Ringo Booklet

RINGO VOTED 2ND MOST POPULAR LIVING EX-BEATLE FOR FIRST TIME                                         Controversial Thrifty Vinyl Poll Once Again Includes Pete Best

(Columbus, Ohio) – With the recent release of the well-received Ringo 2012 and the upcoming All-Starr Band tour of the Pacific Rim, cited as reasons for the high Ringo turnout, Ringo Starr has been voted undisputed second favorite living ex-Beatle for the first time ever in 42 years of post-Fabs polling by Thrify Vinyl.

The Most Popular Living Ex-Beatle Polls conducted by Thrifty Vinyl for the years following George Harrison’s death in 2003 saw unusually large write-in support from those still faithful to sacked Pete Best. These were busy times for Best with the nascent Beatle drummer’s Record Fair and Beatles Convention tour culminating in stunning performances at BeatleFests 2005 and 2006 where Best talked at length about his brief stint with the band during its early days and subsequent years-long and painfully deep bitterness.

Perhaps inevitably, questions have arisen some about what constitutes a “living ex-Beatle” with the more doctrinaire refusing to recognise any poll results featuring Best.

“If Ringo ain’t in it, it ain’t the Beatles,” Columbus welder Geoff Seabrook, 28, says flatly. “What next, Stu Sutcliffe? Do we make members of the Quarrymen eligible for the poll? Where does it end?”

But Reynoldsburg substitute teacher Hazel Whist, 36 , believes the Best results are legitimate. “The band began trading under name ‘Beatles’ when Pete Best was in them. That’s an indisputable fact.”

“And he was crucial in developing their early style,” Whist points out. “I personally think Stu Sutcliffe should be included for the same reasons, even allowing that his musical contribution was considerably less vital than Pete Best.”

In related news, Ringo Starr has also received first prize in the ninth posthumous Yassir Arafat Look-A-Like Contest.

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Editor’s note: The second time Ringo has been featured in these pages. The crucial difference being that I bought the booklet that accompanied the album as a standalone at a Hythe Bootfair since my other copy was in bad shape due to water damage. Klaus Voorman is responsible for the line art.

John Lennon – Imagine (SW 3379) (1971)

BEATLES MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS, ABRAHAM, MOHAMMED, ZOROASTER, BUDDHA, GURU NANAK, MOSES, CONFUCIUS AND KRISNA COMBINED, CLAIMS LENNON        

(London, England) — In an interview with the Evening Standard‘s Maureen Cleave, John Lennon has claimed that the Beatles are more popular than all the major world religious figures put together. “Religion will go,” he is reported to have said. “We’re more popular than Jesus Christ, Abraham, Mohammed of Mecca, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, Guru Nanak, Moses, Confucius, and Krisna combined now.”

“Their disciples are alright,” the Beatle continued, “But all these revered spiritual leaders were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it [religion] that ruins it for me.”

In the article, “How Does A Beatles Live?”, Lennon further stated, “In comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person and God as a thing or whatever it is, we are not only better, but greater.”

At press time, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroasterian, Buddhist, Sikh and Hindu leaders have issued a joint statement praising Lennon’s proclamation, calling it a “perfectly accurate assessment of Beatle music’s superior-in-every-way relation to all current and past religious thought” and urging their followers to burn religious texts in organised rallies.

Editor’s Note: One of my earliest flea market thrifts, from a large Sunday morning event at a Dublin, Ohio drive-in circa the late 70s, my copy of Imagine included the poster (not shown), post card and lyric/credits inner sleeve.

The post card was, of course, a none-too-subtle dig at Paul and Linda’s contemporary Ram.

This little piggie…

George Harrison – “Ding Dong” b/w “I Don’t Care Anymore” (R 6002) (1974)

DING DONG

Second solo Beatle 7″ out of the Christmas/New Year’s season gate, “Ding Dong” is a charming piece of holiday-ana, if a bit slight lyrically and musically, lifted from the Dark Horse Lp. I purchased the single earlier this year from the (now sadly defunct) Green Door junque store in Hythe with an eye to posting kindly Xmas wishes to all the good-looking and intelligent readers of Thrifty Vinyl.

Do check out the cute Beatles-referencing vintage Hari video linked above.

Paul McCartney – Flowers In the Dirt (PCSD 106) (1989)

Transcript of Prince Asbo’s recently discovered audio diary, found on a CD-R in deepest Kent. We warn you, some readers may find the following distressing.

Day 335 without any post from Ekolad and 476 days since we’ve heard from Farmer Glitch…I find myself growing ever more light-headed and my hands shake as I adjust the weight of the tone arm [inaudible] with only scraps of scritchy soul jazz and Beatles related records to keep me going…had to resort to cannibalizing scores of Lps for supplies…[inaudible, possibly “I have grown a”] full beard…[audible panting as if out breath, followed by muffled speech]…fewer boot fairs…chaz shops picked over…what’s it all for?…I mean, look at this, a Flowers In the Dirt from Etchinghill purchased last summer–is that what it’s come to?…the first Macca solo “comeback” record in a long line touted as “his best since Band On the Run” is pretty energetic as these things go…saw him on tour behind Flowers…Elvis Costello co-writes…includes fold-out lyric sheet, heavy day-glo yellow inner sleeve…but it’s not enough to keep Thrifty Vinyl readers entertained [1 minute inaudible] tried to inject variety with different types of reviews, stories, fake news, surreal conceits, etc [apparent random words sounds like “big fire queer jumping townhouse gruffy (sic) smile insolvent”]….but all in same oh-so arch “voice” [shuffling obscures audio]…smug, not enough intellectual rigour to match pretensions, laboured know-it-all [begins sobbing], over-cooked big words critic speak clichés, no humanity…[sobbing then goes on for a full 3 minutes]…all same kind of “worthy” records, no silly or kitschy stuff…mummy, why is the stereo cabinet getting dark?…so very cold…if only…had help….[after a minute of heavy breathing, transmission ends].

Last known photo of the one called Prince Asbo.

The Beatles Flip Your Wig Game

To celebrate Thrifty Vinyl’s 600th post, something a little different. I bought this The Beatles Flip Your Wig Game from Mount Vernon, Ohio’s Goodwill Thrift Store when I was 10 or 11 for 50 cents. Years later, I spawned precisely two children so that the whole family could play the game on Saturday nights. I’m always John.

Of course, not many people these days have actually seen the game, let alone played it; for those unfortunates, I will provide a précis.

The specific objects of the game are different for each player, but all involve going around and around the board a seemingly interminable number of times while you complete of an Lp’s worth of peerless pop songs without breaking up the band.

If you choose to be Ringo, you are not allowed to play unless the John and Paul players say you can. You must endure almost the entire game/album’s recording session waiting to move your piece/perform your drum parts and one lead vocal. When you can, you may collect Beatles cards, e.g. “You Learn to Play Chess”, “Have Another Drink” and “Actually Record a Drum Part/One Lead Vocal” to help you on your way. But there are Flip Your Wig cards which cause you to lose a turn, such as “George Sleeps With Your Wife”, “John Patronizes You” and “Paul Does Your Drum Bit When You Go Out For a Curry”.

The John player wins when he gets at least one more song on the album than the Paul player, though these must include two avant-garde pieces and/or odes to Yoko. However, “John” is obliged to play with a Yoko Ono player by his side during the entire game, kibbitzing and oblivious to the taunts and eye-rolling of her fellow players (NB: The Yoko piece is not included in the original game). Examples of Beatles cards helpful to John are “No-One’s In the Studio, Quick Go For It”, “Double Album Needs More Material” and “Yoko Gives You Several Titles to Choose From”. The Flip Your Wig cards include, “Solo Album Uses Up Indulgent Idea” (there are several of these cards), “Acorns For Peace Publicity Stunt Fails To Bring About World Peace” and “In Court Fighting For Custody of Yoko’s Daughter”.

If you are the George player, you win if he gets no less than three lead vocals on the album, one of which must be a raga. This player will more likely be successful if he or she picks up “John On LSD, Very Suggestible”, “Invite Eric Clapton or Billy Preston To Session, Everyone On Best Behaviour In Front Of Company” or “Fly To Bombay, Hire Proper Indian Musicians” Beatles cards. Your job will be a lot harder with lose-a-turn cards like, “Ravi Shankar Publicly Disses Your Sitar Playing”, “Paul Redoes Guitar Part It Took You 17 Hours To Tape,” and “No-One In Studio Knows How To Tune a Sitar”.

The Paul player must simply be the first player to quit after everyone else has quit.

I hope you liked that. Three of you are welcome to come by and play some Saturday night if the family’s watching X Factor.

Billy Preston – “That’s The Way God Planned It” b/w “What About You” (Apple 12) (1969)

Hmmm, let’s have a look at today’s headlines: Jihadi veterans of Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan join callow foreign idealists on frontline of Aleppo…Reports suggest as many as 2,000 workers involved in fight at Foxconn factory in China…Former England football captain John Terry has retired from international football, blaming the FA for making his position ‘untenable’…Shares in the sports chain JJB Sports suspended as investors refuse to stump up any extra cash to save the company…Report on global warming warns of global food insecurity as Persian Gulf, Libya, and Pakistan expected to be hardest hit…Woman pronounced dead at the scene after branch falls during wet and windy weather conditions in London…Steven Gerrard says Liverpool have not been good enough this season but believes it is not time to panic yet….

No worries though, that’s the way God planned it. That’s the way God wants it to be, apparently.

I had a US copy of this sans picture sleeve, and so couldn’t resist the UK version with cover art of this quite good George H. produced gospel. Especially for 25 pee.

George Harrison – All Things Must Pass (STCH 639) (1970)

By common consent (but not actually) the best Beatles solo album*, All Things Must Pass promises and delivers on a grand scale. That the scale tends to overwhelm the quiet Beatle’s voice is one of the record’s main faults.

However, I don’t care to review George’s first proper solo album, rather, I want to discuss a peculiar phenomenon I, and perhaps I alone, associate with the Lp, viz. the way the tempo of various songs seem to slow down and speed up.

Between the ages of 11 and 18, I cleaned the second floor of the Dowds-Rudin office building. For my pocket-money, I mopped, waxed, vacuumed, cleaned sinks, toilets, &c. I had a tick list and could, as long as I did everything on the list, take as long as I wanted.

Usually, I gave myself a long break, which consisted of fetching a large Sprite from the lunch counter at SS Kresge’s downstairs, returning to my dad’s studio office (yes, I got the job through nepotism) to pore over bound volumes of late 60s/early 70s Rolling Stone at length while listening to either No Dice by Badfinger, Harvest by Neil Young or All Things Must Pass on a vintage solid state console. All three Lps (and likely the record player) had come from the local Goodwill. My copy of Pass was slightly warped giving it a slightly lurching feel, enhanced by the extensive use of George’s slide and Pete Drake’s pedal steel guitar. I assumed it was a unique fault.

And yet, years later, I sensed this same warped effect, though perhaps not as pronounced, on my 2001 CD re-issue, especially on “Awaiting On You All” and the title track. I thought maybe this was some sort of aural hangover. But when listening this morning to yet another second-hand boot faired vinyl copy (without the poster, dammit!), the characteristic wooziness reared its head. The records are in VG+ condish, not warped, nor did the Lps cause the tone arm to wobble at all.

So…am I unlucky? Is it in my head? Or was this a designed effect**?

*that would be Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, by several kilometres.

**I’m not counting the novelty song, “It’s Johnny’s Birthday”, on the Apple Jam disc, whose mechanical tempo changes are obvious and deliberate; however, this does suggest the variable-tape-speed card was in the deck.

“The Beatles’ Movie Medley” b/w “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You” (Capitol B-5107) (1982)

An artifact from perhaps Capitol Records’ lamest Beatles cash-in*, Reel Music, a compilation of songs heard in their various films. Even the title pun reeks of desperation. Unsurprisingly, the only Beatles song as yet unissued on CD, “The Beatles’ Movie Medley” was inspired, at least in the commercial sense, by the wretched US No. 1 “Stars On 45”, a disco medley of several 60s classics, including several by the Fabs.

The one redeeming aspect of this affront is the fact that it featured on the booth-jukebox at Mount Vernon, OH’s LK family restaurant where my friends and I would play the b-side as loud as possible while we had our late night coffee and pecan pie. I still remember its code: B4. True.

*Let’s see: Rock and Roll Music, Beatle Ballads, Love Songs, The Beatles Story, Rarities, 20 Greatest Hits, Love, Yellow Submarine Songtrack, Let It Be…Naked…hmm, there’s a lot of competition. And that’s even discounting the whole song reshuffling hoo-ha whereby US Capitol, during the 1960s, contrived to release half again as many Lps, using the same number of songs, as their UK counterparts. The company shamelessly compounded this aesthetic folly recently by releasing volumes one and two of The Capitol Albums on 4-disc box sets.

Paul McCartney – All the Best! (1987) and Wings Greatest (1978)

Collecting money. Collecting knowledge and experience. Collecting books one has read. Collectors – kings of numismatics, chocolate-wrapper millionaires. Collecting fame – one more poem, one more rôle. Lists of women. Boyfriends in reserve. 

The notches on a sniper’s gun. Collecting suffering – look what I have been through and endured! Travel. Chasing vivid impressions. Discoveries, conquests, economic growth. The one who has hoarded more is better, grander, more cultured, more intelligent, more popular.

And amidst this universal hoarding: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ – Andrey Sinyavsky from Unguarded Thoughts (1965)

Double-sided poster included in Wings Greatest

When I found these two Macca comps over the past year, a pound each at the Lyminge Garage Safari and Canterbury Red Cross respectively, I already possessed: the latter on cassette; a CD of Wingspan, which includes every song on both records; 7″ or 12″ singles of each track (multiples in some cases), bar “Pipes of Peace” (which I own on its parent Lp).

What kind of sickness is this?

Ringo’s Rotogravure (SD 18193) (1976)

The graffiti-adorned door of the Beatles’ former offices on 3 Saville Row and back cover of Ringo’s fifth solo album, this held the most interest for me as a young Beatle fan.

The formula for reviewing Ringo Starr Lps is as simple as making them: First note the big gun producer (here, Arif Mardin) and how he piles on the layers of backing to compensate for the drummer’s lack of pipes or taste; next, explain that an outrageously large number of rock royalty (e.g. Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Dr. John, Jim Keltner, Sneeky Pete Kleinow, etc., etc., etc.) is on hand giving the record a certain kind of credibility; third, make sure to breathlessly allude to the virtual Beatles reunion when referring to the second-tier songs (they aren’t going to give away their A-list material, are they?) provided by each of his former band mates; finally, compare the work favorably or unfavorably, depending on your mood, to Ringo, the album which instigated the correct procedure for the making of Ringo records. Hey, presto! Your Ringo review is written and the bonus is you don’t have to listen to the album, the relevant information can simply be gleaned from the liner notes.

Now, Thrifty Vinyl readers may be surprised to learn that I’m something of a Beatles fan and am inclined to forgive them all manner of sins; so for my 70p*, and for all its mediocrity, Rotogravure is a bouncy and cheery nostalgia-fest and by no means a complete wash out. Really, it’s not that much better or worse than the overly praised Ringo. Top-notch support ensures the music’s good enough and one imagines a coke and alcohol-fueled good time was had by all who contributed; nonetheless, it’s hard not to notice that, without the Starr of the show’s pedigree, the record would never have been made.

*Yes, literally. It was on sale for a pound, but 70 pence was all I had left, so they let it go at a discount. A different stall in Great Chart.