What A Week!

I happened to be lucky enough to get the box set of Beatles Remasters at a real store on Wednesday, 09-09-09. Several people I know were shut out as early as 11:00 a.m. in my neck of the woods. I insisted on making a ritual out of it, so I am listening in chronological order. I have made it up to Revolver so far. Congratulations to those of you who had the time to listen to all of them already and my heart goes out to those who still don't have them in your possession.

I knew as soon as I heard "Please Please Me" that I was embarking on a happy trip. Yes, I would have preferred that they had remixed the stereo albums, but overall the sound is excellent. A good example is "Got To Get Into My Life." I almost felt I needed to duck out of the way of the trombone slide. Yet it was frustrating that even though I could hear Ringo's outstanding drumming on the track, I had to pretend that it was louder and centered in the mix instead of way off to the side and way too low. Same thing with the vocals on the early albums that are restricted to one channel. The liner notes nearly apologize for their placement on the stereo mixes. But it is still a peak experience hearing these tracks in the best fidelity ever. And thankfully, I can no longer say that the Anthology outtakes sound better than the released versions.

On the same day that I was blissing out about having the Remasters in my hands, Iamaphoney released an excellent new video.



Rotten Apple 77 focuses on an interview that Roby Yonge (one of the DJs who broke the Paul Is Dead story in 1969) did with with John Paul Roberts on June 13, 1995.

For a contribution (not to me--to them) you can hear the entire interview at ReelRadio.

Yonge was fired for his late night rumor mongering, although the "Bon Voyage" article flashed in RA 77 had nothing to do with that. You can find an excellent review of Yonge's career, including the "Bon Voyage" article and a recap of his encounter with Paul Is Dead lore at this Roby Yonge dedication web site.

The video uses interview footage with both Larry Kane and Denny Laine that could have been done at that Beatles Convention a couple years ago. And I'll tell ya, when I saw the cryptic statement from another DJ, Russ Gibb just before the two minute mark of RA 77, I freaked.

I know that a lot of us have been speculating that The Nutters, a group that has been putting out videos under the name LEWlSCARROLL, might have been at the helm of the Iamaphoney video team at some point. Their videos are interesting, and similar in style to our grand hero, but Rotten Apple 77 shows superior editing in my opinion. The Nutters latest video is Inside the org:9 The Nutcase 09:09:09.

Yet another spectacular event of the past week was the return of our dear friend Grandfather Aleister. He is back releasing videos under the name 999nowhereman and even received a Welcome Back message from his royal highness Iamaphoney himself, really. He has returned in wonderful form with a new video called Paul is Dead - 999.



Special thanks to my funny friend for giving me the heads up on GFA's return.

Now, another BIG thing that was supposed to happen this week was the release of a new Iamaphoney bootleg from MikeNL1038. Mike did release a new video called paul is dead - nothing is real 6, but I haven't been rocking to Iamaphoney yet.

Was the bootleg ever released, Mike? I would love to hear it. Some of the clips in Mike's video iamaphoney - the right album bootleg 03-10-09 promo were of significantly greater audio fidelity than the corresponding Rotten Apple videos. I don't know the reason for the delay, but I hope it has nothing to do with my own delay in putting out the message from the man who had the gun to my head. I told him I was very busy, but here it is:

"The RA bootleg is a bootleg.
The RA bootleg contains soundtracks from The Rotten Apple Series
and rare demotracks from the upcoming The Right Album
NOT AN APPLE CORPS LTD PRODUCTION."

Seriously, I am sorry that I was unable to post anything on 09-09-09. I certainly had every intention to do so, but other priorities resulted in me not even being able to open my Remasters Box until the following day. I am feeling as rushed lately as Derek Taylor must have felt when he penned the liner notes to Nilsson's Pussycats album.

Don't forget that this wonderful week is not over yet. Tuesday, September 15, should see the release of Ringo Starr - Soundstage on DVD. It would be good if his Official Website mentioned it.



And if that's not enough for you, Sunssol, EliasCrowe, AdmiralAlbert, and yenohpehttonmai uploaded new videos this week as well.

Has it not be a banner week for crackpots like you and me?