Meet the ‘Yellow Submarine’ Beatles
January 19, 2010
Looks like director Robert Zemeckis has found his fab four actors for that new version of “Yellow Submarine.”
Dean Lennox Kelly (TV’s “Collision”) will be John; Peter Serafinowicz (”Shaun of the Dead”) will play Paul; Cary Elwes (”The Princess Bride”) is doing George; and Adam Campbell (”Date Movie”) has the Ringo part.
The Beatles imitators the Fab Four will be used for musical performances featuring the band, the Hollywood Reporter said. The acting deals for the new “Yellow Submarine” are “in negotiations,” THR reported, trade talk for pretty much done.
Director Zemeckis reportedly has approached both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr about participating in the film, to be shot in 3D using motion-capture.
The director and co-producers Walt DIsney Pictures have rights to the 16 original Beatles recordings, which should bring a windfall for fans: more surround-sound mixes of Beatles songs. Let’s hope the results are at least as good as the 5.1 take on the title song from the “Yellow Submarine Songtrack
The movie “Yellow Submarine” hasn’t been treated all that well over the years, with the DVD version currently out of print. No major restoration has been undertaken, despite the opportunity to greatly update the sound.
George Dunning, who worked on the Beatles’ Saturday morning cartoon series, directed the original film. It was released in 1968 to the delight of a stoned generation. Any top 10 of psychedelic movies would include the animated feature, which was surprisingly strange and included obvious drug references.
The original “Yellow Submarine” album
Zemeckis, understandably, is taking heat for his decision to fool with the classic Beatles animated film (made in 1968 without much help from the Beatles). (You have to ask: Does anyone really need to see an “improved” Blue Meanie?) The director’s CGI-laden films using the performance-capture process include the Jim Carrey “A Christmas Carol” and “The Polar Express.”
Julian Lennon remembers ‘Lucy’
November 26, 2009
The real-life Lucy of “Lucy in the Skies With Diamonds” is inspiring Julian Lennon once again. On Dec. 15, he’s releasing the single “Lucy” in her memory, with proceeds going to fight lupus, the disease that killed her.
Lucy Vodden’s death in September reminded Beatle fans of the genesis of the “Sgt. Pepper” psychedelic classic.
Julian, John Lennon’s son, brought home a picture he’d drawn in preschool. He titled it “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” providing his dad with material for the song.
Lennon always maintained the song was about the boy’s drawing, not LSD, but the content and initials suggested otherwise.
The new “Lucy” song was being recorded by Julian Lennon’s colleague James Scott Cook near the time of Vodden’s death at age 46. Lennon and Cook rewrote some of the lyrics and cut the “Lucy” record as a duet. Cook’s grandmother, Lucy, also suffers from lupus.
Lennon looked up his old classmate after learning she had the autoimmune disease. “She created millions with her name,” he told USA Today. “The least I could do was try to support her and make sure she was comfortable.”
Vodden, who died at 46, tried to keep a low profile regarding the song. She liked the Beatles, but not “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “I don’t relate to the song, to that type of song,” she told the Associated Press before she died.
The “Lucy” EP will feature a foldout copy of the original Lennon drawing (pictured). The digital download will be exclusive to the iTunes Store for now, as was the 40th anniversary release of “Give Peace a Chance” released by Lennon, Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono earlier this month. That single benefited the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund.
Lennon runs a new digital-media record label — theRevolution — whose first release will be “Lucy.” Next year Lennon plans to release an album, “Everything Changes.” The musician and filmmaker has not released new music in almost a decade.
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is a top 10 entry on our list of the Top 100 Psychedelic Songs of all time.
‘The Prisoner’: stoned immaculate on Blu-ray
November 22, 2009
Before the Beatles got lost with their “Magical Mystery Tour” TV show, they had a more promising psychedelic screen project in mind: a follow-up to “Help” that was on the same wavelength as “The Prisoner.”
George Harrison’s son Dhani Harrison told Wired: “They were going to be in a movie written and directed by Patrick McGoohan in the same vein as ‘The Prisoner,’ because they thought it was one of the best series ever. They were so into his psychedelic weirdness.”
The project never happened, of course, but the Fabs did license “All You Need Is Love” for the McGoohan series’ surreal finale, the only time a Beatles song popped up on a TV show at the time.
“The Prisoner” is back with us these days thanks in part to the AMC miniseries that updates the ’60s psych-spy series. While the new six-episode series has its moments — provided mainly by No. 2 actor Ian McKellen — the big event is the Blu-ray release of the original 17-episode series, from A&E. “The Prisoner: The Complete Series
The series was hands down the most psychedelically influenced TV series of the era, with frequent detours into mind-expanding plot points and imagery. To this day, it is the strangest series ever broadcast by CBS. The show shared studio space with Kubrick’s “2001,” another mind-blower, with the show even lifting some space shots from the master.
“Twin Peaks” certainly showed the influence of “The Prisoner,” as do the movies of David Cronenberg, who cast creator McGoohan in one of his projects.
“The Prisoner’s” influence on musicians continues to this day. Wikipedia lists at least 20 instances of tributes to the show, starting with the 18-minute song “McGoohan’s Blues” by English seeker Roy Harper. The Clash’s “The Prisoner” was about the series. XTC and Supergrass are among the bands that shot “Prisoner”-driven music videos, on location in Portmeirion.
Extras on the Blu-ray set include crew commentaries, in which some of the key players discuss dropping acid on the set. CBS refused to air one of the episodes because of its depiction of hallucinogenic drugs.
On Blu-ray, the op art/pop art imagery of “The Prisoner” leaps from the screen. Colors are bold and vivid, yet not oversaturated. The clarity is remarkable, almost too good — the actors’ perspiration and skin blemishes are borderline distracting (the kind of thing industry folks fretted about in the early days of HD).
Audio is OK, whether you choose the 5.1 track (with its once-over-lightly mix) or the 2.0 mono. The audio does have bouts of that tinniness associated with pop soundtracks of the day.
Psychedelic Beatles rarities up for auction
November 7, 2009
What appear to be the rarest and strangest of all Beatles album pressings are coming to auction next week.
The story begins back in the twilight of the vinyl era. A Capitol Records employee who worked in the label’s Toronto pressing plant killed time by making multicolored vinyl records, colorful psychedelic things. Among them, appropriately, were the psychedelic classics “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Revolver.”
Canadian collectors Akim Boldireff and Aaron Keele bought the vinyl beauties from the ex-record presser, who apparently kept them in a closet. They said the presser had access to the original plates of the Beatles records.
Keele told the Vancouver Sun: “The real thing that makes this fascinating is that they were pressed at the original plants, using original stampers with the catalogue number of the original release as issued and created by Capitol Records.”
The eBay sale might have gone relatively quiety, except for the Guardian newspaper in Britain, which decided to dub them “the rarest Beatles albums ever.”
(This days after bestowing the title on an in-house version of “Sgt. Pepper” that had Capitol execs’ faces replacing the 1960s celebrities’ mugs found on the famed cover.)
Here is the Guardian’s description of the eBay goods:
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on bright baby-blue marble vinyl, the 1967-70 greatest hits compilation on swirled blue-and-white vinyl, and a translucent blue LP with side A of “Revolver” and side B of John Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band” album. However, the most beautiful item in the collection is the Beatles’ “Love Songs” anthology, made with gold vinyl. This is streaked with an abstract expressionist rainbow, like an explosion at a paint factory.
Opening bids for each of the albums is $1,000, but this being the Beatles, look for soaring values. The fun starts on eBay on Nov. 10.
The Beatles remasters: Yeah, yeah, yuck
September 10, 2009
The two new Beatles box sets are in the stores, and the reviews are flying in. They’re almost uniformly positive. Almost.
The reactions run from (the predictable) rave reviews to the (equally predictable) crabbing from Beatles audio purists. Sorting out the Fabs’ various mixes and intentions has always been a messy affair; the pair of Beatles box sets no doubt continues the tradition.
The new releases, of course, are “The Beatles: Stereo Box Set
After wading through dozens of day-and-date reviews, it looks like the consensus (of the better critics) is that the mono mixes are preferable to the stereo, at least up until “Rubber Soul.” From “Revolver” to “Sgt. Pepper’s,” the stereo wins out, with notable exceptions. (”Abbey Road” and “Let It Be” rise above the debate, as they started life in stereo, only.)
Unfortunately, Capitol Records chose not to include both the stereo and mono mixes on the CDs, which would have been an easy fit on most of the albums (the early ones run a half hour or so). Good business. Bad karma.
Another dodgy decision was releasing these treasures to CD only, when DVD-Audio and Blu-ray would have offered much higher-end audio — as well as the option of more Beatles in surround sound.
If the CD format is dying, what a way to go, though.
Here are observations scooped up from various critics; Psychedelic Sight will be reviewing the “psychedelic” Beatles albums in a few.
From the New York Times’ Beatles review:
In most cases this music has dimension and detail that it never had before, and the new packaging reflects each album’s musical and cultural importance. Over all, the new discs sound substantially better than the Beatles’ original CDs, which EMI issued in 1987. The most striking and consistent improvements are a heftier, rounded, three-dimensional bass sound, and drums that now sound like drums, rather than something in the distance being hit. … some discs are improved more radically than others, and some are hardly improved at all.
Reviewer Allan Kozinn says that “some discs are improved more radically than others, and some are hardly improved at all. Probably the most revelatory of the new transfers is the stereo ‘White Album.’ ”
MusicRadar.com weighed in on the Beatles remasters with detailed and authoritative coverage, using two critics to cover 1963-1966 and 1967-1970 separately.
“Should you buy ‘The Beatles In Mono’ and ‘The Beatles Box Set: Remastered In Stereo’? If you are a completist, absolutely. Just don’t expect the stereo box to be the last word. In some cases, better stereo mixes exist elsewhere already, and in others, the mono versions simply have more impact.”
Of the two approaches, the verdict is: “Both have strong, if not essential, selling points.”
Pitchfork.com chimes in on the revived Beatles CDs:
“The sound of these remasters, mono or stereo, is exceptional. I’ve always felt that the sound quality of the original 1987 remasters was slightly underrated. … But whatever you think of the 1987 remasters, these new versions are a marked improvement. In terms of clarity and detail, they are consistently impressive. But they’re also successful for showing restraint.”
Echoing other reviewers, Mark Richardson points to the upgrades for bass and drums, both of which suffered in the 1987 CD releases, which often sounded shrill and thin. (One reviewer actually came to the defense of those discs, but didn’t have company.)
“Listening to the new masters, the differences in sound quality generally manifest in three ways: songs have more ‘punch,’ with Paul McCartney’s bass (an absolute wonder throughout) and Ringo’s drums hitting with more force; the separation is better, so that instruments and (especially) layered vocals have more definition– when the Beatles are harmonizing, you can more easily pick out the different vocalists, and the voices have more presence; and finally, the sound in general seems just a touch brighter, with various sound effects, cymbals taps, and so on, ringing with more clarity.”
CNN singled out one of the later albums: “But it’s perhaps on 1966’s ‘Revolver’ … where the magical mystery work of Abbey Road recording engineer Guy Massey and the many others involved is most apparent.”
Entertainment Weekly went all gushy over the new Beatles box sets:
“Beatlemaniacs of all degrees who re-purchase these beloved albums are in for a listening experience that is nothing short of revelatory. … Never before have the studio explorations of 1966’s ‘Revolver,’ 1967’s ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band‘ and beyond felt quite so wondrously otherworldly. … To say the remasters sound perfect would be to miss the point, though. It’s the minute human flaws and unpredictable variations heard so clearly here that make even tunes as overplayed as 1968’s ‘Hey Jude’ (’Past Masters’) or 1969’s ‘Something’ (’Abbey Road’) sound improbably fresh, alive, real.”
Speaking of ‘Hey Jude,’ apparently it’s possible to hear McCartney mutter “fucking hell” as he hits a dud note about 2:60 into the anthem.
Bob Gendron of Tone Audio posted a solid critique of the new Beatles CDs:
“(There are) near-miraculous improvements in the key areas of information retrieval, hidden details, palpable physicality, expanded midrange, transient presence, and frequency response. … Without diminishing the value and impact of the stereo editions, which blow away their 1987 digital predecessors in every imaginable facet, the mono discs are where it’s at for experiencing the Beatles in the most “authentic” manner.”
“For kicks, comparing the 1987 digital issue of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ to the new remasters lends perspective to just how awful the former are, and how amazing Capitol’s 2009 entries sound.”
Gendron offers up a solution that’s going to prove expensive, since the mono CDs aren’t sold separately: Owning both the mono and stereo mixes of “
Rolling Stone, once the magazine of record for rock reviews, has posted an anemic look at the Beatles box sets that manages to make the case for the mono mixes:
“The 12-CD ‘The Beatles in Mono’ box set is more than a collector’s indulgence. The warmth and punch of early albums ‘With the Beatles’ and ‘Beatles for Sale’ evoke the experience of first hearing songs like ‘All My Loving’ on the original vinyl. But in stereo or mono, these albums have finally received the treatment they deserve.”
Finally, one guy wondered why all the fuss over “the Beatles, a 1960s band so obscure that their music is not even available on iTunes.” A good one, considering 9/9/09 failed to deliver the rumored news that the Fabs’ recordings would finally be available for downloading.
Beatles for sale:
Buy “The Beatles: Stereo Box Set
Buy “The Beatles Mono Box Set
‘Yellow Submarine’ resurfaces at Disney
August 21, 2009
Pepperland is being invaded again, this time by the mouse-eared meanies of Disney.
Director Robert Zemeckis (”Back to the Future”) will helm a new 3D version of the psychedelic animated Beatles classic “Yellow Submarine.” Daily Variety, which broke the 3D “Yellow Submarine” story, says a Broadway show and Cirque du Soleil production are part of the scheme.
Rights to the original 16 Beatles songs were “key to the deal,” Variety said (stating the incredibly obvious), but the reporter didn’t indicate if the music had been secured. Leaks to trade papers usually go out with the approval of the deal participants, however.
At best, we get a CG update and some great Beatles songs mixed for movie theater surround. At worst, we’re in for another “Sgt. Pepper’s” movie experience — remember that Bee Gees-Peter Frampton nightmare? And does anyone really need to see an “improved” Blue Meanie?
To be fair the Fabs didn’t have all that much to do with the original feature-length cartoon aside from the music. The Beatles did appear at the end in live action but actors did their cartoon voices, kinda dopey-like.
George Dunning, who worked on the Beatles’ Saturday morning cartoon series, directed the original film. It was released in 1968 to the delight of a stoned generation. Any top 10 of psychedelic movies would include the animated feature, which was surprisingly strange and included obvious drug references.
The Beatles said they enjoyed the film.
The movie “Yellow Submarine” hasn’t been treated all that well over the years, with the DVD version currently out of print. No major restoration has been undertaken, despite the opportunity to greatly update the sound. (The “Yellow Submarine” DVD
A “Yellow Submarine” Blu-ray can be considered overdue, like so many things associated with the Fabs.
The song “Yellow Submarine” is a showstopper number in the Cirque du Soleil production of “Love,” the killer remix a tease of what could be done … with the original movie.
The Beatles’ catalog is coming out in a few weeks, along with the Beatles Rock Band game
Meanwhile, Tech Crunch just floated the idea that the long-awaited Beatles deal with iTunes could be announced on 9/09/09 as well.
There are two collections of the albums: “The Beatles Stereo Box Set”
Disney hopes to release the Zemeckis “Yellow Submarine” in time for the 2012 summer Olympics, Variety said.
The news comes a month after the original movie’s art director, Heinz Edelmann, died in Germany.