The panel watched The Rutles: a 1978 mockumentary / parody of The Beatles done by Eric Idle (of Monty Python) and Neil Innes (of many cool art/music/comedy credits , among other things, the Magical Mystery Tour film)!

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

Some of us saw Ringo Starr and the All-Starr Band in Los Angeles (Sep 29, 2018 - Greek Theatre) and we talk about it!

Panelists: Will Hines, Jackie Johnson, Adam McCabe,  Katie Plattner, Heather Woodward

A mammoth look at the new Paul McCartney album (Sep 2018), "Egypt Station." The main point: WE LIKE IT.

Things we get into:

--the wide variety of songs

--Paul's use of his new, older voice

--the production

--the pretty, soft songs like "Hand in Hand"

--the epic, poppier songs like "Feh You" and "Come On To Me"

--every other song

--plus we talk about the Beatles masturbation story, and then don't stop talking about it.

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

We discuss Mark Lewisohn's 1000-page (ish) bio of the Beatles, which hilariously only covers through the end of 1962 (i.e. before the group finished any albums). WE STILL LOVE THIS BOOK!

Panelists: Katie Plattner, Jennifer Wang, Will Hines

The panel discusses the incredible 1971 John Lennon solo album Imagine. Topics discussed: how great this album is, how amazing the song "Imagine" is, how amazing the song "Jealous Guy" is, how petty and mean the song "How Do You Sleep" is. We also listen to Paul McCartney's recent singles and decide that he is very good.

Panelists: Will Hines, Brett Morris, Katie Plattner, Joel Spence, Heather Woodward.

The panel does an unsolicited and unnecessary commentary track for the Beatles second movie Help! Heather knows a ton, and the rest of us know less, but not nothing.

Panelists: Will Hines, Katie Plattner, Joel Spence, Heather Woodward.

Beatles fan and obsessive list-maker Wayland McQueen picks Beatles 5-20. 

Also, we plug the current theatrical release of Yellow Submarine!

I play Revolver for Eugene, who's never heard it. This is the fifth in a series of "playing albums for Eugene." Regular panelist Brett Morris heard I was playing Revolver, and asked to come by, so he sits in too! That makes TWO people just staring at a dude as he listens to an album for the first time! Fun! 

We go over Paul McCartney's second post-Beatles album, RAM. Criticized upon its release, it's now considered one of his best solo albums! Brett Morris in particular doesn't want to hear you people who don't appreciate this album! 

We get into the unfair expectations on Paul, his insane vocal range, the inventive orchestrations, the as-usual-perfect-melodies. We also get into what we think the other Beatles might have brought to this.

And Joel does too many puns about name Klaus, a man who was not involved at all with this album!

Panelists: Will Hines, Brett Morris, Katie Plattner, Joel Spence.

The panel goes over John's first post-Beatles solo album: PLASTIC ONO BAND. Not enough Beatles fans have heard this, and it's one of the best solo Beatles albums out there. The bleakness, the raw blues rock, KLAUS' BASS and RINGO'S DRUMS! 

Plus Barbara Streisand covered "Mother?" Weird.

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

Continuing the series of "playing Beatles albums for Eugene" (this is the 4th installment) we do Rubber Soul! Hear Will try hard not to influence Eugene's opinion! Luckily he doesn't have to as Eugene falls in love with this album almost immediately.

In the 3rd episode of "Playing Albums for Eugene," host Will Hines plays "A Hard Day's Night." HOWEVER due to a recording error, the levels are off and so it's hard to hear us talk when the music gets loud. Sheesh. My apologies. That's why I'm releasing this as a bonus ep. Feel free to IGNORE or to PUSH THROUGH, as is your wishes.

Beatles fan Amy walks us through the evidence of John's affection for Paul. Sure, we know Lennon cared about Macca, but he sure was stubborn about showing it when journalists were around, especially in the 1970s. Amy takes us through deep cuts of interviews, testimony, and even shopping lists to which reveal what every Beatles fan knows but still loves to hear: John loves Paul.

We loved playing a Beatles album for someone who'd never heard it last week, so let's try it again. With the same person! but a different album. We play "The White Album" for Eugene Cordero and get his moment-by-moment reactions. Some highlights include: Dear Prudence, Honey Pie and Revolution 9.

Sure, the album Abbey Road is a favorite of Beatles fans -- but what does someone think of it if they're not a particular fan of the band, and have never really heard the album? We find out as Beatles-neutral actor Eugene Cordero (Kong: Skull Island, UCB) listens to this seminal album and says what he thinks! Robert Baker (Justified, Grey's Anatomy) is along for the ride too. 

Hosted as usual by Will Hines. Pardon the slight-but-yep-you-hear-it echo -- your host did not realize his hotel room had such bouncy sounds.

Here's a major one: We go over George Harrison's first solo album, the triple-album All Things Must Pass.

After having lots of his songs passed up for the later Beatles albums (except when they were so-goddamned-good-not-even-John-Lennon-could-deny-it like Something and Here Comes the Sun) --- George explodes with productivity on his debut.

We talk about the million people who worked on this album, the obvious (though still restrained) "screw you" vibe, the spirituality, the weird house George lived in, the many many great songs, and oh yeah that third disc which is just... uh.. blues jams.

Guess what: we love this album.

Panelists: Will Hines, Brett Morris, Katie Plattner, Joel Spence, Heather Woodward. 

The second post-Beatles solo album is the you've-probably-never-heard-it Beaucoups of Blues, a country album by Ringo Starr released July of 1970. It is quite solidly okay, which is honestly better than probably a lot of people expected, since Ringo Starr is basically the Ringo of the Beatles.

Our panelists are Will Hines and Heather Woodward. Circumstances made us do this episode in a bit of a hurry, with Heather phoning in and Will playing music by holding his iPhone up to a microphone. The audio is, just like this album, still quite solidly okay!

The first true Beatles solo album: McCartney. Recorded almost entirely by himself, including many sessions done alone in his apartment -- this was a sad and lonely time for Paul. The Beatles were over, and he was trying to see what kind of record he would make without his three collaborators around. Turns out: a pretty damn good one. Just "Maybe I'm Amazed" alone makes this a must-have album. But even the smallest trifle is fascinating for what it tells us about how the very recently former Beatle is feeling.

Panelists: Will Hines, Brett Morris, Katie Plattner, Joel Spence, Heather Woodward

We take a break from going over the solo stuff to discuss BEATLES WOMEN. An all-female panel discusses the wives and girlfriends of the fab four, with a German photographer and British journalist thrown in there too.

This is the second long episode in a row. I promise the episodes are normally gonna be an hour or less! But we had a lot to cover! The next episode will come in two more weeks since this one is basically a double.

Panelists: Jackie Johnson, Jen Krueger, Katie Plattner, Jennifer Wang, Heather Woodward

We're back for season 3! And now we're going over SOLO BEATLES. First, a massive episode that goes over all (well, most) of the solo projects they did before the breakup. And we get into the breakup, too! Allen Klein vs. Lee Eastman! Yoko Ono! Apple Corps! Eeesh. But we also dig into the music: Wonderwall! Two Virgins! Give Peace A Chance! Sentimental Journey! 

It's the Beatles! Fascinating, even as they couldn't stand each other.

This is a long episode, and so the next episode will come in TWO weeks instead of next week.

Panelists: Will Hines, Brett Morris, Katie Plattner, Heather Woodward

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!

HOLY CRAP THIS EPISODE RECORDED AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS.

Is this an act of hubris? Or a fulfillment of a destiny? We may never know, but the fact is: THIS EPISODE, and the two that will follow, ARE RECORDED AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS!

We explain it in full detail in the episode, but basically Connor and Joel and I were all going to be in London and so we sent an email to Abbey Road Studios to ask if we could record there... AND THEY SAID YES. I mean, for a normal fee, it wasn't like they had any idea who we were.

We recorded 3 episodes on September 22, 2017 (mark that down, Mark Lewisohn). For this episode, we talk to Abbey Road engineer Stefano Civetta.

Abbey Road Studios has a new small studio in their complex called The Gatehouse and that made is financially possible (though still impractical and foolish) for us to record there!

We saw the Beatles studio! We took our photo in the crosswalk! We ate in the Abbey Road work cafeteria! IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE DAY!

Panelists: Will Hines, Connor Ratliff, Stefano Civetta, and for one brief word Mariana Feijo.