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Carnival of Light 1348

Carnival of Light 1348

Turns out Sgt. Pepper is pure hype

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is commonly viewed as the most outrageous innovative psychedelic album ever made. Is it even psychedelic is what I ask?  


Paul McCartney called it his or the Beatles' "Freak Out" but it was nothing like Frank Zappa's Freak Out. Freak Out was less contrived or pop like. Even though the tunes were catchy they were much more far out than the almost show tune like "with a Little Help From My Friends". 


There's a limited amount of poetry and social commentary save for a Day in the Life. Even that was disjointed by McCartney's falling out of bed routine that just seemed like filler. 


Freak Out is arguably not even the best of the psychedelic albums. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band's Safe as Milk was as trippy and far out as anything released in 1967. It was poetic and sonically pleasing. It was far out but not so far as it lost you. It took way more chances than the Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper which is basically a a non daring pop album. 


Safe As Milk was not playing it safe it was all about a new kind of trip the Beatles would never be ready for because while Pink Floyd were pushing the boundaries the Beatles were inventing new ways to say I love you which is a pop formula used to suck in the ideals of youth. That temporary optimism that marketers seek to exploit. 


Safe as Milk goes to places the likes of the Doors, Byrds,  etc wouldn't dare go. The Beatles tried to pick up on the Californian psychedelic sound but they listened to the Mama's and the Papa's and thought that was it or  decided that's as far as they would go. Scott McKenzie put flowers in peoples hair and the Beatles did nothing to mess up the 'do. In pop music land or "Pepperland" the wind never blows. They live in a pill capsule. Everyone and everything is safe and warm. The flowers never wilt people never die. That's the Beatles. They're no different than Justin Beiber now. They're Lady Gaga because they're sold off as being "daring". 


They want err Paul the leader of the Beatles wants Carnival of Light to be released but why?  He wants to continue the illusion they were psychedelic innovators but the truth is they were not. They were factory workers in a pop warehouse. 

Charles Manson and the Beatles

It's 1969...and Charles Manson's family is on their way to a massacre...unfortunately they get lost. They intended to go kill Sharon Tate and others but instead wind up at a Beatles convention instead. A bunch of union jackasses and some analingualizing walrus fucks are standing around cardboard cut out of the Flab four circa 1965 listening to worn out 45's. Everyone is indulging in the favorite Beatle drink "delusion".

Suddenly there's a knock on the door...No alarm at this retro party where Beatle trading card, cum stained panties and other memorabilia are traded. Why it must be the lads, everyone says in unison....

OOPSSS....Wrong lads and Lassies.....what happens next is similar to frogs in a blender.....

My Carnival of Light did not use Beatle samples

Carnival of Light mp3

Since I first aired my interpretation of the Beatles' Carnival of Light several comments by fans, newspaper & Wikipedia articles have stated I used samples of actual Beatle tracks to create the song above. That is completely false and without insight.

On November 16th  2008 I created a parody of the whole Carnival of Light experience. What I borrowed was song outlines keeping in harmony with United States Copyright law.

My parody was designed to make fun of what I call the Beatle Police. These are overzealous fans who correct other Beatle fans like they created a felony if they did not know some obscure Beatle fact. I'm sure everyone has met one. With all the misinformation out there about the Beatles it only makes matters worse. Why I've even seen instances were Beatle Police argued with Paul McCartney about his own life. He lived his life they studied it and or read countless books/took college courses etc etc. So as soon as I titled my video The Beatles Carnival of Light?  Beatle Bootleg...then ended it abruptly 3 minutes later with "probably not" I stimulated a public debate. This drove the Beatle Police crazy. That was my intention to make fun of them.

The other thing I was making fun of was the Beatles themselves who refused to release the track. They released all sorts of bad demos but this didn't make the cut because of sibling rivalry. George Harrison reinvented himself with Cloud Nine and the Traveling Wilburies. Meanwhile Paul was struggling in some ways but still considered himself to be the most important Beatle alive. There was really no other reason other than power struggle why George would not allow the track. He was the one who brought in all exotic instruments. Surely he was open to experimentation. I mean just look at that perm he got in the late 70's. So with life being so short, why not release it?   Paul and John used to tell George he could only have 1 song..now George had the power to tell Paul he could have none.

The way I made fun of this silly ego trip was by creating sonic chaos. I was trying to create the sound of 2 wild animals fighting. You can hear them roar at each other. That was Paul & George.

I think in many ways they drifted a part over the years. Just look at Paul at the Concert for George. He never looked so out of place. Now George is gone which makes the fight even more ridiculous. He no doubt told his wife no to COL.

Now I had to poke a little fun at Paul McCartney as well. He was lobbying to have this avant garde song released. It was very much a bohemian adventure of free form art. This is all fine and dandy but I just have a difficult time relating to a billionaire bohemian. So I borrowed a little bohemian Beatle influence for the song's structure. In no way did I intend to replace any Beatle track. I was more interested in symbolism.

My song is so chaotic it is naturally transformative. It's decidedly different from the Beatles Carnival of Light. I made fun of the minimalism a bit but also to distinguish my song from theirs. I resisted copying the readily available description of the  real COL. Instead I tried to create something that sounded as if it could be but wasn't.

The title Carnival of Light was necessary because it is an instrumental and one requirement for a parody is you must identify what you're making fun of. It's a complex parody but I feel that Beatle fans are sophisticated enough to understand.

Initially I only intended it for streaming broadcast. Since that time Beatle Bootleggers have distributed my song across numerous file sharing networks as well as pressed actual compact discs. So a few weeks ago I made my song available on Itunes and other large mp3 online warehouses. I did have it on a few smaller mp3 sites but there wasn't much of a push on my part to distribute it. I feel the need to push the song now even if no one downloads it just to identify the track as mine. As of right now Beatle fans/file sharers believe my song to be cut up pieces of Beatle tracks.

Again actual Beatle samples were never used. I used similar instruments available at the time the Beatles recorded Penny Lane. The drums are not from Strawberry field. The bass line is loosely based on Michelle but it is not Michelle(why even Paul McCartney when he wrote Michelle was doing it as a joke. He was at an art school party and they were listening to French folk music. So he began to mimic the musical style.  All the songs sounded alike. Most of the other s sounds I created are so distorted, stretched, played backwards, cut up into pieces etc they relate to nothing from the Beatles.

Some changes and lot has been learned of late

I've started a new website http://www.psychedelictripper.com

This will go directly to one of the online retailers selling my psychedelic music. I hope to have a whole album ready in a few weeks. I'll also be working on a psychedelic acoustic album under a different name. This will be an acoustic avant garde production. I was hoping for some sales from my Carnival of Light parody/interpretation but that remains to be seen. I need to get organized and focussed.

Focussed?  That segues to the next segment of distractions and what I have learned having to deal with them.

Not long after I introduced Beatle fans and the Beatle Police to my version of Carnival of Light plays dropped off drastically. I deleted my video so I can't go back and check when this happened but it was probably in the spring of 2009. At the time I figured people just got bored so I didn't look into the matter too much.

Little did I know but several people were bootlegging my track under various guises.

I'm not sure who put my song on file sharing networks first but once it got on there it was lumped together, uncredited with a bunch of other songs by the Beatles. The thing is my track was not the Beatles. My track was only meant to sound as if it were but wasn't.

One of the file sharers was a vulgarian called dorkgork. This is where it becomes confusing. He presented my song on the file sharing sites as part of a Beatle bootleg cd "Now and Then". What I am not sure of is if he was the one who spliced up my track, mixed it with other Carnival of Light songs till the time read 13:48.

You see up in Scotland a small record company called raskol records released a bootleg cd called "Now and Then". Now I do not know if this contained my song or not or whether the vulgarian was working with them.

My feeling is the Scotland punk/ska label collected Beatle songs off of file sharing sites and released it. The DorkGork vulgarian downloaded this and added my song and others to the virtual cd he promoted on  file sharing networks and youtube.

Everyone's a director though because another youtuber/Beatle fan put up his own video of the vulgarian's unrequested mix called "All Outfakes Mixed in One" on his youtube channel.

After that(I'm supposing) 3 Englishman create their own CD called Beatles Carnival of Light "Fakes, Frauds, and Phonies". They collected various parodies and versions of the unreleased track and press up actual compact discs. I know because I saw one on Ebay. I asked the seller if it was a CDR or a professional pressing. The answer was the latter. I confronted two of the pirates and was deferred to someone else acting as their representative. I did not like his attitude or lies at all. I mean they pressed actual cd's!  I was told that was not the case. I was also told they didn't promote them to file sharing websites but I found a page the other day that did just that. Then he tried to suggest no harm was done. That was when I nearly lost it.

It goes back to noticing not a lot of people were paying attention to my song. I had it for sale in late 2008 on Soundclick and Snocap. I left Soundclick and Snocap was taken over or something. I wasn't getting any attention because people were giving my song away for free!  In no way shape or form did I authorize this. I also didn't authorize releasing it on a cd!  Perhaps those who press cd's should know that can carry with it huge fines and jail time. I mean come on Kermit the Frog singing Hey Jude was placed on a cd!  I guarantee that is copyrighted and NOT in the public domain.

My song is copyrighted as well. I have the individual tracks to prove so in a court of law if I have to.

Perhaps what was really insulting is credit was never given to me. The newspaper who interviewed Paul McCartney about Carnival of Light had a video link to my song. Several other websites had links to my song. The video was labeled. Yet despite this they tossed my song in a haystack.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to go after file sharing sites?  It is not an easy task. For one thing you have to convince them the track was yours and that can take several angry emails. Then you have to remind them to flag the titles, length, etc. Then the file sharer just changes things up a bit and you're back where you started.

I don't know why Paul McCartney is sitting on his hands about Carnival of Light. Does he actually expect sales will be generated?  As soon as it is released it will be on the file sharing networks and handed out for free.

Strange that the Beatles didn't explore strings from their own backyard

This is a Weber Aspen 2 Mandolin. It's a Celtic style. Very simple look but high quality parts and construction. It's the one I'll be saving up for.

Now back to the Beatles. They would explore Indian instruments like the Sitar but ignore the Mandolin. Why even Elvis or his producers used the Mandolin in "It's now or Never"...think that was the tune. It's a very nice sound. It's cheerful and full. Another aspect is the Mandolin has a medieval minstrel quality. The Beatles were often dubbed electric folk.

The heathen Rolling Stone held medieval instruments for an album cover. But it wasn't until very recently Paul McCartney picked up the instrument. Well I guess that means that since I am much younger than he I still have time.

I've always wanted a Mandolin. Not sure why Paul never picked one up. Perhaps he has a life?  He did try the Fugal Horn.

Just look at the Madolin....8 strings....chiming out...no ringing out.....it's the same scale as the violin. I tried that last summer for the first time....I thought it was fun. The small frets, neck and high tension make the Mandolin a difficult instrument to play but I think one would compliment my acoustic and classical guitars immensely.  Hopefully sales can increase so I can afford this beautiful $1600 instrument.

I can hear several Beatle songs in my head that would have welcomed the Mandolin....Girl, Here Comes the Sun, and others....it's not a bluegrass instrument exclusively.....it's also a classic...