If I'm not mistaken, I previously posted the one for Revolver that was being hosted on the Beatles' website. They're "making of" docs that go with each record. The one for Beatles for Sale is up now. I was reading something the other day which said that due to ongoing legal squabbles, Let It Be is not likely to be released in either Ringo Starr or Paul McCartney's lifetimes. As for Magical Mystery Tour, please clarify as to it's availability. Not to be a smartass but I've never heard of anything being "almost of of print". Either new copies are being manufactured or they're not. I can't say I'm familiar with any sort of in between.

It was the 80s, nearly every record released back then was marred by the sound of the drum machine. Hell, Bill Berry even became a human one for Lightnin' Hopkins on R.E.M.'s Document album. Some records released back then have aged well while others haven't. For those that didn't, they're instantly recognizable because of the overpopularity of the drum machine (just ask Huey Lewis).

They're playing the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC soon but I've got so many concerts on my plate lately I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it. I sure would love to though. I was practically raised on this record:

To cap off a month long celebration of birthday concerts I'll be seeing the Bottle Rockets with the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team on Friday. If time allows, I'm going to try to make it over to the Pour House that same evening for the debut of the Small Ponds, a new band featuring Caitlin Cary (Whiskeytown, Tres Chicas). Saturday brings the Drive-By Truckers to Charlotte for the second night of a two night stand with no opener. Last week I bought a ticket for Alice Cooper's Theatre of Death tour which hits Durham in late September. Believe it or not, even though Killer is one of the very first records I ever bought, I've never seen Alice live. At this point, I'm more excited about seeing him than I am U2 when they play Raleigh in October (I've never seen them in concert either).

When I was growing up, one of my older brother had all of these. He still has the diecast Yellow Submarine and I have the lunchbox. I have no idea what became of the model kit, he may still have it somewhere. According to the YouTube clip below, intact boxes of the model bring a pretty penny these days (as does the lunchbox). We also had some Beatles "moptop" wigs but they all bit the dust. Strangely enough, given the love of the Beatles in my family, none of them ever saw them live (I was far too young). Same goes for solo performances. I'm far from his biggest fan but I do hope to see McCartney someday, it'll be the closest I'll ever get to seeing the Beatles.

Click on the cover below for extensive Beatles coverage from Rolling Stone:

That it does but I still prefer the full size jewel cases so you can see the label on the spine. Yeah they probably would fit just as they did for one of the many re-releases of Pets Sounds which managed to fit both mixes on one CD. Again, it just means more money into the pockets of the surviving Beatles and their families if the diehards wanna buy both collections.

Thanks to the board upgrade we can now embed videos. All you have to do is highlight the URL and select the Media button. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJe0JoQHP-Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl5mcWf5Qws

Unfortunately his pop idol status in the 70s due to the popularity of Frampton Comes Alive! overshadowed his abilities as a guitarist. So much so that some folks are still unable to look beyond it. Frampton Comes Alive! was everywhere you turned back then and it doesn't help that Do You Feel Like We Do? is still a staple of Classic Rock radio. That album was so overexposed I had to give it a good 10 year break myself. I finally revisited it a few years back when the deluxe edition of Frampton Comes Alive! was issued. For those that haven't heard it, it's well worth the investment for the expanded liner notes, remastered sound and bonus tracks. Cameron Crowe penned the liner notes to some of my very favorite live albums back then: Frampton Comes Alive!, Skynyrd's One More For From the Road and The Song Remains the Same original motion picture soundtrack. To the contrary, when I hear the studio tracks made famous by Frampton Comes Alive! they sound much tamer than the more well known live versions. I also don't care for artists that attempt to replicate their studio sound note-for-note on stage. I've never seen the point in that. You'd be better off just to stay home and listen to the record.

While that's certainly an option I tend to still clear of CDs that are poorly packaged. Considering the amount of money that's being thrown at this particular project you'd think they'd have the average consumer in mind. It's more than evident that they dropped the ball on this one. Check the writeups on Amazon for the recently released Cheap Trick at Budokan! box as well as the M*A*S*H* DVD box. the chief complaint about both collections is how the media is stored (cardboard sleeves). Of course, that all works the label's advantage. Damaged discs means the consumer will have to buy them again.

Though I prefer jewel cases, I can deal with digipaks if they're constructed rigidly enough and have an inlay tray for the CDs. My problem here isn't with the packaging itself but with how easily CDs are scratched when they're stored within cardboard sleeves.

Have you had an opportunity to read the article about the releases I posted a link to? In the event you haven't, it posits that the entire package will fall into the hands of the public at large in one form or another. Maybe not in a way that's unprecedented since file sharing is nothing new but the potential is certainly there for it to be distributed in some very new and exciting ways. As for the actual packaging, I can't say I'm much of a fan of the cardboard sleeves. For such a pricey set it seems like they could have at least sprung for some inlay trays to house the CDs.

Alice Cooper Lifts The Curtain On 'Theatre Of Death' Tour by Gary Graff, Detroit With a revamped set list and four onstage "deaths," Alice Cooper is shaking things up a bit with his just-launched Theatre of Death North American tour. "It's Alice all the way, but the formula is totally upside down and backwards," the veteran shock-rocker tells Billboard.com. "It's a celebration of Alice stuff. There's no moral to it. It really is just sort of a celebration of different phases of Alice." Cooper credits Robert Jess Roth, who directed the original stage production of Walt Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and is a big Cooper fan, with the Theatre of Death concept. "He said, 'I want your lyrics to tell the story,' " recalls Cooper, who had to write a new verse for "Devil's Food" to accommodate Roth's script. "He said, 'I want to tell four stories -- the delinquent Alice, Alice in hell, four different acts. And at the end of each act we kill you; we kill that Alice and introduce the next Alice.' "He showed me the set list and the ideas and we started talking about what deaths would be good, this and that, and the show just stared forming. All of a sudden we had this elaborate show, new lights and props and costumes and everything, and I really liked it. To read the rest of the article click here

In addition to the long anticipated release of the Beatles remasters (as well as Beatles Rock Band) on September 9th it looks like there just might be something more a'brewin' between the Fab Four and the folks at Apple. ]Number 9, Number 9, Number 9

You folks do know that one of the board upgrades includes the ability to now embed videos, right? In the player lately:

Dylan, Guy Clark, R.E.M., David Lindley, Kasey Chambers, Peter Tosh, Tinariwen, Patsy Cline, Howlin' Wolf, Drive-By Truckers, 10,000 Maniacs, the Gourds, Pearl Jam, Leon Russell, Whiskeytown, the Fiery Furnaces, Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Buffett, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Grateful Dead, Lynyrd Skynyrd (the original), Little Feat, the Allman Brothers Band, just to name a few.

The tracklisting and release date for Live at the Olympia has been posted at www.remdublin.com.

Being a native of North Carolina, I can't say I've ever heard anyone I know say "crick" instead of "creek", at least knowingly. The only places I've ever heard it are on old reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies and the old saying, "if the good Lord's willin' and the crick don't rise..." That's not to say it isn't used in the mountainous region of the state but even then, I can't say I've ever really noticed it up there either.

White Rabbits with the Fiery Furnaces at the Cat's Cradle. As far as I knew, the Fiery Furnaces were the headliner but when the show started they were the ones opening. I later found out they're switching out the headlining slot with White Rabbits every other night of this tour. While I enjoyed White Rabbits it sure would have been nice to know that bit of info beforehand. I was told it was mentioned on the Fiery Furnaces' website but so far I haven't been able to find any mention of it there. Still, a great show with lots of stuff from their newest record, I'm Going Away.

Kasey Chambers, Shane Nicholson and Kasey's Dad, Bill at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro last Thursday.

Sort of reminds me of an interview I saw with him once where he talks about someone walking up to him and saying, "Are you Bob Dylan?" and he replied, "Yes, I am". Their response? "No, you're not".