To OrderThe Beatles Anthology book from Amazon.co.uk Click Here
Amazon.co.uk is opening a special Beatles Store, which will feature discs and memorabilia, to cope with the anticipated increase in demand for Beatles music, films and memorabilia in advance of the publication of the Anthology book.
A British internet bookseller, swotbooks.com are offering the Anthology Book for just £23.50 - plus £2.90 postage.
For all the info on what is happening at each waterstones stores please click here
I've just received this e-mail from Waterstones About their parties:
Dear Jean and Richard,
Thankyou so much for taking such an interest in our activities and posting the details on your websites.Ê May I just make a slight ammendment; only 5 of our stores are opening at midnight on the 4th oct - these are :Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow - 0141 332 9105 -; East End Princes St, Edinburgh - 0131 556 3034/5 - ; Bridlesmith Gate, Nottigham - 0115 948 4499 - Bold St, LiverpoolÊ - 0151 708 6861 and Piccadilly Circus - 0207 851 2400.Ê
All of these stores, with the exception of Piccadilly, are holding prelaunch parties ie. competitions, fancy dress, entertainment and all will open at midnight to sell the book.
All will also be holding photocalls on the morning of the 4th so the press and media can attain photographs for publication day on the 5th.Ê Any fans wishing to be involved in these photocalls, please call stores direct for details.Ê Fans wishing to find out more about the events can also visit our website on www.waterstones.co.uk
Your webmaster's Beatles walk was filmed today as part of the NBC Today Show's Anthology coverage. My group was filmed outside Abbey Road Studios singing All You Need Is Love.
The Today Show are showing Beatles segments on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of October to tie in with the Anthology book.
Many Branches of Waterstones bookshops are to hold special Anthology events on the evening of October 4th. In each store the Anthology book will be sold from midnight. Most stores will have live music, competitions and guests.
The stores where events will take place are as follows:
13-14 Princes Street, Edinburgh .
Ê
22 Sidney Street, Cambridge
93 Albion Street, Leeds.
Thistle Marches, Stirling.
8 Royal Avenue, Belfast.
Nottingham Bridlesmith Gate.
Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.
Bold Street, Liverpool
Orchard Square, Sheffield.
Hanley, Stoke on Trent.
Braehead, Renfrew.
Kings Lynn, Norfolk.
London Notting Hill Gate
Silver Street, Bedford
King Street, Lancaster
Market Street, Leicester
Broadgate Coventry
Ousgate, York
Union Street, Aberdeen
We will bring you further details of what is happening where as soon as we have them.
Also included in Mojo are the transcripts of interviews carried out by Derek Taylor with Paul, George and Ringo for an EPK that had to be halted due to Derek's ill health - this material will not be in the Anthology book.
Buy Mojo as soon as you can as their Beatles specials always sell out fast.
More From Matt Hurwitz
Hi, all--
A few more details on Bloomingdale's launch party for "The Beatles Anthology" book. The party will take place at their store at 59th & Lexington Ave. in New York on Wednesday October 4, 2000. The party starts at 11pm, with the first copies of the book to go on sale a midnight.
Special guests include Master of Cermonies Cousin Brucie, Shea Stadium promoter Sid Bernstein, and DJ Mark Ronson, who will be spinning up Beatles tunes for the night.
The party takes place at the new Beatles shop in the Men's Store at Bloomingdale's, the first of its kind for a department store. There are tons of specially-made Beatles products there - all available only at Bloomingdale's. There will be a Beatles shop in all 23 Bloomingdale's stores throughout the U.S. And, if you can't make it to one, you can browse and buy at their website (beginning October 5) at:
http://www.bloomingdales.com
Matt Hurwitz
Publisher
Good Day Sunshine Magazine
http://www.gooddaysunshine.net/subscription.htm
The Beatles Anthology
by The Beatles
On Sale Worldwide: October 5, 2000
In their own words and their own images: here, for the first time in print, is the history of The Beatles--by the Beatles.
The book contains 340,000 words and over 1300 images, including unseen photographs and personal memorabilia.
This extraordinary project has been made possible because Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr have agreed to tell their combined story especially for this book. Together with Yoko Ono Lennon, they have also made available the full transcripts (including all the outtakes) of the television and video series The Beatles Anthology. Through painstaking compilation of sources worldwide, John Lennon's words are equally represented in this remarkable volume.Furthermore, The Beatles have opened their personal and management archives specifically for this project, allowing the unprecedented release of photographs which they took along their ride to fame, as well as fascinating documents and memorabilia from their homes and offices.
What a book The Beatles Anthology is. Each page is brimming with personal stories and rare vintage images. Snapshots from their family collections take us back to the days when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Richard Starkey were just boys growing up in Liverpool. They talk in turn about those early years and how they came to join the band that would make them known around the world as John, Paul, George, and Ringo.Then, weaving back and forth, they tell the astonishing story of life as The Beatles; the first rough gigs, the phenomenon of their rise to fame, the musical and social change of their heyday, all the way through to their breakup. From the time Ringo tried to take his drum kit home on the bus to their much anticipated audience with Elvis, from the making of the Sgt. Pepper Album to their last photo session together at John's house, The Beatles Anthology is a once-in-a-lifetime collection of The Beatles' own memories.
Interwoven with these are the recollections of such associates as road manager Neil Aspinall, producer George Martin and spokesman Derek Taylor. And included in the vast array of photographs are materials from both Apple and EMI, who opened their archives for this project. This, indeed, is the inside story, providing a wealth of previously unpublished material in both word and image.
Created with their full cooperation, The Beatles Anthology is, in effect, The Beatles' autobiography. Like their music, which has been a part of so many of our lives, it's warm, frank, funny, poignant, and bold. At last, here is The Beatles' own story.
published by Chronicle Books
This received from Matt Hurwitz Hi, all--
I've just been told by Apple that a special launch for 'The Beatles Anthology' book will take place at a brand new Beatles Store at Bloomingdale's in New York City.
At midnight on October 4, Bloomingdale's store at 59th & Lexington Avenue will offer the first editions of the book, at the opening of their Beatles Store. The store will offer high-end clothing and other merchandise featuring The Beatles' images, such as hand-painted jackets, shirts, towels, and other items. For the moment, this is the only Bloomingdale's store which will carry the items, though it is expected that the store will open other such outlets in their stores around the country. The items will also be available on the store's website, http://www.bloomingdales.com after October 4.
Matt Hurwitz
Publisher
Good Day Sunshine Magazine
http://www.gooddays
unshine.net/subscription.htm
Well now we know... according to the Calgary Herald the John Lennon Estate refused to let John's material be used in the Anthology extracts. The the extract they printed The Herald got around this problem by paraphrasing John's words but including an editors note to say they had done this. It was a pity none of the British newspapers admitted to this.
Over the weekend of September 2nd/3rd British Newspapers were full of extracts from the Anthology Book.
The biggest extract appeared in the Sunday Telegraph who gave over virtually their whole magazine to the book. Many different extracts were printed, dealing with subjects ranging from how The Beatles got their name to the reasons behind the break-up.
From these extracts it seems that most of the material from the book is gleaned from interviews with Paul, George and Ringo. The views of John are conspicuous by their absence. In fact there are more quotes from Neil Aspinall in the extacts than there are from John Lennon. If this is repeated throughout the whole book it seems the ideal of the TV Anthology of having a balance of comments between the four Beatles has been put aside for the book. In my opinion this gives the book far less credibility - especially as they are claiming it is the 'last word' on Beatles books.
If the lack of John quotes is the norm for the book one has to wonder why. John gave many interviews on the Beatles before he died on many different subjects. I'm sure with research the imbalance of quotes could have been improved.
One also has to speculate about the role of Yoko in the book. Has she been excluded from it. Is this the reason why the book has been delayed for so long. There have been stories about Paul and Yoko falling out - especially over the story of John dreaming the man on the Flaming Pie. Yoko insisted that John had the dream whereas Paul says he made it up as a bit of fun. it is interesting to note that in the section of how The Beatles got their name their is no mention of a Flaming Pie.
I've also noticed that Yoko has sanctioned the re-publishing of 'Lennon Remembers' - John's interview with Rolling Stone magazine held just after the break-up - to co-incide with the Anthology book.
However, one thing that is good about the extracts is that there is room for disagreements and differences of opinions amongst The Beatles. There is one point where George says 'Paul has a way of using stuff. I mean, even now, if he is going to do a tour he'll conveniently tell the press theat we're all getting back together again or something'.
Overall there are not many factual revalations in the extracts for die-hard fans. Most of the interest comes from their opinions on various subects. I was especially interested by this quote from George, 'John and I spent a lot of time together .....and I felt closer to him than all the others, right through until his death. As Yoko came in the picture, I lost a lot of personal contact with John, but on the odd occasion I did see him, just by the look in his eyes I felt we were connected.
Another plus for the book is that no subject is deemed too controversial for the book. There is great detail, for instance, about taking LSD and the affect it had on The Beatles, both musically and personally. Paul reveals he was the last to take it but caved into due to peer pressure. As he said ' The Beatles had got to be one of the ultimate peer pressures going.
Overall the extracts were very interesting but something, or should I say someone, was missing.
The 360-page book, which will be published worldwide this autumn and sell for about £50, will disclose new information about the group's drug taking and the arguments and eventual break-up in 1970.
The Beatles have amassed 1,200 photographs - most of them unpublished - for the glossy hardback, described as 'the size of an edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica'. The project, effectively the joint autobiographies of the three men, provides an insight into how closely the surviving members have been working together in the last few years. The split was announced by McCartney 30 years ago next Monday.
The book will be published in Britain and America, and there are plans to have it translated into dozens of languages, including Chinese. With worldwide sales expected to be more than 20 million, the book is expected to be a billion-pound earner.
The book will disclose that in 1996 the three surviving Beatles turned down an offer of $175 million (£113 million) to perform 17 concerts in the USA, Germany and Japan. Researchers have meticulously recorded hundreds of statements that Lennon made and woven them into the picture provided by the other band members.
The book will give credit to the role of Brian Epstein, the band's manager and affectionately known as the "fifth Beatle", who died from a drugs' overdose in 1967 at the age of 32. The group fell apart in April 1970, although it did not officially announce its break-up until the following year. One official at Apple Corps, the band's company, said: 'Most Beatles biographies have been based on press cuttings and ill-informed perceptions, while the men involved have hitherto said almost nothing.'
The Sunday Telegraph reported that fans will be fascinated about the disclosures about how the band split up. The anthology will counter the widely held belief that McCartney wanted the split. Instead, it will suggest he was the most reluctant of all for a break-up. According to officials at Apple Corps, the book tells how Lennon was the first to walk away, months before the official split. It was only because McCartney took on responsibility for announcing the break-up that he has wrongly been given the 'blame'. On April 11, 1970, headlines ran around the world: 'Paul quits Beatles.'
The Telegraph report that Ringo says in the book: 'After [John Lennon's] Plastic Ono Band's debut in Toronto, we had a meeting in Savile Row where John finally brought it to a head. He said, 'Well, that's it lads, let's end it.'. We didn't go public about the break-up immediately. Allen Klein [the band's American manager] had this thing: 'Split up boys if you want to - but don't tell anybody'. George says of Paul: 'He had the press release but everybody else had already left the band.'
Paul is also revelatory about the split, which took the world by surprise. 'I'd said 'I think we should go back to little gigs - I really think we're a great little band, we should find our basic roots, and then who knows what will happen, we may want to fold after that, or we may really think we've still got it.' John looked at me in the eye and said: 'Well, I think you're daft, I wasn't going to tell you until we signed the Capitol deal' - Klein was trying to get us to sign a new deal with the record company - 'but I'm leaving the group' We paled visibly and our jaws slackened a bit.'
McCartney suggests that Lennon had in effect quit before the beginning of 1970. 'For about three or four months, George, Ringo and I rang each other to ask 'Well, is this it then?' It wasn't that the record company had dumped us. It was still a case of 'we might get back together again'. Nobody knew if it was just one of John's little flings and that he was going to feel the pinch in a week's time and say, 'I was only kidding' . . . So we held on to that thread for a few months, and then eventually we realised, 'Oh well, we're not in the band any more. That's it, it's definitely over'.'
The book also examines the effect that Yoko Ono had on the band after she captivated Lennon, first having an affair with him, and later marrying him. It will examine personal and musical tensions between McCartney and Lennon as the latter 'took off' with his new love.
The idea for the book first came from Neil Aspinall, who started his career with the band in 1963, driving their van, and who is now the managing director of Apple Corps, of which Yoko Ono is a fellow director. Apple Corps officials say a huge publishing deal has been arranged, with Cassell in Britain and Chronicle Books in the USA. Both publishing houses have been asked to prepare for a multi-million print run. The book will be published worldwide in the autumn.