Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Let's Help Hey Dullblog!

Hey, boys and girls! Michael Gerber of the very fine Beatles blog "Hey Dullblog" would like a little help from his friends. He's set up a new computer host for his blog and feels the only way to see if it will carry that weight is for all us Beatlemaniacs to follow the sun down the long and winding road across the universe to ... oh, you get the idea. Click here.

Don't let me down!

Ten Of My Favorite Hey Dullblog posts:

Ethan Hawke puts together his playlist for the ultimate Beatles solo work. And there in the comments is the Monkey's playlist for a mythical Beatles double album that could-have should-have been released in time for Christmas 1970.

Jack Douglas talks about producing John Lennon's last album, Double Fantasy.

Michael's favorite unreleased Beatles recording happens to be mine as well.

A great article about a long-neglected Beatles record — yes, Virginia, there is such a thing — and a right good thrashing of Dave Marsh's pointless takedown of same.

Sometimes William Buckley could be a jackass.

One of the great what-if's — what if Brian Epstein hadn't died in 1967?

An inquiry into the whereabouts of Mark Shipper, author of Paperback Writer, the funniest book ever written about the Fab Four.

That song Ringo is listening to on the train in A Hard Day's Night — is it an unreleased Beatles song?

Are you a slacker or an idler? There's a big difference as the lives and music of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, respectively, reveal.

And my all-time favorite Hey Dullblog post: The repost of a documentary that changed the way I think about the Beatles — something I didn't think possible.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Seasons Greetings 2014

For a variety of reasons, we don't have a live tree this year, but neither did we want to succumb to the temptation to go artificial. So Katie and I made our own. In terms of the sort of things we typically get up to here at the Monkey house, with one being a Norman Rockwell painting of sanity and ten being absolute metaphysical absurditude, this rates about a 4.

Hope you and yours are enjoying a pleasant holiday season.