Woke up, got out of bed
Failed to drag a comb across my head because a) I have no hair and b) we weren’t going anywhere. Wanted to get up and go skiing but general exhaustion combined with the temperature report of 6 degrees at the treehouse and promise of the early 20s but no apparent speed in getting there led us all to stay in bed and commit to tomorrow. But tomorrow never knows.
Still getting through Bob Spitz’s “The Beatles,” really the best book on the Fab Four that I’ve ever read, and I’m in no hurry to have it end. It has, of course, occasioned one of my periodic revivals of interest in all things Beatle, but especially in the music. Combined with my sparkly new turntable, I’m able to listen to discs that I haven’t heard in all their brilliance in years (The Beatles’ CD pressings are nothing special). And because I’m a geek that way, I’m kinda working my way chronologically, starting with the early years. Back before the “Anthology” series came out and put all those old BBC tapes out on disc, there were just a few bootlegs of bootlegs making the rounds under names like “Five Nights in a Judo Arena” (which, despite its title, did not include the live concert at Budokan) and “Yellow Matter Custard” (again inappropriately titled, as it covered some of their earliest material, not the way out days of “Magical Mystery Tour”). These were always horrible pressings but the only chance we had to hear some of their pre-“Love Me Do” material, the stuff they used to fire up the Star Club and the Cavern, the stuff that hinted at the raw power that they tamed into the classic Beatles sound. Back in the ‘Cuse, the Flashcubes (and probably, later, Screen Test, too) often ended their sets with Beatles ravers like “Money (That’s What I Want),” with an energy that sent us out into the cold streets drained and happy and absolutely certain these guys were gonna make it big. And they covered “Soldier of Love,” legendarily part of the Beatles’ early repertoire but never released . . . and it was for gems like that that we’d have to suffer through low-quality bootlegs. So the Anthology and the BBC Tapes are a welcome glimpse into those earliest days, and they capture the incredible energy that went into those pre-Beatlemania recordings.
Otherwise, life is going on. Still waiting to know what happens, careerwise, and wishing I would just be at that point. It’s coming soon, in any case, and that’ll be a relief.