100 Copies of The Beatles' White Album Playing At The Same Time

Artist Rutherford Chang says: "I collect first-pressings of The White Album and currently own 1,034 copies." As part of his 'White Album' project (which also includes a record store only stocked with copies of you-know-what arranged according to serial number) he somehow got 100 of them to play at once. I wonder how? Sounds quite good tho, like 100 needles were dropped onto 100 turntables at pretty much the same time. Then they slowly go out of phase, like an old Steve Reich tape-loop piece. Surprisingly wonderful, e.g.: "Julia" (end of side 2) whips up a really nice drone. And I hadn't actually sat down to listen to the White Album since I was a kid, so it's also an interesting way to revisit the album.

Four 20+ minute tracks, one for each side of the White Album, plus lots of pics of White Albums in various states of decay:

Rutherford Chang - We Buy White Albums (file removed by corporate Blue Meanies)

Reminds me of another Beatles-related oddity, a very skillfully executed mashup album based on the absurd (or is it?!) premise that someone visiting another dimension where the Beatles never broke up brought back a cassette of one of their later albums. It's actually made up of tracks from various Beatles solo releases. The whole crazy story, and the album download, is available here:

The Beatles Never Broke Up

Thanks to Amadeus, And Count Otto!

The Note-Ables: Worst Lounge Band Ever?

Back up by request: "Halloween Stomp."

The recent post re: Banda Plástica De Tepetlixpa Mex. reminded me of another wonderful exercise in musical incompetence, the most hapless lounge band I've ever heard..ladies and gentlemen, please welcome...The Note-Ables!

Maybe they should have been called the Note-Unables: sporting off-beat (in the original sense) drumming, mangled lyrics, goofy vocals, the occasional sick trumpet, and guitars so out-of-tune they're practically "No Wave," one has to wonder if these guys were deaf. I originally featured one song, their remarkable demolition of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" on my collection of private-press lounge wonders "I'll Take Las Vegas," and tho it's still the, uh, "highlight" of this album, there's plenty more goodies here: Neil Sedaka/Elton John's "Bad Blood," Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy," and lots of Beatles. They have no feel for rock'n'roll, so naturally, there's plenty of it. Only the last couple songs, standards where horn and accordion take over, do they sound like they're in comfortable (tho no less incompetent) territory.

But you gotta love these guys - they sound like they're having a great time. Everyone's drunk and having a party, and the accordion is the coolest, most rock 'n' roll instrument in their world. Out-of-control naive exuberant joy is infinitely superior to such dull standards as technical skill and recording quality, right?

The Note-Ables: "Flipside" [USA, 1974]


1. Bad Blood
2. I Saw Her Standing There
3. She Loves You
4. Loves Not Always Kind
5. Sun Flower
6. Rhinestone Cowboy
7. Roll Over Beethoven
8. Way Down
9. Lost And Found
10. Can't Buy Me Love
11. So What's New
12. Bye Bye Blues - Baby Face

Tracks 4, 9, and 11 are originals.
Sadly, no biographical info out there. Have no idea where they're from.
Don't remember where I got this, but this isn't my copy - I believe the late, great Bellybongo site first posted it. So thanks to whoever!

ADIOS A LOS BEATLES

There is no more glorious sound for jaded ears than this rural Mexican brass band blowing berserk, off-key, highly enthusiastic instrumental versions of Beatles songs. Even the dreaded "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" sounds great as a crazy carnival theme. Sadly, nothing is known about the band responsible for this genuine piece of folk-art madness other than that they were from, as their name would indicate, Tepetlixpa.  

The lack of info almost makes me wonder if this isn't a hoax. Consider the name Banda Plástica De Tepetlixpa Mex.: a reference to Plastic Ono Band? And the back cover tells a preposterous story of Lennon and McCartney visiting Tepetlixpa. But there is still plenty of information that has not been captured in the internet's nets, and these guys could very well have simply never been documented in their time. Tepetlixpa, after all, is a pretty obscure little village, warranting only a few sentences on their skimpy wiki page...if they really were from Tepetlixpa. I've heard no indications that this is a hoax, but even if it is, it's still as enjoyable as The Portsmouth Sinfonia, or Fritz Guckenheimer and his Sour Kraut Band.

We're Banda Plástica De Tepetlixpa Mex.
We hope you will enjoy the show:  

"ADIOS A LOS BEATLES"

01 Ob-La-Di, Ob La Da

02 I Want To Hold Your Hand

03 Carry That Weight

04 Yesterday 

05 Eleanor Rigby

06 Yellow Submarine

07 Hey Jude

08 Girl

09 I Should Have Known Better

10 A Hard Days Night

"Hurray, The Rattles Are Here!"

At first (and second, and third) listen, Germany's The Rattles sound like a Beatles clone. And a particularly bizarre and hilarious one, at that. But as our man in Scotland, Count Otto Black, points out: "German beat groups like the Rattles weren't necessarily imitating the Beatles as such. Rather, the Merseybeat sound in general was extremely popular in Germany, and the Beatles were hired to play in Hamburg for that reason. So both the Beatles and the Rattles were trying to jump on the same bandwagon independently of one another. Though of course the Beatles always had a big advantage in that their accents never slipped. It appears that the Rattles already sounded as though they were a deliberate Beatles clone long before the Beatles were famous enough to be worth ripping off...the Beatles were but one of many similar groups, only they happened to have that extra something. Or maybe they just got lucky - most of their rivals made no recordings so we'll never know."

By the time of this 1965 recording, The Beatles were of course well established, and at least one song, "A Lonely Man," strongly suggests "She's A Woman," so maybe they had circled all the way around to intentionally imitating the Beatles. Still, there are some pretty deranged moments here that should clue anyone in that we are most def not dealing with those mop-tops from Liverpool: a version of Doris Day's wistful  ballad "Que Sera Sera" performed like a live mashup with "La Bamba," a highly energetic Bing Crosby (?!) cover, "Swinging On A Star", and a version of "Rockin' Pneumonia" that they pronounce "Rockin' Pumonia." But amidst all the unintentional laffs, there's still plenty of genuinely high-energy good rockin' tonight.

Die Rattles - "Hurra Die Rattles Kommen!"

A1	Come On And Sing
A2	It's My Fault [raunchy Bo Diddley-ish garage stomper]
A3	A Lonely Man
A4	No, No [what are they singing about?!]
A5	She Is The One
A6	I'm Coming Home
A7	Dance
B1	Que Sera
B2	Hold Me
B3	Swinging' On A Star
B4	Dr. Casey [an ode to fictional TV doctor Ben Casey]
B5	If You Don't Come Back
B6	Little Queeny
B7	Rockin Pneumonia

Thanks to His Countship!

Better Than The Beatles! 26 Tunes That Failed to Oust the Fab-Four From the Charts

Four things learned from this album of recordings released  1963-1965 as a reaction to the Beatles U.S. invasion:

1. The "greatest band of all time" was widely resented/disliked.
2. Some thought they were from London, or apparently didn't know there was a difference between Liverpool and London.
3. Ringo was the most popular Beatle.

Obviously, history has altered our view of the Fabs (no relation) a bit since then. And although the Rolling Stone magazine/rock critic mafia would disagree, I also learned that:

4. The American rock'n'roll scene did not need "saving": there's plenty of great surf, garage, hillbilly, r'n'b, novelty, and girl-group sounds here that sadly would be kicked to the curb until its punk revival more than a decade later.


Better Than The Beatles!