Last month was a busy month for me at work, and with it came an opportunity to visit our London office to attend some key meetings for a project I’m working on. While there wasn’t much time to do sightseeing, there was a couple hours of daylight left after I arrived on Sunday, so I took the tube to the Green Park station and walked to 3 Savile Row to see the site of the old Apple Records offices and the place the Beatles played their last live performance on the roof.

One of the great things about working for Microsoft is that you get to hear about some really cool innovations being pursued, and one of them is this thing called photosynth. Photosynth creates 3D landscapes out of your own pictures by allowing you to upload into their engine, and (if you have taken enough pictures) stitches them together to create panoramic / Quasi 3D visual experiences.

So what does a long suffering Beatles fan in London do? That’s right, he shoots pictures of places like 3 Savile Row and creates a photosynth out of them . Enjoy browsing the synth, it turned out pretty good and allows you to feel like you are right there, look up and down the street, look up at the building, walk up to the door and look at the graffiti on the wall. enjoy!

Full disclosure – being a former member of a Beatles tribute band (though not the ’suits & wigs kind’) I have nothing against Beatles tribute acts, but this has to live somewhere between irony, surrealism, and comedy.

As Beatlesnews.com reports it…

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The Fab Four, a Nevada based Beatles tribute band performing since 1996 is suing The Fab 4, a Colorado based Beatles tribute band, in federal court alleging that The Fab 4 is “essentially identical in sound and appearance” to The Fab Four – referring to the names of the bands and their websites.

By using “Fab 4,” the defendants are “attempting to trade” on the reputation and success of The Fab Four, the lawsuit states. The Fab Four is asking the court to prevent the Fab 4 from using any trademark that sounds like “Fab Four” and is seeking monetary damages.

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Ok, see what I mean? I have to laugh. I think this needs to be framed in a better way, so here’s my take…

One band earns a living by doing everything possible to copy the appearance, intrumentation, sound, musical arrangement, clothing, speaking and singing voices of The Beatles, performs to audiences across the country, sells merchandise, and CDs. They are called the Fab Four.

Another band earns a living by doing the exact same thing as the band above, albeit they don’t look as good and don’t appear to be as polished. They are called the Fab 4.

Fab Four is suing Fab 4 because Fab Four thinks Fab 4 is trading off their good name and product (um..the product of trading off of the ACTUAL ‘Fab Four’). They think people will confuse Fab 4 with Fab Four when booking a Beatles act or buying tickets to a show because Fab Four has created a great brand for itself as a nationally renowned premier Beatles tribute band, while the name Fab 4 sounds like Fab Four and that could get confusing. No word yet if “Beatlemania” the original Broadway Beatles tribute act from the late 70’s is suing anyone over this.

Perhaps even MORE succinctly this could be posed as “Look, I’M copying the Beatles, so you need to STOP copying the Beatles in a way that might make people think you are me copying the Beatles, ok?!?”

And no word yet if the actual Beatles are suing anyone over any of this – they are smartest of all about all of this by NOT getting their panties in a bunch and letting thousands of Beatles tribute acts go on and carry forward their music, brand, etc. at no cost to the actual Beatles. Can anyone say – free publicity? genius de-facto marketing?

Like I said, I don’t know if this is irony, surrealism, comedy, or a real life example of photocopies of photocopies of photocopies playing out, but sure is funny to me. Personally, I think Fab Four needs to chill out.

Source: Beatlesnews.com, Lasvegassun.com

Presented by Roseta Productions, Apple Jam’s ‘McCartney/Beatles Tribute’ concert will showcase Sir Paul’s catalogue of Beatles and solo years hits. A live performance of the landmark album ‘Band on the Run’ in its entirety will be featured, along with songs from Apple Jam’s debut CD titled “Off the Beatle Track” (15 songs composed but never released by the Beatles). All ages.

Apple Jam’s Triple Door shows have always sold out weeks in advance, so don’t wait to get your seats.

BUY TICKETS: Click here or call 206-838-4333.

Visit Apple Jam for more information at:

• offthebeatletrack.com
• facebook
• myspace

Martin Scorsese, Olivia Harrison, Nigel Sinclair

Titled “Living in the Material World: George Harrison,” the documentary will take on the whole of the Beatles guitarist’s life before, during and after his time in the world’s most popular and successful band.

“His music is very important to me,” Scorsese said of Harrison. “So I was interested in the journey that he took as an artist. The film is an exploration. We don’t know. We’re just feeling our way through.”

Olivia Harrison had been approached by numerous production companies, wanting to make a documentary about George ever since he died in 2001. She had resisted at first because George had always wanted to do his own documentary using his own archive of videos.

She eventually connected with Martin Scorsese and Nigel Sinclair, who Directed and Produced “No Direction Home” – a documentary about Bob Dylan, to collaborate on the project.

Though the process for Olivia has been obviously deeply personal and even traumatic to dig back through all the archived materials she has saved over the years, eventually she realized it “was something that needed to be done”.

No specifics on release date yet, but 2011 has been speculated. Can’t wait!

Source George Harrison.com

John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “A Day in the Life”, the masterpiece that closes out the Beatles 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is going up for auction at Sotheby’s in June. Estimates on what it could fetch span $500k-$700k at this time.

…pocket change.

The manuscript has Lennon’s handwritten lyrics, notations, corrections, and even a reference to where McCartney’s middle upbeat section would be inserted.

The song is legendary in pop music (though not sure you could call this a pop song in ANY way) and is notable for a number of reasons including:

• “I’d love to turn you on” lyric got the song banned in the UK for a period
• The 24 measure climactic string/horn sections that lead into McCartney’s bridge section and at the end of the song prove to be among the band’s most creative and avant-garde experiments
• The song later was used in the “Paul is dead” craziness where reportedly the song included a number of ‘clues’ to Paul’s death. (He’s not dead folks)

In any event, it will be interesting to see what this fetches, and who the lucky collector would be.
For more info, click here.

Source cnbc.com