Friday, October 30, 2015

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" Remix 1

On February 01 1967, it was time to record what would become the theme song to the new LP, entitled "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". The backing for the song consisted of the Beatles playing their usual instruments from the early days including Ringo on drums, John and George on electric guitars and Paul on electric bass. The bass was plugged in direct rather than going through an amp.
Nine takes were attempted before everyone was satisfied.
On February 02 1967 ( all of which took place in studio two of EMI, including the backing), the vocals were added to take nine bringing up to take ten. Paul recorded his main vocal and the harmonies were also added in the chorus section on this night.
The results were mixed into mono and put on an acetate as a reference. At this point, the introductory guitar is not yet added, the brass is also not added and the ending is extended before editing. The remix can be found on the bootleg CD "Acetates" on the Yellow Dog label. I've added a version from youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAVKEee8b7s


Saturday, October 24, 2015

"Good Morning Good Morning" demo

During the time period of January 1967 it was common for John Lennon and Ringo Starr to get together and fart around with Lennon's recording and musical equipment at John's house "Kenwood" simply to amuse themselves.
It was during a time like this that a demo tape of one of the upcoming songs for the new LP - at the time untitled - was produced by John Lennon at his home.
John sits at his mellotron and plays the (now) familiar tune "Good Morning Good Morning" with lyrics and melody all intact.
Two verses are sung along with one line of the chorus: "Good Morning" and the first middle eight section. The timing of the song is slightly different than what would be arranged for the final version appearing on the "Pepper" LP.
The demo version of the song can be found on bootleg vinyl as "The Lost Lennon Tapes Volume Four" taken from the popular radio show and also on the bootleg CD "The Lost Pepperland Reel".
Here's a listing for it from youtube. Enjoy !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO9WDHas3gI


Saturday, October 17, 2015

"A Day In the Life"-RM1

One of my favourite remixes (if there is such a thing) for demo purposes was conducted on January 20 1967 at EMI Studio Two in London. The Beatles had performed the completed rhythm track the previous day with added vocals, some piano, Paul's vocal in the middle section of the song as well as Paul's bass and Ringo's drums (an early version of such).
You will also note that most of the overdubs on this remix would eventually be replaced with better performances as time went on. The middle bars where the orchestral climax would later be added are bare in this version with Beatles' assistant Mal Evans counting out the bars and setting an alarm clock that would ring at the end of the count - this part is kept in on the final version.
Paul's vocal is not perfect and he screws up the final lyric which causes a laugh and a curse word - "shit!". There is also no ending to the song yet in that the final chord has yet to be added to the song.
This version can be found on various bootleg LPs such as "Foretaste", "1967" and "Classified Document" as well as the bootleg CD "Acetates".
I've included some of the remix from "youtube" although the very first part originates from the making of "Sgt. Pepper" special and is then spliced onto the remaining demo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evNHVHx9BPw


Saturday, October 10, 2015

"A Day In The Life" - Take 1

The Beatles entered Studio 2 at EMI on January 19 1967 in order to start work on a new composition for their as yet untitled upcoming LP. The song was "A Day In The Life Of..." written jointly by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The beginning and ending were John and the middle section was written by Paul. Both tunes were pulled together and held by an overdub of ascending notes of various instrument of an orchestra.
However, on this day, the first take consisted of John performing his vocal and playing acoustic guitar, Paul on the piano, George on the Maraca and Ringo on the bongos although there are photos of John at the piano and Paul at the organ. At the beginning of the take before the count-in you can hear an organ chord being played.
The take can be heard with John counting in the song as "sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy" mumbled twice. This version is not very long and I can't find it on "youtube" to give you a sample, but it can be found on the bootleg LP "Arrive Without Travelling" and on bootleg CD as "Arrive Without Aging".

Saturday, October 3, 2015

"Penny Lane" Mixes

It get pretty weird when you start to log on and write about mixes of particular song. I suppose this is Beatles information that some of us enjoy since a lot of us want to have as many variations in our collection as possible. Let me try to sort this out a bit:
First off, it was decided by the Beatles (mainly Paul) that the solo in the song would be played through a piccolo trumpet similar to one that Paul - the composer of the song -  had heard on the BBC 2's "Masterworks" series. The solo and a coda was played by David Mason and added to the the third track of the four track tape. The woodwind instruments were taken out but the previous brass was left in the choruses. Mixing of the song was attempted once the overdubs were completed.
On January 17 1967 in Studio 2 at EMI, George Martin and company mixed the song in three attempts with the last attempt being sent to North America and Capitol Records used this mix on their promotional singles. This mix uses the trumpet coda at the end of the song. (RM11).
One week and a day later on January 25, further mono mixes were attempted and this time the trumpet coda was removed from the song and copies of this mix (RM14) were sent to North America and Capitol Records with the instructions to use this mix for the commercial single.
"Penny Lane" was not mixed nor stereo until after the break up of the group. The commercial version on North America's Capitol LP "Magical Mystery Tour" originally had the song in duophonic or in fake stereo with the highs in one speaker and the lows in the other speaker. The true stereo mix was completed in 1971 and first used on the West Germany Apple LP "Magical Mystery Tour". The current commercial CD also uses this stereo mix.
In 1980, the stereo version with a dubbed section at the end for the original coda was released on the Capitol LP "Rarities".
Lastly, the stereo mix for the Apple 3-LP/2-CD commercial version of "Anthlogy 2" used a remixed version with the addition of the original solo, a normal speed vocal and an extension of the song.