Re: THE TOP 5!

[KRosser414 <KRosser414@aol.com>]

In a message dated 98-04-24 15:23:50 EDT, you write:

<< I've been participating for over 6 months and this is the first time 
that
I've
 heard anyone mention " Tomorrow never knows".  It's one of the few beatles
songs
 that I can remember hearing for the first time and thinking "wow, this is
totally
 different".  There was some talk about what got people into looping a 
while
back
 and I'd have to say that on a sort of subconscious level hearing that song
moved
 me in this direction. >>

Yeah, I've never heard anyone mention it either.  Unlike yourself, most of
what I heard by the Beatles for the first time rocked my world and 
continues
to knock me out to this day, but this track is a special one to be sure.  

As I understand it, there were five tape loops employed on five separate 
reel-
to-reel machines being recorded directly onto the master.  The loops were
manually manipulated by John, Paul, George, Ringo and George Martin
simultaneously.   I heard recently that this posed some problems when 
George
Martin went back to remix and remaster for the CD reissue, since he could 
only
re-e.q. the master tape, whereas everything else on Revolver he could break
down track by track. Since the performance was totally random and there 
wasn't
a single track of just tape loops, it was impossible on TNK.  I have to 
say,
this is probably one of my favorite rock & roll tracks of all time - I know
it's fashionable to put down Ringo's playing these days but his drum 
groove on
this fuckin' rules, plus a characteristically great vocal by Lennon, what 
more
do you want...

Of course, the Beatles got more heavily into tape loops by way of George
Martin's interest in musique concrete, such as the 1" tape pieces spliced 
into
loops and used as the background for "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite", 
and
John & Yoko's tape collage "Revolution 9", etc.  I think a thread on 
looping
and the Beatles is long overdue here, surely they did a lot to bring tape
manipulation and loops into pop music before anyone else (unless you count 
Les
Paul's double-speed guitar overdubs on those old hits with Mary Ford - hey,
why not) and used a variety of pretty interesting techniques in their
applications.

Ken R