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 (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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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:

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

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.

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!

Related posts:

1. Something New – Side Track Sundays! I’m really excited to tell you about a hot new...
2. Fab4Radio Fab4Radio is now the Internet station of choice on TheBeatlesRarity.com....
3. Fab4Radio Player is back! I know many of you out there are already listeners...

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.

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!

Related posts:

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

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.

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!

Related posts:

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

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!

Click here if this is FAB!

Click here if you change your mind.

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Subscribers are being sent a new confirmation on receiving emails from the site. This is because I am switching to a new email service. You should have to verify yourself (only once). Sorry about needing to do this but it is a step I’m taking to combat the spammers. Thanks for your patience everyone…
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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I’m hoping everyone reading will dig the new series of articles that I will call Collector’s Corner. The purpose of each post in the ‘corner’ will be for me to provide a discussion with photos of a rare and often valuable release that is considered to be a collector’s item. It can be a CD, a vinyl release or even another form of media. The only real requirements are that it is Beatles-related and also that it is something I own. A lot of people reading may not realize that not only do I collect rare sounds by the Fabs, but also rare releases. I have photographs of some of these rare releases appearing in the scrolling top banner on each page of this website. Click any of these images for more info about it. Any photos of the releases seen in the ‘corner’ will always be a part of the Happy Nat collection.

It was suggested earlier that I add something to TheBeatlesRarity.com that is not focused on one particular recording, as the BROW (Beatles Rarity of the Week), VOW (Video of the Week) and even the mid-week Beatles cartoon posts tend to be. I actually had planned to start up Collector’s Corner even before this suggestion but it remained in the planning stages for a few months. Nevertheless, it will fit this suggestion perfectly, since it will cover an entire release instead of just one song. For example if it is a vinyl single being discussed, it will cover both sides of it, meaning two songs in most cases. If it is a vinyl album or CD being discussed, it will cover information about all the tracks on it. Naturally, as with all other posts on the site I welcome (and even encourage) comments from all readers, as that interaction will make the information I provide much richer and hopefully increase the interest level. So any feedback in the way of questions, elaborations, corrections or whatever else you the reader would like to add to supplement what I put down here – please do!

One other bit of preliminary info…unlike most of the other articles on the site, these will not be weekly. They are much more detailed and therefore will be much more infrequent. They will just show up from time to time as I happen to get them knocked out. The frequency will also depend on how well they are received.

Click here if you want to have a look at the first article in the series.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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Happy Nat

Here is the moment some of you have been waiting for. I am very pleased to announce that we have a winner to the “Secret Holiday BROW’ contest. Lucas contacted me late last night and let me know that he found the hidden BROW post and described perfectly where it was. Lucas tells me he is a big Beatles fan and his attention to detail has paid off. Congratulations Lucas! He will be receiving one of these three prizes (depending on his preference):

In His Own Write, 1964 Hardback book of John Lennon’s first book (1964) titled In His Own Write – Anyone who hasn’t read it and appreciates John Lennon’s brand of humor will love it. Both the stories and John’s illustrations are hilarious! 80 pages. Buy this on Amazon.

The Beatles Unseen Archives, 2003 Paperback edition of The Beatles Unseen Archives (2003 Barnes & Noble edition) – Beautiful photo book! 600 fabulous photographs of The Beatles (before and after breakup, up through 2001) including a chronology that covers up to George Harrison’s death in 2001. 385 pages. Buy this on Amazon.

TheBeatlesRarity, tee TheBeatlesRarity.com black tee shirt – this is only available in large. Includes stenciled TheBeatlesRarity logo on front and “Bringing you the best and worst of The Beatles since 2007″ phrase on back

Solution/rationale: I’d like to thank everyone who made an effort to find the secret BROW! I suppose a few of you that searched unsuccessfully might like an explanation as to where it is/was. If this is you, then please read on (refer to copy of original post as needed (with poem, etc.) below).

A few people told me it was too hard. I hear you. Please hear me too when I say I tried to not make it too hard. I knew the site had a lot of material on it, and no one would be able to plow through every single page and see if something was there that wasn’t there before that would be indicative of a “secret brow”. It just would not be practical. All I did was simply place a link that leads to the secret BROW somewhere that can be accessed from every single page on the site. Then I placed subtle clues as to where that place would be in the post titled ‘Do You Wanna Know A Secret’, the very same post that notified everyone of the contest. I also hid the secret BROW from my on site search engine. Read on.

In the little poem at the end of this post I indicate “seven simple clues that you’ve already read”. How would I know you’ve already read it? Well, I figured it was safe to assume that if you were reading that ending line of the poem, then you would have also previously read everything before it within that same post. So what in the post has recurred seven times? The first line in the post says “I have an ‘exclamatory’ announcement to make”. Now why would I make a statement like that? Exclamatory, huh?…For those that have read many of my posts, you should agree that this is not a word I use commonly in other posts, right? Following this word, there are 4 uses of the exclamation point within the same short paragraph, or instead of ‘uses’ I should say ‘overuses’. Four ‘exclamatory’ exclamation points. Again, for those that are used to my writing style from previous posts, I think you’d agree that I’m not one to normally overuse exclamation points. I never seem to type ‘AWESOME!!!!!!’ in my posts. Then there is the little poem. Within it, there are two more exclamation points, bringing the total number of exclamation points up to six. One of the exclamation points in the poem is mis-used and should actually be a question mark. This was an intentional error to draw your attention to it, similar to the way the word ‘exclamatory’ was to draw attention to all the exclamation points in the first paragraph. So if the “seven simple clues” are, in fact, exclamation points, but there are only 6 of those in the post, then the question becomes: Where is that 7th exclamation point and how would I know you’ve already read it? Read on.

The poem says “seven simple clues that you’ve already read” and if only 6 are in the post, and I’m still assuming you’ve read seven of them, then the seventh one would have to be in a very obvious place, right? That is, somewhere that I should be fairly certain that you have also read. It is also on every page on the site! Read on.

Within 24 hours of making this ‘exclamatory announcement’, I changed the top scroll bar of the site to make it more ‘holiday festive’ in the most obvious way. I added pictures of Christmas-related Beatles releases from my very own vinyl collection (and you can click each of them for more info). I also added the message HAPPY HOLIDAYS! in the scroll bar in enlarged obvious letters alternating red and green (again to draw attention to them) and conspicuous also because it is at the very top of the page. Click on any of the letters to return to the home page, and yes, click on this (7th) exclamation point after HAPPY HOLIDAYS to find the secret BROW. If you are reading this and still see HAPPY HOLIDAYS! in the scroll bar now, you can still click the “!” and find the infamous “secret BROW”.

And if you still think this was “too hard”, there’s more. As a final clue to point to the scroll bar, the post repeats the HAPPY HOLIDAYS! message (just before the poem). Additionally, if you read the comments of the post, you will also see that I said HAPPY HOLIDAYS! (complete with the ‘!’ ) yet again. Also, I tried to help after-the-fact by making every comment reply about this on the FB site and the main site include an exclamation point. I even repeated HAPPY HOLIDAYS! in a comment to factory_worker (see the comment thread). So when I said in the poem “seven simple clues that you’ve already read” I assumed, not only that you had read everything previously in the same post, but had also read the giant new message in the scroll bar, bringing the total number of exclamation points to seven, as in seven years that The Beatles recorded together.

Copy of original post announcing contest:

I have an exclamatory announcement to make. There is a ‘Secret Holiday BROW’ on TheBeatlesRarity.com that will remain on the site (but in a secret place) until midnight on Dec. 25th, 2010 (US EDT). Crack the code and be the first to find it and you will be receiving a Beatle-prize in your mailbox directly from yours truly, Happy Nat! You must email me with a brief explanation of how you found it and sorry, search engine usage will not count. More details on this are available once you locate the secret BROW. A winner will be announced right here next week. Happy Hunting! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

Happy Nat.

How, oh how
Could I allow
The mysterious idea
Of a ‘secret BROW!’

And for the record, I have said
You’ve already been so cunningly led
To seven simple clues
That you’ve already read!

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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