Beatles vs. Stones (39 page)

“It was a choice of making it”
:
As quoted in
The Beatles Anthology
, 67.

“After that . . . I got them to wear sweaters onstage”
:
As quoted in Pritchard and Lysaght,
An Oral History
, 87. So seemingly reluctant were the Beatles to wear Epstein’s outfits that on April 5, 1962, they played the first half of a show at the Cavern Club in their old leather outfits; then they came out and played their second set in tailored suits.

They must “stop swearing”
:
As quoted in Geller,
Brian Epstein Story
, 43.

“He was a director”
:
As quoted in Pritchard and Lysaght,
An Oral History
, 49.

“posthumous, wise-after-the-event”
:
As quoted in Geller,
Brian Epstein Story
, 42.

“It was really hot”
:
As quoted in
http://www.thebeatlesinmanchester.co.uk/page16.htm
.

“there we were in suits and everything”
:
As quoted in Coleman,
Lennon
, 268.

“Paul was keen on the changes”
:
Cynthia Lennon,
John
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 106.

“Brian Epstein made them behave”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 294–95.

“I’d never seen anything like it”
:
Oldham,
Stoned
, 191.

“a new public personality”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 44.

“a nasty little upstart tycoon shit”
:
As quoted in James Miller,
Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947–1977
(New York: Touchstone, 2000), 203.

“He was the most concerned-about-clothes”
:
Oldham,
Stoned
, 71.

“he had all the confidence in the world”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 101.

“I will always thank Mary”
:
Oldham,
Stoned
, 95.

“He didn’t want me to be a model”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 99. Another time, while in a furious anger, Oldham apparently knocked his mother down a stairwell. According to one of his bosses, he was completely inconsolable for days afterward. Andrew says he doesn’t remember hurting his mom but concedes that he might have done so and then suppressed the traumatizing memory.

“were a nightmare together”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 169.

some radio shows and press interviews
:
This was the type of thing the Beatles learned to do assiduously, but only after being coached by Epstein. “Trying to get publicity was just a game,” Lennon remembered. “We used to traipse round the offices of the local papers and musical papers asking them to write about us, because that’s what you had to do. It was natural we should put on our best show. We had to appear nice for the reporters, even the very snooty ones who were letting us know they were doing us a favor. We would play along with them, agreeing how kind they were to talk to us. We were very two-faced about it.”

“Onstage, you could not hear the Beatles”
:
Oldham,
Stoned
, 182–183.

“I met the Rollin’ Stones”
:
Oldham,
Stoned
, 185.

The first person he phoned for help was Epstein
:
It is sometimes said that the story about Oldham offering to partner with Epstein is apocryphal, but in his latest book,
Stone Free,
Oldham affirmed it. “As for whether Brian might have had the Stones, it’s true. He might have. Back when I first saw the Stones, I knew I would need an experienced partner. The band needed work above all else, and I was not a booking agent, nor at 19 could I have been legally licensed as such. I had terrible doubts about partnering up with my landlord, Eric Easton, who was a booking agent. Besides, it was my duty, based either on the ethic my mother had taught me or that I had picked up in the cinema, to call my present employer, Brian Epstein, and let him know what I was up to, and at least sort of offer him an interest in the Rolling Stones. I did, but I hoped he was not listening; he was not, so I made my bed with agent Eric Easton and the Stones jumped in with me.”

“Andrew was the young go-getter”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 217.

“the most brilliant self-selling job”
:
Norman,
The Stones
, 93.

“He probably said, ‘I am the Beatles’ publicist’”
:
As quoted in the Rolling Stones, ed. Dora Loewenstein and Philip Dodd,
According to the Rolling Stones
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003), 56.

“was looking for an alternative to the Beatles”
:
As quoted in Oldham,
Stoned
, 197.

“looked more pop”
:
Bockris,
Keith Richards
, 40. Richards restored the
s
in 1977.

“marched us up to Carnaby Street”
:
Wyman,
Stoned
, 192.

“obvious” that “Andrew was”
:
Wyman,
Stone Alone
, 136.

“a jumbled assortment of jeans”
:
As quoted in Wyman,
Stone Alone
, 162.

“the band your parents loved to hate”
:
Oldham,
Stoned
, 294.

“made sure we were as vile as possible”
:
As quoted in Strausbaugh,
Rock Til You Drop,
39.

“If people don’t like us”
:
As quoted in Hotchner,
Blown Away
, 100.

“most vivid dreams”
:
As quoted in
The Beatles Anthology
, 8.

“salmon fisherman”
:
Impressively, outside of music (and related activities), Lennon never once held steady employment in his life.

“loved rock and roll”
:
From
www.robertchristgau.com/xg/music/stones-76.php
.

“more like [what] we’d done before”
:
The Beatles Anthology,
101.

“Sure, they were very creative”
:
As quoted in Dalton and Farren, eds.,
In Their Own Words
, 107.

“We saw no connection between us”
:
As quoted in Stark,
Meet the Beatles
, 202.

“For the first time, London”
:
Edward Luci-Smith, ed.,
The Liverpool Scene
(London: Garden City Press, 1967), 5.

“the center of the consciousness of the human universe”
:
Luci-Smith,
The Liverpool Scene
, back cover.

“They feel you don’t tell”
:
As quoted in Coleman,
The Man Who Made the Beatles
, 323.

2: “SHIT, THAT’S THE BEATLES!”

Inside the venue, it was
:
See Paul Trynka, ed.,
MOJO’s The Beatles: Ten Years That Shook the World
(USA & Great Britain: DK Publishing, 2004), 72.

Still, the “fans loved it”
:
As quoted in Pritchard and Lysaght,
An Oral History
, 126.

the Beatles’ press officer, Tony Barrow
:
Tony Barrow to author, email, 2/21/10.

“Certain groups are doing exactly”
:
Here, Lennon was no doubt referring to Freddie and the Dreamers, who had scored a top-five hit with a cover of James Ray’s “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody,” which the Beatles said had been swiped from their set-list. McCartney even maintained that he knew precisely where the “theft” took place: “Freddie Garrity saw us playing that song in the Oasis Club in Manchester and took it,” he said. Though it may sound odd to hear the Beatles grumbling about other bands “copying” songs that they themselves had just gotten from American artists, they had a legitimate complaint. At the time, it was unusual for British groups to perform their own material; most acts put together set-lists that consisted almost entirely of obscure American numbers. Once a group discovered a song they liked, however, and then added it to the repertoire, it was widely understood that in some sense, they “owned” that song.

“And in a final blast, an angry Lennon said”
:
Ray Coleman, “Boiling Beatles Blast Copy Cats,”
Melody Maker
(October 1963).

“the Liverpool-London controversy”
:
As quoted in
MOJO’s
The Beatles,
67.

“a popular misconception”
:
Wyman,
Rolling with the Stones
, 55.

“it was always a very friendly relationship”
:
Keith Richards,
Life
(New York: Little, Brown, 2010), 141.

“very good friends of ours”
:
As quoted in
MOJO’s
The Beatles,
152.

“I know it sounds daft”
:
As quoted in
MOJO’s
The Beatles,
154.

“Our rivalry was always a myth”
:
As quoted in Wyman,
Stone Alone
, 511.

“Art students have had this”:
“Peter Goodman,”
Our Own Story, by the Rolling Stones
(New York: Bantam, 1965), 92. Emphasis added. The Stones continued with this line at least as late as February 1964. When Ray Coleman, the
Melody Maker
journalist, sat them down for an interview, he said, “There was a groan of horror at the mere suggestion” that the Stones’ haircuts were Beatle-ish. “ ‘Look,’ said Keith, ‘These hairstyles have been quite common down in London long before the Beatles and the rest of the country caught on. At art school, and years ago, ours had always been the same.’ ‘Look at Jimmy Saville,’ urged Jagger. ‘He had it like it is long before others started that style. It’s the same with us.’ ‘And Adam Faith,’ added Bill Wyman. ‘He had hair like the Beatles years ago, didn’t he?’ ‘I dunno,’ Richard said to Wyman. ‘I reckon your style came direct from the Three Stooges.’ ”

“Brian Jones had been bending”
:
As quoted in Strausbaugh,
Rock Til You Drop,
41.

But Gomelsky recalls that snow
:
Gomelsky even claims to remember who the three attendees were. “They all joined the music business,” he said. “One of them, Paul Williams, became a blues singer; another, Little H, [became] a famous roadie who worked for Jimi Hendrix and later died in the crash with Stevie Ray Vaughan; and the third started his own venue somewhere and became an agent. They were cool guys.”