The Beatles Rarity » Site information

BROWcast – ways to listen and subscribe

Happy Nat — Sat, 05 May 2012 18:00:56 +0000

For those of you who are fans of the Beatles Rarity Of The Week (i.e. BROW), I wanted to point out that an audio podcast version of the BROW is now readily available for you to listen to whenever you like. This podcast version of BROW is called BROWcast and is the same BROWcast that has been featured on Fab4Radio. If you would like to check these out and haven’t heard them on Fab4Radio yet, or simply would like to listen to them again, or on your own preferred time, then read on.

Currently, the first four BROWcast episodes are streaming at thebeatlesrarity.podomatic.com and a new one will be added each week (usually on Tuesday mornings).

Listening to BROWcast on Fab4Radio

The Fab4Radio player is in the lower right sidebar of any page on this site. Of course it is also at Fab4Radio.com. Just click that play button to listen. The BROWcast is heard on Saturdays and Sundays immediately following Dennis Mitchell’s Breakfast With The Beatles program (in the U.S. usually between 11:35 and 11:45 am ET/8:35 and 8:45 am PT). Episodes are also placed in light rotation at random times throughout the week.

Subscribing to BROWcast

Using iTunes:

itpc://thebeatlesrarity.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

Click the above feed link and Itunes should immediately take over and begin downloading an episode. To get the others, right-click or click a drop-down menu (depending on which version of Itunes you have) and choose “show all available episodes” or similar verbiage.

Some upcoming site changes, including “#askNat”

Happy Nat — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:00:42 +0000

TheBeatlesRarity is gearing up for a new feature beginning in May called #askNat and I am getting excited about it already! This is where I will invite site readers to send me their Beatles-related questions to answer and open for discussion. I will select a few of these to address and share with everyone on the site each Thursday (beginning on May 3rd). I’m hoping this will go over well and be a good way to get people that follow TheBeatlesRarity to get involved and create added interest by having some control over what is covered on the site. Ask me whatever you want to ask (well…you know what I mean! ) and there is a few ways to get the questions to me so here is how it will work:

1) There is a designated form that you fill out right on the website where you can give your name, location, email address and submit your question. The form is right here and is the same form used to submit requests for BROWs (Beatles Rarity Of The Weeks), but modfied to do both BROW requests and #askNat questions.

2) If you are a Facebook user, you can submit your question right on TheBeatlesRarity FB wall at www.facebook.com/beatlesrarity. If you think about it, try to remember to flag your question with “#askNat”.

3) Similarly, if you are a Google+ user, you can submit your question on TheBeatlesRarity Google+ page at www.gplus.to/beatlesrarity. Google+ supports hashtag searchability so it will be helpful if you preface your question with “#askNat” here too.

4) For you Twitter users, www.twitter.com/beatlesrarity gets you to the right place. Post your question and be sure to add “#askNat” somewhere in the tweet.

I will go through these questions and beginning in the first week of May, select a number of them each week to post on the site and answer them as best I can. I will also invite further discussion from other readers. So get involved and send me your questions! If your question gets missed one week, it could still show up later. I’ll get to as many as I can.

The Video of The Week (‘VOW’) posts will be discontinuing after this month and will be something I miss doing, however, it has been getting more and more difficult because of all the attention that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) have received lately. Media companies have been seriously clamping down, causing YouTube posted videos to lose their access without warning. Since the video content on TheBeatlesRarity is embedded from my own YouTube channel, this has an affect on what remains viewable on the site. Rather than risk ending up with a lot of video posts that have their content removed, I’ve elected to keep a tighter control on the posts here and preserve the content as much as possible. Existing VOWs that become unplayable on the site will likely be removed. This doesn’t mean that all video content on the site will cease, as there will still be things like the “VOW alternative” that I’ve called Record Roundup, that made it’s debut yesterday (check out Record Roundup here).

The Beatles cartoon clips that have been posted on Wednesdays will also be discontinuing after May 2nd (2012) because at that point, all of them will have already been posted on the site. These have been going up every week since January 2010. At present, there are no plans to remove them from the site.

If you are on the mailing list (add your email address to the sign up in the right sidebar to get on it), beginning this week, I’ve opted to start sending out once-weekly email notifications on Fridays instead of every time a new post is made. This is to keep from sending out so much email and I will only send out more than one message a week if something really exciting that bears immediate notification is going on. BROWs will still be coming out on Mondays so you are welcome to catch them on the site then while they are still “fresh” if you like.

Finally, you are likely to see a few changes in the existing navigation on the site to accommodate the other changes.

As always, thanks for being a part of TheBeatlesRarity!

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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The NY-Metro Fest For Beatles Fans (Mar. 23-25, 2012)

Happy Nat — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:00:31 +0000

Dear Friends and fellow Beatles Fans:

For any of you reading that happen to be attending the NY-Metro Fest For Beatles Fans next weekend, I will be there all three days (March 23-25, 2012). If you’d like to “stop and say hello” I’d be very happy to meet up with you. Just drop me a line and we’ll make the arrangements!

Peace and love,

Happy Nat

happynat@thebeatlesrarity.com
facebook.com/beatlesrarity
twitter.com/beatlesrarity
gplus.to/beatlesrarity

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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TheBeatlesRarity Holiday Contest Winners 2011

Happy Nat — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:57:31 +0000

I wanted to thank everyone who participated in this year’s holiday contest here at The Beatles Rarity. It was “stepped up” a bit from last year and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a success or not, but, thanks to you, and all of our sponsors, it worked out great! As promised, here is a list of our prize winners and what they won:

1) Chip Morris won a new copy of the deluxe edition of Paul McCartney’s Chaos And Creation In The Backyard CD. It comes with a bonus DVD that contains additional music and footage from the recording sessions.

2) Curtis Honeycutt won a $20 gift certificate from Band-Tees.com. Band-Tees is a great place to pick up tee shirts and other items such as stickers, keychains, guitar picks and more with images and logos of your favorite bands, including The Beatles! This gift was furnished, of course, compliments of Band-Tees and you can find their Beatle-items online here.

3) Cara Schneider won a collector’s item edition of Jude Southerland Kessler’s John Lennon biopic Shoulda Been There. It is the first book ever (of a 9 book series) to tell the Lennon saga with carefully researched footnotes and detailed, informational endnotes, while using a fiction format to keep the reader turning the page. Researched for over 20 years with 7 trips to Liverpool and countless interviews with John Lennon’s friends, early band members, first manager, and club d.j.’s, Shoulda Been There traces Lennon’s life from 1940 to December 1961 (when The Beatles signed with Brian Epstein). This book is the very last copy of the second edition. This gift was furnished by Jude herself and her website, for more info, is at ontherockbooks.com. Hear what Jude has to say about her books in my interview with her here.

4) Anna Beetchenow won a new copy of The Beatles One CD. It’s a nice collection of 27 number one hits by The Beatles and an informative booklet with lots of original cover art images from the singles issued worldwide.

5) Elliott Marx won a copy of the Beatles photo book Unseen Archives. It is one of the best Beatles photo albums I’ve ever seen. It covers that period from 1963 through the breakup, and then up to George Harrison’s death in 2001. Some of the pictures are familiar, others aren’t. It’s a wonderful journey to start at the beginning and see the Beatles’ milestones and how they change. 384 pages. Barnes & Noble edition.

6) Stacia Marlett won a copy of Judith Kristen’s exciting paperback A Date With A Beatle which gives us a charming look back at the glory days of Beatlemania, as seen through the eyes of a loyal and devoted fan. You’ll feel as if you’re right there with Judy: at her first sighting of The Beatles at Kennedy Airport, witnessing their first press conference, sneaking into The Plaza Hotel, drooling over their first appearance on Ed Sullivan, her wild trip to The Beatles First American Concert in Washington, D.C., and the crazy antics she pulled off, all in loving effort to meet her idol, George Harrison – and she actually made it happen! A Date with a Beatle is a hilarious, fast-paced, totally entertaining story of the magic that was created by four lovely lads from Liverpool and the dreams that can come true when tenacity and heart are headed in the same direction. This prize is furnished compliments of the author herself and the book is available from her website at adatewithabeatle.com. Hear what Judith has to say about her book in my interview with her here.

7) Matt Ferrell won a collector’s item edition of Jude Southerland Kessler’s John Lennon biopic Shivering Inside. It is the second book ever (of a 9 book series) to tell the Lennon saga with carefully researched footnotes and detailed, informational endnotes, while using a fiction format to keep the reader turning the page. It picks up where Should Been There left off in Dec. 1961, and goes through April 1963 (the birth of Julian Lennon). This book is the very last copy of the second edition. This gift was furnished by Jude herself and her website, for more info, is at ontherockbooks.com. Hear what Jude has to say about her books in my interview with her here.

8) Austin Heape is the winner of a new copy of the 2011 CD release Ocean’s Kingdom from Paul McCartney. This is an orchestral piece commissioned by the New York City Ballet. The recording was conducted by John Wilson, produced by John Fraser and performed by The London Classical Orchestra. Ocean’s Kingdom is the first time Paul has written an original orchestral score or any kind of music for dance, and is the result of a collaboration between himself and Peter Martins, the Ballet Master in Chief of the New York City Ballet. This prize is furnished compliments of Fab4Radio.

Congratulations to all of our winners!

For those of you who tried but didn’t make it through, what can I say? Thank you for participating and better luck next year when we do it again!

In closing I’d like to thank Simon at Band-Tees, “Beatle Ed” at Fab 4 Radio, Jude Southerland Kessler and Judith Kristen for their wonderful books and (last, but by no means least) Heather, for making this website work the way it is supposed to.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Side Track Sunday – now at a new time!

Happy Nat — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:00:19 +0000

Side Track Sunday (described here) has been rescheduled to a new time. It is now two hours earlier (10pm EDST and 7pm PDST). If you are in a different time zone, it is at 0200 UTC, which should enable you to figure it out here. There is also a ‘repeat performance’ every Wednesday of the previous Sunday’s show (2pm EDST, 11am PDST, 1500 UTC).

The featured album this week is The Beatles’ U.S. Soundtrack to A Hard Day’s Night. I will be your host and start off by giving you a few minutes of inside information about the album before dropping the needle on the wax. I should also let you know that there will be a giveaway of a movie-related prize. For more details on that, just tune in for the show.

You can listen to it on Fab4Radio right here by simply clicking the blue play button in the lower right sidebar or by going to Fab4Radio.com. Fab4Radio is part of the Shoutcast network of streaming Internet radio stations. For more information on how you can get your own player for your mobile device, computer, or website visit Shoutcast.com and Fab4Radio.com.

Amazon links for your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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The BROWCAST on Fab4Radio.com

Happy Nat — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:33:25 +0000

Happy Nat

I wanted to let everyone know that there is now an audio version of the BROW (Beatles Rarity Of The Week) that is being featured on Fab4Radio. It comes on immediately following Dennis Mitchell’s Breakfast With The Beatles on Saturday’s and Sundays (check here for showtimes). They will also be placed in rotation on Fab4Radio after their weekend showtime debut.

I should say that any BROWs you hear on Fab4Radio will also have appeared here on TheBeatlesRarity in the usual form of a post. This is just another way of presenting the BROWs on this site to people who want to hear it, instead of read about it, before hearing the track. Also, the audio versions may not always be quite as detailed as the written posts. Another difference in the audio version is they will be using my new “Natman” theme (created by musician extraordinaire Mike Meyers – no relation to the guy on Halloween). Just as a sampling, I’m including one of the audio versions here of a BROW that some of you reading may remember from back in 2007. It concerns a lengthy alternate take of Helter Skelter. The original post is here, the audio version is playable below:

Happy Nat - BROWCAST #1 (Helter Skelter-The Beatles)

Fab4Radio Fab4Radio is now the Internet station of choice on TheBeatlesRarity.com....
BROWcast – ways to listen and subscribe For those of you who are fans of the Beatles...

More on Side Track Sunday

Happy Nat — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:29:23 +0000

Due to some technical issues, Side Track Sunday did not run on time last night, and I suspect a lot of you out there might have missed it. My apologies! So to make up for that, it is going to be rebroadcast this Wednesday at 1800 UTC (US East Coast 2pm, US West coast 11am, U.K. 7pm). In fact, to give listeners more of choice on listening time EVERY week, each Wednesday at this time, a repeat of the previous Sunday night’s show will run. Check out Fab4Radio.com for further information.

Side Track Sunday is a new program on Fab4Radio scheduled for Sunday nights where, after some inside info from yours truly, we play a Beatles-related album all the way through without interruption. Initial showtimes will be Sunday night/Monday (depending on your local time zone) at 0400 UTC. That means midnight on the U.S. East coast, 9:00 pm on the U.S. West coast, or 5:00 am in the U.K. (for more info for your time zone, click here).

The featured album for this Wednesday’s repeat show is Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram. I should also let you know that this will not be the standard commercial release of the album, but a special edition of it, that you just might be able to hear some differences on. For more details on that, just tune in for the show at 1800 UTC.

You can listen to Fab4Radio right here on this site by simply clicking the blue play button in the lower right sidebar or by going to Fab4Radio.com. Fab4Radio is part of the Shoutcast network of streaming Internet radio stations. For more information on how you can get your own player for your mobile device, computer, or website visit Shoutcast.com and Fab4Radio.com.

Something New – Side Track Sundays! I’m really excited to tell you about a hot new...
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Fab4Radio Player is back! I know many of you out there are already listeners...

Something New – Side Track Sundays!

Happy Nat — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:11:03 +0000

I’m really excited to tell you about a hot new program coming up on Fab4Radio beginning this Sunday night (July 31, 2011). It’s called Side Track Sunday and the idea is to play a Beatles-related album all the way through without interruption. Showtimes will be Sunday night/Monday (depending on your local time zone) at 0400 UTC. That means midnight on the U.S. East coast, 9:00 pm on the U.S. West coast, or 5:00 am in London (for more info for your time zone, click here).

The featured album this week is Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram. I will be your host and start off by giving you a few minutes of inside information about the album before dropping the needle on the wax. I should also let you know that this will not be the standard commercial release of the album, but a special edition of it, that you just might be able to hear some differences on. For more details on that, just tune in for the show.

You can listen to Fab4Radio right here by simply clicking the blue play button in the lower right sidebar or by going to Fab4Radio.com. Fab4Radio is part of the Shoutcast network of streaming Internet radio stations. For more information on how you can get your own player for your mobile device, computer, or website visit Shoutcast.com and Fab4Radio.com.

Fab4Radio Fab4Radio is now the Internet station of choice on TheBeatlesRarity.com....

Fab4Radio Player is back!

Happy Nat — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:46:47 +0000

I know many of you out there are already listeners of Fab4Radio and I also know that at least a few of you have even heard me on there talking about this site or maybe doing one of my interviews. But for those of you who aren’t familiar, it is the perfect Internet streaming radio station for Beatles fans. The playlists aren’t only limited to Beatles though. There is solo material from John, Paul, George and Ringo and there are lots of Beatles covers by other artists and plenty of tunes that had an influence on The Beatles, as well as artists that were influenced by them. There are lots of historical recordings from the BBC, TV spots, interview segments from the 60′s – 70′s and more than a few rare recordings. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, the station gives us Dennis Mitchells’ award-winning 2-hour Breakfast With The Beatles program. The station used to be part of the Live365 network of streaming stations, but just this month has moved to another network you may have heard of called Shoutcast. Since TheBeatlesRarity.com has been affiliated with Fab4Radio for the last couple of years, I thought I’d point this out. When the station was part of Live365, there was a player set up to listen to it directly from this site, but it was removed because it made the pages load slower on many connections. Now that the station is on Shoutcast, I have implemented a new player in the right sidebar so that you can listen while you’re here if you like. As near as I can tell, the new player runs fine on the site without any significant drop in connection speed. For more information on how you can get your own player for your mobile device, or computer visit Shoutcast.com. and Fab4Radio.com.

Fab4Radio Fab4Radio is now the Internet station of choice on TheBeatlesRarity.com....

Fab 4 Radio

Happy Nat — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:00:30 +0000

Fab4Radio is still the Internet station of choice on TheBeatlesRarity.com. Some of you may be wondering why the widget that allows you to play the station from the sidebar has been removed. My webstats have showed that it wasn’t being used all that much–probably for the most part because the site itself offers it’s own audio and video content, and it would be difficult to listen to a radio station and a BROW at the same time. This will hopefully help the site run faster and you can still use the Fab4Radio logo that links directly to Fab4Radio.com where you can hear it all from there.

I just wanted everyone to know that I still love the station and support it, and those of you who do listen in to it will likely continue to hear me on there occasionally. Most of the interviews that are posted on this site are also aired on Fab 4 Radio, too, and I expect to provide coverage for some of next week’s Fest For Beatle Fans event at the Crowne Plaza in Meadowlands, NJ. I hope to see some of you folks there, too.

Hats off to my friend, Beatle Ed, for getting this great station going, and I encourage all Beatle fans reading to give it a listen-to, if you haven’t already.

Fab 4 Radio

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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