Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A very strange idea.

In journalism, to bury the lede is to "begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts."  Pardon me while I bury the lede in this post.

The BBC provided a great example of this when it buried the lede in a story about Paul McCartney's son, James McCartney.  The headline for the story is "Paul McCartney's son James on playing the Cavern Club."  The Cavern Club, as many fans of the Beatles will tell you, is famous for hosting many gigs by the Beatles prior to Beatlemania sweeping the world in the first half of the 1960s.  The club, which was underground, was closed and filled-in during the 1970s but in 1984 a new Cavern Club was built on part of the site and made to look like the Cavern Club in its heyday.

Anyway, the BBC interviewed James McCartney about playing at the Cavern Club, his musical relationship with his father, and a few other things.  Then, at the bottom of the article comes the little tidbit that James McCartney has apparently spoke with Dhani Harrison, Sean Lennon, and Zak Starkey about forming some sort of next generation Beatles.  Mr. Starkey, who has a legitimate career as a drummer, was apparently not receptive to the idea.  However, the article quotes James as saying "Sean seemed to be into it, Dhani seemed to be into it" and speculating that perhaps Jason Starkey, another of Ringo Starr's sons, would be interested in playing the drums.  No word on whether anyone asked Julian Lennon.

Obviously a possible "Beatles Jr." band is a lot bigger story than the fact that James McCartney is playing a club that is an homage/rip-off of a more famous club of the same name. Even more obviously (if that is possible) is that "Beatles Jr." is a preposterously, stupendously bad idea.  However, it is also a thing that would probably make a lot of money.  For that reason, I won't be surprised when it turns out to be a real thing.

2 comments:

  1. Fascinating. I know Dhani was kind of the force behind Beatles: Rock Band the video game. I guess in a way they are just trying to carry on the family business.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Except the founders of the family business were smart enough to quit making new product over forty years ago.

    ReplyDelete

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