The Beatles Book

My name is Brian Bergeron. I am a Boston-based acoustic  singer-songwriter and I'm competing in Gather.com's First Tracks Competition  for a record deal with Decca Label Group. As part of immersing myself in the site and so people can get to know me better (and hopefully grow to support me), I have decided to post an article a day on the site during the length of the contest. Please comment on my song if you like what you hear and you can vote ONCE PER DAY until March 17th. You can listen to my song here and please comment on it...There, I've pimped myself enough. On with the article!

I recently went to San Francisco for a week and brought with me what may be the longest book that I've ever read (well actually, I'm only halfway through it) and I am impressed that it's consistently held me attention and interest. It's called "The Beatles" by Bob Spitz. I'm glad I found it because it pulled me away from Slash's autobiography, which was just dreadful (I think there's another article in THERE somewhere).

As a struggling musician, I always like to read success stories of bands that have made it, especially from humble beginnings, and this book was a great example of that. What I was encouraged to read about was that the Beatles had a fair share of failures but they seemed to blow up for as many societal reasons as for innovations in their music. Outside of energy and harmonies, the Beatles were sold early on just because of the look. I certainly don't want to ever become the level of artist that the Beatles were (it would just be too much for me to handle) but it's also a bit of a drag that an artist could never break in the same way that the Beatles blew up. Radio station play lists are so tightly controlled (radio was more free form in the 60s and the DJs had a lot of power in breaking artists) and radio doesn't matter anymore (for the most part…sorry radio). I think I'm digressing a little bit and getting away from the Beatles and more to the industry, which is where I always end up.

I think I knew a fair amount about the Beatles, but it turns out that they were badass. They were a full-blown rock band with the attitude and the sneer. I always pictured them as the clean cut, mop-topped boy band or the hippie/experimental innovation machine that they were later on but this was somewhat a shock. Especially John Lennon, who has some echoes of Ryan Adams (who I look at now as an endearing loose canon) and it was not the initial impression of him that I once had. They were all fierce about their careers—although I would have liked to hear more about how they promoted and got the word out about themselves early on, they just seemed to book the gigs and play them—and were cut throat. They were also kind of mean. Early on, when they were solidifying their band line-up, they were cold and cruel to people on the way out. They would do anything to get to the top.

It has been an interesting and eye-opening read so far. So bravo boys. Keep up the drama.