Beatles

Dateline: Beverly Hills, July 20, 2010. 

Brian Wilson stands on the porch of his house, watching his guest climb awkwardly from the rental car and limp/gambol up the walk. "Hey, Brian!" the guy calls. Brian waves. "You better come inside," he says. "It's a hot one." 

The subject of the moment is his about-to-be-released album, "Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin," which paradoxically sounds more like Brian than a lot of his more recent records of original songs. He's always excited to sell his new work, but this time he seems extra-proud of himself. Unsaid, but real: He didn't dog it this time. He threw himself into the project, really put his own, personal, 21st century stamp on the arrangements and, particularly his vocals, which aren't perfect, per se, except for that they're so tuned in; so full of emotion; such a vivid representation of his quirky, tormented, beautiful mind. 

Brian points to his teleivision. "Have you ever seen this show?" he asks. "This stuff is amazing. I love this how."

Point of fact: The screen is black. 

But so what?: He's listening to one of those cable music stations, this one is all oldies from the '60s. Unlikely shit, too, like Paul Revere b-sides, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, on and on. When Brian tunes into the sound - as he will occasionally, holding up a finger to stop the conversation -- he stares fixedly at the black screen while the music plays. What's he seeing? We'll never know. Something beautiful, I suspect.

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Peter Doggett's new book about the end of the Beatles, "You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup," is out now, and while I haven't read it yet, let's just assume it's truly interesting and cool and extremely well done, if only because it's truly unfair to assume anything else.

But then I read this review in Businessweek, and bristled at the critics' analysis/deconstruction of the book/story, in which the entire gothic tale gets reduced to a series of personality flaws and corporate mismanagement, as if the artistic/personal/passionate bonds between Lennon, McCartney & friends were more or less akin to, say, the Time, Inc/AOL disaster.

"Imagine what the Fab Four could have raked in over the years if they had behaved more like their rivals, the Rolling Stones, and not let their personal indulgences and adolescent resentments drive them apart," critic Hugo Lindgren harumphs.

Well, sure. But there are so many things wrong with that sentence (e.g., the Stones as "rivals," e.g. Apple to the Fabs' Microsoft) you want to toss the whole thing against the wall, hard, and turn on the TV.

Again, I'm not going to offer a word on Doggett's actual book/thinking/argument, but Lindgren's boil-down version (proposing variations of the Evil Yoko theory; the evil Linda theory; the evil Klein theory; the crazy John theory; the power-hungry Paul theory) presents a corporate-friendly reductionism that offers basically no insight into the reality of the situation.

First things first: Here's a really funny look back at the career of the Beatles, from the year 3000. Check out the frog emperor.

More reviews of PMAL popping up hither and yon, along with stray mentions as in this marijuana culture piece in Seattle's City Arts magazine.

The end of the year always puts me in mind of Dennis Wilson, whose sad, glorious, star-crossed life ended this week in 1983. A great songwriter in his own right, and the brother of Brian. Amazing.

In case you didn't infer this already, from the Bruce-centric postings of these last few months, here's the news: The next book is already up and running, or at least in the early stages: A biography of Bruce Springsteen, also for Simon & Schuster. Much more work to come on that one. It may take a little while. But there it is, and if you have any thoughts, ideas, suggestions or sources to pass on....well, by all means. Reach me, as ever, at: peteramescarlin@gmail.com

And on that note. . . . Happy 2010.

Note: I wrote this for Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Live Wire" radio show. It aired on Saturday, and you can find the podcast, and more information about the show, here.

The first thing we did was have an argument. 

This was before the music started, before the animation lit up the TV screen, before we’d even attached the toy guitars and drums to the shiny white box that would allow us to spend the weekend pretending to be the Beatles. 

“Put that down! You do NOT know what you’re doing!” Anna, who is 14 years old snapped to Teddy, her 11-year-old brother, who shot back instantly. “Shut UP!” he wailed. And I’m pretty sure he was coming up with something even better when both kids turned  on their 7-year-old brother, who had started pounding on the pretend drums with the pretend drum sticks.  

“MAX!” they shrieked in an uncanny unison. “LEAVE THAT ALONE!”

This was when I dove in, as all good dads must, bellowing that they ALL needed to be quiet, and fast, or else I was going to unhook the whole goddamn thing and take it RIGHT BACK to where it came from.

Now, look. I understand that that was an unproductive, and arguably damaging, way to restore family order. But it was also the moment that made me believe that the four of us really could step into the Beatles’ boots for a weekend. Because that was when I heard the echo of Ray Connolly’s voice.

Ray’s a writer I met in London last year when I was digging up information about Paul McCartney. And he knew what he was talking about, because he’d really been there, from the stoney filming of “Magical Mystery Tour” in the summer of 1967 to the grim, prolonged break-up in 1969 and early 1970. He hung out with the Beatles at work and at home, and came away with a significant realization.

The first thing you need to know about the Beatles, he told me, is that they were   a very normal, very dysfunctional British family. 

Each bandmember, Ray explained, played his own archetypical role: John was the ne’er do well father; Paul was the hard-working mother who held everything together; George was the clever, slightly surly adolescent; and Ringo was the adored baby brother in the corner, playing happily with his toy aeroplane. 

“You could tell they loved each other,” Ray said. “Just like they made each other miserable.”

Pub Date Approaches! Advance Sales ROCK! Ordering PMAL now would be SUCH a killer thing to do!

November 3 is the big date. Here in the USA, anyway. Your country (Venezuela's in the house. . . don't think I didn't notice) may vary. But here's the deal: I'm really hoping to give this sucker an epic launch. The best possible thing to insure this happens would be for you, and everyone you know (and lots of people you don't, but let's just leave that alone) went to Amazon, Powell's, BN.Com, Borders, or wherever you like to buy books in advance, and clicked the 'buy' button. Repeatedly, even. Think of the kids! The neighbors! Perfect strangers! Because then we'll get Paul's story (my version of it, at least) riding high in the eastern horizon. Or something.

Check the Amazon and Powell's click-throughs on the right side of this screen. 

You can also try: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Paul-Mccartney/Peter-A-Carlin/e/9781416562092/?itm=1&usri=peter+ames+carlin

And also: http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=1416562095

So thanks. A lot. I really appreciate it.

If you can figure out why the Beatles decided to stop working on this tune and stuck with "For You, Blue" during the "Get Back" sessions, just let me know. 

Related questions: Why did those same Beatles (minus one) keep this full-band rehearsal in the can, while releasing George's solo demo of "ATMP" on "Anthology 3"? And what about the album's worth (at least) of rough-but-spirited-and-at-times-extremely-cool rehearsals/jams/etc. from "Get Back" that are still sitting around unreleased? 

And there's more.

Check out John's "Watching Rainbows" 

Remember what I wrote yesterday about the "Daily Show"'? Then I saw this. Never mind. Plus did I make clear that I never stopped loving "TDS"? I just felt a little guilty about it. For a minute. Then I stopped.

Finally caught up with Fox's "Glee" last night. Take "Freaks and Geeks" fold in "Ugly Betty" and there you are. It's really lovely: sweet, quirky, off-beat. Also: the gayest scripted show on primetime. Bar none. Including the fashion shows. Rivaling, if not quite eclipsing "Queer Eye." Even the straight characters are basically gay. At least when it comes to the various cultural stereotypes, etc (showtunes, singing and dancing, dressing well, being nice). A whole hour of sweet-natured dramedy about social outcasts who sing? I love Fox for doing this. This is how they make up for "Moment of Truth" and all that other soul-killing crap. Not sure if it's a total karma-kleanser but they'll find that out later.

 Here's a piece I did for the Times of UK, talking to Brian Wilson about his love of "Rubber Soul." Famously, the album that inspired him to make "Pet Sounds." Which in turn inspired the Beatles to make "Sgt. Pepper," which didn't really have anything to do with "Smile," since BW was working on that in L.A. when the Fabs were recording "SP" in London, but whatever.