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The Beatles: All These Years, Vol 1.

February 3, 2013, 2:24 pm
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Exciting! For once! The Special Edition of Mark Lewisohn's Beatles' history can now be pre-ordered! (He's the one on the right, above.)(I think.)

I don't need to to tell you, do I not, that this tome has been 8 years in the making, that this tome promises to be the ultimate why? what? where? when? how? whathefuck? tome; that though this tome will certainly spawn a thousand trails leading to other tomes, there will never be another tome like this tome. 3 volumes (or tomes), overall, and, finally, here is the first.

According to Amazon, Volume 1 will have, initially, two editions: a standard hardback first, priced at 30 pounds, and the Special Edition, priced at 120.

Now, 120 quid in these disgusted times is a lot o' dough, no question, but you are getting the whole schnizzle for that - the unexpurgated poop, the undefiled shiznit... 1856 pages, apparently, and, in short, the fruit of 8 years' research and writing, and half a century's knowledge.

Plus it's a limited edition and I guarantee you there won't be a more sure-fire investment this year.

So, if you can possibly afford it, here it is: ALL THESE YEARS - SPECIAL EDITION VOLUME 1

The above leads to the UK Amazon site. The US one doesn't have it up yet. As it were.

But all actually quite exciting, no?

UPDATE: Official site link now added under Friends unt Neighbours!
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Kenwood: June 29, 1967.

February 5, 2013, 6:43 am
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The Beatles' Book Monthly photo library is being digitised and put on-line, including, o' course, the Leslie Bryce session from Kenwood. As suspected, a few new 'uns have been lurking unused in the files. Above - another sunroom seamstress shot, below - Lennon Jnr on the steps down to the pool:


This is maybe the most "interesting", however; the shelving in the living room, giving a glimpse of the platters that mattered at Kennie in the summer o' '67:


The first Buffalo Springfield album, clearly, plus that copy of Electronic Music again, somewhat less clearly, and then the rest is lo-res sludge:


...though I bet someone recognises them. Comment away if so. (I think there might be a Pepper in there. Or not.)

More new shots may follow.
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57 Green Street: Flat L.

February 5, 2013, 8:45 am
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Despite lysergic dreams of communal living in 1967, the only time all 4 actually lived together was in the autumn of 1963, at number 57 Green Street in Mayfair, central London. And yes, you guessed it - massive renovation means that this place is almost completely unrecognisable, making the auld then unt nau-ing almost impossible.
However, tragically, I have nothing better to do today, so hier ist der guff; fireplaces may be ripped out and renewed, but the locations don't tend to move about, so it's probably safe to assume that the above correspond.
The famous photos of fan-mail-openage would have been taken at the other end of this room. Note the bit of wall above the right hand red arrow - back in '63 there were 2 rooms here, with the far end forming a small dining room next to the kitchen. That section of wall "hanging" from the ceiling is what remains of the division between the living/dining rooms:



I think the record player would have been in the living room, and the windows seem to correspond:


As does the brick edge visible outside the window. Note too how the '63 ceiling has gone, so to utilise what would have been attic space back then and create a more "roomy" room:


If that's a blind, then these may correspond:


I'm pretty sure these don't, though. The modern one is an en-suite off one of the two bedrooms; I'd guess the '63 shot was taken in the small central toilet designed for communal use (though one at a time, gentlemen please):


Or.................................................................................not.

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Kenwood: July, 1966.

March 12, 2013, 3:27 am
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July, 1966: England is convulsed by World Cup "fever". (Or was it? The lack of an all-pervasive media at least seemed to mean that choreographed hysteria, a necessary adjunct to any major sporting event these days, wasn't present. But I digress.) (A pedagogical friend of mine maintains that there are 2 types of teacher; the "...and now for something completely different" type, and the "...but I digress" type. Not that I'm claiming any educational content to these witterings. God, no. But I digress.)
July, 1966: England is moderately enthused by World Cup "interest". The Beatles are girding their collective loins for the following month's U.S. tour, having just suffered a bruising during the Filipino debacle. John, apparently, is up to his third eyeball in acid, and has taken to leaving the heavy wooden gate at Kenwood open, allowing Ver Fannage to wander hither and, moreover, thither at will. And here we have a family group doing that very thing, whilst, luckily, recording their visit with a few wonderfully evocative snapshots.
So, above, the aforementioned gate, very much open. Below, the former location of that Help! boot, heading up the drive:



And again:



A random spot in the grounds:



In front of the den, and first floor bathroom, this part of the house almost unchanged to the present day, as regulah readahs will know:



The front door, Lennon knocker very much in place. Presumably, having got that far, they'd have given it a go, but whether there was any response I don't know:



The familiar canopy:



And again:



On to the garage; note the presence of the pre-decorated Roller, and John's Mini Cooper. He had other cars, as did Cyn, but the presence of these means it's tempting to picture him in, but not answering:



And another:



Finally, the most intriguing shot. I can't really place it, but note the presence of wood on the stairs, there to facilitate the use of a wheelbarrow:



Many thanks to the people in these pics for giving permission to have them on here, and to Lizzie Bravo for sorting it all out.
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Kenwood: swimming pool, 1967.

March 26, 2013, 8:11 am
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Lizzie Bravo (who needs no introduction) has a large cache of previously unseen Kenwood pics, taken between January and the summer of 1967. Being the generous soul that she is, permission has been granted to share them on here; so, as a little "appeteaser", 4 shots of the pool. The above was taken in January of the aforementioned year, whilst the other three must date from early summer (judging by the foliage):



These were all scanned straight from Lizzie's original prints, taken using her (obviously) very-much pre-digital camera, and the old technology lends many of her black and white shots a particularly crepuscular air:



As regulah readahs will know, the pool was built (not literally) by John, and demolished in the mid-90s to make way for not a great deal:



Many more to follow soon(ish), including some with date attached.

Thanks to Lizzie!
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Kenwood: 21/1/67.

April 1, 2013, 9:13 am
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Lizzie arrived in the UK mid-February 1967; shortly before that date, her friend Denise Werneck made the journey out to St George's Hill to take some photos, on a kind of Lizzie-related recce. Thus, and "intereshtingly", a date attaches to these pics, that date being the date of the 21st of January, 1967 - a Saturday, date fans.
The preceding two had seen the Beatles at Abbey Road, making substantial progress on A Day In The Life (with the following taken on Thursday 19th):



But now it is Saturday, a brief consolidating pause has been called to the Pepper sessions, and here we are. The first thing to note is how every curtain remains resolutely drawn. Was there anyone at home? Quite likely, I reckon, as the pattern was often to head out "clubbaging" post-session, and with a few days rest hoving into view, and some solid work laid down, a spot of celebratory "Class A's" may well have been in order. (Or, as ever, not.)
If so, the residents are inside sleeping it off, as Denise covers the house from all angles.
The other point of some vague interest is that the sheer gloom of a British winter is well represented here; even Pepper's biggest detractors wouldn't characterise it as a gloomy record - quite the opposite, in fact. Its forever association with the long, hot Summer o' Lovin' hardly needs repeating, yet the main thing that strikes me about these photos is how this sparkling work was actually recorded during the dank, drab chill of the firstly aforementioned season. Timing always was one of their strong points, and never more so than here.
Anyway...the area round the side of the garage, overlooking the pool. Note the swing, and the presence of ubiquitous reconstructive material, including mulch for the garden:



Next, the front door, still free of sickly paint job (though not for much longer, as we will see) and porch:



Living room, bedroom etc:



Finally the sunroom, and adjacent steps:



Next up, February 1967, and Lizzie's first visit to Kenwood. Huge thanks, once again, to her (and Denise, o' course).
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Kenwood: 19/2/1967.

April 9, 2013, 3:44 am
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Lizzie's first visit to Kenwood was on Sunday 19th February, 1967, and here are some of the photos from that very day. To begin at the back, garage/sunroom/dining room, above.
Note the bird table/hat, soon to re-appear in the garden:



The front door. What's "interesting" here (no, really) is the paint job.
Regulah "readahs" will recall that the last load o' pics, dated 21st January 1967, revealed the door still in its original state. Pete Shotton, in his memoir, recalls arriving at Kenwood one Saturday night to find John and Terry Doran "spray painting the front of the house in psychedelic day-glo colours", after which he is ushered in to the house and introduced to "Magic" Alex Mardas for the first time.
Thus, the emergence of the Greek "wizard" can be dated to the early part o' 1967 (and it's another example of John's "Winter o' Lovin'" mind-set - spray paint, flying saucers, force fields etc., etc.):



The den/library:



Garage. Note the presence of Cyn's Porsche 911:



Blah:



As far as I know, the current whereabouts of this car are a mystery. I'm also not sure if any photos showing the license plate have surfaced before; hard to make out, but I reckon that reads GAN 7E, registered (as a quick on-line search reveals) between January and July 1967 in West Ham, London.
Anyway, if the car still exists, it should be traceable by someone who can be arsed (ie not me):



Finally, the living room exterior, and the first decent photo of the equally exterior entrance to that room:



These black and white pics are lovely (stuff), but, perhaps appropriately, things are about to get colourful...

Many thanks yet again to Lizzie.
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2, Strathearn Place: Flat 1.

April 9, 2013, 3:46 am
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...speaking of which, a small interlude before we get back to Lizzie.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that, one way or another, the course of popular culture changed in these fairly non-descript rooms (or, at least, that John, George, Pattie and Cyn got totally dosed, dudes and...err...dudettes).
For here it "twas" that the aforementioned quartet attended a dinner party in the summer of 1965 thrown by dentist to the stars John Riley, and, one way or another, ended up ingesting the dreaded lysergic for the very first time.
Apparently Riley always disputed the standard version of events (ie that he slipped it in the coffee without their knowledge), telling friends that his guests had "got the wrong end of the stick" about what really happened that night.
Of course, the usual renovation has occurred in the intervening years, so the decor is different, but, nevertheless, this is where it began:

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Kenwood: summer, 1967.

April 16, 2013, 8:30 am
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More Lizzie, and this time in colour. Most of these clearly taken in summer, and the gate remains open to all comers.
Two of the caravan, the left by Lizzie, the right from her collection, but snapper unknown (get in touch if it's you).
Quite splendid:



Two of the den end; circa, respectively, March and June 1967:



Kenwood, obscured by foliage:



Innareshtingly, most of the above may well date 26th June 1967, ie the day after Our World (and 3 days prior to the Leslie Bryce Kenwood session).
Fantastic "stuffs" - thanks Lizzie - further to follow.
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Kenwood: dubb owld boot.

April 16, 2013, 8:42 am
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Why did John get rid o' the boot? This pic probably gives the answer: not being designed to withstand the vicissitudes of a British winter, the thing was beginning to fall apart. But here the boot sits, shortly before getting it, down at the bottom of the garden.

Whatevah, great photo. A doff o' the cap to updownsmilefrown for finding this.
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Kenwood: autumn '66?

April 26, 2013, 12:43 am
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More Lizzie soon... but in the meantime...

Regulah readahs will no doubt be familiah with the above; it's been on here before, though in nasty lo-res. Always having found it a fascinating little slice of Kenwoodalia, I've been keeping an eye out for a better example.
And lo, and, moreover, behold - here one is. Prised from the pages of the German mag Bravo, edition number 5, dated 23 January 1967, it allows one to scan the images in the kind of hi-res that causes yer laptop to issue a Hal 9000 type warning about the wisdom of so doing. (Click on 'em for the bigger picture.)
So when were they actually taken? Clearly the beginning of autumn - one of these trees suggests the rise of the fall:



Either 1965 or 1966 then, with the probability being the latter (though I'd like to hear from any readahs who may have seen this pic in, say, a US mag of the time in order to nail a definitive date).
Right, let's res this to the... err... highest.
Even in the lo-res version, it was possible to discern a figure in the grounds. The image in the mag reveals something else there, and zooming in shows it to be none other than... Julian!:



Actually, I can't be sure it's Julian, but it's probably him, looking up to see what the noise is (these pics having no doubt been taken from a helicopter):



Next, the sunroom, and lookee here: it isn't finished! (Not sure if that warrants an exclamation mark, but in the context of all this nonsense, it might as well...errr...do. But I digress.)
The roof isn't quite complete, and the distinctive decoration has yet to be added:



Zooming in once again, 3 people can be seen. The figure in white is seated in the sunroom talking to a second individual, and in the upstairs spare bedroom, someone is looking out the window, again trying to see what all the noise is:



Readahs can download the pics above and find for "themselfs" more details that I am, sadly, too lazy to go into here.
More to come on the other Beatle pads.
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Kenwood: 26/2/1967.

May 9, 2013, 6:03 am
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Four more from Lizzie's Kenwood file, and fer once none o' my yap.
Above, the master bedroom en-suite at sunset.
Below, psychedelic vomit on the front door:



Kitchen window:



Cattus:



There are various other random shots which I'll put up here in the coming weeks, and so another huge thank you to Lizzie for her generosity.
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The Beatles: All These Years Volume 1.

May 9, 2013, 8:30 am
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The cover is oot! In related news, Amazon UK have cut the pre-order price on the standard edition, as expected, and it has also now appeared on the Amazon US site HERE.

Nice!
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Kenwood: late 1990s.

May 11, 2013, 6:33 am
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There has been a veritable glut o' Kenwood shiznit turning up of late, and let's add to that glut with these, taken circa 1998 by Nick Cowburn.
Above and below, so far, so familiar:



However, round the other side and the place is looking almost derelict. Note the boarded up windows, and unsightly pile of "stuff":



More unsightlitude, and the last stand of John's pool. Shortly after this, the whole thing was demolished to make way for...err...another pool facing in a different direction. Oh to have too much money:



Having said that, it does seem to have fallen into a state of some disrepair:



Then unt then:



Looking back towards the sunroom; a familiar spot for photographers down the years:



This bit entirely new, next to said sunroom:



And a final view, somewhat overgrown:



Many thanks to Nick for allowing these to be used here. He also got some photos of Kinfauns (also on its last legs at that point), plus some video footage, all of which shall go up immediately. BY THE WAY - anyone else here in Blighty see Yoko on Jonathan Ross this evening? Fellow guest Vin Diesel seemed to say at one point that he was renting a house in St George's Hill "next to Yoko"...but I wasn't really paying attention, so maybe I misheard.
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Kenwood/Sunny Heights/Kinfauns: video footage, c. late 1990s.

May 11, 2013, 6:34 am
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Some "new" footage of Kenwood (up the drive and back again), a smidgeon of Sunny Heights, and a bit of Kinfauns, very shortly before it was demolished. Oh and a few obligatory "then unt nau"s, plus more of John's Kennie attic mellotron meanderings for noise value (which, the attentive viewer will note, run out before the end, due to wanton "can't be arsed-ness" on my part).

All filming done late 1990s by Nick Cowburn, on good old VHS, and many thanks to him for agreeing to put it up here, as it were.
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Kinfauns: c. late 1990s.

May 11, 2013, 6:34 am
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Nick also got a few photos of Kinfauns, shortly before it was destroyed to make way for a carbuncle. Above, the drive (the only part that remains the same these days. The whole section of garden visible through the gate has been sold to allow construction of another new house).
Below, inside the gate, looking down towards t'bungalow:



To wit:



I wonder how long it took the owner after George to whitewash the walls. Though not often. Apparently, before moving to Friar Park, George offered to give Kinfauns to Pete Shotton, who said "Naaaah":



Some you know wots:



And again:



Note how much of George's gardening remained at that point:



And now nothing does. Toodle pip!

Fanks, yet again, to Nick Cowburn for his generosity.
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Kenwood: the graffito also endures.

May 12, 2013, 9:13 am
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Above, 2 fans just inside the gate at Kenwood, circa February 1967, courtesy of Lizzie Bravo.
Now, as ye are aware, this blog mainly concerns itself with rooting around in the muck, like an enormous sow, looking for remnants of a long vanished etc. And here's another one...
Watching Nick Cowburn's footage of Kennie from the late 90s, one bit caused a funereal bell to start tolling somewhere deep in my etc., namely, the bit of the "I LOVE" bit:



A couple of years back, I wrote about the old garden shed which once stood in the grounds, and included the following pic which I assumed showed a graffitied section of it:



I suddenly realised that this is what was causing bells to ring. Knock me down and hit me in the face with a shovel, if that isn't the very same graffito (grammar fans), all those years later, clearly not on the auld shed, but actually a part of the front gate:



It seems highly improbable that it would have survived for over 30 years (at the time Nick shot his footage), so a bit more comparison is called for. Note the relative positions of writing, and white object:



Again, using Lizzie's pic this time, compare white object and box:



Clearly the same location, and so, equally, clearly the same writing, which is banal but remarkable (possibly remarkably banal, I grant ye).
I'd guess the white object is a doorbell (or gatebell in this instance), and the box is obviously a letter box. The area underneath the graffito would have been a door (long gone by the 90s), which explains this pic of Julian, in full "Daddy says,'Fuck off'" mode:



The wooden gate slid across to close, as it is in the Julian pic; and the rear of the aforementioned door can be seen in Lizzie's photo, with the gate (obviously) open:



I promised ye flagrant trivia, and flagrant trivia is what ye shall have.
It's highly unlikely that anything now remains of the old gate, let alone the graffito, but back in the late 1990's, another tiny piece of John-era Kenwood endured.
Cheers Lizzie and Nick.
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Kenwood: June 29, 1967.

May 13, 2013, 11:51 am
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Uncropped! Nuff said.

Via beatlesneveroutofstyle.
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Kenwood/Tittenhurst: the caravan also endures...more or less.

May 22, 2013, 11:00 pm
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The caravan, or what's left of it, has resurfaced! Apparently, Ringo had it restored in the early 1980s (hence the different colours), and then took it with him when he moved, only to then leave it rotting in a garage.



Not a great deal remains of the woodwork.



The bits that are left have now been acquired by an Ascot charity, and are going to be sold to raise funds.



You can read the full story HERE, and see more photos HERE.
Thanks to Chris Sileo.
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23 Mount Street: Robert Fraser.

July 1, 2013, 6:50 am
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As Miss Cyril "Cilla" Black might put it, there's been a lorra lorra history in these rooms. Plus a lorra lorra skag.
For this was once the second floor flat cum "salon" of art dealer to the stars Robert Fraser, much frequented by Paul and JohnandYoko. Here they would come to hang out with passing Pop artists, indulge in whatever might be indulgeable (pretty sure that's not a word), and lend unrecoverable sums of money to the titular Bob.
Fraser, o' course, was also well in with the Stones, and it was whilst looking out of these very windows upon a storm-lashed Mayfair that Keef wrote "Gimme Shelter":


Mr Richards also recalls, in his highly entertaining memoir, how Fraser would often disappear off to riffle through the pockets of the finely cut suits hanging in these very "cupboards", seeking stray heroin "jacks":


Pharmaceutical heroin was available on the NHS back then, provided one was a registered junkie. The musicians' chemist of choice for this purpose was, apparently, John Bell & Croyden of Wigmore Street; still there, though no longer a dispenser of "doojee".
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