Another reason for doing this is to practice my post-production audio editing skills but I was initially inspired by a mock news clip I found in the back of Musician magazine. It was a fake interview with Paul McCartney revealing that the Beatles actually continued recording together well into the 70s. It was a spoof article, not real, but, along with the discovery that 1973 was the last time that all four Beatles released solo albums in single calendar year, it got my mind going along the lines of "what if?". I eventually put those ideas into the making of "Out The Blue", a what if, lost album set in 1973. I still have the original clip which I scanned (click on image to the left) and transcribed below.
The Manchester Spectator Thursday, Jan
BEATLES RECORDED TILL 1979, McCARTNEY SAYS
By Tom Farnsdale
Spectator Arts
London, Jan 12-The Beatles, the pop combo who ruled the entertainment world during the 1960s, continued recording under various names long after they officially disbanded in 1970, ex-Beatle guitarist Paul McCartney admitted today in an exclusive Spectator interview. "The whole break-up thing was staged to build a bit of excitement and get a better deal out of EMI," McCartney said at his Piccadilly office, where he was holding court to promote his new LP Press To Play. "John and I cooked up the idea of staging a feud with (manager) Allen Klein," McCartney said. "We had done the 'Paul Is Dead' thing as a laugh, and it really helped the sales of (Beatles album) Abbey Road. So we thought, 'If they liked that one so much, let's kill the whole band.'"
While maintaining the public illusion of disharmony, the Beatles continued writing and recording together under a series of pseudonyms, including "Badfinger" and "Klaatu."
"The Badfinger thing enabled us to have hits without paying 90 percent of the money to all the people who had bits of the Beatles," McCartney explained. "We gave EMI our solo albums-which actually weren't so solo-to fulfill our contracts, and we put out Badfinger records on Apple (the Beatles' own label) and raked in the dosh."
McCartney said that at the height of "Badfinger"'s popularity, the Beatles hired four musicians to pose as the mythical band for photos and personal appearances. "That's when things went a bit dodgy," McCartney explained. "After a while the phony Badfinger started threatening to blow the whistle. Allen had some pretty tough meetings with them, and at one point threats were made."
Nervous that their charade would be exposed, the Beatles created another identity-Klaatu. "That was more of a problem," McCartney said. "Ringo owned this shell company in Canada-a bit of a tax dodge, really-and this company owned a recording studio in Montreal. Ringo insisted we record there so that he could get the write-off, but coming up with work visas without people realizing it the Beatles turned into a bit of a headache. That's when John started getting moody and talking about just going home and baking bread for five years. He decided
(Continued on pg. B7-Beatles)
The purpose behind the article was so that you could present some obscure unlikely fact and have proof to back it up. I actually carried this around in my wallet for a while. A lot of fun but thought provoking at the same time. Other articles included one explaining how Axl Rose of Guns 'N' Roses, was an ordained Catholic priest.
Then a few years ago I came across this web page (reFABricated: A Virtual Beatles Reunion Album) and it spiraled into all of this.
