The Esher Demos

Legend among the diehard Beatles fans, such as myself, is the folklore of the Esher Demos recorded at George Harrison’s house on his Ampex 4-Track Reel-To-Reel. Fans got a taste of some of those tracks on Beatles Anthology 3, but not until the 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe version of the eponymous Beatles’ White Album.

Ampex 4-Track, available at SonicCircus.com, only $3,500!

The problem with this release of the 27 demos from May, 1968, is that they’re not put in the proper order as intended by the Beatles. However, thanks to YouTube Music, this can be remedied!

Behold, the Esher Demos, in their proper order!

The Esher Demo Playlist

Get Back to Where You Once Belong

Yes, the site is back in business. And while I was away, we got a wonderful edit of the Let it Be sessions from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, now available on Disney+. With over eight hours of footage from the sixty our corpus from Michael Lindsay-Hogg we got a complete narrative on how the album developed, how the songs included were developed, as well as how some songs which made it onto Abbey Road or some solo works post Beatles came about.

One of the more interesting bits is how Isn’t it a Pity is heard in the credits to the first episode, how the anvil is brought in for Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, how Ringo came up with Octopus’s Garden with George listening intently, how George wrote the bridge to Something before the main song, a take of All Things Must Pass, the original political protest version of Get Back, and how the band worried when George went AWOL. My only nit is the riff from I Want You in the rooftop concert couldn’t be heard because of the interviews below. And I would have liked to have Hear Me Lord included from the sessions. Shame on you, Peter.

Overall, a most joyous eight hours of my life!

Meanwhile, this server is back bit not for long. I plan to move TimeHorse.com to OpalStack in the coming month so stay tuned for that.

Tired of Midnight Blue

The sun went down the sky. Way up high, the clouds told me that they knew.

Harrison, George, “Tired of Midnight Blue”, Extra Texture: Read All About It, 1975 LP.

Today was one of those days that could have gone better, but with so many people asking for interviews, it was hard to focus on my TED Talk for an interview. I had anticipated how difficult it would be to give an extemporaneous speech with so little time to plan it, but so be it. I tried to keep the entire morning free, but one interview moved from Wednesday to Tuesday, squeezing me ever further.

In the end, I failed, and I accept that. I don’t know what turned my interviewers off, but I have other job opportunities I’ve just this evening so I’m just going to move on and forget about all the effort I put into that position. After all, I did just sign two memo to accept a pending offer so it’s not like I have nothing to fall back on. And, who knows, maybe they wouldn’t offer me enough money anyway.

I’m just tired. Tired of sleepless nights, of midnight blue. And as I love that obscure George Harrison song, from the obscure solo album Extra Texture: Read All About It, I could think of no more appropriate way to express my mood. The song is deep and sorrowful, steeped with lament to a almost jazzy-blues beat.

The sun came into view. As I sat with the tears in my eyes.

Harrison, George, “Tired of Midnight Blue”, Extra Texture: Read All About It, 1975 LP.

Tomorrow will be a new day, and who knows what it will bring. Sometimes, I think about the pain the Hypochondriac causes me. The hours I had to spend, insult after insult, belittlement and cruel advice. How I long to be with someone who appreciated me and all I try to do. Because, in the end, I’m Tired of Midnight Blue.

Extra Texture: Read All About It
Extra Texture: Read All About It, the 1975 Solo Album by George Harrison

Thanks for reading and next time won’t you sing along with me?

My First Web Page

I started writing web pages in 1993, months after Tim Burners-Lee published the first HTML specification. The first page I created was dedicated to my love of the Quiet Beatle, George Harrison, and the Roger Damon Price science fiction series, The Tomorrow People. The Tomorrow people was ITV‘s answer to the highly successful Doctor Who series on BBC.

When I created it, I was still at McGill University and so for a while it was hosted on the university web servers. When I left the school I was allowed to download the page and installed it on my work computer, then brought the code home, eventually letting it settle on my official web server.

If you’re curious what that page looked like, search no further than here: The Original George Harrison and Tomorrow People Home Page. Please note, some of the links are long dead but all internal documents are still there. Enjoy!

And remember, I’m available for hire.