SLEEVE NOTES to
"The Exotic Beatles Part Two"
(used with kind permission)
"art brut, fauvism, The Beatles and everything"
(used with kind permission)
"art brut, fauvism, The Beatles and everything"
Call me a heretic and string me up by the neck, but, frankly, I have difficulty listening to Beatles' songs as they were originally recorded and intended. They've become exhibits in the museum of the Four Lads From Liverpool Who Shook The World, they're under glass, set in aspic, pinned to cards...
. . . Ah ha, but the artists on "The Exotic Beatles Two" make them alive again. For the most part they're naive, ingenious and lacking in contrivance. They're pleasing themselves, they're having a go, and they get some astonishing results which handsomely illustrate the impact the band has had. This is like the practicioners of Art Brut or Fauvism expressing a fundamental wonderment, bewilderment and enthusiasm for life. The Beatles and everything.
. . . LOS FERNANDOS' rumba version tackles "All My Loving" with such gusto that the chorus becomes "All my loving, nigh nah nigh nah nigh, All my loving, nigh nah nigh nah nigh".
. . . JOHNNY PRYTKO & THE CONNETICUT HI-TONES, come trumps with "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Polka)". THE SQUIRRELS, a 12 piece band from Seattle, put a redneck, Dukes of Hazard spin on "Let It Be", whilst Japanese trio TSUNEMATSU MASATOSHI construct an astonishing wall of swirling sound for "Nowhere Man", which now begins "She's a real nowhere man".
. . . Many of these acts are probably unaware that John Lennon is Dead, that the Beatles took drugs, and the like. ENA BAGA, for instance, was the Chief Demonstrator and Organist at the Sound of Music Organ Studios at Chiswick. She favours the heavy snare mode on her Hammond organ, and she turns "Can't Buy Me Love" into the epitome of the catchy tune with a good beat.
. . . GORDON LANGFORD adopts a similar approach with his Electronic ARP Synthesizer, as do the operators of THE 52 KEY VERBEEK FAIRGROUND ORGAN who keep the kettle boiling with "Yesterday" seamlessly running into "Hey Jude".
. . . And then there is MARGARITA PRACATAN. This Cuban born, New York hostess of Night Clubs and Public Access T.V. has had a life-long ambition to play piano and sing in public. Here she achieves a global audience with her truly wonderful version of "From Me To You" as performed at the organ.
. . . Looking like a cross between Dave Clark and a Religious Cult Leader, JOAH VALLEY swoops and soars with "I saw Her Standing There", taking it into that happy, verdant land inhabited by Bobby "Monster Mash" Pickett.
. . . RON GEESIN co-wrote Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother", and his crack at "Lady Madonna" is One Man Band goes Hi-Tech at its very best. The segueway into the mighty ARTHUR MULLARD's "Yus-turday" is the stuff of crazy, crazy dreams.
. . . LOL COXHILL's "I am The Walrus" features the singing and playing of Claire (6), Simon (9) and Loo(13), who jostle each other and come up with an innocently warped delivery.
. . . Utterly of its time is "It's For You" by the VELVELETTES, an early 70s Prog Rock unit from Manchester who were big men for the effects pedals.
. . . Keeping the Japanese end up are a cappella septet CHIWAKI who give it loads on "A Hard's Day's Night", the same song, melodically and nominally, that THE BEATLE BARKERS give the farmyard once-over to.
. . . Most of these covers were recorded some years after the demise of the Fabs, but Spanish duo GRUPO 15's "Lluvia (Rain)" and Romanian songstress LILI IVONOVA's "The Night Before" are your actual period classics, the results of listening to Beat Music on iffy Transistor Radios in the early hours.
. . . Sturdy Berlin candlemaker KLUAS BEYER translates the words into German so his mother can understand. For his version of "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", he invited his neighbours in for some vocal jousting, and the result is here for the world to gawp at.
(Andy Darling, September 1994)
