[Moshe]

Lee Ranaldo On The White Album

http://www.mojo4music.com:80/blog/20...e_album_1.html

6:00 AM GMT 05/09/2008

 

"I consider myself lucky that I was very young when The Beatles albums came out. I got the White Album for Christmas 1968, and just kept playing it through all these family gatherings between Christmas and New Year's Eve. I remember the older folks dancing to Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da; it drove home that the Beatles were so timeless that people of any age could love some aspect of what they did; if they didn't want to listen to Helter Skelter, they could enjoy Ob La Di or Honey Pie, the sweeter stuff on there. Helter Skelter, however, proves that, no matter where they were at or what crazy experiments they might be conducting, they were still a pretty kick-ass rock'n'roll group. I guess they realised there was a lot of competition out there at the time, from bands like The Who and Cream, and that they maybe should step up their game in terms of being an actual rock band again, especially after they'd stopped touring.
"Those tracks really flesh out that The White Album in a lot of ways, because otherwise it would be all acoustic pretty stuff; to have stuff like Helter Skelter and Everybody's Got Something To Hide...and even Revolution and Revolution #9 – on the album makes it a much harder record, in a good way."
"The recording has this quality of being very chaotic and off-hand, and yet it has this consummate professionalism about it at the same time. It has an amazing, driving melody, Paul's fantastic bass-playing, and the whole 'noise' section...it's done in that great spirit of a lot of early rock'n'roll, where you write it and then go blast it out; they came out of a cellar full of noise, after all. And I think it's the first track ever that fades out and then fades back in on itself, which was pretty striking and innovative at the time. Everybody faded out, but nobody faded back in.
"As for the Manson connection, I remember being fascinated with all the stories, finding how obsessed he was with that record in particular, how the Beatles were supposedly feeding suggestions and information to him. I was really interested in the ways in which psychedelic culture became delusional – so high you can't tell the truth from fantasy anymore. The Manson phenomenon signals the end of that era in a way, the idealism of hippy culture meeting the reality of the modern death machine. It's a very significant footnote to the song, but it's nothing the Beatles actually had any involvement in, or real influence over. It's just another way in which they were influencing the culture; everything did had an impact, everything they said in interviews, everything they recorded."
As told to Stevie Chick
Photo courtesy of Alex Vanhee.

[atari 2600]

Huzzah!

[atsonicpark]

Anyone ever heard of the new Child Pornography album, "the Beatles"? The cover of it is the Beatles' white album... yes, the actual name of the album is "the Beatles" and the album art is the Beatles. I said that twice, for emphasis.

Pretty cool/stupid.

[greenlight]

thanks!

great read

[Derek]

cool

[diskaholic-anonymous]

 

it's nothing to do with the White Album but Lee on Amarillo plays a brilliant noisy cover of John Lennon's "Isolation". It's the last track. And thanks Moshe for the text and the photo is great.

[o'connor]

i love amarillo ramp, but i think the cover of isolation is kinda hokey to be honest. could've sworn i read an interview w/ lee somewhere where he says he wished he'd have done a serious cover of th atsong instead of teh goofy one. then again i could be wrong.

[baby bulldog]

Yep....the White Album is a huge great big masterpiece in my book.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Best Beatles album hands down.

[Chris Lawrence]

Originally Posted by o'connor

i love amarillo ramp, but i think the cover of isolation is kinda hokey to be honest. could've sworn i read an interview w/ lee somewhere where he says he wished he'd have done a serious cover of th atsong instead of teh goofy one. then again i could be wrong.

what on earth is goofy about that version? SY did it live a few years ago, and it was pretty much like the AR version...

[o'connor]

lol, i dunno, it' just seems like he was all stoned in the studio and kinda did it as a joke. it's not horrible by any means, just think it's a little hokey.

[akprodr]

I Got Blisters On My Fingers!

<That was supposed to be in all caps--wouldn't let me>

[PAULYBEE2656]

 

[Derek]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

Best Beatles album hands down.

I prefer Revolver

[The Soup Nazi]

This probably belongs in another part of the board, but since the subject is the White Album, I gotta ask: Do any of you have Robyn Hitchcock's "White Album Against The War Benefit" show from August 7, 2004 (or the one from the following day - whichever sounds best)? Man, I really need to hear that thing. By the way, you can download Robyn's takes on Sgt. Pepper's and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from Archive.org.

[Malcolm81]

I didn't know Lee was such a Beatles admirer, I'm happy he is. I wonder if Thurston, Kim and Steve share the same opinions.

[This Is Not Here]

Well, I kind of new Lee was into the Beatles because of that cover of Within Without you. I also know from interviews Kim is a Pink Floyd fan, however I'm still in the dark as to what Thurston thinks of the big British classic rock bands (at his show in London at Christmas he did a "who's better?..." thing with the audience about the big British bands, and he seemed to to be having real problems thinking of them!)

[o'connor]

fairly sure T likes teh beatles... he played in that band for that beatles-esqe movie. and SY did a beatles song for sgt pepper knew my father.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

This probably belongs in another part of the board, but since the subject is the White Album, I gotta ask: Do any of you have Robyn Hitchcock's "White Album Against The War Benefit" show from August 7, 2004 (or the one from the following day - whichever sounds best)? Man, I really need to hear that thing. By the way, you can download Robyn's takes on Sgt. Pepper's and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from Archive.org.

I managed to convince someone to upload it :

Robyn Hitchcock 2004-08-08 Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London (White Album Against The War)