GOT INCREDIBLE SCREAMING LIVE BEATLES IF YOU WANT IT!

GOT INCREDIBLE SCREAMING LIVE BEATLES IF YOU WANT IT!

Records

THE BEATLES AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL (Capitol)

THE BEATLES LIVE!

ATTHE STAR CLUB IN HAMBURG, GERMANY; 1962 (Bellaphon)

by R. Meltzer

Last year when Wings was set to tour the States some New York rockmag was doing a one-shot on McCartney and wanted me to listen to every vocal Paul ever cut and do an annotated discography of the whole damn thing (ran 26 pages or so). Aside from the sheer joy of coincidentally also managing to hear how incredibly fucking great Lennon was back in those early days of the first 5-6 albums what was really mindboggling about the whole project was I actually got to play every cut of every Beatle elpee in sequence, something I never figured I'd ever do again. Whew!—lemme just tell ya there ain't no therapy like it for a jaded rockfan/rockcrit to take the time out and just fuckin do in these here days when not only is rock-roll itself quite deader than shit but so are the maggots that've chowed down on the corpse...

Anyway if youdon'tfeel like spinning em all, or if you're too young or out of it or whatever to own all their discs in the first place, you now have the opportunity to take a peek at focused Beatlism in a couple of nutshells that're—lemme tell ya—all fuckin reet. Lotsa currently employed critpeople for inst never even listened to the boys back when they were smack dab in the midst of what rock-roll frenzy was—and always will be—all about, they needed Rubber Soul or Revolver to get on the'bandwagon and lots of 'em preferred the Stones anyway (assholes). '64 and '65 were the great Beatle years and on At the Hollywood Bowl that's what you get: rock and roll at the fullest magnitude it's ever achieved, outdoors under the heavens with worshippers a-worshipping, a good year or two before the whole thing became just another nouveau-supperclub phenomenon (whether it's indoors or out) from which it will probably never emerge again unless the universe decides to tilt a few million degrees in whatever direction—you know the scene (admit it, you do).

THE SCREAMS! I mean like if you were there inside it all (/ was, caught em at Shea both in '65 and '66) you hadda feel the goddam heavy religious vibes per se—l mean Jesus Fucking Christ and Meher Baba never got a reaction like that. This record actually captures said screaming like it ain't been heard on wax before, even the fake calculated screaming on "So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star" pales in comparison: incessant hootin/shriekin like there's ho tomorrow, Jack! Intense!

And the music's even there. "Ticket to Ride" never sounded better (John!). Ditto for "Can't Buy Me Love" where Paul—the famous "weakest link" at all stages of their career—actually avoids all the usual cloying whatchamacallit, probably on account of they wouldn't hear 'emselves in all the din so Paulie's just croonin' in what he takes to be a vacuum so why not just let loose and abandon all the narcissistic pretense: gutsiest vocal y'ever heard him puke out and—who knows?—maybe he's still got it in him ("Silly Love Shit" notwithstanding). And the shoddy 3-track setup they had to work with leads to all sorts of little surprises like Lennon's harmony suddenly getting prominent on the "she's a woman who loves her man" part of "She's a Woman"—the sorta stuff you needed to miss with the stereo balance on the originals in order to hear when they first came out but you just mighta never bothered doing. THE GROUP THAT PUT ALL OF RECORDED SOUND ON THE MAP FROM TOP TO BOTTOM AND HERE AS MENTIONED THEY ARE WITH THE GREATEST AUDIENCE TRACK OF ALL TIME THROWN IN FOR GOOD MEASURE. Amazing. Good goddam elpee...

Then you got this live kraut 2-rec.ord set from before they ever cut diddleyshit for EMI and it's astounding too. George singing/playing with more balls than in later years (just dig this King Curtis thing called "Reminising"). "Besame Mucho" done like the Alex Harvey version of "Delilah." A "Little Queenie" no worse than the Stones did it. John getting downright James Brownish (!) on "Mr. Moonlight" which they were already doin in '62 (!). "Your Feet's Too Big" where the vocal interactions prophetic of let's say Dr. Hook/or somebody at the very least. Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again" done oompah style (!) and sung by Paul (natch). THEY SOUND LIKE THE YARDBIRDS on -"Nothin Shakin But The Leaves On The Trees"! Could've invented heavy metal if they'd wanted to! Lotsa great idle chatter (guys were at ease evidently) and John at one point sez "Give us a blush."

And what's great is here they are—a pack of basic limey post-teens with no illusions of takin' over the world and yet there's already somethin to indicate that ENGLAND IS SOMEHOW FINALLY ABOUT TO ENTER THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND EMERGE FROM THE DUST OF SHAKESPEARE/CHURCHILL/ QUEEN VICTORIA/LESLIE HOWARD. And where's this emergence takin' place: the CBGB's of its time. Which means: nothin' at all if you're lookin for analogies,to the present plight except we got scuzz now, we had scugz then (couldn'ta been any scuzzier than the Starwood tho for inst). GREAT THO how little applause they get except on the real ravers like "Be Bop a Lula" so of course you gotta ask how come it was them instead of, say, Kingsize Taylor & the Dominoes. Answer: I never heard as much as a single goddam note of Kingsize so how the fuck would / know?