#kit o'toole

[beatlesradioshows]

Beatle Brunch, Joe Johnson, Dec 17, 2023. Download

Guests: Kit O'Toole and Steve Matteo

[beatlesradioshows]

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Beatle Brunch, Joe Johnson, December 4, 2022.  Download  

Guest is Kit O’Toole

[longforyesterday]

In the summer of ’66, the Beatles entered what Ian Inglis calls their “men of ideas” stage, when interviewers spent increasingly more time asking about the band’s views on issues of the day, such as the war in Vietnam, the decriminalization of marijuana, and the possibilities of religious exploration, and less time talking about their music. This progression demonstrates the band’s increasing cultural authority. In addition, the opinions they expressed would be embraced, or at least considered, by millions of young people around the world.

In July, less than a month before the start of their ’66 tour, Lennon’s casual observation about the declining popularity of the church— made during an interview with the London Evening Standard that March— was taken out of context and reprinted in Datebook, an American fan magazine. The takeaway, then and since, was that Lennon said the band was “more popular than Jesus.” Conservative media in the Bible Belt seized on the opportunity to, as one fan put it, “knock Lennon and the Beatles down a peg.” A fan in her late teens at the time recalls her minister talking about it: “He said the Beatles were a bad influence.” As she saw it, “They were just free spirits who made you feel free and more like yourself.” Another remembers visiting family in Arkansas that summer who called Lennon “lowlife scum,” but she thought he was right: “If you asked young people, ‘would you rather go to church or a musical event,’ what would they say? Come on. There’s no question.” Another fan had a similar reaction: “Some of my friends didn’t like it, but what he said was true. Would you stand in line for two days to take Communion? Of course not; but you’d stand in line for three days to see them.”

Candy Leonard in Kenneth Womack and Kit O’ Toole, Fandom and the Beatles

[longforyesterday]

In Tomorrow Never Knows, Nick Bromell correctly observes that the significance of Beatlemania has been overlooked by a half century of (predominantly male) analysis, which “marvels” at its “orphic force” yet “condescends” to the girls who created it. It was, after all, fan experiences and perceptions that created Beatlemania and established the foundation for everything that came later. The “Beatlemania years” (1964– 1966) were the period of accruing authority and fan trust; the “studio years” (late 1966– 1970) were the period of acting on that authority as the acknowledged leaders of the counterculture. The transition between these periods occurred in the spring of 1966 with the release of “Nowhere Man” and the Jesus kerfuffle.

Candy Leonard in Kenneth Womack and Kit O’ Toole, Fandom and the Beatles

[longforyesterday]

In Can’t Buy Me Love, Jonathan Gould notes that “the zeal of Beatlemaniacs” was compared to “that of religious devotees” and offers several examples of the religion- infused language surrounding early Beatlemania. In 1964, Newsweek said the Beatles were “a band of evangelists, whose gospel is fun.” Variety wrote, “Lo! Beatles Descend from the Sky for Apotheosis in Frisco.” Writing in the Partisan Review, albeit somewhat tongue- in- cheek, Jonathan Miller said that the Beatles “have become a religion in fact.” Al Aronowitz, writing in the widely read Saturday Evening Post, quoted press agent Derek Taylor’s reaction to the Beatles’ reception in Australia, saying, “it was as if some savior had arrived and all these people were happy and relieved.” Observing the fervor, Rev. David Noebel, a Baptist minister, authored a pamphlet called Communism, Hypnotism, and the Beatles, warning of the need to protect children and the nation from the “four mopheaded anti- Christ beatniks.”

Candy Leonard in Kenneth Womack and Kit O’ Toole, Fandom and the Beatles - The Act You’ve Known For All These Years

[longforyesterday]

In “Revolution 2.0: Beatles Fan Scholarship in the Digital Age,” Jeffrey Roessner states that progressive nostalgia exists in what he terms “fan scholarship.” Instead of simply recounting history, these researchers further the notion that “nostalgia also bridges gaps in time by hauling the past into the present.” He cites Peter Doggett’s You Never Give Me Your Money as an example, explaining that the author’s biography of the Beatles’ post- breakup careers entices readers with the possibility of a reunion that will never happen. By illuminating a series of missed chance and writing in present tense, Doggett teases readers with an ending that they already know. Yet this technique retells this chapter in the Beatles story with a sense of urgency not present in traditional biographies. Joli Jensen suggests that fans play an even bigger role in knowledge creation. “Online gathering, sharing, evaluating and displaying of individual and collective affection offers new evidence to support my claim that fans can be understood as uncredentialed scholars.” Technology has further enabled fans to participate in creating knowledge.

Kit O’Toole and Kenneth Womack, Fandom and the Beatles

[longforyesterday]

Unlike other bands of their era, the Beatles have never descended into “nostalgia act” territory. Instead, even after the announcement of the band’s breakup in 1970, the group has maintained its cultural and musical relevance. In the decades since the Beatles’ breakup, their image has undergone several transformations. In Dreaming the Beatles, Rob Sheffield describes how the Beatles’ image and influence changed according to decades. The 1970s brought a sense of deprivation, a type of mourning concerning their breakup. By the 1980s, the Beatles were bound by a nostalgia surrounding psychedelia and hippie culture, represented in magazines such as Rolling Stone. It was the 1990s that brought a new relevance to the band’s music, with the Beatles Anthology documentary (and accompanying CDs) attracting renewed attention to the group. The decade culminated in the surprise success of the 1 compilation, a collection that reintroduced the music to second- generation fans and their children. Sheffield argues that during this decade, the Beatles were untethered from 1960s symbolism. During the 1990s, “if for you rock and roll is about nostalgia, the Beatles are your best weapon. If for you rock and roll is the long, hard fight against nostalgia, the Beatles are also your best weapon.” Their timeless quality appeals to younger generations while maintaining the loyalty of older fans. While the Beatles indeed represent a specific time period, their music and words address issues as meaningful today as they were during the Summer of Love: politics, war, sex, drugs, art, and creative liberation.

Kit O’Toole and Kenneth Womack, Fandom and the Beatles

[longforyesterday]

What distinguished Presley and the Beatles from previous idols was not only musical genre but also attitude. As Ehrenreich argues in her essay “Thawing Out” in Penelope Rowlands’s The Beatles Are Here! 50 Years after the Band Arrived in America: Writers, Musicians, and Other Fans Remember, one word personified pre- rock teenage culture: cool, meaning “a kind of aloofness, emotional affectlessness, and a sense of superiority.” In contrast, rock music demanded “immediate and unguarded physical participation, thawed out the coolness, summoned the body into action, and blasted the mind out of the isolation and guardedness that had come to define the Western personality.” Indeed, this new participation immediately surfaced upon the Beatles’ arrival in both the United Kingdom and the United States. When the Beatles first landed on American shores in February 1964, teenagers across the country instantly reacted with great emotion and unprecedented hysteria. While this behavior may have bewildered parents in the States, British families had already been affected by this new phenomenon: Beatlemania. The Beatles would go on to become one of the most critically and commercially successful bands of all time, a symbol of the 1960s and its rapidly changing cultural and political landscape. John Muncie posits that the Beatles’ greatest contribution to youth culture may have been Beatlemania itself, as “of all the social movements and cultural symbols of the 1960s, it was, at least, something that they could genuinely claim to be their own.”

Kit O’Toole and Kenneth Womack, Fandom and the Beatles