Amazing Lost Pictures Of The Attack On Pearl Harbor
A READER writes of pictures of Pearl Harbor found on an old Brownie Camera:
Isn’t it amazing how a film could last so long in a camera without disintegrating? Fantastic photos taken 68 years ago. Some of you will have to go to a museum to see what a Brownie camera looked like? Here is a simple picture of what we are talking about. . .
Posted: 2nd, October 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
AS The Beatles go virtual reality and we get the chance to join the band, Ed Barrett picks 14 tracks of neglected Beatles gems:
Back in the early 1960s, popular music (or “the pops” as it was known) was a singles game. Albums (or “LPs” as they were known) were created by the simple expedient of slapping on a couple of already released hits and padding out the rest with assorted rubbish, often composed by managers and producers in order to earn “song-writing” royalties.
Keith Richards (or “Keith Richard” as he was then known) described them as “two hits and ten pieces of shit”. Then came the Beatles’ first LP: “Please Please Me, Love Me Do and 12 other songs”. But this was different: two hits, some classy covers of other people’s hits, and a bunch of potential hits for other acts to nick. The formula was changed at a stroke, and pop music would never be the same again.
The Beatles continued to release best-selling singles (and how) and their albums set new benchmarks of creativity and quality. So prolific was their output that the LPs often contained no singles at all.
Most groups would have killed for 45s like I Saw Her Standing There, All My Loving, Eight Days A Week, Yesterday, Drive My Car and the rest. Yet the Beatles were happy to use them as album tracks, alongside all the other idiosyncratic and innovative songs with which they delighted their fans and kept the competition guessing.
Now that their catalogue has been re-mastered in mono and stereo, attention is once again focussed on Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day In The Life, and all the usual suspects. So here instead, for your listening pleasure, is a 14-track album’s worth of neglected Beatles gems. As the song says, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
Ed Barrett
P.S. I Love You
(Please Please Me, 1963)
Written by Paul McCartney in Hamburg two years earlier, this was chosen for the group’s EMI audition. Created to fit the prevailing pop template, it nevertheless demonstrates the distinctive Lennon-McCartney style that would flower over the next year.
All I’ve Got To Do
(With The Beatles, 1963)
A good example of how, when the Beatles copied other people, they ended up creating something different in the process. Their first two LPs included several R&B and Tamla-Motown covers, and this is a clear attempt by John Lennon to write a song on the style of the writers he admired, such as Smokey Robinson and Arthur Alexander, whose Anna (Go To Him) had appeared on the first album.
Till There Was You
(With The Beatles, 1963)
Paul McCartney’s sense of musical tradition is often seen as evidence of his tendency towards blandness and sentimentality. But this sensibility – when balanced with his many other qualities – was an important part of the Beatles’ appeal. It increased the scope of their music, taking it to places where others feared to tread, and Sgt Pepper would have been impossible without their willingness to experiment with all kinds of musical genres. This beautifully understated interpretation of Meredith Willson’s Broadway show tune sees Paul at his most controlled.
Don’t Bother Me
(With The Beatles, 1963)
The first George Harrison composition to appear on record, and one of the best. His typically deadpan voice is perfectly suited to this idiosyncratic but hypnotic tune.
I’ll Be Back
(A Hard Day’s Night, 1964)
A downbeat ending to the album-of-the-film-of-Beatlemania. Though structurally unconventional, it appears completely natural – a feature of Lennon’s most interesting compositions. Had it appeared a year later, it might have received the attention it deserves.
Every Little Thing
(Beatles For Sale, 1964)
Sung by Lennon, and melodically and lyrically a typical Lennon song. All of which shows how wrong you can be, as it was in fact a McCartney composition, written as a prospective single. Eventually consigned to side two of one of their least regarded albums, it has remained there ever since.
You Won’t See Me
(Rubber Soul, 1965)
The nonchalance of the performance is in marked contrast to the desperation of the subject matter – and the result is wonderful. Classic mid-period Fab Four: the cool “ooh-la-la-las” of the backing singers are a Beatle-ism every bit as recognisable as the enthusiastic “yeah, yeahs” and “ooohs” of two years earlier. Steve Harley would use the same device to profitable effect a decade later on his smash Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me).
I’m Looking Through You
(Rubber Soul, 1965)
A good example of McCartney’s craftsmanship. The original version (available on Anthology 2) was an attractive but slightly ponderous mid-tempo number with a hole at its centre. At the last minute, McCartney added a sprightly middle eight which fits perfectly and leads seamlessly into the following verse. The whole thing was thus invigorated, resulting in a perfectly formed pop song.
Rain
(Single, 1966; also Mono Masters, Past Masters)
Recorded with its A-side Paperback Writer during the Revolver sessions, this LSD-drenched sonic assault gave warning of what was to come – backward tapes and all. Lennon’s gratingly harsh vocal provides the template for Liam Gallagher.
Fixing A Hole
(Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
This plangent marijuana-fuelled meditation was recorded in the company of a man who had knocked on McCartney’s door hours earlier, claiming to be Jesus Christ. Picks up where Paul’s interlude in A Day In The Life left off. “Somebody spoke and I went into a dream…”
Flying
(Magical Mystery Tour, 1967)
Speaking of which, this pleasing instrumental “dream sequence” from the Beatles’ misunderstood movie has undergone various trippy remixes over the years, and now makes a comfortable living as atmospheric TV background music.
It’s All Too Much
(Yellow Submarine, 1969; also Mono Masters, Past Masters)
More drugs. This Harrison epic was recorded in the early summer of 1967 just before All You Need is Love, and features a similar extended fade-out, replete with snatches of other songs (in this case the Merseys’ Sorrow). It would have fitted perfectly on Magical Mystery Tour, but ended up on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album two years later. “All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece but no too much.” A delicious slice of British psychedelia.
Two Of Us
(Let It Be, 1970)
The bad-tempered sessions for the album that would eventually be known as Let It Be were mainly taken up with dismal Beatle originals and plodding versions of old rock’n’roll standards. This airy, optimistic tune was a welcome exception.
You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
(Single, 1970; also Mono Masters, Past Masters)
An important element of the Beatles’ character was their sense of humour. An early amateur recording featured a girl with a National Health eyeball, and their fan club Christmas records were full of clowning, yet this skit on northern clubs is the only fully-fledged comedy number in their commercial catalogue. It features Brian Jones [well, was he?] of the Rolling Stones, who also helped with the sound effects on the band’s novelty hit Yellow Submarine.
Recorded in 1967, it eventually appeared in truncated form as an incongruous B-side to the group’s portentous final single, Let It Be. By then Jones was dead and the Beatles were history. Listening today, the amusingly incoherent ramblings from around the 3.40 mark bear an uncanny resemblance to the Fast Show’s “I was ve’y ve’y drunk”.
The Beatles albums are released by EMI. They are available individually in stereo, and collectively in mono and stereo box sets
Posted: 18th, September 2009 | In: Flashback | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
ANORAK flashes back to trad jazz:
LEAFLETS? Check. Placard? Check. Amonia? Check. Euphonium? Check.
Cometh the hour, cometh the trad jazz band. This is the iron law of public campaigning. No sooner is a committee formed, than the jazzers turn up like the bent coin in Humphrey Lyttelton’s Bad Penny Blues. Look, there they are – behind the man on stilts.
It is egotism, not idealism, that drives them, which is why they will happily offer their services to anything from a church fête to a sex offenders’ convention.
Posted: 4th, August 2009 | In: Flashback, Media | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Taliban Behead Children By Big Ben Tribute
TO mark the 150th anniversary of Big Ben, a new piece of music based on the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme has been recorded.
The tune uses 200 bells from the 17 London churches named in the full version of the rhyme.
Composer Benjamin Till sets to music a work first published in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book in 1744.
Anorak commends the tune to the Anorak Ringing Sonority, who have taken time out from playing the sound effects to Disney’s Heidi The Musical to enjoy the new instrumental.
In light of the modern songs, Anorak now believes Oranges and Lemons (aka Five a Day) has a new game to go with it.
Posted: 10th, July 2009 | In: Flashback, Media | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Ashes In Pictures: A Brief History Of Smoking, Drinking And Cricket
THE Ashes are underway and with it goes a rich history of England- Australian rivalry, smoking and drinking. Anorak presents a brief history of The Ashes in pictures:
Posted: 9th, July 2009 | In: Flashback, Sports | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Alternative Album Art: The Who And Susan Boyle
Alternative Album Art - No. 2: Who’s Next And Susan Boyle
The Susan Boyle debate rages on. Will she need a makeover before the album comes out? Did she succeed despite or because of her unorthodox appearance? (Unorthodox by the constrictive standards of our celebrity culture, we hasten to add.) And so on and so on…
Back in the Sixties, record companies were still in the habit of putting pretty white girls on record covers, especially if the artist who recorded the music was black.
Otis Blue by Otis Redding was just one notorious example.
Posted: 3rd, July 2009 | In: Flashback, Media | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Best Communist Russia Album Covers
BEFORE the Iron Curtain rusted away, the Russian pop music scene was as vibrant as a Moscow hooker’s eyeliner. Look out for moustache power ballads, Susan Boyle and the Russian Cliff Richard:
Posted: 23rd, June 2009 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism, Strange But True | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Politics And Alcohol Part One:
“ME. Churchill enjoys a drink,” remarked the great statesman’s former private secretary in Life magazine.
“At home or on travel, at work or on holiday, Churchill drinks a glass of dry sherry at mid-morning and a small bottle of claret or Burgundy at lunch. To Mr. Churchill a meal without wine is not a meal at all. When he is in England he sometimes takes port after lunch, and always after dinner. It is
at this time that his conversation is most brilliant. In the late afternoon he calls for his first whisky and soda of the day…. He likes a bottle of champagne at dinner. After the ritual port, he sips the very finest Napoleon brandy. He may have a highball in the course of the evening.”
Churchill drank heavily throughout his not unsuccessful career. It is said that Conservative bigwig Rab Butler used to pour his own drinks into his shoe to keep up.
Posted: 15th, June 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
How Lancashire Football Took Over The National Game
BURNLEY’S return to the top flight of English football was highly symbolic.
First, it came perfectly in time for the half-century commemoration of the legendary Clarets side that won the first division championship in 1960. (That’s the proper national title, by the way, not the puffed-up division three that calls itself “League One”.)
Secondly, it brings the total number of Lancashire clubs in the Premier League to eight. That’s an extraordinary 40 per cent.
Thirdly, it came at the expense of Sheffield United, who, by finishing third in the second tier of English football, hold the distinction of being Yorkshire’s 
second best team, above local rivals Sheffield Wednesday, and the county’s most recent national champions Leeds United, whose own play-off defeat leaves them languishing in the third tier for another year. Hull clung on to Premier status by the skin of their teeth, making them Yorkshire’s top dogs for another season.
In the past 50 seasons, starting with Burnley’s historic triumph, and finishing with Manchester United’s latest title, Lancashire clubs have won the national championship no fewer than 33 times. In that period, Yorkshire 
clubs - or rather one Yorkshire club - have won just three. (Leeds United in 1969, 1974 and 1992. They are also the only Yorkshire club to win it since the war.)
Of course, Yorkshire has fared no worse than many other counties. In fact it is one of the most successful historically, with Huddersfield Town and the two Sheffield sides winning eight titles between them in all.
But the gulf between the two sports-mad counties is quite remarkable nevertheless.
You might argue that a large amount of Yorkshire’s sporting energy is channeled into rugby league. And you would be right. Over the last 50 sea
sons the national championship has been won an impressive 23 times by Yorkshire clubs.
… And 27 times by teams from Lancashire.
Close, as they say, but no cigar.
Ed Barrett
Posted: 28th, May 2009 | In: Flashback, Sports | Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Beatles Butchered: How The Beatles Were Carved Up
THE Beatles albums are the cornerstones of the popular music canon. Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul… They sold in their millions all over the globe.
In America, however, things were very different. The group’s early material was owned by different labels, leading to an unseemly scramble as different Beatles singles were released in competition with each other.
Posted: 25th, May 2009 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comments (7) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
The Greatest Ever 4-Eyed Footballers
THE Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue” tells the tale of a man whose father gave him a girl’s name in order to toughen him up –
the reasoning being that he would be taunted mercilessly and forced to defend himself.
The former Manchester United and England footballer Nobby Stiles puts forward a similar explanation for his development as a hard man of the tough-tackling terrier variety. With a name like Norbert, he didn’t have much choice. It probably didn’t help that he was a speccy little herbert. Or, if you prefer, a four-eyed midget.
Posted: 11th, May 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Football: A History Of The Throw In
Throwbacks: The loneliness of the long-distance launcher - Anorak’s look at the football throw in.
SHOULD the long throw-in be banned from football? That, believe it or not, is a discussion that has cropped up among those fans dismayed by the havoc wreaked by Stoke City’s Rory Delap this season. Premier League defences have been unable to cope with the bombardment, and so up goes the cry ‘Foul!’
Posted: 8th, May 2009 | In: Flashback, Sports | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Adare’s Anglians Save Capello’s England
ENGLAND went to the 1970 World Cup as defending champions. They had a better team than in 1966, and were one of the favourites to win the tournament.
In the event they played very well in the group match against the eventual champions Brazil, and should have won. Then they threw away a 2-0 lead in the quarter-finals against West Germany, through a combination of uncharacteristic defending errors and misjudged substitutions.
Posted: 2nd, April 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Media | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
STARTING Anorak’s new series - book cover of the day.
Posted: 30th, March 2009 | In: Flashback, Media, Photojournalism | Comments (6) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
IT is ten years since the Royal Navy Field Gun Competition was last run at the Royal Tournament.
But to all who saw it, it will live long on the memory. It was the last word in extreme sports – to get into the Portsmouth, Devonport or Fleet Air Arm team you needed the strength of a rugby league player, the fighting sprit of a pit bull terrier, and no little skill and coordination.
Posted: 20th, March 2009 | In: Flashback | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Flashback: Norman Saunders S&M Bazooka Porn And Battle Cards
BACK in 1965 there was only one game in town for a five-year-old with 2d burning a hole in his pocket. It was down to the sweet shop for a wax-paper packet of Battle cards – three lurid paintings accompanied by a flat rectangular strip of Bazooka bubble gum.
Posted: 9th, March 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Media | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Get ‘Em Off! The Nostalgia-Proof British Sex Comedy
WE British are scorned by the world for our attitude to sex. Unsophisticated, unromantic, unimaginative, unattractive, unhygienic, inhibited and generally inept – these are the characteristics that spring to the foreign mind when forced to think of our men as potential partners.
And judging by the evidence of the Great British Sex Comedy, you can see why.
Posted: 28th, February 2009 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Birmingham’s Supporting Feature, With Telly Savalas And Baim
AND now for our supporting feature…
Old Mr Anorak has happy memories of Birmingham, where he lived for a while in the 1980s. He remembers particularly fondly the friendly people and the dry sense of humour, as epitomised by the smutty and amusing ads for the local beer.
His memories of other aspects of Brum are less fond, however. He was left cold by New Street Station, and even colder by the Bull Ring – a sixties concrete shopping centre full of run-down market stalls, with a noisy motorway overhead.
Others begged to differ, though.
Posted: 17th, February 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Media | Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Oh Carol Thatcher, Oh Golly: A Brief History Of The Golliwog
CAROL Thatcher’s “golliwog” remark has put the issue into the news for the first time in forty years.
I’m sorry, I’ll start again.
Carol Thatcher’s “golliwog” remark has put the issue into the news for the first time in four months. As recently as October 2008 the Enid Blyton shop was under attack for stocking gollies. And in four months’ time another golly non-story will probably come along
Posted: 8th, February 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Media | Comments (29) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
Nightmare On Fleet Street: Action And Battle In The Comic Books
HALF a century ago, an influx of lurid American horror comics prompted a major backlash in 1950s Britain. The Christian philosophy of The Eagle set the scene for a new generation of comics for boys, in which clean-cut heroes triumphed over clear-cut baddies, and wholesome youngsters had good clean fun. Rip-roaring adventures were had by all, and everything was solved up in time for tea.
By the end of the 1960s, however, papers like The Eagle and Victor were looking a bit tired, and more aggressive comics like Warlord and Battle moved in to replace them. In one sense they were even more old-fashioned, dominated as they were by the Second World War; but their style was more modern and aggressive. Their subsequent success prepared the ground for the most controversial comic of recent times: the visceral and violent Action, which first hit the streets in February 1976.
Posted: 26th, January 2009 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Media | Comments (4) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed:RSS 2.0
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