Boat Rides

A new video called paul is dead - the rotten apple 420 by HeweHaarlemmer is another look at an interesting picture that recently appeared at "The King Is Naked." It seems to show two (or three) Paul McCartneys. The same image was explored in Paul McCartney-Here,there,everywhere-Rotten Apples 3 by dark66horse. As in all photographic evidence, the opportunity for fakery is high and one's perceptions can be influenced by the power of suggestion. Of the three individuals who resemble Paul, only the one in the center shows a full profile. The person on the far right is wearing a jacket similar to one that Paul wore on several occasions, but his face is turned away from the camera.

Much has been made of the individual on the left with the drink in his left hand. If this was taken in 1968, it does not look much like other pictures of Paul from that time period. One individual who was very likely on that boat in 1968 would be Apple Records Executive Ken Mansfield. Notice the picture below, which shows Mansfield with similar length hair (albeit parted differently) and a drink in his left hand.



The image has prompted some good conversation at Nothing Is Real as well.

Maccaspan2008 did an excellent job on this new fan video for the song "Heaven On A Sunday."


This homemade video is very appropriate to experience in the calm before the storm. Someone asked me about this big Iamaphoney deal that is rumored to be happening within the next two months. I can tell you that I have not received any incentives to participate in any kind of rise of expectations, although that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I tend to report things after the fact (well, I guess I am using the term "fact" liberally).

So, I have not received any news, hints or rumors about a major Iamaphoney event, but my gut is telling me something different. There is definitely some activity bubbling in the world of the Beatles over the next two months. It doesn't quite feel like springtime in my neck of the woods, but I sense there is magic in the air. I heard the 10-minute version of "Revolution" on the radio yesterday!

Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go. I suggest that you stick around and do what I am doing---Hitting the chisel and making a joint, gluing my fingers together. And when the work is done, I'm cooling my fingers in the bay...


Other recent activity includes...
I am He by Sunssol.
Is Paul McCartney Dead? Conspiracy Nonsense! by beachcomberbob

The Ladders

According to Keith Badman in his book, "The Beatles After The Break-Up," Klaus Voorman and his wife Christine quietly left their home on March 20, 1971 to move into George Harrison's Friar Park mansion. The Daily Mail had reported that morning that the bass guitarist had met with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr the night before to discuss plans to record an album together.



In the same book, the entry for July 11, 1971 contains this quote from Ringo from Melody Maker: "I'll be in a group with John and George and Klaus and call it the Ladders or whatever you want to call it, but I don't think it would be called The Beatles." - Ringo.

Although the story caught fire and made worldwide news, the closest thing that ever came to a Ladders recording was the song "I'm the Greatest" on the "Ringo" album. The fifth Ladder, Billy Preston joined on that recording.

John Lennon had a tendency to look toward his wife when naming bands (e.g. Plastic Ono Band, Grapefruit) so it wouldn't be surprising if the often told story of their first meeting when John climbed a ladder, looked through a spyglass and saw the word "Yes" was the inspiration for the name "Ladders."



But the ladder concept was something John and Yoko would return to often, especially in the early 1970's. In October 1971, the WNET broadcast "Freetime," a trek with John and Yoko through various conceptual experiences, included a segment where audience members were given helmets and invited to climb to the top of a ladder and fly. There was also a ladder sequence during the track "How" in John and Yoko's 1971 Imagine movie.



We shouldn't forget that the ladder is a powerful religious symbol. Doris Troy's Apple single Jacob's Ladder refers to Genesis 28:11-19.



In a dream, Jacob sees "a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!" The ladder motif is common in many religions according to Peter Levenda in his book "Stairway to Heaven." (See related YouTube video where Levenda claims that there are seven levels. Where have I heard that before?) Actually Levenda ties the seven levels to the star cluster known as the Big Dipper or Ursa Major. Where have I heard that before?



This discussion of ladders would not be complete without a tip of the hat to Apollo C. Vermouth who repeatedly suggested that we look to Sgt. Pepper for answers.

On the cover of Sgt. Pepper we see Sigmund Freud, who believed that climbing a ladder in a dream was symbolic of the sexual act. Neo-Freudian dream interpreters have added that descending on a ladder through a fire may symbolize purification or overcommitment to something or someone. Sigmund Freud's grandson, Clement was on the cover of "Band On The Run."

Another character on the Sgt. Pepper cover composed a poem called "The Ladder." The poem quotes the Bible from Psalm 24:7 and Luke 15:18. It contains the line, "O may the Four avail me." It contains another line that says, "Dire chaos; see ! these new-fledged wings." It speaks of an "arrow" and a "shaft of fading fire."

The author of "The Ladder" was Aleister Crowley.

I realize that the last thing some people wanted was another Crowley connection. Let me just suggest that although Crowley must be part of the story, I don't think that he is any more significant than many if not all of the characters on the Sgt. Pepper cover.

Yoko Ono is still a fan of ladders.



Yoko Says: Ladders aren't just things for standing on while you remove wallpaper, they are steps that take you one bit closer to the sky.

Some new videos have appeared recently, one of which may ask the question, "Paul, why the long face?"

The Ressurection Of Paul Mccartney - Part 1 by WilliamShearsCampbel
The Ressurection Of Paul Mccartney - Part 2 by WilliamShearsCampbel

And it appears that BreadandCircusFilms is going to keep tweaking Episode Seven until they get it right. It seems they felt the Obelisks sequence dragged.

Special thanks for the help on this post. You know who you are.

Revolution Revelation

UPDATE 2: Within hours of changing the words from "seems legit" to "is legit" people started questioning the authenticity of this new found recording of Revolution. One person even went as far as to suggest it was not only phony but Phoney.

UPDATE: Psssst. Don't assume the links won't work. Whenever I find another copy of it, I change the links. I can say no more.

Chills, goosebumps and all them other wonder drugs! This previously unheard 10:47 version of Revolution is legit (maybe).


The Beatles Revolution 1 Take 20 Rare Unreleased 11min version

Here's another one.

We've heard some of this in a recording that was unfortunately ruined by Yoko's talking, but this version is clean. Many of the sounds in this take turned up in the final mix of Revolution 9. This is incredible hearing these sounds in isolation...and no less scary!

The Yoko talking version has appeared on a couple of bootlegs. It even made its way into the soundtrack of an experimental film by Cheryl Donegan from 2005 called "Old, Temporary."

But this new recording even has some Beatle experts buzzing. See the article linked below:
The Beatles: A fascinating, 10-minute 'Revolution' mysteriously appears



Get this while you can, folks. It doesn't get any better than this.

Up from Under the Radar

Some well hidden person with a keen sense of the absurd and a slight English spelling deficit has been pumping out videos for several months dealing with some of the more colorful Paul replacement theories. I haven't watched all 25 videos yet (17 of which were uploaded yesterday according to YouTube), but I am getting the sense that they support the theory that everyone in the world other than yourself is actually the same person in various disguises. You know, that might not be all that crazy.



Enjoy the work of Beatlepaulwindow

Paranormal State

It is a real rarity to find a picture of three Beatles in one place after 1969, but some do exist. There is the famous picture of Paul, George, Ringo and their wives at Ringo's and Barbara's 1981 wedding, which recently made the news when it went on tour as part of the National Portrait Gallery's Family Album Exhibition.



Here is a full color shot from the same event borrowed from norweigianwood.org.



The same three were photographed together at Eric Clapton's wedding in 1979.



The Beatles Anthology in 1995 provided the best opportunity for the "Threetles" to be photographed. This is one of the lesser known shots.



This might be the last picture ever taken of the Threetles from the year 2000.



But there are two pictures in particular where some divine intervention may have taken place. While shooting pictures for the Beatles Anthology, a white peacock happened to wander into the shot. Paul reportedly remarked, "That's John. Spooky, eh? It was like John was hanging around. We felt that all through the recording."



John's son, Julian, was spooked himself recently when he attended an Australian Aboriginal ceremony for his "Whaledreamers" film project and was handed a white feather by a tribal chief. According to Julian, John had promised him that if he died, a white feather would be a sign of his presence.

Another ghostly image was spotted by the WogBlog the other day. Back at Eric Clapton's wedding in 1979, Linda McCartney took a shot of Paul, George and Ringo with their old skiffle mentor Lonnie Donegan. Despite all of Linda's photographic experience and top of the line equipment, an apparent accidental double exposure occurred. Yes, it was just a coincidence, unless of course there is no such thing as an accident and no such thing as a coincidence. Yes, that's Paul McCartney on the left...at least that is who it is supposed to be...

Emitt Rhodes

In 1970, the same year that the album "McCartney" was released, another homemade eponymous album appeared by a new artist named Emitt Rhodes. Emitt wrote all the songs, played all the instruments and even nearly cracked the top 40 with the catchy single, "Fresh As A Daisy." Critics and fans alike wondered where this terrific singer/songwriter came from (Hawthorne, California actually) despite the fact that he had kicked around in some recording bands over the previous few years and had even appeared on American Television's "The Hollywood Palace" as the front man for the Merry-Go-Round.



You can download the entire Merry-Go-Round clip complete with an introduction by Don Knotts at Bedazzled.com. The Merry-Go-Round also appeared as performers and contestants on The Dating Game!

After the initial "Paul Is Dead" hysteria calmed down in 1970, Emitt's self-titled solo album enjoyed a brief time in the Beatles mystery spotlight. An east coast disc jockey named Barry Richards stated that Emitt Rhodes "could be the Beatles." He played the entire Emitt Rhodes album on his show and commented, "He sounds so much like the Beatles, it's unreal." Then to add to fuel to the fire, Richards said, "Now I heard about the stolen Beatle tapes, which supposedly happened about a year ago." The next thing you know, the phone lines lit up and Richards had enough of a response to convince ABC/Dunhill Records to make Emitt available for not only an on-air interview, but also a local television appearance.



In the phone interview, Emitt showed admiration for the Beatles by proclaiming, "They were the biggest influence on my music, I would imagine." Rhodes told Richards that he had done two albums, one with the Merry-Go-Round and one solo, which had not yet been released. Prophetically, Richards responded, "I'm sure [the solo album] will come out now." A&M wasted no time releasing "Emitt Rhodes - The American Dream," creating all kinds of confusion in the record buying public and putting an end to the success of the ABC/Dunhill album. Emitt was put in the awful position of having two albums competing with each other. Showing the Beatles influence, one of the tracks on "The American Dream" called "Let's All Sing" features Emitt singing "All we are saying is give peace a chance" during the fadeout.



In one interesting exchange, Richards suggested that the song "Live Till You Die" had "some reference to McCartney," which Rhodes quickly denied. He also said he read in "Melody Maker" that Rhodes gave guitar lessons to Paul McCartney. Rhodes responded with a laugh. In a particularly macabre attempt to infuse Rhodes into a Beatles mystery, Richards asked if there was a picture of a body on the back of the album. Rhodes said it was actually a piano. Richards also tried to draw a link between a tree on the Emitt Rhodes album cover and a tree on the Abbey Road cover. Later that week, Rhodes filmed two solo performances for Barry Richards' television show. He also did a new in-studio interview. By that time, Emitt was sick of discussing the Beatles associations. When Richards stumbled over his words while trying to formulate a question about a link between the Beatles and the Merry-Go-Round, Rhodes simply said, "Then let's skip it."

Emitt's followup album "Mirror" (featuring the song "Birthday Lady") failed to produce the interest of his self-titled album. To make matters worse for the fledgling artist, Rhodes signed a contract with ABC/Dunhill that was impossible to fulfill, and by 1973, he saw his career go down the tubes. His last album, "Farewell to Paradise" showed his frustration with the music business. Although he has continued to be involved in the production side of music, we have heard very little from Emitt Rhodes, the artist since 1973.

An unreleased song from 1980 appeared on the Varese Sarabande Records compilation "Listen, Listen The Best of Emitt Rhodes."



He has worked with several artists including Ray Paul, who got him to take the stage again and enlisted his help in recording the McCartney song "Oh Woman, Oh Why" for "Coming Up: Independent Artists Pay Tribute to the Music of Paul McCartney."



In the late 1990s, it looked like Emitt Rhodes was going to take a second crack at the music business with a planned solo album on Rocktopia Records, home of former Righteous Brother Bill Medley. Personal issues delayed the album and the record company went broke before it was ever released. The picture below came from the Rocktopia Records website.



He worked with Jim Boggia, who was the subject of a recent post here. In fact after completing that post, I went back and listened to my complete Emitt Rhodes collection back to front. Emitt Rhodes could possibly be my favorite recording artist after the Beatles, but he is NOT The Beatles. His voice is distinctive and easily distinguishable from McCartney's voice. But like the Beatles, Emitt had a way of crafting melodies that stayed with you.

Emitt is still around, still making music, just not releasing it. He is interested in the mathematics of music and reads physics books. When a young fan called him on the phone a few years ago, Emitt queried him on the Pythagorean Theorem before agreeing to discuss anything about music.

There are a couple websites around chronicling the music and life of Emitt Rhodes, but there have been very few updates recently. The Emitt Rhodes Music Site was maintained by Kevin Ryan, who went on to write the book, "Recording The Beatles." There is also a fan myspace site that has not been updated in several months.

Still, every few months a new "Emitt Rhodes is recording a new album" rumor surfaces. The latest one has him being backed by a slightly country-tinged band. There doesn't seem to be any definitive information about it, but it was good to see a picture of Emitt in a recording studio from 2008 on Joel Larson's webpage. Joel was most notably the drummer of the Grassroots and Lee Michaels, but he also backed Emitt in the Merry-Go-Round. That's Emitt on the far right.



It is a crime that his outstanding voice and songwriting skills have been silent all of these years. We miss you, Emitt.

Let's Rock!

UPDATE: Another new fringe video - Episode Seven by breadandcircusfilms has been revised and extended.

Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are planning to appear together at the David Lynch Foundation Benefit Concert on April 4, 2009 at Radio City Music Hall. Steve Marinucci of Examiner.com said that this information came from "informed sources."



Yes, it is always difficult to put much stock in "informed sources" but Steve does have a good track record on these things. There is nothing yet on the Official David Lynch Foundation page about this addition. The Foundation supports Transcendental Meditation and seeks to "change the world overnight" by promoting "Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace." In a related bit of good news, that gum you like is going to come back in style.

Some new videos have been released along the fringes, and the emphasis continues to be on John Lennon:

The Walrus by CultureBat

Glass Onion by S3ANL3NN0N

Dakota (sneak preview) by YouKnowMyName231



This next item comes from left field:

Here, there and everywhere - Rotten Apples 3 by dark66horse

I am not sure where exactly this next item fits, but I am told it does. At any rate it is quite good.

The Dandelion Chain by SongMuseum

I really think Iamaphoney needs to come and join this party.