PLUG: Live show coming up Monday Sep 4th 10:30pm at UCB Sunset in Los Angeles! Singing Beatles songs! Come out!

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Good idea gone terribly wrong? Brilliant art project? Or perhaps the most faithful fulfillment of the title of this podcast?

Our panel (Will Hines, Ariana Lenarsky, Wayland McQueen) welcomes guest Arthur Meyer (writer for The Tonight Show, also a human being) as we go through EACH AND EVERY BEATLES SONG to see what our personal / emotional associations are.

I somehow did not realize this would take two and a half hours. I honestly thought "eh, hour, hour and 10 minutes." You can hear me at the 90 minute mark apologize to the group and predict we were about half an hour away from being done. Nope. Another full hour awaited us.

Did I think about chopping this episode down to a more humane length? Yes. I could have skipped all the early albums, for which we didn't have as many memories. Or cut every song for which we had zero personal memories (often true for amazing songs like Lucy in the Sky). But that seemed like a cop-out, hard, and also would still have only gotten this down to an hour and forty five minutes.

So, I'm just leaving it here.

Even if you never listen to this, I do recommend DOING this with your Beatle loving friends. We four learned about each other, and it WAS very fun to DO. You'll be surprised what memories come up. The Beatles are ubiquitous and have bled into our consciousnesses and memories throughout our lives. 

Ariana remembers hearing "Yesterday" when she was six years old!

Arthur seems to know the favorite Beatles songs of all of his friends and lovers!

Wayland was married before! News to us!

Will and his brother Brian used to wake up to a different Beatles song every day until they made the mistake of picking "Good Day Sunshine!"

Anyway. Here it is. 2 and half hours of it. "Enjoy!"

Beatles guitars! We have four guitarists on to talk about Beatles songs in terms of the guitar parts in this plus-sized episode! 

Topics include:

The ninth chords that ends a lot of the early songs;

the iconic beginnings of A Hard Day's Night / Day Tripper / I Feel Fine and more;

George solo in All My Loving;

cool chords on Michelle;

sick Paul solo on Taxman;

dual guitars on She Said She Said;

easy songs to play around a campfire;

the clawhammer picking on the White Album;

George's stellar contributions to Octopus' garden;

She's So Heavy

More!

Were we up to the technical challenge of recording four guitars in the host's living room with whatever cords people brought to the session? Not always! But the love for the music stays strong throughout!

Plus we do our own version of the Abbey Road trading guitars jam --- at the one hour and twenty minute mark! Necessary? No! Fun? Yes! And as with all our jams it has that first take authenticity! (Order of soloists: Joel, then Brett, then Mike with James playing rhythm).

Panelists: James Bachman, Mike Carlson, Will Hines, Brett Morris, Joel Spence.

There are so many great covers of Beatles songs and we talk about some of them!

Including these:

With A Little Help From My Friends - Joe Cocker
Taxman - Black Oak Arkansas
Norwegian Wood - Swingle Singers
Come Together - Soundgarden
We Can Work It Out - Stevie Wonder
Across the Universe - Fiona Apple
Yesterday - Ray Charles
Blackbird - CSNY
When I Get Home - Harry Nillson
Blackbird - Bobby McFerrin
I Want to Hold Your Hand - Al Green
Eleanor Rigby - Aretha Franklin
Something - Frank Sinatra
I Am The Walrus - Jim Carrey
In My Life - Sean Connery

We will likely do another episode as there are so many interesting covers out there. But, hey, this is a pretty good start!

Panelists: Will Hines, Ariana Lenarsky, Brett Morris, Katie Plattner, Joel Spence

Our silliest idea yet? We got 4 drummers, each with his own drum kit, into a recording studio to talk about Ringo Starr and his drumming. Surprise: we love him and it. 

Was it necessary to have 4 drummers at once? No, not at all. Was there some gain to be had for having more than one drummer play Ringo's licks at the same time? I mean, not that I can explain. But let me tell you this: once you get in your head that you're going get 4 drummers and 4 drum kits into a studio, all playing Ringo Starr drum parts at once -- it's a very tough idea to let go of. And we had a blast.

Our drummers / Beatlemaniacs are: Manny Hagopian, Chris Kula, Adam McCabe, Alex Scordelis

Do we do Ringo's big drum solo? Of course. Do we play and sing along to Octopus' Garden? Big yes. Is there a metal band in the adjacent studio playing speed thrash for much of the session? Yes again. 

Thanks so much to the drummers for coming and doing this! I wasn't able to give us much (any) time to rehearse together, and our sound check was minimal, but they crushed it! Don't Pass This (Episode) By!*

*I just realized we do not reference that song for the entire episode.

Host: Will Hines