As I write this, the hour is well past midnight across the Atlantic. It’s October 9th there in Liverpool, and John Lennon has turned seventy. I’ve been listening the past few days to Lennon music, either the music he recorded himself, or covers of his music recorded by others (I’m particularly fond of Green Day’sContinue reading “On John Lennon’s 70th Birthday”
Tag Archives: John-Lennon
On Granting Parole to Mark David Chapman
Next month, Mark David Chapman, the murderer of John Lennon, goes before New York State’s parole board. Sentenced to a 20 years-to-life sentence for second degree murder in 1981, he first came up for parole in 2000. Now, in 2010, he is up for parole for the sixth time, having served 29 years in AtticaContinue reading “On Granting Parole to Mark David Chapman”
On You Never Give Me Your Money
Over the past twenty-odd years I’ve read a lot of Beatles books. My studies have ranged from Mark Lewisohn’s books on their recordings to biographies of the band like Philip Norman’s Shout! and Bob Spitz’s The Beatles to analysis of the music in Mark Hertzgaard’s A Day in the Life and Ian MacDonald’s Revolution inContinue reading “On You Never Give Me Your Money”
On Westwood One’s The Lost Lennon Tapes Radio Documentary
Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I’ve recently been listening to The Lost Lennon Tapes, a 200-odd hour long documentary on the life and music of John Lennon that was broadcast on the Westwood One Radio Network in the late-1980s. I’ve known of the series for a long time, but I’d never heard it,Continue reading “On Westwood One’s The Lost Lennon Tapes Radio Documentary”
On an Upcoming John Lennon Biopic
A friend of mine, Michael Schuster, pointed me to this, the trailer for Nowhere Boy, an upcoming biopic about the teenage years of John Lennon: Aaron Johnson, whom I’ve never heard of, plays the young Lennon, and Thomas Sangster plays Paul McCartney. While Sangster doesn’t look especially much like McCartney, Johnson, particularly when he putsContinue reading “On an Upcoming John Lennon Biopic”
On Writing About Bloom County
Life is strange sometimes. This morning, I’m writing an article about Bloom County. Growing up in the 1980s, I loved Bloom County. Sadly, at the span of twenty years since its ending, I remember very little of its original run, except for the extended sequence of strips where Bob Woodward wrote an expose on theContinue reading “On Writing About Bloom County”
On Paperback Writer
It sometimes surprises me, given the cultural signifance of the Beatles, that there’s not more fiction devoted to the Beatles than there is. There’s a few novels — Liverpool Fantasy stands out — and some short stories, like Ian MacLeod’s “Snodgrass” and Stephen Baxter’s “The Twelfth Album.” Curiously, all of these novels are alternate historiesContinue reading “On Paperback Writer”
On Something for the Beatles Fans
From time to time I’ve mentioned “Now and Then,” a John Lennon demo that keeps getting touted as a potential release in some fashion in the coming months. Indeed, there’s a fan-created mix of the song that I think sounds positively Beatlesque. Maybe it’s all just wishful thinking. That there’s something in the vault, somethingContinue reading “On Something for the Beatles Fans”
On Another Imaginary Beatles Album
Stephen Baxter created “God.” Maximum Bob created “Imaginary.” I created “Hot As Sun.” Imaginary Beatles albums. Had the band not broken up in 1969/1970, what would their next album after Abbey Road have been? Saturday, while looking for any sort of complete list of the solo #1 hits of the Beatles, I came across thisContinue reading “On Another Imaginary Beatles Album”
On March’s Greatest Hits
I haven’t done a search phrase round-up in a while. Let’s take a look at the top 20 of March. 🙂 20. “Jason Gronberg.” A friend of mine. He passed away in November. One of my favorite memories of Jason. 19. “Napoleon.” One of my favorite sparring partners in Age of Empires III. Except forContinue reading “On March’s Greatest Hits”