful and very calming, and it was lovely just to see her... and she said, 'Don't worry about it... Let it be.'

'I went, 'OK', and I felt so good... and I woke up and wrote Let It Be. I thought, 'That's a good idea for a song.

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Phil Collins Reveals He Can No Longer Play Drums

Phil Collins has told the Mirror in the U.K. that, due to recent spinal surgery, he can no longer play the drums or piano and is not sure if he ever will be able to again.

Collins told the paper that, after years of sitting in a certain position to play drums, his vertebrae were crushing his spinal chord. He had surgery for the situation, but the end result is that he cannot hold his drumsticks.

Phil told the paper, It comes from years of playing. I can't even hold the sticks properly without it being painful. I even used to tape the sticks to my hands to get through.

But don't worry, I can still sing."

Collins says that he is very sad over the situation, but is keeping an upbeat attitude. "There isn't any drama regarding my 'disability' and playing drums. Somehow during the last Genesis tour I dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands. After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can't function normally.

"Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano. I am not in any 'distressed' state...stuff happens in life."

Rock/Pop Tidbits

While talking on the phone with his mother, Disc Jockey Murray The K mentioned that he and Bobby Darin were soaking their feet after playing a game of softball in Central Park. A few minutes later, she called back to say that she had an idea for a song - "Splish, Splash, take a bath..." Murray and Bobby began sorting out some lyrics while Murray's mother, Jean, who had been a vaudeville piano player, finished the melody. It became the first of Bobby's 22 US Top 40 hits when it reached #3 in the Summer of 1958.

The Beatles recorded two different versions of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever". One was a half-tone higher and slightly faster than the other. The group couldn't decide which rendition they liked better and finally asked producer George Martin if he could put them together somehow. When one was slowed down, it fit perfectly with the other, resulting in the song we know today.

Apparently, Little Richard was not a real smart child. As a lad, he wanted to give one of his neighbors a ‘creative gift.’ But his neighbor, Miz Ola screamed when she opened her present. It seems young Richard thought that defecating in a box and wrapping it up as a present for his elderly friend would be a good gift for her. Little Richard stated in his autobiography: “God bless Miz Ola, she’s dead now.” No word on if he selected other neighbors to receive his thoughtful gift.

When Malcolm Young and Angus Young named their band AC/DC, they apparently didn’t realize that the electrical term was also slang for bisexual. But the ambiguous name helped them out in the beginning as the group was hired to play many gay-themed gigs. Work is work, I guess.

In the early days, the Bee Gees were so desperate to sell their records that they actually gave members of their fan club money to go out and but their records. Thankfully, there were only six members in the fan club or the trio would be broke.

Ironically, only Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys was the group’s only surfer.

Antoine "Fats" Domino came by his nickname because he stood 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 225 lb.

Fats Domino's 1956, US #2 hit, "Blueberry Hill" was originally a number one hit for big band leader Glen Miller in 1940.

When Elvis Presley was inducted into the US Army on March 24th, 1958, Uncle Sam started losing an estimated $500,000 in lost taxes for each year that Private Presley served.

Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead was brought in as a session musician to play steel guitar on Brewer and Shipley's March, 1971 hit, "One Toke Over The Line".

Michael Jackson was just five years old when the Jackson Five played their first professional gig. Their fee for the night was only eight dollars, but they collected over one hundred dollars in money tossed on the stage.

The music business is hard on a marriage. Paul Revere has been married six times. Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Rogers and Tammy Wynette have each been married five times. James Brown, Glen Campbell and Peggy Lee have been married four times.

Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson were not the first group in the rock and roll era to call themselves The Supremes. An all male quartet from Columbus, Ohio used the name on a 1957 single called "Just You And I" and Ruby and the Romantics, who had a number one US hit with "Our Day Will Come" in 1963, started out as The Supremes.

The Guess Who performed at The White House during the Nixon administration, but were asked not to perform their #1 hit "American Woman" because of its' anti-U.S. establishment lyrics.



According to Rolling Stone magazine, The Young Rascals were surprised by the success of "Good Lovin". Felix Cavaliere admitted, "We weren't too pleased with our performance. It was a shock to us when it went to the top of the charts."

Although Jerry Lee Lewis received a lot of bad press for marrying his 13 year old second cousin, Jerry's sister Linda Gail first married at 14 and another sister, Frankie Jean, first married at age 12.

When song writer Burt Bacharach asked B.J. Thomas to sing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" for the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he neglected to tell Thomas that the song had already been turned down by Bob Dylan and Ray Stevens.

Buddy Holly's drummer, Jerry Allison played drums on The Everly Brothers 1959 hit "Til I Kissed You".

Songwriter Hoyt Axton once revealed that the first line of "Joy To The World", Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was never intended to be in the song. It was just a fill-in line he used until he could come up with better lyrics. He pitched the tune to Three Dog Night when they toured together and they ended up recording it "as is."

George Harrison expressed his feelings about the break-up of The Beatles by saying: "The saddest thing was actually getting fed up with one another."

TOP TEN BIGGEST RECORD-COMPANY SCREWUPS OF ALL TIME

Youth Movement

#10 Columbia Records loses Alicia Keys, drops 50 Cent

Columbia had a way with young talent in the late ’90s and early ’00s. First, after plunking down a reported $400,000 to sign Alicia Keys, they turned her over to high-priced producers who tried to transform her into Whitney Houston. Frustrated, she bolted—and signed with J Records, where she has sold more than 20 million albums to date. Around the same time, another languishing Columbia prospect, 50 Cent, recorded “How to Rob” in a desperate attempt to get his label to notice him. But when he was shot nine times in 2000, skittish execs dumped him—and then watched as he became an unstoppable one-man money factory at Interscope.

Unintended consequence Fedoras and bullet¬proof vests become essential urban-fashion accessories.



Spy Game

#9 “Digital-rights management” backfires even more badly than usual

In a 2005 effort to combat digital piracy, Sony BMG packaged millions of CDs with copy-protection software that automatically installed a “rootkit” on users’ PCs, which, in addition to preventing consumers from making more than three copies of their legally purchased CD, also made them vulnerable to viruses and hackers. Sony BMG initially downplayed the problem, but after the Department of Homeland Security issued an advisory, the label recalled more than 4 million CDs. Sony was accused of spying on its customers’ listening habits and was forced to pay several million dollars to settle class-action lawsuits that alleged violations of spyware laws and deceptive trade practices.

Unintended consequence Radiohead offer up In Rainbows for a bargain pay-what-you-like price.



Rap Attack

#8 Warner junks Interscope

When anti-rap crusaders wanted to deliver a body blow to hip-hop, they took aim at the Warner Music Group, because its corporate parent, Time Warner, was American-owned and publicly traded. When Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” became too hot to handle, Warner Music dropped him, but the label still enjoyed huge rap hits—particularly through Death Row Records, partially owned by their Interscope label. But when Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole attacked Warner Music in his stump speech, Time Warner panicked, ordering the sale of Interscope to rival Universal. Universal soon became the biggest record company in the world—in large measure due to Interscope hits by Tupac, Dr. Dre and Eminem. Warner Music went on a long slide and was finally sold in 2004.

Unintended consequence Time Warner shareholders never have to worry about who killed Tupac.



Something’s Happening, But You Don’t Know What It Is

#7 Music publisher gives away Bob Dylan

In the early 1960s Leeds/Duchess was a legendary music-publishing company but far from the hippest: It knew Tin Pan Alley but couldn’t find a Greenwich Village coffeehouse with a compass. Yet when Columbia signed Bob Dylan in 1961, they steered him to Leeds, where he happily signed a publishing deal with a $1,000 advance. The following year, Dylan’s new manager, Albert Grossman, got out of the deal with the disinterested publisher simply by repaying the $1,000. Dylan’s new publisher, the savvier M. Witmark & Sons, received 237 songs—many of them future standards worth tens of millions of dollars—in just the first three years.

Unintended consequence The receptionists at Leeds/Duchess never have to field calls asking what “All Along the Watchtower” is really about.



Nothing Exceeds Like Excess

#6 Casablanca rides strong sales straight to the poorhouse

No record label represents the coked-up inanity of the late ’70s like disco-driven behemoth Casablanca. In 1978, the label simultaneously shipped a million copies of four solo albums by each member of their biggest rock act, Kiss, so they could justifiably claim the records “shipped platinum.” The albums sold well—but not that well. Record stores returned hundreds of thousands of unsold copies, inspiring comedian Robert Klein to joke that Casablanca’s releases “shipped gold and returned platinum.” The label continued to lose millions a year throughout the late ’70s, until part-owner PolyGram Records bought out founder Neil Bogart for $15 million in 1980.

Unintended consequence Hey, man—400,000 extra surfaces to snort drugs from!



Whoa, Mama

#5 The RIAA sues a struggling single mom for digital piracy

n In the court of public opinion, it’s hard to find a more sympathetic defendant than a single mother of two, earning $36,000 a year. So what in the name of common decency was the Recording Industry Association of America thinking when it went after 30-year-old Jammie Thomas from Brainerd, Minnesota? The RIAA accused Thomas of using the P2P service Kazaa to illegally share mp3 files of 24 songs, including Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” and Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills.” Thomas pleaded not guilty, blaming the shared files on mistaken identity, but last October a jury disagreed and fined her $222,000. That breaks down to a whopping $9,250 per song—more than six times her annual salary. At press time, Thomas was planning an appeal.

Unintended consequence The nation’s toddlers and fluffy kittens rush to erase their hard drives.



Pay (Somebody Else) To Play

#4 Indie promoters take the major labels to the cleaners

After the payola scandals of the ’50s, the government barred record labels from paying radio stations to play records. The solution: set up middlemen to do the dirty work! “Independent promoters” represented the labels’ interests to radio programmers, creating a massive cash flow of corruption. Even a mid-size hit could cost $700,000 in promo expenses—cash, vacations, drugs and other illicit rewards for mustachioed DJs—and labels ended up paying to get airplay for huge artists the stations would have spun anyway. A lot of coked-up DJs got nice tans, while the labels spent unnecessary millions and covered their balance sheets in bloody red.

Unintended consequence Colombian GDP spikes each time Mariah Carey releases a single.



Detroit At a Discount

#3 Motown sells for a pittance

In 1988 Berry Gordy Jr., reportedly losing millions of dollars on the label he had founded decades earlier, sold Motown and its incomparable back catalogue to MCA and investment company Boston Ventures for $60 million. How bad was that price? The next year, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss sold their A&M Records to PolyGram for roughly $500 million. In 1990, David Geffen got about $700 million for Geffen Records and in ’92, Richard Branson unloaded Virgin Records to EMI for $960 million. And five years after buying Motown, Boston Ventures cashed out, selling the label to PolyGram for $325 million—a return of more than 500 percent.

Unintended consequence The Motown Atlantic airline, and Berry’s career as a trans-global balloonist, have yet to materialize.



Tomorrow Never Knows

#2 Decca Records A&R exec tells Fab Four, “No, thanks”

Dick Rowe was not the only record-label executive who passed on the Beatles in the early ’60s, but he was the only one who brushed off their manager, Brian Epstein, with the astute prediction that: “Groups with guitars are on their way out.” Epstein begged Rowe to reconsider, so Rowe hopped a train to Liverpool to check out the band live. When he arrived at the Cavern, he found a mob of kids trying to force their way into the club in the pouring rain. Annoyed, he smoked a cigarette, went home and signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead.

Unintended consequence The Monkees.



THE BIGGEST RECORD-COMPANY SCREWUP OF ALL TIME

#1 Major labels squash Napster

Shawn Fanning’s file-sharing service attracted tens of millions of users, but instead of trying to find a way to capitalize on it, the Recording Industry Association of America rejected Napster’s billion-dollar settlement offer and sued it out of existence in 2001. Napster’s users didn’t just disappear. They scattered to hundreds of alternative systems—and new technology has stayed three steps ahead of the music business ever since. The labels’ campaign to stop their music from being acquired for free across the Internet has been like trying to cork a hurricane—upward of a billion files are swapped every month on peer-to-peer networks. Since Napster closed, “there’s been no decline in the rate of online piracy,” says Eric Garland of media analysts BigChampagne, who logged users of son-of-Napster peer-to-peer networks more than doubling between 2002 and 2007. And that figure doubles again if you count BitTorrent.