RARE BEATLES STUFF

Sometimes I just have to scrape my jaw off the floor. Yesterday, I was reminded why I love the the internet. For all of it's commercial annoyances, it is a great equalizer. By that I mean, it's the one place that just about anyone can put their stuff out there, and the whole world (with a few exceptions) can see it. This allows fiends of any particular field to collect, cut, paste, annotate, and upload sites about just about anything; and, if the subject happens to be a popular one with a lot of like minded visitors, no matter how extensive the site is, it's never really finished.

Last night, I ran into a Beatles site that is so extensive, I doubt that I will ever get through it all. I spent a couple hours browsing through it, and haven't even come close to scratching the surface. Before I go any further, let me say that I'm not particularly a Beatle fiend. I acknowledge their exceptional talent, but they don't rock my boat like a lot of other bands. That said, I can appreciate those people who consider it their life's work to dissect every bit of Beatle information to create a complete picture. The site I ran into yesterday is the ultimate Beatles time suck.

The navigation is rather chaotic. There are a lot of photos that lead to audio files of unreleased alternate versions, newsreels, or other pages with oddball stuff. You say you want a virtual tour of a street in Hamburg, with all of the clubs and hangouts that Beatles frequented? This guy has you covered. How about letters that Stu Sutcliffe's girlfriend (and early Beatles photographer) Astrid Kirchneer wrote to Stu's mother? Are you starting to get the picture? This dude is a fiend with a capital F.

There's one page with photo of a recording session, that has McCartney's daughter Heather sitting on the floor. This prompts a discussion, not only speculating which studio it was, but what particular date. It's a complete and total minutia overload. Music wise, different songs and eras get different treatment. There are short clips of the earliest recordings (we're talking pre-Beatles 50's stuff) all the way through complete alternate versions of George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass." The page for Sgt. Pepper's has a 6 part "Making of.." documentary, another with over 4o galleries of photos taken during the sessions, and another with isolated instrument tracks.

My best advise for sifting through this amazing collection is to just start clicking away, on anything and everything. But, if you run into something you want to find again, you had better bookmark it, because it may be impossible to retrace your steps.

The Beatles Source Home Page
The Savage Young Beatles: Extensive photo collection, from 1957 to 1963 (Ringo playing guitar?)
The Ultimate Acetate Collection: Just what it says. More outtakes and demos than you can shake a stick at.
The Concert Files: Recordings and clips from concerts from 1963 to 1966
TV appearances: Listings with screen shots of TV appearances from 1963 to 1970

Earlier Beatles related posts:
Wu-Tang vs The Beatles
The Beatles' Christmas Records