THE FAKE BEATLES INVASION

[jingle_jangle]

This was a class given at NYU. Once you get past the instructor's self-conscious delivery and irritating mannerisms, it's fairly entertaining, IMO.

I remember going out at age 15, in late January, 1964 , looking for a Beatles album at record stores in Chicago. All sold out of the real thing, although I bought what I thought was a Beatles album, by a group called "The Liverpool Beats". It had a cover like "Meet the Beatles", but the songs were unrecognizable as Beatles songs. I remember one in particular: "This Is What I Mean", and can still sing parts of the chorus.

This photo shows one early version of the cover. The on I bought had only the far left photo, not the collage this one features.



The Fab Four were ripped off--big time--in this initial record frenzy, but it did settle down within a couple of months as we kids wised up.

Anyway, the link to the class video:

http://ia311339.us.archive.org/0/items/ ... _512kb.mp4

[libratune]

Paul, I can't seem go get the link to "go active."

[jingle_jangle]

Try downloading Quick Time or possibly Win Media Player 10. It's an MPG4 file, so older players will not play it.

[kiramdear]

The link is working for me.

[jimk]

What a hoot! Thanks, Paul. I haven't laughed that hard in a couple of days.
JimK

[johnallg]

Where was I?? I never knew there were so many fakers out back then, except for The Chipmunks, but then that was just "cute" and not for serious consideration, just an offshoot of the cartoon series. This guy actually loves all this in a "What were they thinking??!!" kind of way and I thank you for enlightening me on this deep topic.

Hilarious.

[vynesmusic]

Yessssss......I remember seeing quite a few faux Brit Invasion bands in Chicago circa 1965-1968....I was in a wannabe Byrds band called The Vynes, (I owned 1/5 of a Rick 12) and we entered a HUGE battle of the bands held at McCormick Place over dere by da lake dere....that's where I saw ALL the Chicago fakers of Beatledom....we played another smaller battle in a suburb called Westmont, and we actually WON....the band just before us was slated to win until the judges saw them behind the stage pulling off their wigs....all this to get GIRLS to go out with us.....

Those dreams took a hit the night The Cryan Shames showed up in my hometown of Naperville, and played a joint called the Barn.....they didn't try to look like anybody....they were just very cool and VERY good.....Beatle cover after Beatle cover flawless....terrific originals penned by genius musician James Fairs...they had a series of albums on Columbia....their first hit a cover of "Sugar and Spice".....what a time to be young...this is a GREAT forum--thanks

[jingle_jangle]

Gee, we're from the same era, and I was messing with some bands in Chicago back then, too. Never made any money doing that, so instead, to put myself through college in '66-'70, I built parade floats as a carpenter. These were the kind of floats that were not self-propelled, so I would often make a little extra $$$ ($40.00) to hook one up to my Harvest Gold/India Ivory '55 Nomad, and pull the float through the parade.

One of the bands playing on a float that I pulled were the Cryan' Shames (this would have been '67), and it was great fun listening to them over the sound of the generators powering their amps and sound system. I recall that they were the first band I'd ever pulled in a parade who required two generators, and we had to scramble to find the second. They had three Super Beatle amps with trolleys and we had to tie the trolleys down with rope which was nailed to the wooden floor of the float bed--at the end of each parade, we would typically drive at street speeds back to the staging area, so losing a trio of Super Beatles was not in the budget! Fortunately they did not cut loose.

For an 18-year-old living at home with Ma and Pa and not having too much sartorial sense, these guys were pure show biz with great stage wardrobes. It was the first time I ever saw a man wearing a scarf around his throat. Chicago was sooo staid. I also had Nimoy on a float once, and we were mobbed. Met a lot of beauty queens, too...

[vynesmusic]

Great to meetcha, Paul.....that float story sounds surrealistic! I actually played for 2 years with Jim Fairs, the composer-genius-lead guitarist for the Shames, and Jimmy Pilster, "J.C. Hooke"....the tambourine, percussion and bg vocal cat in the Shames. We were in a band with Dave Bickler, another great musician from Naperville, who ended up in Survivor and sang the anthemic "Eye of the Tiger" for the Rocky movie...

I made a meager living for about 5 years as a bar-band guy in Chi-Town, continued playing for the next 30 years as a weekend warrior, and I'm paying the price now for not developing some kind of good fallback profession-HA! But I DO have a FireGlo Rick 360/12, and the gal I married is still with me, so no complaints here...thanks for your reply!

[sharkboy]

I enjoyed the video, and remember those fabulous sixties, when everybody wanted to be the next popular insect. I hadn't realized before how many used the same backing tracks, however.

I believe this phenomenon did give birth in the late sixties/early seventies to the band called "The Original Artists" that were rotating studio musicians (hmmm, swivel chairs?) that did the K-Tel records collections.

Thanks,
-Markg