January 30, 1969

     Okay Apple Scruffs, here we are on the anniversary of The Beatles’ impromptu final concert on the rooftop at 3 Saville Row - and now thanks to Pete Jackson and Disney - it is the hype that keeps on hyping. A live performance of five songs (multiple takes), just under 40 minutes in the brutal cold of a London January, that they thought would be a nice ending for the Get Back film project.  Pulled off on a whim, until the police “bumbled in” and shut things down.  Unquestionably a moment of rock history, but now the Complete Rooftop Concert is available as a digital download - thanks, we all have the bootleg and starting today you can see the concert on IMAX screens worldwide.  More hype, more money, more, more, more. Didn’t you guys see this already in Part Three???  A restored Let It Be in IMAX theaters? Now that I’d be all over.

      Like it or not, we’ve already been subjected to the long and winding hype that is Peter Jackson’s Get Back - the Disney+ / 160+ hours / “special, k?” that promises to show happy peppy Beatles, singing happy peppy songs, back in a magical time when bands didn’t break-up and questions weren’t addressed. . . but boredom, arguments, and wounded egos cannot be re-recorded,  revised, or remastered - no matter how much laughter you discover in the waste bin.  Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original documentary showed a band coming apart - not the intent, but the result. The accompanying soundtrack, though it would yield three hit singles - would be held in “procrastinative contempt” by the band and upon its initial release, Paul McCartney called the box set with book - “blatant hype.” I can’t help but wonder what he really thinks of this version; or what John or what George would say.  Time has a way of making us remember only the good, but history requires we not revise it. Paul didn’t break up the band, Yoko didn’t break up the band. Money and time broke up the band, there’s no reason to spend time making/watching something that tells you different. You already know all the songs.

      Now, it’s no secret that I don’t like Peter Jackson’s film-making - I walked out of the first Lord of the Ring’s travelogue - so when I heard he got his meat hooks on Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s discards, I was less than jubilant. I’d already been disappointed by Ron Howard’s failed excursion into the first U.S. Tour, so I could not see someone with zero editorial ability, skillfully curating leftovers from Let It Be into a meal that I enjoy. I wish the “Celebrity-Auteurs” could keep their inner-fanboy in check, we don’t need more vanity projects that insinuate them into the subject’s story. Peter Jackson’s name will now, embarrassingly, forever be included along-side John, Paul, George, and Ringo. When I first voiced my displeasure, noting that, instead, Apple should release a Let It Be DVD Box Set (with extras and commentary), I received support for the idea from Sir Paul, himself - or at least his minions (I’m not delusional). A two-and-a-half hour re-imagining of deleted scenes - goody, at the start of a pandemic to boot. But then, as we ALL know (thanks to Disney’s marketing machine) all involved realized 160 hours would require editing to get it down to 2.5 hours and the rest is revisionist history, as they say.

        Let it Be [Apple PCS 7092], the most dissected and infinitely revised of all the Beatle albums - is not really a Beatle album, as much as a soundtrack for the 1970 documentary. In January 1970, two things happened to support my point - Michael Lindsay-Hogg, planned to include a song of George’s in the documentary, so a studio track would be required for the soundtrack.  On January 3^rd, George (while producing a Billy Preston album) gathered Paul and Ringo at Abbey Road to record “I, Me, Mine.”  John, who’d privately quit the band in August, was on vacation in Denmark. John Lennon returned from vacation, fired up by the concept of Instant Karma and wanted to record a single.  George convinced Phil Spector to come out of retirement and produce John’s single - that collaboration that will lead to Spector producing the abandoned music of the Get Back sessions - the first time an “outsider” revised The Beatle’s vision. The Get Back album was finally released - renamed Let It Be - on May 8^th 1970.  Since then, we have had bootlegs - sold from the trunks of cars at Swap Meets worldwide - with titles like Fly on the Wall (The Glyn Johns Mix), bootleg copies of Get Back (as it would appeared with the Angus McBean cover), The Complete Rooftop Concert - along with infamous unreleased Takes on every bootleg compilation produced.  In the 2000’s we begin to see official response with tracks on Anthology 2 & 3, as well as the stripped clean Let It Be. . .Naked.  Now we’re seeing Giles Martin’s remixes and remastering of the last three albums. All great music, but there’s nothing new - especially here.  Just different angles. Just different takes. Hype in IMAX. Happy Anniversary!

[This is a edited version of a rant triggered originally by the social media/emperor’s new clothes fanfare by people who should know better. My outrage was beat down by family who repeatedly told me to let it go. The continued hype triggered this post - when we see The Acoustic Demos Special later this summer, perhaps it will trigger my unedited rage…and I’ll post the whole damn thing.]