My wife and I are driving to western NJ to see the kids at camp on Sunday, listening to Breakfast With The Beatles on Q104.3 as I do pretty much every Sunday morning. I especially wanted to listen to this one, as the interview with Ringo is going to be played.
So we are listening and Ken announces that he will be playing hte first half of the interview in the next segment. We listen and wait (OK I wait and she continues to read her book). Then Ken announces the first part of the intervew ***from where we started the tape rolling!!!*** This means that the first thing everyone gets to hear (especially me) is me chatting with Ringo about reel-to-reel tape recorders vs. DAT. a total *WOOHOO!* moment for me.
I have a copy of the whole thing coming to me from the radio station. Needless to say I will listen to the beginning a dozen or so times :)
That's it for now - back to following the news on Israel's war.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
Ringo!
I had an interesting thing happen to me the other day. It actually started 27 years ago, but ended 2 days ago. In August of 1979, a local radio station had a Beatles weekend. Every hour they would play some Beatles with some rare stuff mixed in.
One of the blocks had a version of Help! that had some interestingly but minorly different guitar woek and a great vocal by John that was mixed way out front. The DJ announced that it was from the 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert. Fortunately I was taping at the time. Unfortunately my cassette deck ate it not too long afterward.
This began a 27-year quest to find a specific performance of a song that I was to find out was not only not from the 1865 Hollywood Bowl concert, but was not from any Hollywood Bowl show and not from any other show I could find - and I have found a LOT of them over the years.
I recently joined this group that shares Beatles music and video via BitTorrent. One of the things that I downloaded was a DVD called "Telecasts '65". I was half-watching it while working on my laptop (my usual nightly position) when I heard something. It was Help! - the version for which I had been hunting, literally for decades.
I have a friend who is the DJ who does the Beatles show on Sunday mornings on the biggest AOR radio station in the world. I ripped the audio down to an mp3 and sent it over to him with basically the explanation above. I also asked him if he was going to be coming out for the Ringo show on Friday (today - this happened on Wednesday) and would he like to meet up beforehand for a drink or something? He replied that he would load up the track for Sunday's show but would not be coming out for the show. He had to cover the 4-6:45 shift for another DJ who was out of town.
Thursday comes along and I get a call from him that he may end up doing the show intro afterall and if it happens would I like to come as his guest? I tell him sure, why not?
Friday morning I get an email - he now is not only doing the show intro but is getting time to interview Ringo beforehand and could I possibly be his sound engineer as he needs someone who can actually work the equipment?
"I'm not sure, let me think about it... YES!!!!!!"
He tells me to meet him at the venue at 7:30 by the van. I meet him, he slaps a pass on me and we walk around back. Hamish Stuart is hanging outside of the back door. He recognizes me (another story) and gives me a big handshake and hello. We go to the tent outside in the back and there he is Ringo. There. In front of me. Ringo.
He says Hello to us and shakes my hand. I unpack the gear and he looks at it and we start talking about it and old reel-to-reel decks and how he likes those (me too) and I get everything set up for the interview and Ken sits doen to start the interview and RIngo says he would rather continue talking about the equipment. Were those violins I heard?
A strange thing about meeting Ringo... There are probably aspects of his life that I know more about than he does. It wasn't like meeting him for the first time, rather it was like seeing an old good friend that you had lost touch with and just found again. It was only a quick minute that I got to speak with him before the interview started, but I guess that's more than most get. The interview itself will likely be on Q104.3's Breakfast With The Beatles this Sunday, so I won't go into it here.
After that there were some interesting things having to do with quite good vegan food, but those are not so important.
I got to meet Ringo!!!!!
A very cool night. Let me tell you something about Edgar Winter. You see him and the word "white" jumps into your mind and it stays there.
I got to meet Ringo :)
One of the blocks had a version of Help! that had some interestingly but minorly different guitar woek and a great vocal by John that was mixed way out front. The DJ announced that it was from the 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert. Fortunately I was taping at the time. Unfortunately my cassette deck ate it not too long afterward.
This began a 27-year quest to find a specific performance of a song that I was to find out was not only not from the 1865 Hollywood Bowl concert, but was not from any Hollywood Bowl show and not from any other show I could find - and I have found a LOT of them over the years.
I recently joined this group that shares Beatles music and video via BitTorrent. One of the things that I downloaded was a DVD called "Telecasts '65". I was half-watching it while working on my laptop (my usual nightly position) when I heard something. It was Help! - the version for which I had been hunting, literally for decades.
I have a friend who is the DJ who does the Beatles show on Sunday mornings on the biggest AOR radio station in the world. I ripped the audio down to an mp3 and sent it over to him with basically the explanation above. I also asked him if he was going to be coming out for the Ringo show on Friday (today - this happened on Wednesday) and would he like to meet up beforehand for a drink or something? He replied that he would load up the track for Sunday's show but would not be coming out for the show. He had to cover the 4-6:45 shift for another DJ who was out of town.
Thursday comes along and I get a call from him that he may end up doing the show intro afterall and if it happens would I like to come as his guest? I tell him sure, why not?
Friday morning I get an email - he now is not only doing the show intro but is getting time to interview Ringo beforehand and could I possibly be his sound engineer as he needs someone who can actually work the equipment?
"I'm not sure, let me think about it... YES!!!!!!"
He tells me to meet him at the venue at 7:30 by the van. I meet him, he slaps a pass on me and we walk around back. Hamish Stuart is hanging outside of the back door. He recognizes me (another story) and gives me a big handshake and hello. We go to the tent outside in the back and there he is Ringo. There. In front of me. Ringo.
He says Hello to us and shakes my hand. I unpack the gear and he looks at it and we start talking about it and old reel-to-reel decks and how he likes those (me too) and I get everything set up for the interview and Ken sits doen to start the interview and RIngo says he would rather continue talking about the equipment. Were those violins I heard?
A strange thing about meeting Ringo... There are probably aspects of his life that I know more about than he does. It wasn't like meeting him for the first time, rather it was like seeing an old good friend that you had lost touch with and just found again. It was only a quick minute that I got to speak with him before the interview started, but I guess that's more than most get. The interview itself will likely be on Q104.3's Breakfast With The Beatles this Sunday, so I won't go into it here.
After that there were some interesting things having to do with quite good vegan food, but those are not so important.
I got to meet Ringo!!!!!
A very cool night. Let me tell you something about Edgar Winter. You see him and the word "white" jumps into your mind and it stays there.
I got to meet Ringo :)
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