Upcoming new underground Shea releases
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| Upcoming new release of the 1965 Shea Stadium material sounds promising. LP version depicted. |
The word is out that the underground (= bootleg) label HMC (His Master’s Choice) is due to release a number of interesting new Beatles products in the near future and that it will all start with a Shea Stadium film in the same quality as the few clips Apple let us see in their Anthology DVDs. We are talking about two different products here:
- A “HMC Gazette” with a DVD + CD
- A 12″ Vinyl LP + CD package with a colour poster
Rumoured is that the DVD contains the unreleased 2005 stereo remaster of the film commissioned by Apple. The audio contents are not known at the time of writing. HMC (formerly known as Yellow Dog) is primarily known for audio only bootlegs, but they recently released their first DVD (the Delaney & Bonnie concert from Copenhagen), so this new Shea will be their second DVD release. Further DVD releases of rare Beatles stuff is expected from the company in the next few months.
Due to the fact that “The Beatles At Shea Stadium” never has been released in an official capacity except for a few clips from the film used in documentaries, the film keeps being exploited by various bootleggers as well as being traded among fans. The undoctored soundtrack was leaked to the Beatlesfan community a few years ago and has been frequently used as a secondary soundtrack to bootleg DVDs of the film.
| A clip of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” was used to promote a collection of Capitol Albums in 2007. |
Now Apple could have released this oh so many, many times before. It's like 'Let It Be'…their thinking is "lets wait until most of the people who are interested in it are too senile or dead" (sic Aspinal) to let it out and then we will really score by unpaid views from the afterlife!!!
Actually, I get the sneaking suspicion that Live At Shea was being considered for next year, as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the concert (with Hollywood Bowl coming on CD).
That would explain why Let It Be got pushed to 2016 the last time Paul or Ringo was asked about it.
LIB was supposed to be out in 2012 according to Ringo…Waiting on anniversaries just means more lost viewers and interest. Look at the Bluray for "Help". What purpose did it serve to wait for 5 years after Bluray's availability to get "Help" out? Same with MMT. If this were 1985, I could understand the Disneyesque approach to slow release sell as many as you can without saturating the market. At this late date, Apple and Co. have gone beyond stupidity….
Paul's hunger for improvements his own 'stock' is matched by involvements from some youthful and hungry operatives on occasion and Apple could do with more of that kind of energy. Given the age of its principals and the history of 'getting to now' it's not too surprising that a 'legacy' pace is in motion but this has been getting increasingly problematic.
I'm sure Scott Rodger's team are too busy already but I'd say, by now, Yoko's quite open to some dynamic on the hoof marketing since she matches Paul for that herself.
A new gear is definitely inevitable at some stage and, really, it should be right about NOW