HMC back on track

The new TMOQ Gazettes are finally coming

Looks like the underground HMC bootleg company has overcome its problems, we have been told that the first copies of their new TMOQ gazette releases have been shipped. The most eagerly awaited of these (by us, anyway), is TMOQ Gazette no. 19, “The Long and Winding Road”, which gives us the Beatles documentary that Neil Aspinall put together. It would be shelved for decades, and eventually reworked into the multipart series “The Beatles Anthology” in the mid nineties, now here’s a chance to see what it looked like in 1972. The track list of the documentary gives us an idea:

It all starts with an intro taken from the Yellow Submarine film, so it’s probably “Pepperland..” etc. Nice opening. Then we go back to the Cavern Club for “Some Other Guy”, the Hamburg era is skipped, Ringo is already in the group and Neil’s friend Pete Best doesn’t seem to be in the picture at all. Next up is “Please Please Me”, it’ll be interesting to see what the footage may be. You’ll notice that the first single, “Love Me Do” is not here. In between interviews, there’s some footage of “From Me To You” before we go to Manchester for the colour film of “She Loves You”.

So that’s the British Beatlemania done with and we skip Sweden and Paris, going straight to the Ed Sullivan Show for the hit that fuelled American Beatlemania, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.

What puzzles me next is that we then skip the first two Beatles films, “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”, moving forward to the performance of “Yesterday” from Blackpool Night Out.

Moving swiftly on, we get a medley of songs. This could be a way of summing up the two films, or it could just be the hits medley from Around The Beatles?

Then it’s off to Shea Stadium, first for the token Ringo song “Act Naturally” (probably still with the record as a soundtrack) and then the grand finale with John going mental on “I’m Down”. Various interviews follow, and could be a means to sum up “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” before we go straight to 1967 and the “Strawberry Fields Forever” promo film, hopefully not with the intercut footage from home movies that were inserted into the “Anthology” presentation of this film. “A Day In The Life” is the collage film we all know, that was recently featured on The Beatles’ YouTube channel, before we are promised some new footage of “All You Need Is Love”. You’ll recall that “Anthology” used the “Our World” footage, but had it colourised. “Hello Goodbye” is a mix of the three promo clips, which is the same approach taken by “Anthology”, but likely to be executed differently.

Whereas the “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!” films were thinly if at all represented, we get three songs from Magical Mystery Tour: George’s “Blue Jay Way”, John’s “I Am The Walrus” and Paul’s “Your Mother Should Know”.

No “Lady Madonna” or India footage mentioned, we go to a rehearsal of “Hey Jude”, or more likely, the reenactment rehearsal filmed for Music! – An Experiment in Television, followed by an interview.

The White Album seems to be missing in action, as we now move fast forward to January 1969 for some outtakes from Let It Be, interestingly “You Win Again”, “Yoko’s bit” (could be more of what we saw in the 1984 “Yoko Ono Then and Now” video cassette) and “I’ve Got A Feeling”.

It ends with the final promo film, “Something”, followed by possibly “The End” from Abbey Road, set to, curiously,  Magical Mystery Tour film footage, replaced by film footage from the Beatles’ final photo session in Tittenhurst Park for the “Anthology” version of the documentary.

You’ll remember that The Beatles’ all used to have copies of this film, which they entertained their guests with. George Harrison is said to have shown the film to Eric Idle for inspiration, as he was about to produce the mockumentary “All You Need Is Cash” with the fictional Rutles group.

Bonus tracks:

Rain (full colour, alternate footage)

Strawberry Fields Forever (full colour, alternate footage)

A Day In The Life (full colour, alternate footage)

Paperback Writer (Black and white promotional film #4)

Of the bonus films, the three first ones are sourced from silent films, the HMC company has added alternate sound to them.

This is a 1DVD/1CD package, but the CD seems to be of just familiar material.

The Ultimate Ed Sullivan DVD Collection

The vol. 20 Gazette is a 2 DVD set, titled “The Ultimate Ed Sullivan DVD Collection”.  Unlike the officially released set from Sofa Productions, we concentrate on the Beatles’ bits, and it’s also going to include the rehearsal for the 16 February 1964 show, a rehearsal of the 1965 show, including an alternate version of “Help!”, as well as the 1966 show (introduced by the Beatles in England, colour promo clips of “Rain” and “Paperback Writer” were shown), and the 1967 show, which was just one of the “Hello Goodbye” clips. The set promises upgraded remastered sound, plus the complete Miami 64 show with original commercials in a much higher quality than a recent download copy had.

Last year, HMC gave us TMOQ Gazette Vol. 18, which was Ron Furmanek’s restored and remastered “The Beatles at Shea Stadium” from the early nineties, still the best incarnation of that film, while waiting for the official release.

The TMOQ Gazette discography:

2012:

TMOQ Gazette 1: HMC13. The Beatles – Get Back Continued (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 2: HMC14. The Beatles – Uncovered 45 Tracks (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 3: HMC15. John Lennon – Oddities (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 4: HMC16. The Beatles – Rehearsals At 3 Savile Row (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 4: HMC17. Paul McCartney – Des Moines 10-27-2005 (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 6: HMC18. Paul McCartney USA Live! 2002 (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 7: HMC19. George Harrison – Georgeous (2CD)

2013:

TMOQ Gazette 8: HMC20. Paul McCartney – Tug Of Peace (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 9: HMC21. The Beatles – Aunties Fantasy (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 10: HMC22. The Beatles – A Doll’s House (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 11: HMC23. John Lennon – Oddities Vol.2 (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 12: HMC24. The Beatles – We Are The Eggmen (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 13: HMC25. George Harrison – Last Live Show (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 14: HMC26. Paul McCartney – V.S.O.P.  Very Superior Old Paul (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 15: HMC27. The Beatles – Take It Off (2CD)

2014:

TMOQ Gazette 16: HMC28. John Lennon – Oddities Vol.3 (2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 17: HMC29. Paul McCartney – Denver 11-1-2005 (Soundboard 2CD)

TMOQ Gazette 18: HMC30. The Beatles – Shea (1DVD/1CD)

2015:

TMOQ Gazette 19: HMC31. The Beatles – The Long And Winding Road (1DVD/1CD)

TMOQ Gazette 20: HMC32. The Beatles – The Ultimate Ed Sullivan DVD Collection (2 DVDs)

Back in 2008, HMC was also the company responsible for the release of “Revolution Take… Your Knickers Off!” (HMC 006), which gave us that fantastic 11:32 version of Revolution #1, among other things.