Meet (and Repeat) the Beatles

June 9, 2010 6:56 PM

Fake the Beatles : WFMU DJ Gaylord Fields delivers an entertaining presentation on the mid-1960s cottage industry in Beatles soundalike records. Other Beatlesque imitators to follow below the fold.

The Aerovons, Resurrection
the Beagles, Sharing Wishes
Peter Berry & the Shake Set, Alright
the Brazilian Bitles, Vem Meu Amor
Los Brincos, Tu Me Dijiste Adios
the Carnabeats, Chu Chu Chu
the Chartbusters, She's the One
Czerwone Gitarny, Nad Morzem
Ellie Pop, Sometime Ago
Jade, Wait Till I Come Home
the Kaisers, Hip Shake Shimmy Kitten
Klaatu, Sub Rosa Subway
the Knickerbockers, Lies
Lazy Smoke, There Was a Time
Locksley, All Over Again
the Merry-Go-Round, Live/You're A Very Lovely Woman/Listen Listen
the Poppees, Jealousy
Los Shakers, Break It All
Sleepy Hollow, Sincerely Yours
the Spongetones, She Goes Out
Street the Beat, Falling in Love
the Twilights, If She Finds Out

posted by jonp72 (31 comments total)

Mon dieu! Falling in Love is wonderful!!!
posted by yhbc at 7:08 PM on June 9, 2010

Christ! So is Hip Shake Shimmy Kitten!!!!!

obviously, I need to take some time to go through these ...
posted by yhbc at 7:11 PM on June 9, 2010

Maybe somewhat related: Dylan Hears a Who
posted by not_on_display at 7:13 PM on June 9, 2010

I see that the Marianne Rosenberg YouTube was removed - here's a replacement.
posted by unliteral at 7:18 PM on June 9, 2010

Those Chu Chu Chu guys are dreamy!
posted by That's Numberwang! at 7:19 PM on June 9, 2010

Fields did this as a presentation for Adult Education.

And I helped! (edit, that is.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:25 PM on June 9, 2010

Oh, man, this sent me off looking for what I thought was called the Midnight Marauders, a fake Beatles album that nominally had real Beatles (Paul, at least) on it. Then there was the slew of Pete Best albums that the record store Encore had back in Ann Arbor, which almost always covered the same songs as the early Beatles.
posted by klangklangston at 7:37 PM on June 9, 2010

Does "Best of the Beatles" count?
posted by codswallop at 7:38 PM on June 9, 2010

There was more than just that one, and I think that Midnight Marauders just was Beatles imitators.
posted by klangklangston at 8:13 PM on June 9, 2010

There's something about Japanese knockoffs of Western pop that I love. You can hear the original in there, but then it's filtered through that completely different culture and comes out as something new. (That would be The Carnabeats, Chu Chu Chu.)
posted by Jimmy Havok at 8:18 PM on June 9, 2010

the story of the midnight marauders was that it started with a fake record review in rolling stone where it was claimed that a bootleg had surfaced with dylan, mick jagger and the beatles jamming on it - then some people decided to follow through and create the fake bootleg as a laugh

it's kind of thin stuff
posted by pyramid termite at 8:22 PM on June 9, 2010

Most notably: The Monkees. I mean, obviously.
posted by LSK at 8:46 PM on June 9, 2010

The Beatnix Stairway to Heaven originally posted by psmeally
posted by Daddy-O at 8:49 PM on June 9, 2010

Pyramid: Oh, yeah, that's it. My dad had that album, and I remember it being more entertaining for its packaging.
posted by klangklangston at 9:24 PM on June 9, 2010

Tomorrow Never Knows, Do One?

Priceless.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:28 PM on June 9, 2010

It's not actually about the Beatles, per se, but Fraternal Order Of The All is an excellent pastiche of late 60s rock all around.
posted by hippybear at 10:02 PM on June 9, 2010

The Dave Clark Five - Bits & Pieces
posted by LarryC at 11:25 PM on June 9, 2010

Aside from the Beatles themselves, Beatle imitators are my favorite genre of music. Like Frank Sinatra, or even early Elvis, some artists are so great, imitating them becomes a platform for greatness in others.
posted by Faze at 4:32 AM on June 10, 2010

Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:13 AM on June 10, 2010

My mom has a story about how she, as a young girl, asked for Beatles records for her birthday -- the band had recently come to the US for the first time and she wanted to be part of the cool crowd that listened to this new edgy music. Her parents, my grandma and grandpa, were naiive regarding modern pop culture of the time, but they wanted to do right by their youngest daughter, and they went down to the department store's record section with the band name in mind. What Mom received for her birthday was an album called The Beetles, a LP of children's songs presumably sung by a group of small insects, if the album cover was to be believed. Grandma and grandpa were certain they'd found the right thing, but mom was not pleased.

BTW: grandma and grandpa later also let their kids go, unsupervised, to an Alice Cooper concert, expecting this Alice to be a young singer-songwriter like Joan Baez or Carol King (my guess is the kids did nothing to dissuade that assumption).
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:21 AM on June 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

an album called The Beetles, a LP of children's songs presumably sung by a group of small insects

The Beetles singing Letter B. (I know, not the same group, but quite amusing.)
posted by hippybear at 7:25 AM on June 10, 2010

No ELO?
posted by the noob at 7:39 AM on June 10, 2010

I love this stuff. The fake-early-Beatles style is so much more fun than the fake-late-Beatles style (e.g., Oasis) that now seems to be the default when people say "Beatles-influenced".
posted by dfan at 7:59 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

XTC, My Brown Guitar
posted by straight at 8:03 AM on June 10, 2010

The video for Nie zadzieraj nosa by Czerwone Gitary (the Polish Beatles!) is amazing.
posted by dfan at 8:49 AM on June 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Gaylord fields.
posted by Not Supplied at 10:43 AM on June 10, 2010

> The video for Nie zadzieraj nosa by Czerwone Gitary (the Polish Beatles!) is amazing.

Wow, it sure is; I never heard of them, but Wikipedia says "Czerwone Gitary (The Red Guitars) is one of the most popular rock bands in the history of Polish popular music. The band formed in 1965 and achieved its greatest success from 1965 to 1970. Often considered the Polish equivalent of the Beatles, many of their hits are now classics in Poland." I may have to look for a Best Of.
posted by languagehat at 10:45 AM on June 10, 2010

No Rutles?
posted by grubi at 11:55 AM on June 10, 2010

The video for Los Shakers Break It All is the most amazing thing I've seen since I quit watching the Burdder Iz videos from the other thread. Seriously, that was better than the Beatles. It had trick riders. Help didn't have trick riders. I hope somebody let Los Shakers make a movie. I would love to see it.
posted by irisclara at 4:44 PM on June 10, 2010

Oh, man, this sent me off looking for what I thought was called the Midnight Marauders, a fake Beatles album that nominally had real Beatles (Paul, at least) on it.

That which you seek can be found under the name Masked Marauders. Originally written up in Rolling Stone (before any thought of actual product) it was a send-up of the then rampant trend of supergroupism.

klang's pop did and does still have this album, well worth it if for nothing else than the spoken opening to "The Japanese Sandman."
"Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine to 1955, and....

This should not be conflated with phony Beatlemania, though. Mick & Paul & Dylan were the targets. And the reason I originally bought it was that a friend who had moved back to Chicago from NYC played bass with some guys who had called themselves The Hudson Bay Company; they were session guys who played on many sessions & in many studios in NYC and so could credibly fake Stones, Beatles, etc. About 6 months after Phil came home was when this whole MM thing was in Rolling Stone, which was still in its infancy, a newsprint double fold, not the slick piece of ad-fodder it is today.

We bought MM for what it was, a joke, with some of his friends playing on it.
posted by beelzbubba at 1:05 PM on June 11, 2010

Some of these are ok. But this is better.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 7:39 PM on June 11, 2010