RE: THE TOP 5! (Beatles)

[spat@visi.com]

Steuart L wrote:
>Well . . . what was that album that they did where, if you didn't have
>an automatic record changer, it just kept playing the same phrase (which
>I can't remember right now . . . ) over and over and over again in the
>out grooves?
>A continous and probably mind altering loop for the time.

     The loop in question is on the end of the Dr. Pepper album, (not on
later pressings) and supposedly if you play it backwards, it says "we'll
f**k you like supermen".  When a fan pointed this out to Paul, he  
explained
it as just a piece of nonsensical gibberish tacked onto the end of the
album, and that listening to it for an extended period of time resulted in 
a
"pure buzz" because of its meaninglessness.  However, one of the Beatle
books documents that this seemingly random piece of gibberish took several
hours to record.  
     The loops for "Tommorrow Never Knows" were recorded by all four at 
home
on their tape recorders.  The original title was "The Void", the new title
was a Ringoism, ala "A Hard Day's Night".  Lennon originally envisioned
Tibetian monks chanting on the piece, but that proved to be impractical 
(the
image of a hundred lost monks wandering around London with Beatle wigs 
comes
to mind, asking for directions to Abbey Road studios, while a dosed Lennon
awaits impatiently).   The song features a vocal by Lennon recorded through
a Leslie rotating speaker.  He was so enamoured by the doppler effect that
he proposed to take it even furthur by being suspended from the ceiling by 
a
rope, so he could be swung in a circle around a microphone while he sang.
(BTW, Leslies are tres cool for looping applications.)  The Beatles are 
also
credited with the first use of feedback on record ("I Feel Fine") the first
use of backward tape recording ("Rain", another superlative example of
Ringo's drumming, also his personal favorite example of his abilities)-- 
all
this in a pop context!  Lennon is also credited for having coined the term
"flanger", although I'm not sure if the Beatles were the first to use this
sweeping effect of having two tape recorders playing the same thing, but 
one
being slowed down by pressing a thumb against the tape reel's flange.

    Exhausted by trivia,

  Steve