Accessing Universal Intelligence.
Human Ingenuity and Creativity. Our Cultural Heritage.
Favourite things. Music and Movies. Nature. Items that interest me on any topic.
Viruses,hacking,scams, piracy and privacy will always be issues on the internet. This is virtually unavoidable. I no longer use Windows XP but I have to say I really liked it very much several computers - and years - ago.It was a great place for any beginner to start with.
It doesn't surprise me that many people still run it after all this time. Nice and simple but I suppose twelve years is a considerable length of time in technology.
The email client, Outlook Express, was excellent, and vastly superior to Windows Live Mail which constantly crashes and will not let you email more than one picture at a time unless you sign into some 'cloud' account. I don't like this at all.
Windows Live Mail has some good features - some of which appear in Word - but I have had too many hassles with it and I really don't need Outlook for basic emailing. It appears to be unfix-able, and no updates have helped me - yet.
I would be very happy if Microsoft came up with an update for Windows Live Mail that made it more like Outlook Express.
Vista was a disaster, and I am now using Windows 7 which has its issues also, but I am very reluctant to upgrade to Windows 8 as I haven't heard anything good about it so far.
Obviously money is a big motivator here but it is certainly annoying to the consumer when they find ANY product they really like, only to later discover it is discontinued. And this is made worse when the replacement item doesn't really deliver.
I am not saying I am against progress. Especially if the end result is better.
This seems to be a classic case of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". Or at the very least don't make it worse!!
TODAY at 5pm, after 12
years, Microsoft will turn off the lights on Windows XP.
Now don’t panic too much. Windows
XP computers will still power on and work after the clock strikes 5pm (AEST),
but behind the scenes Microsoft will be cutting off support and security
updates, leaving XP computers — and the information you have stored on them —
vulnerable to newly developed attacks.
If you’re unsure if you have the
ageing operating system on your computer you can visit
amirunningxp.com.
So what is an XP users supposed
to do now? Last month I suggested a few options.
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft wants
everyone to move to Windows 8.1 and you can download the Windows Upgrade
assistant to see if your system meets the requirements. But I am hesitant to
recommend the newest version of Windows to XP users. While Microsoft is
releasing an update to Windows 8.1 — tonight, in fact — that will make it easier
for those with laptops and desktops, it is still a big change and adjustment for
those who are used to working with a traditional desktop.
A Windows 7 computer will likely
be the easiest transition. Everything in 7 is mostly in the same place as it was
in Windows XP — there’s the traditional desktop, the trusty Recycle Bin and the
Start Menu. The problem is that, in its Windows 8 push, Microsoft has done a
good job hiding the Windows 7 computers.
You’ll find some Windows 7 laptop or
desktop options from select computer manufacturer websites, including Apple’s
Mac computers, which run OS X, and Google Chromebooks, which are more limited
since they just run Google’s browser. And if you are just looking to keep an old
PC going, there are free Linux options like Ubuntu, recommended for only the
technically inclined.
I still have all my old vinyls,LP's, EP's and singles from the early 1960's onwards. From the first Beatles and Rolling Stones albums to musicals like "Hair", "Jesus Christ Superstar" - both the British and Australian versions - to Cole Porter's "Can Can" which I saw on Amazon years ago for $140. Virtually impossible to get now. From all the music-related posts on my blog you would never guess how much I enjoy them/sarc off!! I could never bring myself to get rid of them, notwithstanding the fact that they take up a lot of space. I salvaged all my late sister's LP's years ago when she was moving house, and now I even have two copies of some. I am really glad I never threw them out as some are now impossible to get in any format and I have recently bought several online that were missing from my collection also. Having said that I have converted a few to MP3 format on my computer, just to make it somewhat more convenient to listen to at times, and also to be able to share the impossible-to-get ones, and there are quite a few of those! Although I use my computer for most of my listening experience there is nothing quite like owning the LP with the larger pictures, the cover notes and a few other things you don't get on a CD much less a download. I admit I even bought some vinyl LP's and EP's because I liked the album art. I have never done that with a CD. I cannot comment on the technical aspect - that's not my area of expertise. I am quite happy to listen to vinyl or MP3 files: headphones or no headphones. I just wish my late father hadn't bought all those Reader's Digest collections. I am pretty sure no music-loving person on the planet would want them. To me they are the musical equivalent to plain-wrap food!
And I will never regret buying this vinyl picture disc LP of Marilyn Monroe! There can't be too many of these around.
On any given Tuesday in the 90s, I would
hustle to the record store after school to gawk at the new releases.
Occasionally, I would take a CD home, greedily tear it open, pop it into my
boombox, and listen while I pretended to do my homework. This wonderful
experience has no value any more. It’s obsolete.
Listening to music is still amazing today, it’s
just that you’d be crazy to buy a CD. That’s not me saying that: That’s what the
whole world is saying. CD sales have been declining every year for more than a
decade because CDs are effectively useless in a world where digital music files
are so easy to play and transfer, legally or otherwise.
That doesn’t mean there’s no worthwhile way
to buy a real-world physical album. Even as the recording industry flails, vinyl
is seeing a comeback. Maybe you’ve noticed this resurgence in the living rooms
of pretentious friends who keep a crate full of ragged record jackets next to an
old Technics turntable. At the very least, you’ve probably stumbled upon a small
selection of shrink-wrapped records in trendy big city boutiques, and if not,
maybe while Googling the meanings of Taylor Swift lyrics, you stumbled upon
an Amazon listing for her latest record,
Red, cut on 140 gram vinyl.
The renaissance of the long play record
isn’t just an anecdotal trend. Even as physical record sales decline, people
are buying more vinyl than they have in decades. In
2013, sales increased 31-per cent to about 6 million units year-over-year. It’s
not a single-year bump either, either. Sales have climbed to 6 million from
after having been at about a million in 2007.
I’m not the first person to point out that vinyl
is on the rise after having been considered dead. The “why” behind it, though,
is a little more elusive. People don’t have to buy vinyl, and yet, they’re
increasingly choosing to do so. It seems that in a world where CDs are obsolete,
and digital files are intangible, the vinyl record still has a physical value
that gives you your money’s worth. If the music industry wants to survive, it
better pay attention to why people are buying records.
Why buy music at all?
In 2014, there is no good reason for most
people to buy music. There’s a moral argument about how we should support the
artists, blah blah blah, they have families to feed, yadda, yadda, but the
reality is that you’re never going to force people to spend money if they don’t
have to. Today, there’s just no practical way to force people to buy music —
not unless you’re Beyonce .
I’m not just talking about piracy. For a few years
people were buying digital music because for some, the convenience of online
stores like iTunes outweighed the inconvenience and legal risk of file sharing.
But subscription music services like Spotify, Rdio, Beats Music, et al, are so
easy and affordable to sign up for, that “owning music” is more complicated than
just listening to whatever you want wherever you are on whatever device you
happen to be using.
Yes, Spotify doesn’t have everything, but it does
have pretty damn close to everything, and for most people, it’s a single, small,
monthly expenditure that will satisfy the entirety of their music listening
desires. And, of course, there are people out there who like buying things,
especially from smaller artists. For them buying a CD means putting money in the
artists’ pocket. But even these magnanimous souls will admit that in the
best-case scenario, the CD gets ripped to digital storage of some kind. Or
worse, it’s never played, and you just listen to the thing on Spotify anyway
until it ends up in a landfill.
Convenience over audio quality
An overwhelming percentage of digital music
files provide much worse sound quality than CDs, and people are choosing crappy
digital anyway. It’s possible to rip and uncompressed version of the music
stored on a CD, but when most people rip their discs into iTunes, they choose to
use one of many “lossy” compression formats because CD quality rips take up
7.5 times more space than a high-quality MP3.
(Subscription music services offer roughly equivalent audio quality to a good
MP3.) Most people don’t care about the difference enough to trump the fact that
scaling back audio quality lets you carry around 7.5 times more music and listen
to it conveniently.
For those people who do care about these
things, online stores like HD
tracks offer audiophile quality
downloads. And yet, last year digital music sales took a dip for the first time since iTunes
started selling tracks a decade ago. It shouldn’t surprise you that in 2013
streaming music consumption increased by 32 per cent, and now accounts for
16 per cent of recording industry revenue. This
would seem to confirm evidence that people who want to go digital really don’t
care about audio quality.
To turn to vinyl, then, I don’t buy the
argument that the format is seeing a resurgence because people think it sounds
better. There’s an ongoing debate amongst audiophiles and scientists regarding
the audio quality of digital vs analogue music playback. Audiophiles claim that
analogue playback sounds better, even though this is scientifically untrue.
According to science, a CD and a vinyl record being pulled from the same
original material are mathematically identical. Without going to far into it,
suffice it to say that the 44.1 kHz/16-bit CD-quality spec isn’t random —
it’s based on sampling theory, which proves that given that the highest
frequency you can here is 20,000 Hz, using a higher sampling rate or resolution
is mathematically inconsequential.
Some people choose to dispute science and instead trust their easily
deluded senses, or maybe they just like the sound of a record scratching on the
surface of a record. These fans only help prove my point: People are turning to
vinyl because they enjoy it more.
The case for vinyl
The people who actually care about the experience
of ownership are increasingly turning back to vinyl because it gives you a
physical experience that’s more fulfilling than a simple CD purchase. There are
a few reasons this might be the case, but it all boils down to experience: a
warm and fuzzy happy feeling you get from buying and playing LPs that you just
can’t get from any other source.
Vinyl has always offered a more intimate
experience. The large format feels more substantial and turns the design of the
cover and the inserts into satisfying artworks in their own right in a way that
a CD never could. There’s something wonderfully interactive about putting on a
record, listening to a side, and then flipping it over to hear the other side.
It makes the listening experience something in which you are constantly
physically and emotionally involved. It’s social, and fun, a far cry from the
passive aural experience of CDs or digital.
As for the sound of vinyl, let’s return to the
sound of the scratching record. I remember my father, a lifelong music
collector, was puzzled when I first got into vinyl in high school. He’d been an
early adopter of CDs because they did away with the interference of scratch. But
scratch isn’t a negative; it adds texture and warmth. Some musicians go so far
as to add it to digital recordings to give them “character.”
Vinyl can be fragile, yes, among other
imperfections. But those end up being part of its charm. Older records warp,
needles wobble on their surface and skip over scratches. This is also turns
records into nostalgia factories. I love the hand-me-down first pressing of
Sticky Fingers my godfather gave me. What am I gonna give my kids? A
flash drive? The password to my Dropbox?
Vinyl’s fatal flaw, and the reason that the format
lost to cassettes and later CDs, is that you can’t take it with you. It’s
impractical.
But today, you don’t have to have it just one way.
Vinyl record purchases come with codes which allow you to download digital
versions of the music on-board. I’ve bought about a dozen new release vinyls in
the last two years, and every single one came with a free download. A survey of
a few different record labels confirm that vinyls all seem to come with a free
digital version. What’s more, thanks to Amazon’s Autorip service, you’ll get an
MP3 with your vinyl through that store as well. You really can take it with
you.
The future of music is selling an
experience
Music executives hate digital. Once upon a time,
they could sell you a piece of plastic at an exorbitant markup, and people paid.
Of course they did! People can’t live without music. People fall in love with
songs and want to listen to them over and over again, and the most convenient
way to do that for a long time was to buy the music. Sure, you could copy tapes,
and later CDs, but nothing ever really cut into music sales until the MP3 and
broadband internet connections made it so that people didn’t have to.
Now that buying music is a choice, the people in
every part of the music industry need to pay attention to the people who are
choosing to buy, even when they don’t have to. How can they create a product
that people want to spend money on? It’s not enough to say that the musicians
“deserve” to make money. You have to make a compelling argument. Vinyl does this
to a certain extent, but even if vinyl sales keep growing they’re never going to
be enough.
I’m not claiming to have the answer, but it seems
clear that if the business of recording and selling music is going to survive
it’s going to have to figure out how to encourage people to pay because they
love it and it makes them happy — which is why people care about music in the
first place.
Vinyl isn’t just music. It’s an experience. And
one that’s worth paying for.
July 2014: Needle to the record as vinyl back in vogue - From The Australian
FOR 17-year-old Gigi Cook,above, listening to vinyl is a pastime firmly established in her family. “While most kids grew up listening to children’s music, I grew up
singing along to Stevie Wonder,” Cook said as she browsed through the
vinyl at Red Eye Records in Sydney.
“There’s a lot of music that I like, but that I can’t actually get on CD or online, anyway.” Cook
is just one of a growing number of Australians who are turning to vinyl
as their preferred way of listening to music. The phenomenon is being
embraced by artists, too. Most mainstream and independent acts around
the world are releasing on vinyl as well as digitally and on CD.
Latest
figures from the Australian Recording Industry Association show that
vinyl is by far the biggest growth area in the Australian music
business, although it represents less than 1 per cent of the overall
album market.
Sales of vinyl in Australia rose by 77 per cent last year compared with the previous year. That’s 137,658 in 2013 compared with 77,934 in 201
2,
ringing in revenue of almost $3 million.
CD sales, while bringing
in revenue of $142m from sales of more than 14 million albums, dropped
27 per cent. Digital album sales rose 6 per cent, raising revenue of
$67m from 7.4 million sales.
“The increase in vinyl sales,
admittedly from a low base, has been an interesting phenomenon over the
last couple of years,” said ARIA chief executive Dan Rosen.
“It is
an exciting time, as Australian music fans are consuming more music
than ever before with an expanding range of options to access music —
whether through streaming services, digital downloads or visiting the
local record store to buy vinyl.”
Australian siblings Angus and
Julia Stone, who will release a new album in August, are offering a
two-record set on vinyl while international artists such as Lily Allen
and Beck have released products that way this year.
“There is a
great romance about putting a vinyl record on a turntable and dropping
down the needle to hear the little crackles and squeaks before the music
starts,” said Rosen.
“It seems that a lot more artists are using
vinyl as a way to give their fans a tangible way of showing their
fandom, while also providing a digital download so that their music can
also be consumed on the go.” By Iain Shedden
Music’s greatest comeback — vinyl
NEARLY eight million
old-fashioned vinyl records have been sold this year, up 49% from the same
period last year, US industry data show. Younger people, especially indie-rock
fans, are buying records in greater numbers, attracted to the perceived superior
sound quality of vinyl and the ritual of putting needle to groove.
But while new LPs hit stores each
week, the creaky machines that make them haven’t been manufactured for decades,
and just one company supplies an estimated 90% of the raw vinyl that the
industry needs. As such, America’s 15 or so still-running factories that press
records face daily challenges with breakdowns and supply shortages. Their efforts point to a problem
now bedevilling a curious corner of the music industry. The record-making
business is stirring to life — but it’s still on its last legs. Robert Roczynski ’s dozen
employees work overtime at a small factory in Hamden, Connecticut, to make parts
for US record makers struggling to keep abreast of the revived interest in LPs.
Mr. Roczynski’s firm says orders for steel moulds, which give records their
flat, round shape, have tripled since 2008. “They’re trying to bring the
industry back, but the era has gone by,” says Mr. Roczynski, 67 years old,
president of Record Products of America Inc., one of the country’s few suppliers
of parts for the industry. Many producers, including the
largest, United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tennessee, are adding presses, but
there has yet to be a big move by entrepreneurs to inject capital and confidence
into this largely artisanal industry. Investors aren’t interested in sinking
serious cash into an industry that represents 2% of U.S. music sales. Record labels are waiting months
for orders that used to get filled in weeks. That is because pressing machines
spit out only around 125 records an hour. To boost production, record factories
are running their machines so hard — sometimes around the clock — they have to
shell out increasing sums for maintenance and repairs. Large orders from superstars
create bottlenecks, while music fans search the bins in vain for new releases by
The War on Drugs, a Philadelphia indie group, or French electronic duo Daft
Punk. More requests for novelty LPs — multicoloured, scented, glow-in-the-dark —
gum things up further. Nick Blandford, managing director
of Secretly Group, a family of independent labels, in Bloomington, Indiana, is
putting in orders now to make sure his artists’ LPs are in stores for next
year’s “Record Store Day” in April. To get more machines,
record-plant owners have been scouring the globe for mothballed presses,
snapping them up for $15,000 to $30,000, and plunking down even more to
refurbish them. Ryan Raffaelli, an assistant
professor at Harvard Business School who studies what he calls “technology
re-emergence,” is familiar with this industrial netherworld. Swiss mechanical watches,
fountain pens and independent bookstores all re-emerged from the doldrums by
reinventing themselves for consumers and then attracting investment from
entrepreneurs, he says. “The question is whether there’s
enough demand for vinyl to make this jump. And it’s too soon to tell,” Mr.
Raffaelli says. There are lots of hurdles in the
way of any such reinvention. Just one company, Thai Plastic
& Chemicals, which has a three-person shop in Long Beach, California,
supplies the vast majority — as much as 90%, the firm says — of the raw
polyvinyl chloride compound needed to make records across the
country. Jack Cicerello, TPC manager for
North America, says after his old company, Keyser Century, closed in the
mid-2000s, there were no suppliers of raw vinyl left in the US. Thai Plastic & Chemicals, a
Thai maker of plastic products, tapped Mr. Cicerello to expand its presence in
North America, and he and some colleagues proposed launching a side business of
shuttling Thai-made raw vinyl to American record-pressing plants. But things can easily go awry. In
October, a truck carrying raw vinyl to Quality Record Pressings, a plant in
Salina, Kansas, broke down just as the plant was ramping up production for Black
Friday. “We almost ran out of vinyl,” says Gary Salstrom, QRP’s general
manager. Another step early in the
record-making process — making the “master” record from which copies are made —
is even more archaic. Len Horowitz, 62, is one of a
handful of people who know how to fix sensitive electronic components involved
in record mastering. In September, one mastering firm’s cutting lathe — used to
engrave music from an analog tape or digital file onto a blank disc that becomes
the master — broke down. It took weeks to come back online. “It’s one thing to be short
presses, or short capacity,” Mr. Horowitz says. “If you can’t cut anything,
everything stops — a real panic begins.” The actual process of pressing
records is surprisingly labour-intensive. During a visit to Brooklynphono, a
smaller plant in New York City, the pressing machines required constant
monitoring. Minor things kept going wrong, requiring workers to make
adjustments. “Things fall apart,” says Thomas
Bernich, who runs the plant with his wife Fern. “I get lots of butterflies.” He
could make a new machine, but that would cost him upwards of $250,000, which is
prohibitively expensive. Once the equipment is in place,
technicians are needed to train younger staff. But maintaining the industry’s
human capital as veterans like Mr. Roczynski retire is another big
challenge. Mr. Roczynski has been in the
business since age 16, when he began working at his father’s company. In 1946,
Mr. Roczynski’s father, Stanley, was tapped by CBS Records, which pressed
records at America’s first LP plant in Bridgeport, Conn., to design equipment.
The elder Mr. Roczynski eventually made record equipment the main focus at his
factory. Some 50 years later, Mr.
Roczynski is acting as an equipment broker to connect people seeking old
machines to those unloading them, for a fee — though it is getting harder to
find anything usable. Since Mr. Roczynski has no one to pass Record Products to,
he’ll probably sell when he retires — but he says he wants to stay on as a
consultant for a while. “We’ve done all the work,” he
says. “Why throw it away? With thanks to The Australian – December 19th
Last February it was 50 years ago that The Beatles came into being as we knew them! Enjoy the music, enjoy the pictures. This article highlights their concert in Washington D.C.
Two nights after their hysteria-inducing welcome-to-America appearance on
“The Ed Sullivan Show,” the Beatles played their first U.S. concert at the
Washington Coliseum. With “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sitting atop the American
Billboard chart, 8,092 people crowded into the arena near Union Station and
witnessed the band perform a dozen songs that changed everything.
“It was one of the most exciting live performances the Beatles ever
gave,” says Beatles historian Bruce Spizer, who has studied footage of the
concert at the long-defunct Coliseum. “And it gave them great confidence that
they indeed could conquer America.”
Here’s the tale of the historic 1964 visit, as told by some of the people
who lived it.
John B. Lynn, son of Harry Lynn, who owned
the Coliseum: My father got the call asking if he’d be interested in
having the Beatles. He, of course, had never heard of them. But he said yes. He
brought home a box of Beatles albums and singles to give out, and my brother and
I became the most popular people in school.
Paul McCartney: We’d seen a lot of
British stars come back from America with their tails between their legs. We
made a promise to ourselves to not go until we had a No. 1. We were so excited
to be madly popular in America, which was to us the Holy Grail because every
shred of music we ever loved came from there. It was euphoric, and now we were
heading to Washington on the train, which was very glamorous. And to cap it off,
there was that beautiful snow.
Bill Eppridge, former contract photographer
for Life magazine who died in 2013: We were going to fly down from New York, but a
big snowstorm hit Washington. The Beatles reserved a couple of cars on the train
and got tickets for the press traveling with them. I couldn’t have had a better
time. We all liked them. They were always looking for something to do. They had
a race up and down the car, and two of them went up and over the seats and two
of them crawled in the baggage racks. And then they grabbed the waiters’
uniforms and served drinks.
Albert Maysles, documentary filmmaker
(“What’s Happening! The Beatles In the USA,” “The Beatles: The First U.S.
Visit”): All kinds of funny things happened on the train. They were
behaving for the camera. Ringo carried some camera bags and worked his way
through the coach. They were strangers in a new land, enjoying that kind of
fresh experience. I remember a child meeting Ringo and the conversation they
had, which was so endearing.
Linda Binns Liles, train passenger on Feb.
11, 1964: My family was riding back [to Richmond], and we happened to
be in the only car that got to see the Beatles. They walked through and gave
autographs. I was like, “Well, I got two of their autographs; I think I need all
four.” I was 9 years old, not a crazy teenager — when we stopped at stations,
there were teenagers jumping up and down, trying to look in the windows — so I
was able to get back there. I introduced myself to Ringo Starr and promptly sat
down and started talking with him. “You went to New York for the first time? So
did I.” We had a normal conversation. I was sure he was interested in my
fourth-grade teacher as much as I was interested in what he was doing. Paul
McCartney, who had me calling him Uncle Paul, asked me if I was coming to their
D.C. concert, and I was like, “No, I’ve got to go to school tomorrow.” I was
perfectly serious.
Lynn: My father wasn’t in the habit
of meeting his acts when they arrived in town. But he met the Beatles. He had
been stationed in Liverpool during the war, so I think he might have felt some
connection to them. He didn’t expect the crowd — especially on a snowy
day.
Maysles: There was an enormous crowd
waiting when we got to Union Station.
McCartney: It was unbelievable, a
great sort of validation of the whole thing. It was like, “Yeah, look!
Everywhere we’re going in America, it’s happening!”
Marsha Albert, who persuaded WWDC-FM deejay
Carroll James to play the Beatles on Washington radio in late 1963:
There was no school that day because of the big snowstorm. So I went down to
Union Station and WWDC got me onto the platform when the train came in. The
Beatles got into one car and I got into another. Somehow, I was in the limo with
John Lennon’s wife and George Harrison’s sister.
Tommy Roe, “Sheila” singer: In 1963,
I was booked in England with Chris Montez, and the Beatles were a featured act
on our tour. It was like Elvis Presley all over again. Brian Epstein, the
Beatles’ manager, had called my manager and put me on the Washington, D.C.,
show. I was really happy to do the show with them. We were all staying at the
Shoreham Hotel, and I tried to hang out with the boys there, but it was
pandemonium. I’d already experienced it in England, so I knew it was going to
happen in America.
Phil Hollywood, former general manager of the
ShorehamHotel: We sealed off an area of the hotel so
they wouldn’t be harassed or bothered. The elevator operators were instructed
not to go to their floor, and Capitol Records provided security in the
stairwell. But the kids were roaming around, trying to get to the Beatles. It
was nonstop. They tried to bribe a maid for a maid’s uniform and some of them
laid down in the elevators and said they weren’t getting off until they went to
the Beatles’ floor. Security lifted them off the elevator and told them to calm
down. We brought the band up to the Presidential Suite in a service elevator.
They were very polite, down-to-earth boys, but I think they were overwhelmed by
what was happening.
Al Gore: The incredible phenomenon
built on itself. The “Ed Sullivan” appearance just prior to their arrival in
Washington was electrifying. We could scarcely believe the Beatles were coming
to D.C.
Reed Hundt, former Federal Communications
Commission chairman: Everybody our age knew about them. How could you
not? Gore and I were juniors at St. Albans. We weren’t even 16 until the next
month, and the Beatles were singing, “she was just 17.” We were thinking, “Well,
that’s too old for us.”
Albert: I ended up
at the arena, where the Beatles were having a press conference. I went out to
the radio station trailer where they were doing an interview with Carroll James.
He called me in and told them that I was instrumental in getting him to play
their record, so they thanked me. I didn’t really say much. They were still in
the process of being interviewed. Plus, I was 15 years old. You know what it’s
like to be 15.
Mike Mitchell, photographer: I was 18 years old and was a burgeoning freelance
photographer. When I heard the Beatles for the first time, on the radio in my
’55 Chevrolet, it was a magical moment. I realized immediately that I wanted to
be a part of whatever was going to happen here with their concert. I called a
freelance client and asked if they could get me press credentials, which they
were able to do. But they had no desire for photographs of the Beatles in their
magazine, because they were part of the “grown-up” press establishment. I was on
my own, to do whatever I wanted to. I spent most of the day at the Coliseum.
Ron Oberman, former Washington Star music
columnist: They had a press conference at the Coliseum before the show,
with all four Beatles in a boxing ring that became the stage. I asked George if
he had a girlfriend. He said: “Yes, you, love.” I was doing one of the first
regular columns on rock in a newspaper, and I was only 20, 21. The older people
at the press conference didn’t get it.
McCartney: The press conferences
were quite funny. It was always: “Hey, Beatles, is that hair real, or is it a
wig?” Well, that’s a very good question, isn’t it? How dumb are you? But we
didn’t mind it at all. We expected it. It was a completely different world. It’s
not like now where you’ll find all these kids writing for the Internet. It was
elderly, balding gentlemen who smoked a lot — grown-ups looking disapprovingly
at the children having too much fun. We knew it wasn’t hard to beat that kind of
cynicism. It was like a chess game. And the great thing was, being four of us,
one of us could always come up with a smart-ass answer.
Eppridge: These guys were so quick
and genuinely funny. They had a great sense of humor. They really knew how to
handle the press.
Roe: The concert was a big deal. It
was an amazing scene. They were really catching on and everybody came to that
show, either hanging out backstage and trying to become the fifth Beatle or
trying to get on the bill. They kept adding people. The marquee didn’t say
anything about the other acts. It just said “The Beatles.” It was all about
them. But I wasn’t offended. That’s just the way it worked. I was there to do my
two songs and then get off the stage.
McCartney: We were always slightly
sort of embarrassed when the promoters laid too heavy an emphasis on us. We were
quite democratic about it. Sure we wanted our name big and stuff, but we always
liked the others to get a mention.
Lois Lane, of the “You Don’t Have to Be a
Baby to Cry”-singing Caravelles: We were asked to appear with the
Beatles in Washington, and we sort of knew what to expect, because we’d been on
a concert with them in Scotland at the end of 1963. We knew it was going to be
mayhem and lots of shouting and screaming. When we went on, we got some of that
screaming from the girls, too, I think by association, because we also came from
England. But we were all sort of incidental, weren’t we? We just happened to be
there for a time, to keep the crowd quiet for a while before the Beatles. It was
the beginning of that “boy band” type of thing, really. It was
exciting.
Lynn: My father had run one ad in
the paper, and the concert sold out. He was so stunned that a group he’d never
heard of before sold out. It was such an unusual event and it was a windfall. He
took the profit and used it to buy my mother a new Lincoln Continental
convertible for her birthday. We came home from school and he said, “The Beatles
concert bought that for your mother.”
Hundt: I think I still have the
ticket somewhere. It was not very expensive — $2.50 or something like that. And
it wasn’t like tickets were hard to get.
Larry Sealfon, former record-store
clerk: I was working at Super Music in Silver Spring, and we were
allocated a block of tickets to sell. But there wasn’t a frenzy or anything like
that. It was pretty orderly. After the concert, people came in — mostly mothers
— complaining about their seats. They complained that all they got to see was
the back of the Beatles.
Albert: The stage was in the middle
of the arena and the band had to rotate around the stage. So they were only
facing you a quarter of the time. The rest of the time you were either looking
at their backs or their sides. That wasn’t ideal.
McCartney: That was the first time
we’d ever played in the round. We said: “Do we have to do it?” “Yeah. We’ve sold
tickets everywhere. You’ll have to turn around.” How the hell are we doing to do
that? “Well, just do a few numbers east then shuffle around north. Then do a few
numbers north and shuffle around west.” We said: “What’s Ringo doing to do?” He
had to shuffle the [drum] kit around himself. The idea that we had our backs and
sides to three-fourths of the audience at any point of the show was awkward. We
were used to getting them and holding them — paying attention to them and having
them pay attention to us. There were a few things we did once with the Beatles,
and playing in the round in Washington was one of them. I don’t think I’ve done
the in-the-round thing ever since.
Lynn: They wanted to fit as many
people as possible in. If they had played with the stage at one end, they
would’ve only been able to fit 6,000 or 6,500. With the stage in the middle,
they could fit 8,000.
Hundt: It was mostly girls. Being
from a boys school, we had never seen so many girls in one place before. I don’t
know that I knew for sure that there were that many girls in the
world.
McCartney: It was terrific. We’d
been used to it in smaller doses. But in our minds, it’s only right that it
should get bigger. And where better for it than America, where everything is
bigger? It was very exciting, just having that many people — predominantly
girls, all screaming.
Albert: I never was a screamer. It
was all about the music for me. The concert started with some warm-up groups,
and I was relieved because I had heard about the screaming that went on in
England. And I thought: Nobody’s screaming. This is going to be nice; we’re
going to be able to hear them. (Laughs.) When they started playing, you
couldn’t hear a thing. It was unbelievably loud, like white noise. I remember
the policeman near me stuck bullets in his ears.
Eppridge: That’s probably where I
lost most of my hearing. Either there or with the Marines in Vietnam, AR-15s
cracking next to my ear. I remember my ears hurting from the high-pitched
screaming for the Beatles. It was absolutely piercing. If you’re around six
railroad train engines and they’re all traveling at 100 miles an hour and they
slam on their brakes at the same time — that’s what it sounded like. But it was
delightful.
Gore: The acoustics in the arena
combined with the absolute frenzy of enthusiasm made it virtually impossible to
understand a single word that they sang. You had to listen carefully to get the
general flow of the song, and of course everybody knew all the words prior to
the concert. We all loved their music, but clearly there were a lot of people in
that crowd who loved it even more than I did because they couldn’t stop
screaming. I’m thrilled that iTunes [got] the film of that concert, because I’ll
get to hear the words clearly for the first time.
McCartney: Opening with “Roll Over
Beethoven” wasn’t a statement. Every time we did shows, we did the same as I do
now: You just feel the climate; you put your finger in the air and whichever
side goes cold is the way the wind’s blowin’. We didn’t plan those things. It
was just: “Let’s start with George doing ‘Roll Over Beethoven.’ It’s rockin’.”
In retrospect, I should be telling [that] it was a calculated move to show the
world of classical music that it was time they rolled over and made way for the
delightful young sound that’s going to take over.
Mitchell: I was on the side they
were facing, right up against the stage, in front of Lennon. I could feel
something momentous happening; it was definitely the most dramatic thing I’d
both ever experienced and ever photographed. My principal memory is that I was
in a very heightened state of alertness, so incredibly focused. But I’ve seen
the footage, and there are times I’m leaning on the stage, just taking it all
in. I’ve realized in subsequent years what a tremendously privileged perspective
I had. I could even hear the music and the lyrics.
Oberman: It was a short set, like 35
minutes. I was able to hear some of the songs with some difficulty. I thought
they were excellent.
McCartney: I don’t remember thinking
we played particularly well. But looking back, time has been very kind to us. It
was a cool gig.
Lynn: I didn’t think of it as
something I should always remember. I just thought it was a fun time. But one
thing I’ll never forget is that my friend was already wearing a black Beatles
wig. I don’t know how that got going so quickly.
Maysles: No one gave us permission
to bring the camera in, so we had to sneak into the arena. We would’ve liked to
have gotten close to the stage, but we took our seats at some distance. At one
point I saw that sitting just behind us was Brian Epstein, who was enjoying the
whole performance. And it turned out I had probably a better view than had I
been close up, because I could [film] very wide and include the young audience,
which was just going crazy with joy.
Lynn: This is kind of gross, but
somebody said — and maybe it was my father — that after the concert was over and
everybody had left, you know what the smell was in the Coliseum? It was pee from
all these girls who got over-excited.
Roe: This was early in the crazy
rock-and-roll thing, so nobody really rushed the stage. They were rowdy and very
loud, but they stayed in their seats. They hadn’t realized you can go berserk at
these shows. It was like polite pandemonium.
Gore: “Polite pandemonium” is apt.
At the time, we didn’t think anything unusual about the first part of that
phrase. What was unusual was the second part.
Albert: There was a large police
presence there, but since everybody was so well-behaved, they didn’t have much
to do except stand around. But people were throwing stuff. Since we were down
front, we were getting pelted with flashbulbs the size of golf balls and also
jelly beans.
McCartney: We had been asked
somewhere what is your favorite sweet, and we said jelly babies. So the fans
took to throwing them onstage, and this had reached Washington. In England,
they’re soft and always in the shape of babies. What do you call them? Jelly
beans. They’re hard. They stung, and we’re playing in the round, and they’re
being thrown from everywhere. It was very unsettling. After that, we said the
time has come for us to tell people we hate these damn things. They were only
trying to be cute; throw the cute bits at the cute boys, that will be fun. But
if you caught one of those in the eye, that was none too
pleasant.
Hundt: We came armed and threw jelly
beans at Ringo’s cymbals. I think you can hear them pinging on the tapes of the
concert. It probably was a bad thing to do, but there was some story that the
Beatles liked them, and high school boys like to throw things. So that’s how
they were welcomed.
Gore: I don’t recall throwing any
jelly beans myself. But I know that all around us, there were lots being thrown.
It wasn’t intended in a malicious way.
Albert: The show was somewhat
disappointing. I mean, it was exciting in one way. Yeah, I got to see them. But
there was all this interference — the noise, and all the stuff raining on us.
Mitchell: When they did the last
lines of the Little Richard song, [“Long Tall Sally”], they were gone in a
flash. The crowd felt a little turbulent, so I jumped onto the stage. But when I
looked around, I saw how young everybody was and realized there was no threat to
my life at all. At that point, I turned into a fan. I lingered around Ringo’s
drumsticks, long enough to slide one under my coat. I felt guilty about it
immediately. That thing eventually got given to a girlfriend’s little sister, in
an effort to impress the girlfriend. I tracked her down a few years ago but the
souvenir has disappeared.
Gore: A friend of ours and classmate
actually made some good money selling photographs after the event. He had a
business plan: He took as many photos as possible and posted them on the
bulletin board at school after the concert, and they were snapped up like
hotcakes.
Roe: After the show was over, I
drove back to the Shoreham and went to the Beatles’ room and we had a beer or
two and just chatted. But it was hectic. Everybody was trying to do interviews
with them. I helped Murray the K get in there
and tape an interview with them.
McCartney: I’m sure we got [annoyed]
not being able to just enjoy ourselves and always having to answer some dumb
question about this, that and the other — like what toothpaste we were using. We
saw ourselves as sophisticated dudes in those days, and there was a little bit
of irritation at the undue attention we were getting. But at the same time, we
asked for it. We knew what it was.
Eppridge: There was a reception
afterwards hosted by British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore, and it was not
exactly what I expected. You expect people at an embassy party to stand around
in dark suits holding champagne glasses. It’s supposed to look regal and
dignified. The reception was absolutely jampacked with teeny-boppers and musical
people, with an awful lot of Americans. It was a strange group. The British
charge d’affaires was wearing a Beatles wig.
McCartney: The idea of going to an
ambassador’s party was sort of amusing and vaguely interesting, but it wasn’t
our scene. It was a little too aristocratic. It was a little jolly hockey
sticks. “Oh, the Beatles, how delightful! How amusing!” Yeah, all right, love.
Then one of these debutantes came up with a pair of scissors and tried to snip
our hair, like she was walking up behind some mannequins. Okay, time to leave!
We knew we were famous and up for grabs, but that was most definitely out of
order. Finally somebody had crossed the line, majorly. It was unfortunate. But
the great thing about memories is that the good bits are the ones that tend to
remain. The trip to Washington is a very romantic time in my
memory.
A shorter version of this account was published in The Washington Post in
2010, when Paul McCartney returned to Washington for the Kennedy Center Honors.
Some quotes have been condensed. Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed
to this report.
Some of the pictures also featured are from my collection. There are more at the Washington Post link too, and some that I have previously cited in some of the posts below:
