Five Years Before ABBEY ROAD -- Beatlemania Beatle Cash-Ins!

February 9th, 1964…The Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show." (Should there even be an asterisk for August 8, 2019, a bunch of assholes gathered at Abbey Road to gurn and preen and try to stake a claim to traveling the most distance to stand in the gutter?) 

1964 as really The Year of the Beatles and...Beatle cash-ins. It was only after the lads conquered America that feverish Capitalism not only from Capitol Records but from EVERY record label suddenly caught fire.

It was pretty much after the Sullivan show that PRODUCT was demanded, and the earlier Beatles hits known only in England, including "She Loves You" and "Please Please Me" turned up in America. These were joined by Beatles sound-alikes and novelty tunes about the Fab Four. 

NO joke...aside from dubious comic novelties (Allan Sherman's "Pop Hates the Beatles") the cash-ins even included "1000 Jokes" dropping a comedian for the cover in favor of The Fab Four and a few jokes about them. 

The five finalists:
1. I'm Better Than The Beatles. Brad Berwick hoped enough haters would buy his little ditty, but nobody was listening. 

2. I Wanna Be a Beatle by Gene Cornish and The Unbeetables (get it?). At least this one is kind of harmless in stealing from "She Loves You" and seeming about to riff into "I Wanna Be Your Man." It's actually kind of complimentary… 

3. Beatle Maniacs by Ray Ruff and the Checkmates. Another jealous Buddy Holly-type grumbles, "The Beatles, they're the worst…" and tries to show that insipid rockabilly is much better. Yeah, there's also some line about his girl not caring about him because he doesn't have "shaggy hair." 

4. The Beatle Bomb. After stealing a chunk of "She Loves You," the lead singer of The Exterminators, with a pretty horrific British accent, moans "By Jove I'll get them yet," and the band plays a somewhat clever but awful combo of surf music and a classic funeral march. Can this stubborn "bomb" of twangy guitar music defeat the Mersey sound? "Oh no" "Yeah yeah" "Oh no" "Yeah yeah yeah…by Jove I think we've done it!" Yes, if you mean created a cult item a few collectors would pay big bucks for decades later. 

5. "It's Comin Thru The Doors" by Bobby and the Blue Jays is a dig at the "clanging banging Limey Liverpool sound." The lyrics somehow reduces the Fab Four to three, as Bobby chronicles the beginning of the band that refused to go to a barber and now have somehow stolen his girl, and worse: "Oooh, they wanna hold my hand." A very confused fellow, this lead singer. 


While the 50th anniversary of "Abbey Road" would SEEM to end the hysteria for bloated, over-priced re-issues, rest assured it WON'T. McCartney has pointed to endless hours of 'Let it Be" outtakes that will be cobbled to create a much more positive view of The Beatles working together in literal harmony. It will no doubt be bloated to three or four DVDs, with a box and a booklet, and tucked away in there, the original "Let it Be" film.

There will also be re-issues and re-mixes of older Beatles material, the solo material, anything else Giles Martin would care to alter and enhance (including his own reputation) and....
.... hell, why not a big coffee table book loaded with photos of Beatlemania items AND nestled in a box with reproductions of choice items like a genuine replica of a Beatle wig, a snipped of Beatle pillowcase, or some pinback buttons with "I Love Ringo" in bold red letters, or photos of the group, or even the mocking pins that some jealous teenage boys wore. Yes, there was HELP STAMP OUT "BEETLES" (spelled wrong either to avoid a lawsuit, or because the manufacturer was from Holland). 

FIVE "BEATLES BACKLASH" TRACKS...hear Brad Berwick, Ray Ruff, The Exterminators, The Unbeetables and Bobby and the Blue Jays... ...Guys sulking, sneering and dreaming about Beatles fame!