earsucker

After these photos of The Beatles sat in an attic for over fifty years, the set of 38 black and white photos will go on display for the viewing public.

The pictures were taken by Paul Berriff, who, at 16-years-old was an editorial assistant at the Yorkshire Evening Post. These photographs were taken when The Beatles were still little known, in 1963.

Berriff said, “When I took those pictures, the Beatles were at the bottom of the bill. But I knew they were going to be successful because they had an aura, and months later they were world famous.”

More pictures, after the jump! (continue reading…)

So this dude called FAROFF made a really catchy mashup of some music your parents probably listened to, but then made it bopper friendly and fun to dance to by adding LCD Soundsystem so that teh ittelerate kids of touyube will be pleased. I personally really liked it, so I can assume our own illiterate readership will appreciate me posting this. On top of all that, the video syncs up nicely and will not make you look like a homo if you show it to your internet friends. (continue reading…)

Conan O’Brien was really sticking it to the network his last week. He kept spending “crazy expensive” amounts of money on new comedy routines, sticking NBC with the check.

On his last show Friday, he said that the purchase of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird was fake. But what wasn’t fake was the background music for the Bugatti Veyron Mouse, which was The Rolling Stones song, “Satisfaction”. Also not fake was the walk-on music for Tom Hanks’ appearance on the show.

He walked on to The Beatles’ song, “Lovely Rita”, in honor of his wife, Rita Wilson. That song is crazy expensive! Did you expect any less? According to QuestLove of The Roots, the song was a cool half million dollars. He tweeted, “yo i hate spoiling but i will have you know that walk on song we just heard was half a milli. i know cause i got the list rate at nbc.” He followed that with “that first stunt was what it was (no spoilers) but tom’s walkon music on conan is on my “restricted” list—wow a $500,000 walkon song lol.”

Nice!

Update: Maybe QuestLove was just hyping the song for the last Conan show, because the New York Times has shown us that the items purchased were not above the nominal costs that were already being spent by the show. Still, it was funny and those facts, after the fact, don’t take away from that.

The Beatles “Share Your Love” contest ends on November 16th, and we’ve just heard that we’re getting an extra copy of the Beatles Rock Band game to give away to our readers here.

The deets on the “Share Your Love” contest:

The songs will be judged on originality, creativity and display of emotion. All entries will be eligible for daily drawings to win a copy of The Beatles Love album, a Grammy Award-winning soundtrack remix album of music recorded by The Beatles, released in Nov. 2006. The winning song writer will receive:

· Two tickets to see LOVE by Cirque du Soleil

· Exclusive behind the scenes tour of LOVE by Cirque du Soleil

· Roundtrip airfare to Las Vegas, NV for two from anywhere in the United States

· Accommodations for two at The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV

Enter here for your chance at this awesome prize package!

And now, for that extra copy of RockBand, just leave a comment here with your favorite Beatles song. Yes, that’s it! Right in time for Christmas, we’re giving away a copy of the game for your entertainment!

Fyi, it’s just the XBOX 360 version of the game, not the entire instrument set, but it still would make for an awesome gift! GET CRACKIN’!

FREE STUFF! ENTER NOW!

And don’t forget to enter their official contest for that awesome prize above. Again, you can enter that contest HERE.

Gamestop is hosting a contest to find your lyrical abilities using song titles from at least ten songs from The Beatles catalog.

Song writers must compose a love song of 100 words or less that use at least ten song titles from The Beatles as part of their entry. The prizing for this contest is pretty extraordinary, so I’m going to get cracking on this one asap!

DETAILS & PRIZES: (continue reading…)

Harmonix has just unveiled their official trailer and demo for the new Rock Band game, and it centers around The Beatles!

At E3, the head honchos at Harmonix unveiled the demo for the game:

Three people can sing at once in this version, as performed in the demo song, “Day Tripper”. It looks really cool, I’m impressed. I may have to move on from Guitar Hero and get Rock Band.

Check out the trailer:

The team then revealed ten of the 45 in-game songs from The Beatles’ recording history, including I Saw Her Standing There, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, Day Tripper, Taxman, I Am The Walrus, Back in the U.S.S.R., Octopus’s Garden, Here Comes The Sun and Get Back, while downloadable albums, such as Abbey Road, will appear shortly after the game’s launch on September 9th this year.

It was further announced that a special version of “All You Need is Love” will be available exclusively through Xbox LIVE (suck my nut Xbox and Harmonix! why couldn’t you have added this song for the PS3?!) while all Apple Corps, MTV Games, Harmonix and Microsoft proceeds from the song will be donated Doctors without Borders.

Danger Mouse became famous for his mashup of The Beatles’ White Album along with Jay-Z’s “Black Album”, but what he’s done next will likely give a big eff you to his record label.

Due to legal issues, EMI has stopped the release of “The Dark Horse Of The Soul”, but the producer and one-half of Gnarls Barkley has got other plans. He plans to release the album with a limited edition 100-page book along with a CD-R inside. He says fans can acquire the album “through other means”, meaning file sharing sites.

All copies of the CD-R will read: “For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.”

I guess that’s one way he’s sure to be heard. Will you buy it?

Via BoingBoing – Image via Amazon

The Guitar Hero franchise has become quite the staple of family gaming in my house. We love them, the kids love them, and seemingly, the rest of the music gamers out there do, too.

Alas, this is the only Guitar Hero game we’ve yet to purchase, but never fear, we will soon. We’ll play it until the disc dies, I’m sure.

What if you could choose which rock gods came out with a Guitar Hero game? Who would you pick? Here’s my favorite top eight choices, in no particular order.

8. KISS

Can you imagine jamming out to Love Gun or Strutter? How about rocking out to Detroit Rock City or Rock N Roll All Nite? I can’t figure out why Gene Simmons hasn’t capitalized on this idea yet. He’s got the Kiss name on everything else under the sun. Why not a video game?

7. LED ZEPPELIN

This one was just obvious for me. Who wouldn’t break out that Les Paul and wail along to some Led Zeppelin? I want to play Black Dog, Rock And Roll, Misty Mountain Hop, and some Kashmir. This band was a fixture in the 70′s, 80′s and they still are. I wish they would get back together already.

6. VAN HALEN

Jump, Why Can’t This Be Love, Hot For Teacher…I could go on. They could even add some of David Lee Roth’s solo stuff as an added bonus. I’d buy it. Van Halen rocks. Heck, they could probably throw in some Sammy Hagar for good measure, it’d still be alright.

5. ELVIS

There, I said it. Elvis Presley deserves a nod on this list, too. He was a great singer and did some guitar playing in his day. If the powers that be at Activision can add Cream into the mix, then why not some of the King? They could put in Don’t Be Cruel, All Shook Up, Heartbreak Hotel, and Blue Suede Shoes. If you haven’t heard of these, please consult the wonderful people at Wikipedia.

4. NIRVANA

Nirvana also deserves a mention on the list of bands that I would love Guitar Hero to make into a new version of the game. Why? Because THEY’RE NIRVANA. Courtney Love can’t take away what they’ve already done for the music industry, but she could probably give this one the go-ahead. Maybe one day in one of her drunken/druggie rants on MySpace, she might have a moment of enlightenment and think of Kurt’s fans. They could include the entire Nevermind album, along with In Utero. I’d eat it up. I always wanted to play Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Heart-Shaped Box, and Lithium, to name a few.

3. OZZY OSBOURNE

Enter in The Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne. I know that he wasn’t the guitarist on any of his albums, but how could you ignore the music that he made. Don’t you want to play Crazy Babies, Crazy Train, or any other “Crazy” stuff he can come up with? I do. He’s classic, for sure. I want to rock out to Mr. Crowley, Goodbye To Romance (even though that’s a slow one), Iron Man (this one would go without saying), and Suicide Solution. RIP Randy Rhoads.

2. GRATEFUL DEAD

A classic band if there ever was one. Even though the lead singer, Jerry Garcia has passed on, him and the Deadheads will always live on. I’d play Touch Of Grey, wouldn’t you? If you were born after 1980, then you’ve probably never heard of these guys. Truckin’ was also a good song to play the guitar to, along with Johnny B. Goode. I know it wasn’t there’s originally, but the Activision gods would probably get somebody to cover it anyways.

1. THE BEATLES

It was already rumored last October that Harmonix (which means it’s likely to go the route of Rock Band) was thinking about doing a video game for The Beatles catalog, so let’s hope that comes to fruition. I want to play Can’t Buy Me Love, Help, Let It Be, which is heavy on the piano playing, but would still make a good track to include. RIP George Harrison and John Lennon.

Who would you add?

Images Courtesy of Amazon.

Ringo Starr has taken to YouTube to tell all of his fans not to send anymore things to be signed after the 20th of October. He plainly says that he just has too much to do.

He says:

“This is a serious message to everybody watching my update right now. Peace and love, peace and love. I want to tell you, please, after the 20th of October, do not send fan mail to any address that you have. Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that has a date on the envelope, it’s going to be tossed. I’m warning you, with peace and love, I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed. Nothing. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love.”

Think he’s trying to drive up the prices of autographed Ringo Starr merchandise? He’s probably just really busy as he claims in the video.

After checking eBay for autographed Ringo Starr merchandise, I found an autographed pre-print with a price of 99 cents and one seller selling autographed drum sticks with a buy it now price of $1400. I guess it’s a fan’s market really.