Beatles Mono Remastered

Got the Mono Box delivered the other day. I love it. The sound quality is super. Haven't heard the Stereo Box yet, but plan on getting it soon. But I'm thinking, that everything up to and including Sgt. Pepper probably sounds better in mono. There's the fuzzy period of Magical Mystery Tour and the 'White Album' where it's debatable whether the mono or stereo versions are best, but I'd probably give the nod to stereo. But why have a stereo version of Please Please Me? It's not even 'real' stereo.

And speaking of the 'White Album', the mono mix is interesting. Fewer pig grunts on 'Piggies' and no 'I got blisters on my fingers!' at the end of 'Helter Skelter'.

'The Beatles: Rock Band' Animation Sucks!

Just saw an MTV show where they played a bunch of clips from the 'Rock Band' video game thingy.

The animation is so horrible it beggars description. Nothing moves right. The way they hold their guitars is awkward, and their mouths and teeth are especially disturbing. Why anyone would want to watch this more than once out of some kind of 'isn't this awful' curiosity defies me.

The only good thing about this MTV show was that they showed some 'real' clips including the 'Hey Bulldog' video which I've never actually seen before. I've seen portions of it, and in the 'Anthology' documentary they show some of it but with 'Lady Madonna' as the song. But this was the real deal with nice shots of John and Paul singing together and I also noticed for the first time, Ringo is playing his red 'LOVE' logo bass drum from Magical Mystery Tour.

Paul on his 'Something' bass playing

I was flipping through an old 'Bass Player' mag I had laying around, and found this interesting quote from our Paul: 'I don't think George (Harrison) was too pleased with what I did on "Something" at first. I had to sell it to him!'

Wow...what was that conversation like? And how did Paul come up with the bass part? Was George there, or did Paul work on it alone and come into the studio with it? 'Something' is probably Paul's greatest bass line, and I'd like to hear more.

It proves that if people would get off the same old questions ('What was John like?', 'How did it feel playing Shea Stadium?'), he's still got lots of good stories to tell.