We talk about stuff - lyrics, music, licks, moods -- the Beatles stole for their songs!

Wait, are we really saying the Beatles are thieves? Well, no. Not usually. Sometimes we're just interested to see which songs influenced them.

Except for one or two in which case we're like, "Yikes!" ("If I Needed Someone" and "The Bells of Rhymney," anyone?)

This episode is inspired by a new project by our special guest Matt Besser (Improv4Humans, UCB founder). Besser(along with Bobby Matthews as well as Beatles podcast regular Brett Morris) has made a rock opera called "Stolen Idea" -- which we hope you check out on Stitcher Premium.

Also, we are taking a break from the podcast for a bit to recharge our Beatles engines! While we're recharging please know that we appreciate everyone who's taken time to listen! Thank you!

Panelists: Matt Besser, Will Hines, Ariana Lenarsky, Brett Morris, Joel Spence.

On this episode we talk about two less-often-discussed Beatles movies: Nowhere Boy (2009) and Backbeat (1994). These are not Beatles movies as in the Beatles were in them, but that are Beatles movies in that they are fictionalized accounts of the Beatles real lives.

First we discuss Nowhere Boy, which shows John Lennon in high school, meeting his reckless but inspiring birth mother Julia, learning to play banjo and guitar, meeting Paul McCartney and coming to terms with his strict but reliable Aunt Mimi.

Then we get into Backbeat, which shows the life of Stu Sutcliffe, John's friend in Liverpool art college, who was the Beatles original bass player and who joins the band when they go to Hamburg.

Plus we talk about the very cool band of 1994 grungy all-stars that got assembled to make this movie's soundtrack!

Although both movies have their flaws, I think big Beatles fans would love them both and in this episode we get into why!

My panel for this episode is Brian Hines (Sea Tea theatre in Hartford, Ct and brother of the host) and Tara Ariano (previously.tv web site and podcasting network).

As I note in the introduction, the recording quality for this ep is a bit less than usual. We were all in different cities and I was using some new software. I didn't configure everything exactly right. Everyone is still easy to understand, but you can hear that we are all on phones, etc. My apologies!

For our third episode recorded in the vaunted facilities of actual Abbey Road recording studios, we perform our own cover versions of Beatles songs.

They start weird, and get weirder. We go in roughly chronological order, but because of a combination of jet lag and how last-minute we got the studio -- our song selections are truly insane. 

Thankfully Joel Spence had arrived so we have his great guitar playing. And we have my own and Connor Ratliff's and Joel's spirited singing.

I do recommended listening to the whole thing for our interpretations of When I'm 64 and You Know My Name, Look Up The Number.

Thanks to engineer Stefano Civetta for his patience and sense of humor throughout!

Back to normal next week!

Musician/subway busker Nicola Hogg (@nicolahoggmusic), with her terrific voice and great songs, saved the day in this episode!

To re-cap: podcast host Will Hines along with temporary co-host Connor Ratliff were in London for improv reasons and impulsively decided to try and rent time at famed Beatles recording studio Abbey Road. To their shock, it WORKED and they suddenly had 10 hours of studio time with almost no plan.

The day before the session, they pass Nicola Hogg playing "You Can't Hurry Love" at the Tottenham Court Road subway station, and she sounded terrific. But that's not a Beatles song, you say. Well, so what? She's a young talented musician, and didn't the Beatles foster many such talents via their Apple Records label? And weren't Connor and Will, for the day at least, owners of official Abbey Road studio recording time? 

After exchanging a few tweets ("Uh, hi, you don't know us -- want to meet us at Abbey Road and record?") the delightful Nicola Hogg becomes the one and only client of our day-long adventure in running a record label, which is called Songer Records for reasons made clear in this episode.

Nicola plays us her songs, as well as some great Beatles covers. We talk about her music story, her thoughts on the Beatles and songwriting and performing in general. She's great!

Check out Nicola's terrific music at these places:

On Spotify, she's Nicola Hogg. 

And she's @nicolahoggmusic on twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Soundcloud! 

One more Abbey Road ep next week!