I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE BEATLES-Let It Be (1970) & Let It Be…Naked (2003).

I may have mentioned before that I wasn’t a huge fan of the Beatles. This has changed as I get older, but in high school and college I didn’t really want anything to do with them. My freshman roommate in college announced on our first day that he thought that all bands were devil worshipers, and that the only music he was allowed to listen to at home was the Beatles. Consequently, he only had the Beatles on CD (and, curiously INXS Kick). That’s enough to make you hate the Beatles forever.

But I don’t anymore. Sarah was a big Beatles fan growing up, and through her, I have gained an appreciation that I never had. And now when I listen to their records I can’t get over how GOOD some of those songs are (duh!).

So for Christmas, we got Let It Be (for some reason she didn’t have it) and Let It Be…Naked. I had heard a lot about the Naked CD, so I was really interested in listening to it and seeing how different it was from the original.

I’m not going to talk about Let It Be, because why would I add to what everyone else already knows. But what I wanted to mention was Let It Be…Naked and how I feel it is somewhat falsely advertised. The premise is that these are the original recordings from the Let It Be session stripped bare from all of the production that Phil Specter added to the final copy. (Having read a bit more, I see this summary is simplistic and somewhat inaccurate, but if you want to read the complex details about the recording and release of Let It Be, you’ll have to look elsewhere).

Three songs are very obviously stripped down, and for the better. “The Long and Winding Road,” in the original release actually sounds like a Wings song there’s so much orchestration on it. In fact, when I listened to it again, closely, I really didn’t like it, there was too much…string, too much, polish, too much…everything. The Naked version is really great, far less treacly, and much, much stronger. It removes all of the strings, and the choir of angels and everything else except the basic instrumental track and the song is much stronger for it. “I Me Mine” removes some of the augmentation at the end of the track, but it doesn’t really make that much of a difference overall. “Across the Universe” removes a lot of the reverb on the vocals and guitar and makes the song better, but not as appreciably better as it did for “The Long and Winding Road”. This version of “Universe” sounds like John with an acoustic guitar, which is quite nice.

But really for the rest of the album, you have to listen to the tracks back to back (which I did) to notice the difference. Some of the difference is a removal of some minor reverb on the vocal, or removing some extra tracks of instruments to give the album a much more stripped down/raw/live feel. In general this an improvement. But really it’s not all that noticeable. The other thing is that the “funny” bits are removed on the Naked version. It leaves off all of the talking as well as two minor tracks (“Maggie Mae” and “Dig It”) It also adds a great rendition of “Don’t Let Me Down.” All in all, the new version is good, possibly better than the original. It’s just slightly less thrilling than the hype suggested it would be.

I’ve also been reading the liner notes and other things about the Let It Be sessions, and it is really fascinating. Not that an even mildly curious Beatles fan doesn’t know this already, but it was still pretty interesting to read about for me.

[READ: February 2008] The Spirit Cabinet.

I bought this book when I was in Montreal many many years ago. I popped into Chapters (a bookstore I was very excited to go to, as I knew I’d find all kinds of cool Canadian books…like the Late Night with Mike Bullard book! Oh, Mike, I miss you, man). I was especially excited to find Paul Quarrington’s book Whale Music. I have revealed all about this book and its relation to two separate Rheostatics albums called Whale Music in another post. But while I was getting that Quarrington book, I thought it would behoove me to get a second book, just in case I really liked him, and couldn’t get his stuff down here.

So, I picked up The Spirit Cabinet, and put it on my “books to read” pile. This must have been 7 years ago. The book was listed as one of 1999’s best books, and it’s entirely possible that I bought it in 2000, or maybe 2001. For some reason, I never got around to reading it.

Finally, I pulled it off the shelf and decided to give it a try. I had no idea what the book was even about. And, I was quite surprised to discover that it was about magicians in Las Vegas (what’s a Canadian author doing writing about Las Vegas?). In fact, the only hint that the book is by a Canadian is that he has some of the characters originate from small Canadian towns. And when he mentions the towns, he doesn’t say they are in Canada, which I suspect an American writer would do.

But so what’s the story about? Well, it centers around two German magicians who do their act with large white tigers. There is enough detail to let you know that he is not simply writing about Siegfried and Roy, even though they must be something of the basis for the characters. I don’t actually know enough about Siegfried and Roy to know if he is really ragging on them beyond the superficial country-of-origin-and-big-cats setup.

Rudolfo and Jurgen are entertainers first, showmen second and magicians a distant third. Rudolfo loves animals (after an early career in the circus) and has a flair for drama. Jurgen has rudimentary magic skills. Together they are able to more or less conquer Vegas with their act. This sounds simplistic, but Quarrington gives really extensive background to both characters, including their initial meeting, their difficulties working in a dive bar, their eventual romance, and their rise in Vegas.

Some of their rise is aided by their assistant Miranda, from Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, a woman with a flawless (but, she is quick to point out, not a perfect) body. She became a thaumaturgical assistant at a young age, and is able to use her body and her past skills to transform Rudolfo and Jurgen into the must see hit of the city . I was greatly amused by the conceit that Miranda is so hot, all she has to do is move a little and all eyes focus on her, enabling Rudolfo and Jurgen to do any sleight of hand undetected.

The story is told in a series of flashbacks, and what ultimately reveal themselves to be flash forwards, to a time when Rudolfo is by himself in their huge mansion, having given up on magic and his life. This is as a result of Jurgen’s departure. Jurgen, sick of not being able to genuinely do magic, has purchased Houdini’s Spirit Cabinet. An icon of real magic which Jurgen becomes obsessed with. He stays with it night and day, and seems to be losing his spirit to it as the story move son.

But where did he get this cabinet from? Hard to believe, but the huge story about the rise of Rudolfo and Jurgen is only half the story. The rest of the story focuses on Preston the Magnificent. Or, as he refers to himself, Preston the Adequate. Preston is following in his father’s footsteps as a magician. However, whereas Preston’s father was all about formality in his act. Preston the Adequate could never live up to his father’s high standards. Even as Preston became literally the best magician in the world, he could not win his father’s approval. No magician can do actual magical tricks better than Preston, but because he had no flash and no pomp, he is only able to make a moderate living at his craft. He is ultimately involved in the auction that calls magicians from around the world to get a glimpse of The Spirit Cabinet, along with the entire contents of a Houdini “archive.”

Even though he can’t stand Rudolfo and Jurgen, (in fact none of the magicians in Vegas can stand each other) he can’t help but go to see their act once they buy out the entire auction for something like $4 million. He is impressed by their show because it is full of such pizazz, but also that their show is basically just a bunch of simple tricks blown up to huge proportion.

As he starts to get entangled with Rudolfo and Jurgen, he also becomes entangled with Miranda, and the interconnectedness of things really comes into play. And the story just gets more and more compelling.

There are also many different aspects that I haven’t even mentioned:

The foul-smelling magician Kaz who seethes with jealousy at, well, frankly everyone, and his attempts to steal the Spirit Cabinet.

Samson, Rudolfo’s favorite white tiger, who has been with the show for years, and has come to think, and to empathize, and to even watch TV (24 at a time). Much of the best humor of the book comes from the perspective of Samson, who is tame, and a bit ashamed of himself, but mostly just afraid of having to stand up for himself. He is also somewhat arthritic and a bit of a couch potato.

There is also the revelation of the secrets of many magic tricks. Rather than ruining the tricks, Quarrington allows you to marvel at the skill that it takes to pull them off. But at the same time you get to say “so THAT’s how they do it” (if indeed, that is how they do it, and he’s not just making it up).

What amazed me so much about this book is how totally into it I got. I really started to care for all of these characters (except for Kaz, whom no one should like), and I couldn’t imagine how the book would be resolved. The book is very funny. Very, very funny. It is also full of pomp and circumstance, and general fun.

This settles it: Quarrington is going on my “must read” author list. Fortunately for me, he’s not too prolific, so I should be able to catch up pretty quickly.

[DIGRESSION]: Shortly after finishing this book, my wife and I watched the movie The Illusionist. I wasn’t terribly interested in watching it and didn’t even know what it was about, exactly. I kept thinking it was the one where Christian Bale lost 100 pounds (The Machinist, it turns out). Although a mild coincidence at best, it was interesting to have yet another medium explain a few magic tricks from behind the scenes. I enjoyed the Illusionist very much, even though I figured out what would happen pretty early. I never figured out HOW he did it though, which is the main thing.