Beatles, Browncoats, and yet more books

[annathepiper]

Friday night mamishka, jennygriffee, kathrynt, llachglin, and Q & Erik’s little girl Lillian all came over to the Murk to play Beatles Rock Band. This was great fun, and I can say this even despite the fact that I never actually participated–since Lillian kept me busy babywrangling. I had enough of a delightful time just periodically popping to see what everyone else was doing, and I gotta admit, the music was awesome. Meanwhile, as always, Lily was a delight. This time around the kid pulled every object in her mother’s backpack out and explained to me very earnestly what each thing was and what it was for. She made particular note of how the “special drink” had strawberries in it, and the juice boxes had apples. Good choices, kid. ;)

I am in fact thoroughly songvirused now by various Beatles songs, and expressed my interest in not only checking out the game but in giving Beatles albums a proper listen. This amused spazzkat, who pointed out that, as an Elvis fan, am I not contractually obligated to dislike the Beatles? I replied that he had invited them to be the second, third, fourth, and fifth Elvises, after they’d offered to make him the honorary fifth Beatle. ;> (And apparently they actually visited him at Graceland, back in the day, and they hung out and jammed for about an hour. God, if only recordings had been made of what they were doing. Those recordings could be worth the price of a small country!)

More seriously, though–I actually haven’t ever given a proper listen to any Beatles albums. I know of various songs of theirs, sure; you can’t have grown up in the Western hemisphere and not know of most Beatles songs. But I’ve got to rectify this deficit in my musical experience. Commentary on favorite albums is therefore welcome.

Saturday evening, solarbird and I ambled over to the Wayward to listen to vixyish, tfabris, and solcita perform for the Sereniversary, and that was fun. I actually had to sit at the front of the cafe and couldn’t see anything from back there, but it was all good; I could still hear plenty well, and I had the opportunity for some lovely conversation about phones and other portable devices, not to mention Patricia Briggs’ books. Bonus points as well for getting a chance to make Sunnie squeal at the picture of The Doyle With Beard on my iPhone.

Sunday by comparison was comparatively quiet, aside from the whole getting a sneak peek of the cover art for the forthcoming anthology I’m going to be in (and I did I mention, AWESOME?). And it’ll probably surprise none of you that I picked up quite a few more ebooks. It’s all Fictionwise’s fault! This is what happens when they offer me a big ol’ rebate on a book that pretty much means I get four books for the price of a hardcover. And then they go and extend a coupon I’d previously used. They keep this up, they’re definitely going to keep on getting my business.

And here’s what I’ve picked up from them now, bringing my total purchased books for the year up to 95:

• Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris, pre-empting my need to read it as a library book
• Staying Dead, by suricattus, replacing the paperback I’d re-sold to Third Place
• First Truth, by Dawn Cook, ditto
• Norse Code, by Greg Van Eekhout, since I’d heard a lot of good things about this
• Folly, by Laurie King, since I’d wanted to read this for a while
• Touchstone, by Laurie King, since I like her work in general

And last but not least, pre-ordered to be downloaded tomorrow, Heat Wave. By Richard Castle. Because I am still laughing and laughing and laughing that ABC is actually putting out a book with Castle’s name on it, and doubly so that whoever’s writing the Twitter feed has urged followers to help the book beat Dan Brown on the bestseller list.

For that cause alone, they could have written 400 pages of “badger badger badger badger mushroom”, and I’d have leapt right on it! I’m going to look forward to reviewing this one, entirely in-character. They’re going to pull this joke, I’m going to play along!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I think you'll like Dead and Gone for some nice (if expected) development on the Sookie/Eric front. But I have to admit that the ending left me a bit cold. I feel like it's getting to the point where the escalation is starting to get a bit tedious. I'm also not really into the whole 'fairy' storyline, and it sadly dominates a lot of this book.

As for Beatles, golly gee, I've loved them forever now and have almost all of their albums. In taking a quick listen to what I've got on my iTunes, here are some of my recommendations:

A Hard Day's Night - definitely indicative of their earlier style of music, but where they really start coming into their own and start breaking away from purely traditional music of that era and starting to create their own distinctive sound.

Revolver - Definitely coming into their own here, with some really fantastic music that is pure Beatles (Eleanor Rigby, Taxman, For No One, Got to Get You Into My Life) and then some really older sounding bits (Doctor Robert, Here, There, and Everywhere). I think is one of my favorites for overall enjoyability throughout.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - For me this is kind of the quintessential Beatles album. It's all them, doesn't sound like anyone else, I like->love all of the songs on it, just a really solid, strong album. I think I would probably recommend this one over all others for someone who was interested in checking out the Beatles for the first time.

Abbey Road - this has some really great songs (Come Together, You Never Give me Your Money, Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam/She Came in Through the Bathroom Window), is heading into their more strange and experimental phase, but it also has some songs I'm not fond of (Maxwell's Silver Hammer).

White Album - double album with some really great works (Blackbird, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, I Will) and also a lot of their weirdest stuff, so it's kind of a mixed bag depending on your tastes. It kinda covers the whole gamut of their styles though, from straightforward to WTF?

Next time we need to find a better solution for the little kids. It really wasn't fair that you ended up babysitting the whole time and didn't get to play. :/ Sorry about that.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

That saves me some typing - I pretty much thoroughly agree with the Beatles front. :) There exist some collections also, but the band was really good at making actual Albums, rather than "here's the last 10 songs we recorded!", so I don't think that's the right approach for them.

Also, a bit from left field, I'd recommend Netflixing the recent movie Across The Universe. It's a quintessential 1960s story/musical with entirely Beatles music. Not all the storylines work as well as others, but it's visually inventive and the music is really good, including some fun cameos by Bono and Eddie Izzard.

[ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com]

Agreed, though I was surprised to discover that some of their big hits never were put on a regular album. "She Loves You," for instance.

Also agreed about Across The Universe. But I was surprised to see what they got out of "I Want You," and especially the subtitle "She's So Heavy."

[annathepiper]

Well, Paul does have a collection of the early stuff, and since it's right here, it's easy for me to borrow it!

Hrmm, I mentioned Across the Universe to Paul, who drives the Netflix in this house, and he said that the reviews he saw of that were pretty bad?

[ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mention Abbey Road and then skip Something. Probably the most pure and unashamed love song in the Beatles catalogue.

For the kids, I suggest Yellow Submarine and Octopus's Garden. :)

[annathepiper]

*giggle* "Something" is in fact the Beatles song I know the best, and this is because Elvis actually covered it in concert on his Aloha Via Satellite album. He covered "Yesterday" a time or two as well!

[ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com]

I really can't imagine "Something" being sung by anyone but George Harrison. :)

Remembering my own confession earlier -- aren't you at work now? :D

[annathepiper]

Yes. Yes I am! But I'm actually going to be doing work now. ;)

[annathepiper]

I'll definitely see how I like Dead and Gone, yeah. I'm waffling lately on the Sookies in general, partly because of this being yet another series that's got no end in sight, and I'd kind of like Harris to just hit a nice finish point and go write something else. ;)

Paul's telling me I should start with the earlier stuff and work my way forwawrd, which would seem to tie well with your recommendations here, hee. I'll borrow what he's got, I think.

And no worries about the kidlet. Like I told kathrynt, I like the kidlet! But hey, next time, if anybody wants to jump in to help me distract her, I'll not say no. :)

[janne.livejournal.com]

The two Beatles things I own are Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band and the dvd with Across the Universe -- which I suppose isn't strictly Beatles since it's covers of their songs, but worth hearing/seeing even so.

[annathepiper]

See my comment to kirbyk above--Paul drives the Netflix in the house and it's his understanding that Across the Universe was poorly reviewed. So dunno if I'll be tracking that down any time soon.

I think the music'll do me though. Paul's got a lot I can borrow. :)

[janne.livejournal.com]

Yet another proof that tastes vary -- I liked Across the Universe a lot, it's one of the very few movies I've actually bought to own after I started using the local version of Netflix. I particularly their version of 'I want to hold your hand' and 'Being for the benefit of Mr.Kite'. Oh, and 'I am the Walrus' :D.