The Beatles Star-Club tapes - Mark Lewisohn (I am the EggPod Podcast)

I’m sure the podcast I heard reported that. And Lewisohn was directly interviewed about the subject — this and other aspects of the falling out.

 

He was.

 

The Hamburg recordings have always fascinated me because we’re so lucky to have them. Some great insights from Mark in this podcast. Incredible to think that Ringo was playing these songs for the first time with them. It makes his playing even more impressive, particularly his timing (check out his switch to a ska pattern in the middle 8 of Red Sails in the Sunset)

The Apple/1969 tape story was fascinating. They really don’t want anyone rewriting history!

 

Or put another way: Apple would rather not that the history be correctly written, since at one point or another any of the four will have their image shaken by the truth. And anything they can do to orevent that they will go through great lenghts to do.

 

Listening right now - great! One little thing where I disagree with Lewisohn:
He says the Beatles were playing songs in Hamburg that were actually not in their repertoire anymore and thus their "4-month-old" drummer Ringo wouldn`t know it, yet mastered it greatly. He goes on to say that what we hear on the Star Club tapes is like unrehearsed "take 1s" of cover versoins for Ringo. However that recording stems from the end of their gigs there, so Ringo had some time to adjust. Still fresh, still great but not "take 1".

 

He also stated that this was NOT all taken from one show!

 

It was mentioned in the podcast about an audio clip of Ringo peforming the "shuffle" part Love Me Do after the Beatles has already recorded it. What were they referring to? I don't recall anything but Pete on A1 in this regard.

Bern

 

And I believe they indicated the recording had "surfaced". I'd like to know more about that...

 

thanks for posting. Ringo does the skip beat less clumsily than Pete, but it still sounds kind of awkward to me.

 

I heard Lewisohn say on the podcast that he started work on Tune In in 2003. I thought I also heard him mention something about a 30 year timeline from beginning to end. Can someone confirm this? It could be 10 years between each volume?

 

Yes, that is what we have been assuming so far anyway. However the eudcated guesses are that all the recordings were from the end of the month.

 

Well, if that is indeed the case did they turn the tape recorder on and off several times during all these different shows to make them fit on the one or two tapes they have ? Or are there more tapes out there somewhere? Lewisohn claims that they typically did a 45 minute set during the final Hamburg shows and that possibly the songs were spread out over 5 sets. That would be a lot more content than what we have.

 

What version is the best sounding Star Club LP and CD?

 

A couple of years ago the whole content of the tapes became available - in writing only. But it showed us what a jumbled affair these tapes were or rather this tape (singular). It was a 4-track-tape but not used as such but only one track each (two in the one way - two in the other). So basically the tape could be turned off - a channel switched - and back on again (going into the same or the other direction). I wish I would find the analysis of this - I think it was on BZ.

 

I just opened this podcast and saw he's got one on Neil Innes too. I'm now happily down a rabbit hole.

 

I can never get over how good that short clip of "Kansas City" sounds in this video. Lots of depth in the sound, and even the vocals are fairly discernible. Is it too much to ask that some responsible entity finally, finally puts out these tapes in as little a doctored-up fashion as possible (with maybe a little judicious editing where necessary)?

I'm sure the Fabs' reputation will survive the hit at this point...

 

This is the fabled Beatle wall, isn't it? No matter how much time elapsed, they instinctively closed ranks against intruders. And criticized members who might be lax in that duty.
But history belongs to us all. What happened, happened. And unless it only happened amongst the four with no witnesses, it's in the public domain.
Imagine, for all this examination, what additional knowledge is being taken to the grave.

 

I was surprised at how good this sounded as well as some of the clips they played on the podcast. This stuff sounds way better than the Star Club LP I bought back in the old days. My feeling is that the reprocessed stereo is what made that LP sound so awful. No surprise there.

To expand on my earlier comments, not only should this stuff ALL be released, it should come out with a promotional push explaining that the Beatles' manic live take on rock'n'roll was a direct precursor to the Ramones (whose moniker came from a Macca pseudonym), early Clash, the Jam, and other bands of that ilk. Had the Fabs had more sense (or better advisors?) in 1977, they'd have capitalized on this then.

Beyond that, these tapes confirm Lennon's claims in his famous 1970 Rolling Stone interview about how rocking the band was. At first blush, his statements seemed a bit hyperbolic. These tapes show he was on-the-mark. I'm surprised Lennon didn't push for a proper release, but I guess he was busy with Sean and baking bread and all that.

 

Falling in Love again:
At 43:48 Lewisohn says something about Marlene Dietrich - "they were in Germany, so Marlene Dietrich was controversial [???]" I don`t understand the last bit.
Indeed she was - she had many fans but also was considered by some as a traitor because she was opposed to the Nazi regime and sang for the US soldiers.
Anyway ... hasn`t it always been said that Paul actually wrote the english lyrics for "Falling in Love again"?
I just found Dietrich singing it in english but I don`t think they are exactly the same words.

 

There are also a couple seconds from a song played on a radio interview with Allan Williams - I should have the tape somewhere. There are very few examples of the tape (there is one full set though - The Beatles against the third reich I think) that let us hear how they sounded before processing. Williams played parts of it during some early Beatles convention. Don`t know if somebody taped that.

 

Record Collector was the one documenting the Larry Grossberg tape logs and thus we now have a better understanding of what is where on the tapes. Their articles are online but unfortunatly the pictures are not:
THE BEATLES’ STAR CLUB RECORDINGS THE REEL STORY - Record Collector Magazine
PART 2: NOTHING IS REEL THE STORY OF THE BEATLES’ STAR-CLUB RECORDINGS - Record Collector Magazine

 

Yes, that's where I was trying to play it (and Audioboom a couple of other locations). They all come up as an error message. It just seems to be any Eggpod stuff though; other podcasts play perfectly!

 

This was an enjoyable listen. I wish I had the time to listen to more of these. Very helpful in identifying little bits of Lennon details that had gone by me in the past.