Perfectly round acoustic guitar...

JF-30

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The Expanded Pepper and White Album are without a doubt the shizz nizzle.
 

walrus

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Yeah, I bought the vinyl version and gave it as a gift to my 23 year old son who is more of a fan than I am! I think it was you, walrus, or someone else here who turned me on to that.

Yes, it was me - how did he like it? The vinyl version was really nice!

walrus
 

adorshki

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OK, a random "English house decor in the '60's" question - what is the "red thing" Lennon is standing on? Some kind of a mat?
walrus

Y'know I never really noticed that.
Absolutely looks like some kind of rug in the enlarged photo below
Not in evidence here, where they're shown entering their (presumably) individual houses by separate doors, only to be revealed as one single room with each one's area defined by color scheme:
help-beatles-doors-film-and-furniture-1.jpg

help-beatles-house-overview-interiors-1.jpg

John's was brown and a copy of the photo on Alamy shows the mat with a distinctly brown tint.
help-!-1965-ua-film-with-the-beatles-B3KJKH.jpg

Ringo's blue room featured built-in vending machines and was the scene of the first attempt to snatch Ringo's giant ruby ring, the central plot line of the movie.
As he reaches into the vending machine his hand is "grabbed by the machine" and he only frees it up with great difficulty:
beatles-help-blue-walls-lamp.jpg

help-beatles-blue-room-ringo-on-bed.jpg

Speaking of the whole "English house décor in the '60's" question, I found those pics in this expose of the whole set, while looking for other exterior shots:
https://filmandfurniture.com/2016/09/beatles-help/
Which reminded me of Ron Howard's "Eight Days A Week" documentary of a couple of years back.
The gentleman you thought was a Vicar BTW is the chief bad guy, "Clang" who is trying to steal Ringo's ring which is actually a sacred object needed by his cult for successful performance of their ritual human sacrifice.
Played by none other than Leo McKern, "Rumpole of the Bailey"
Who also did a mean impersonation of Walter Matthau:
qcO1TFO6SowLOQAwKRMKrqmrk6A.jpg


The movie's opening sequence features him throwing darts at a film of the Boys playing the title tune:
h-rl-03.jpg

Help-McCartney.jpg

Which was also revisited in the Monkees "official" (as opposed to the "test") pilot episode:
From here
http://monkeestv2.tripod.com/season1/pilot.html :
"In their pad, Michael can be seen pitching darts at a poster of John, Paul, George and Ringo--which is the first in a series of Beatles references on The Monkees series"
BTW< the very last episode of the Monkees opened with a sequence of a needle dropping on an LP as their alarm clock.
The tune? The rooster crowing opening of "Good Morning"
From that same site:
"The sun rises one morning, causing a suspended rope to burn and trigger a phonograph which plays The Beatles’ song “Good Morning,"....
2 John Lennon/Paul McCartney-penned Beatles tunes are heard in “Mijacogeo”: the aforementioned “Good Morning” (which, ironically, hails from the very album which bumped The Monkees' Headquarters from the top spot in 1967: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!) and "Hello, Goodbye," which is sung briefly by David Jones. Shockingly, it is "Hello Goodbye" which knocked John Stewart's "Daydream Believer" out of the #1 spot on the Billboard charts!!
 
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walrus

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You know, the glare on that "mat" by Clang's feet makes me think it is very "solid". Painted cement or something?

walrus
 

adorshki

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You know, the glare on that "mat" by Clang's feet makes me think it is very "solid". Painted cement or something?

walrus
When I blow it up 915% (seriously) on a 20" LCD monitor, it has a distinctly textured look just like the pile of a Persian rug ("red carpet", perhaps?).
There's also some kind of design going on evident by John's boot heels, a brown diamond shape in the center of a yellow stripe.
BUT there's also some kind of green line separating that yellow stripe from the brown area, and we see some of it randomly appearing on the brown section abutting the sidewalk, and possibly even in the area between what looks like "glare" but which I now think is an exposed edge of cement.
The brown and yellow could be colored stucco and the white are a section where it was chipped off the underling cement or paving stone, and the green lines could very well be the type of moss that grows in the cracks between paving stones or in weathered cement.
The weathering could explain the textured appearance of the brown area, but I don't think it's actually "painted".
Aha! A Google image search for the address shows a yellow and brown patterned walk leading up to Ringo's blue door, too.
4124465897_8c74d99bc2_b.jpg

So looks like paving stones.
 

adorshki

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Nice work, Detective Al! Thanks!
walrus

Now if could only I could get ahold of that ring.
With a ring like that, I could (dare I say it?), RULE THE WORLD!!!!

help10.jpg

09_321go.jpg

09_getemoff1.jpg


And yes it was Ringo buzzing:
vlcsnap-000301.png


And does anybody here remember Ringo in 200 Motels?

ee363fe2b93cd6ee0ae79745bcced31e.jpg


Or, for that matter, Keith Moon?
motels6.jpg
 
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Grassdog

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Seems that most people pick Sgt. Pepper or the White Album as their favorite Beatles LP, best but to me, it's always been Rubber Soul and Revolver. Not to mention the outstanding 45's they released in late '65 and '66 (Day Tripper b/w We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer b/w Rain) which weren't on the LPs.

CyjUg7Ll.jpg
[/IMG]

Rubber Soul "unstretched"
 

gjmalcyon

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Seems that most people pick Sgt. Pepper or the White Album as their favorite Beatles LP, best but to me, it's always been Rubber Soul and Revolver.

That's a nice photo - thanks for posting. Listening to the remastered Sgt. Pepper and White albums has been a treat - almost like hearing those again for the first time.

I think I agree with you about Rubber Soul - remember it was released in December of '65, and followed the release of Help! by 4 months. In my mind, Rubber Soul and Revolver marked the transition of The Lads from a live act and bar band to musicians serious about expressing themselves in the studio. After Rubber Soul you had to listen to their music with your entire brain.
 

JF-30

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200 Motels. I'm stealing the towels. Haven't seen that in a few years.
 

JF-30

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The White Album will forever by my fav. It was also the best selling album of the 60's. Not that that mattered. Its The White Album.
 

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I think I agree with you about Rubber Soul - remember it was released in December of '65, and followed the release of Help! by 4 months. In my mind, Rubber Soul and Revolver marked the transition of The Lads from a live act and bar band to musicians serious about expressing themselves in the studio. After Rubber Soul you had to listen to their music with your entire brain.

I think we got some hints of what was to come on "Help" (You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen a Face, title track) but you're spot on it was a different listening experience altogether after Rubber Soul. They sure took us for a great ride. It was a gift to grow up when they were around.
 

JF-30

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Those guys put out what like 14 albums from '62 - '70. And IMHO about 90% of the music is top notch. Revolution #9 is unlistenable to me and I don't really ever need to hear Ringo sing and some stuff here and there. MMT had some weak stuff on it.

But they didn't earn their reputation they have/had by resting on their laurels. They pushed the boundaries of what rock or pop was. Of course they did not do it alone. George Martin was a big part of the machine.
 
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gjmalcyon

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... It was a gift to grow up when they were around.

And it seems to be gift we've passed on to our kids. I plopped our daughters down in front of a VHS copy of Yellow Submarine almost 25 years ago, and they were transfixed. They are Beatles fans, too.

I am amazed and delighted about how important they continue to be, 49 years after their last album was released on this day in 1970.
 

JF-30

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There are groups or people like The Beatles, Elvis, Dylan that will transcend time and never go out of fashion. Great music is just that Great. Not just great for a few months after it is released.
 

adorshki

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Seems that most people pick Sgt. Pepper or the White Album as their favorite Beatles LP, best but to me, it's always been Rubber Soul and Revolver. Not to mention the outstanding 45's they released in late '65 and '66 (Day Tripper b/w We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer b/w Rain) which weren't on the LPs.
Me too. The timbres were getting edgier but they were still singing the 3 and 4 part harmonies.
And they were still rocking, unlike most of Pepper's .
I never really did make my peace with all the orchestration on Pepper's.
Everything after Revolver always had "Well I'll sit through this one (or even 2 or 3) to wait for the next good one..." moments for me, especially Let it Be but Abbey Road was almost as fully satisfying as Rubber Soul. (Revolver's still my absolute favorite)
I think we got some hints of what was to come on "Help" (You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, I've Just Seen a Face, title track) but you're spot on it was a different listening experience altogether after Rubber Soul. They sure took us for a great ride. It was a gift to grow up when they were around.

Don't forget "Ticket To Ride"!
And my other 2 faves from that period, George's "Only A Northern Song"; initially recorded during the Pepper's sessions but held back until the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, and "It's All Too Much" which was recorded just after completion of Pepper's.
RE the whole "Drug period" or "Psychedelic" thing:
I never really considered Pepper's to be all that "psychedelic", especially compositionally.
Really it was more about the unusual and exotic timbres (like the watery harpsichord on "Lucy") achieved during production and the colorful evocative lyrics and the idea of a thematic concept.
It occurs to me that there were 2 schools of psychedelic music evolving simultaneously:
The "English" school was inaugurated by Pepper's and marked by heavy orchestral supplementation of a rock band and evocative lyrics (Moody Blues, Procol Harum, even the Stones: "She Comes in Colors");
and the "San Francisco Sound" evolved from Mike Bloomfield's seminal "raga rock" soloing on "East West" which was quickly picked up by musicians in LA and San Francisco including the likes of the Grateful Dead who "standardized" the extended improvisational jam and the Airplane and Big Brother who dabbled in the same but also went for raw heavy overdrive and feedback timbres and those Indian-inspired modal lines.
Absolutely inspired by George's "Love You To" on Revolver, but none of those 3 would ever consider expanding the sound of the basic band with horns or strings until much later.
And the Beatles kept it to a minimum until Pepper's as well.
The Yardbirds never went full-blown orchestral although they did occasionally dabble with unusual enhancements like a harpsichord or a bowed guitar, and were absolutely a major influence on Hendrix.
The first person he wanted to meet when he got to London was Jeff Beck.
And the very first raga rock tune was quite likely "Heart Full of Soul".
Consider that their "Roger the Engineer" album was released at around the same time the Revolver sessions were occurring, and one suspects there may have been a bit of influence on our boys from that direction as well.
It contains the landmark "Over Under Sideways Down", itself a continuation of the formula that yielded "Shapes of Things" and "Mr. You're a Better Man" and the whole album is every bit as satisfying as Revolver to listen to straight through.
You've got your exotic rhythms and timbers on "Hot House of Omagarashid" and your wistful ballad with subdued feedback solos in "Turn Into Earth"; and Beck's overdriven Les Paul powering the straight-ahead rocking "What Do You Want"; analogous in feel to "Taxman" from Revolver.
Even the band I consider the absolute leaders of real "acid rock", Quicksilver Messenger Service, only used some horn arrangements on a couple of tunes on their first album and not at all on the definitive psychedelic epics, "The Fool" on the first album, and "Calvary" on Happy Trails.
Those 2 tunes exemplify what a trip is really like, a full blown journey in your mind from a starting point to someplace different, a sound painting evoking images beyond mere daily experience, not just a vignette or portrait of a character or situation circumscribed by the lyrics, as colorful as they may be.
I was always a much bigger fan of that version of "psychedelic sound", and the Beatles only hit it the hard-rocking English style of psychedelia occasionally after Revolver, and those're my favorite tunes from the later stuff.
:friendly_wink:
And oh, btw, the photo of "the boy's pad" from "Help" came from here:
https://hiveminer.com/Tags/beatles,rephotography
 
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JF-30

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Pepper was the biggest group in the world at the time taking the biggest leap forward anyone ever did in rock, and if it failed it might have ended the lads. There were people that thought they were washed up had nothing left to say. They more than proved people wrong. I still to this day get such a special feeling when I hear that LP.
 
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walrus

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Another cool thing - "Abbey Road" - what a great final album! There's aren't many (any?) bands who knew they were done and put out such a great final album. George coming into his own, John's heavy rock, Paul's "suite" on side two. Outstanding production. It's got it all. And ending with the song "The End", just to make sure we all knew it was over (no, I'm not counting "Her Majesty"). Their final musical message - "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make".

And the "guitar battle" in "Carry That Weight" - recorded live in one take! The guitars in order - Paul, George, John.

What a way to go out.

walrus
 
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