makesongsnotmistakes

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Ok, there's just the two of us with guitars, and as it happened it looked good, 'cause Paul was like, left-handed, and I was right-handed… and still am. And John was in the middle, and John, like, stood there with a hand on each shoulder, you know… (transc. by Javelinbk)

John, Paul and George at the Carroll Levis show ^^

[makesongsnotmistakes]

That's my job.

— Freddie Mercury

[makesongsnotmistakes]

I always was interested in finding out what have happens on the photo. What gave them the idea of depict Paul's funeral: why the funeral, why Paul? Well…I have an answer, I suppose

More legendary than most, however, were a band briefly signed to Brian, the Big Three. Other musicians on the scene seemed to regard this band with awe. They were the original power trio, real sonic bruisers who’d built themselves the biggest amplifiers - nicknamed Coffins - that anyone had ever seen.

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Epstein made his way to the Cavern club to see the group perform at a lunchtime session on November 9th. He wrote later that he had never seen anything like The Beatles on any stage. <…> "I loved their ad libs and I was fascinated by this, to me, new music with its pounding bass beat and its vast, engulfing sound." <…> The "pounding" bass that Epstein described was due in part to a new addition to The Beatles' equipment line-up. In the early 1960s there was really no such thing as a proper bass amplifier. Most bass players would use the most powerful guitar amplifier that they could get their hands on. But these were not designed for bass guitar, and did not provide the deep, throbbing bass tones that bass guitarists wanted. As The Beatles evolved their sound and Best perfected his "atomic beat" the group were searching for a stronger and more solid bass sound.

The band considered by many to be the loudest and most aggressive in Liverpool was The Big Three. They bad started out as Cass & The Cassanovas, a four-piece until leader and frontman Brian Casser left during the beginning of 1961. The remaining members stayed together to form The Big Three: Johnny Gustafson on bass, guitarist Adrian Barber, and Liverpool's loudest drummer, Johnny Hutchinson, on the skins.

Barber says that when they became a trio there was an instant problem: he and Gustafson weren't loud enough to project over Hutchinson's drumming. Even the relatively punchy Selmer Truvoice amp was not enough. Barber, however, had an interest in electronics from his days in the merchant navy. <…> Barber went out and bought a book about loudspeakers produced by G A Briggs, who owned the British Wharfedale speaker company, and inside he found construction details for various sizes of cabinets. "I decided on one, and Denis Kealing said he could get me a 15-inch speaker," recalls Barber. "I built a set-up for the bass guitar and for the vocal, in a cabinet about five feet tall by about 18 inches square. <…> I used that and mounted it in a metal ammunitions case, so we could carry it around without killing it. Johnny Gustafson used it as his bass amp, and it was very successful. "When we carried it we bad to lower it on its side, because it was long and skinny. The first time we took it down to the Cavern, we struggled down the tiny stairs there. As we carried this black-painted thing across the room it looked just like a coffin - and that's how it got its name: the Coffin. Now, the Cavern was the underground basement of a warehouse, with three vaulted brick-built archways. Over the years water had seeped down and brought calcium deposits with it, which had settled in the ceiling bricks. So when Johnny plucked that first bass note it was like a shower of snow corning down. People went, 'Wow look at that … and listen to that.' So we were really impressed, and I got ambitious at that point." <…> Other bands began to notice the relative sophistication of The Big Three's amplification, especially the bass gear. "Liverpool wasn't a competitive scene, before it got commercial," explains Barber. '"All the bands co-operated with one another and backed each other up. It was a cool scene, and I started to build these things for other people. Paul McCartney asked me to make him a Coffin. It had a single 15-inch speaker in a reflex-ported cabinet, with two chrome handles and wheels on the side."

McCartney started to use a Barber Coffin speaker cabinet during the late part of 1961. <…> McCartney himself recalls, "Adrian made me a great bass amp that he called the Coffin. And, man! Suddenly that was a total other world. That was bass as we know it now. It was like reggae bass: it was just too right there. It was great live." Pete Best too remembers the Coffin. "Neil Aspinall and I used to carry it. Every couple of shows there'd be a flight of stairs which you had to carry this thing up, and it was then we'd wonder why he couldn't have got something smaller. We'd have sweat streaming off us. But the beauty of it was, with all the laughing and joking aside, it did produce a great sound. The first time Paul plugged it in and used it, we just said my god, this is incredible. It added to The Beatles sound."

(Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio Hardcover by Andy Babiuk, 2010)

So, I guess, Paul is lying on his bass amp that they called the Coffin - and it's the reason of the pantomime on the photo.

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Still feels weird that the same band made "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" and "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)"

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Nick Cave on A.I.

[makesongsnotmistakes]

The Twist and Shout performance medley from The Beatles Anthology still fills me with such joy

[makesongsnotmistakes]

paul mccartney daily affirmations

[makesongsnotmistakes]

kate bush featured on top pop (tv), march 1978 ꩜

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Freda Kelly and Billy Kinsley on The Beatles at the Cavern Club, within documentary Good Ol' Freda: The Beatles' Secretary (2013)

KELLY: It was conversation all the time with the audience. If somebody came in with a different hairstyle, they’d pick on them. They’d go, "Have you been the hairdressers?" or "Who got you up this morning?" But you answered them back, they liked the razzamatazz between you and them. People used to write down a number, give it to them, and ask them if they’d play that number. Now if you gave it to John, Paul always went over to John and leaned over his shoulder and read the request out. I just thought, "Can’t John read, or…?" KINSLEY: He looked pretty arrogant, to be honest. He looked at the crowd as if he was going to kill everyone in the crowd. KELLY: And then I mentioned it to somebody and they said, "Oh, no, no. John’s as blind as a bat. He wears glasses and he never wears his glasses, so he can’t see further than his nose." I liked George singing 'Three Cool Cats'. I loved that one or 'The Sheik Of Araby' because he used to do a little dance and I liked him doing the little dance. He used to sort of like kick his feet along the stage and go...

[makesongsnotmistakes]

John Lennon in Beatles '64 (2024)

[makesongsnotmistakes]

what a legend

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Joe and Paul, c. 1979

Photos by Adrian Boot

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Best RPF Ship - Round 5 Match 2

[makesongsnotmistakes]

gerard way watercolor + pen doodle ^_^

[makesongsnotmistakes]

[makesongsnotmistakes]

Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast and Missy of Mannequin Pussy captured by CJ Harvey

[makesongsnotmistakes]

this part of stevie nicks’ interview with rolling stone is taking me out