Alvarortega has a YouTube channel of animated videos of Beatles (and solo) music. Really fun stuff! Read the rest

Robbo writes, "Peter Sellers recorded a series of performances, in a variety of voices, reciting the lyrics of popular Beatles songs. It is demented weirdness - and perfect in all its madness." Read the rest

Carolina Eyck performs a lovely series of Theremin Sessions, including this cover of Norwegian Wood. And she takes viewer requests:

To take part in this video project, comment or send me your suggestions for an improvisation. This can be: a) a word or sentence b) a photo, a drawing/sketch or painting of yours c) a recording of you playing your instrument d) a video of you playing your instrument I choose one suggestions every week to play an improvisation in the end of the video. Looking forward to your ideas!

Bonus video to show young people in your life: Carolina performing at age 9:

Bonus bonus: "Après un rêve" by Gabriel Fauré :

More at her site.

• Norwegian Wood - Beatles (Cover): Theremin Session #13 (YouTune / Carolina Eyck) Read the rest

As soon as Pesco posted this, I knew I had to have the minifigs, especially the nowhere man.

The LEGO Yellow submarine is now shipping!

LEGO Ideas Yellow Submarine 21306 Building Kit via Amazon Read the rest

"The Beatles’ LEGO Yellow Submarine vs. the Sea Monster," a promo video for The Beatles Yellow Submarine set due out next month. And yes, there's a Blue Meanie included. The concept for the set came from the LEGO Ideas crowdsourcing program, a submission from a fellow named Kevin Szeto:

"As an amateur musician and songwriter, I have always been drawn to the music of The Beatles," Szeto wrote. "The creation of the Yellow Submarine model was really my way of showing my affection for The Beatles, as well as trying to pay a small tribute to The Beatles phenomenon. The Yellow Submarine is bright, fun, and colourful, which also made it a good subject to translate into LEGO form."

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Enjoy this song by the Pre-Fab Four! Read the rest

In 1965, John Lennon, George Harrison, Cynthia Lennon, and Pattie Boyd were having dinner at a dentist friend's house. The dentist put LSD in their coffee without telling them first. When he revealed what he had done, John was pissed off, and rightly so. "How dare you fucking do this to us?" he said. Rolling Stone's Mikal Gilmore has the story and an animated interview with John about their first trip on LSD and the secret history of Revolver:

"It was as if we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a horror film," Cynthia Lennon said. "The room seemed to get bigger and bigger." The Beatles and their wives fled Riley's home in Harrison's Mini Cooper. (According to Bury, John and George had earlier indicated a willingness to take LSD if they didn't know beforehand that it was being administered.) The Lennons and Harrisons went to Leicester Square's Ad Lib club. In the elevator, they succumbed momentarily to panic. "We all thought there was a fire in the lift," Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1971. "It was just a little red light, and we were all screaming, all hot and hysterical." Once inside at a table, something like reverie began to take hold instead. As Harrison told Rolling Stone, "I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours."

The couples ended up at the Harrisons' home in Esher, outside London.

Samuraigutarist recorded his cover of The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" at a very slow tempo that lengthened the song to around 30 minutes. Then he sped up the video and audio 20x. The result sounds like a lovely violin version of the song.

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An exceedingly rare and historically important Beatles record sold at auction today for $110,000. The 78 RPM 10" acetate includes "Hello Little Girl," apparently the first song John Lennon ever wrote (or at least recorded). The flip side is a song Meredith Wilson wrote for the 1957 play The Music Man, titled "Til There Was You." Take a listen below. The Beatles manager Brian Epstein handwrote the label on this particular record that now belongs to an anonymous collector.

From Omega Auctions:

This unique 10" 78RPM acetate record featuring 'Hello Little Girl' on one side and 'Til There Was You' on the other was cut in the Personal Recording Department of the HMV record store on Oxford St, London. Brian Epstein had the disc cut from the Decca audition tapes before presenting it to George Martin (EMI) on 13th February 1962 in his desperate attempt to get them a recording contract. This meeting, despite Martin's initial reticence, was to eventually lead to the breakthrough they were looking for. The disc was later given to The Fourmost to record their own version of Hello Little Girl (recorded 3 July 1963) and then to Les Maguire of Gerry & The Pacemakers (recorded Hello Little Girl 17th July 1963). This is the first time it has come to the marketplace, having been tucked away in Maguire's loft until now. Epstein's handwriting on the labels reads as follows: side 1 Hullo Little Girl, John Lennon & The Beatles, Lennon,McCartney' and side 2 'Til' There Was You Paul McCartney & The Beatles'.

From George Fest: A Night To Celebrate The Music Of George Harrison that took place in L.A. in 2014. Also making the scene were Norah Jones, Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips), Dhani Harrison (George's son), Ian Astbury (The Cult), Britt Daniel (Spoon), Ben Harper, Ann Wilson (Heart), and many others. The whole event will be available next month on CD, Blu-Ray, digital download, and vinyl. Trailer below.

George Fest: A Night To Celebrate The Music Of George Harrison (Amazon)

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Ringo Starr's personal copy of The White Album, the first pressing of the album, numbered 0000001, is up for auction with proceeds going to charity. The current high bid is $55,000. From Julien's Auctions:

It has been widely known among collectors that the four members of the Beatles kept numbers 1 through 4, but it was not commonly known that Starr was given the No.0000001 album. Starr has stated that he kept this album in a bank vault in London for over 35 years. Up to this time the lowest numbered UK first mono pressing album to come to market is No.0000005, which sold in 2008 for just under $30,000. This No.0000001 UK first mono pressing owned by a member of the Beatles is the lowest and most desirable copy that will ever become available.

As the record manufacturing plant certainly had every machine available simultaneously pressing copies of this album it is impossible to say with certainty which records were truly the very first off the press, but these discs were certainly among the very first. The album covers however were numbered in sequence, insuring that this No.0000001 sleeve is the very first finished cover. The top load sleeve is in near mint minus condition and would be near mint if not for the bumped upper right front gatefold corner, but it is overall very clean and fresh with very minor abrasions.

"RINGO STARR'S UK 1st MONO PRESSING WHITE ALBUM NO.0000001" (Julien's Auctions)

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See sample pages from this book at Wink.

In 1964, Italian photographer Emilio Lari was 24, newly arrived in London and looking for work. Back in Rome, he’d shot promotional stills on the set of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, starring Sofia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, and for The Bobo, featuring Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland.

Now he was hoping to do the same in Britain. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for him to hear about a new film just going into production: A cheap black-and-white comedy meant to cash in on that latest fad, the Beatles. Lari went around to see the film’s director, Sellers’ old friend Richard Lester, and got invited to the first day of shooting. He was on the set of A Hard Day’s Night only that day, but Lester liked his photos and invited him to do more work on his next film, which turned out to be the Beatles’ Help!

In vivid color and crisp black and white, this book shares dozens of the results. There are great candid and posed shots of the Beatles, many unseen for years or never published, throughout. Musicians will enjoy the close-up images of the band with its famed guitars: George Harrison with his Gibson acoustic, John Lennon with his Rickenbacker, Paul McCartney with his violin-shaped Hofner bass. We’ve seldom seen these instruments so closely and looking so shiny and new. The same is true for the pictures of the Beatles themselves. They look so young, fresh and lively that it’s hard to believe the pictures are more than 50 years old. Read the rest

In 1960 a Liverpool band called the Silver Beatles asked Pete Best to join them as drummer. Best was already in a band called the Blackjacks, but he took the gig and for the next two years he played with the band (which eventually dropped "Silver" from its name). When the band auditioned with Decca, Best played drums on the first recording of "Love Me Do." Things went downhill quickly from there, writes Maggie Malach of Mental Floss: Read the rest

Parent-child bonding, done so right.

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Photographer and food artist Henry Hargreaves created images from The Beatles's Yellow Submarine out of gelatin. Read the rest

Guitarist Randy Bachman (Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive) explains how he figured out the famously mysterious opening chord to the Beatle's 1964 song "A Hard Days's Night."

Previously: HOWTO play the opening chord from 'A Hard Day's Night'

[via] Read the rest

It's a kind of Grey Album 2.0: Beatles songs mashed up with KRS-One, Kool Moe Dee, Salt-n-Pepa, Nas, Rakim, WuTang, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys and many others -- get it before the censorship campaign kicks in! Read the rest