 Welcome to Region TV, Episode 5, and Happy New Year, everybody. Tonight we've got a very special episode for you. In fact, our featured guests, our conversation this evening with Chachi Laprette and Eric Taros, two of the most prominent Beatles scholars, historians, enthusiasts around today. But first, before we get to that, let's talk about some of the featured shows that we have for February 2020. We've got plenty of fish, a free dating site. Proving once again, you get what you don't pay for. Plenty of freaks, plenty of disappointments. There's a whole meaning to the phrase, meet, greet, then delete. I love reading a Latinas profile on plenty of fish. She's 42 and all her kids are over 30. And she's a grandmother. So I met this one woman on POF. We're having a nice conversation, and I innocently asked her, so Suzanne, what does she do for a living? Well, I do fundraising for the Alzheimer's Foundation. I go, well, that's a noble cause. Then we go on to a different topic. Then a minute later, she blurts out, you know, I do fundraising for the Alzheimer's Foundation. Now I'm thinking I have to do a fundraiser for her. I hope so, because we've got two of the most prominent Beatles enthusiasts around here for our conversation tonight, which I'm quite excited about. We've got Chachilipret, Beatles historian, longtime host of Breakfast with the Beatles, and Eric Taros, Beatles archivist or film archivist, to be precise, and acclaim for your work, and among other things contributed to the eight days a week film. That's probably my biggest hit. So welcome to Regent TV. The topic of the Beatles, we could go on forever, and we're just getting started, but why don't we start with you guys telling us, tell the audience, when did it all begin for you? Because a lot of people are passionate about the Beatles, but you both have worked this into something even more than just a fan of passion. And I'll go first, but first of all, it's great to be here with Leland. Leland is a legendary guy from Allington, Mass, runs the Regent Theatre, and we're happy to be here with you. We love the Regent. It is really like when we played the Regent in October with a different version of our show, I was thrilled because I've seen so many cool rock and roll things there, and to finally be on that stage was, that's why we want to keep coming back. And I should say one of the reasons you're here tonight is to talk about the upcoming show you're doing called Here, There, and Everywhere, the Beatles in the USA on Saturday, February 8th. That's correct. But let me stop. Let's hear about how we got to this point. I was born in Cambridge, and I used to come to Allington as a kid and eat ice cream at Buttricks. And Allington was formerly West Cambridge. Isn't that fantastic? So I grew up in Cambridge, and I am a first-generation Beatles fan. I was roughly seven years old, February 9th, 1964, on The Ed Sullivan Show, watching them at home with my family, two older brothers and an older sister. And it was, even though I was young, seven years old, it's an evening I will never forget. It's embedded in my head how it was so impactful in my life. And it changed my life. I immediately, like all the kids at school wanted to be a Beatle, wanted to have the girls chasing us, and we were buying Beatle wigs, and all of that, the boots. We were just totally into the Beatles back then. And throughout the 60s, I followed them religiously, collected things, and kept them as much as I could before my mother would throw them out. But I kept the majority of the stuff. And for me, the Beatles, I was blessed to figure out what I wanted to do in life at a very young age. Roughly when I went into high school, I wanted to be a DJ, simply to meet and interview the Beatles. Because I couldn't be a Beatle, there were already four. And I wanted to, and I heard the DJs and the TV guys interviewing them, and I'm like, I'd love to meet the Beatles, so I focused on becoming a DJ. And roughly in 1970, I started in high school. And I wanted to, I wanted to be a DJ when I turned on WBCN. Charles LaCoudera, the two things that really made me do what I wanted to be in my life were the Beatles and WBCN radio. And so both of them kind of hit each other in the early 70s. And by 1981, I was blessed to be on WBCN. And I had a Beatles show by the mid-80s called Get Back to the Beatles, which became Breakfast with the Beatles. So that's how it all started with me. Wow. And now, 2020, the Beatles split up 50 years ago, right? 50 years ago in April. Yes. But the split up meant nothing in terms of the Beatles phenomenon. And here we are 50 years later. So how about you, Eric? Me. Your start. Oh, my. My start was, I was younger than Charles. But I had an older sister who sat us down as a family to watch the first Ed Sullivan show. My biggest memory of that is actually, I was really into Bonanza. I loved horses. I was little. And I'm like, I don't want to sing. Come on. I was probably having a temper tantrum. Anyway, but that all went away. The second I saw these guys, and it was mesmerizing. I remember like, they all kind of looked the same and the hair really, and their presentation, I think really, burned into the mind. And I was in. So from there, I had like a little transistor radio like a lot of kids did. Always had a little bit of trouble sleeping. So I used to fall asleep. The radio going under the pillow. And I'd listened to Bruce Bradley. Not so much to, not so much to WMEX, which was Wugel Ginsburg, but definitely Bruce on WBZ. And it just kept going and going. Eventually what kicked me into the where I am now, I think was my grandmother died in 1966. And she was like the closest person I was to in the family. And right at that time, they announced that the Beatles were playing Suffolk Downs. And it had this sort of magical effect on me. Something changed that day. And then I asked my mother, can we go see the Beatles? And she's like, they'll be back when you're older. She'll say no. But obviously 11 days later, they played their final show after Suffolk Downs. So something clicked in my head. And from that moment on, I had a teenage radio show on WBZ FM, and I met a guy who was promoting Mystery Tour 75 by the name of Joe Pope. He ran a magazine called Starvery Fields Forever, and he invented the Beatles conventions. That's what these Mystery Tour things were. And he kind of took me under his wing. He's a lot older than me. But he introduced me into the world of Uber collectors. And I got to know who Johnny V was. And I got to know who Jason Brabazon was and Peter Kunkel and all these legends of the underground of collecting. And so I always told people, no particular talent in mind. I stood on the shoulders of giants. It's just thinking back. And I had the good fortune of growing up in the 60s and having older brothers that had their fingers on the pulse of everything that was going on in music. But to me, some of the Beatles, the things I most remember are being in the car, my parents' car, and the Beatles coming on the radio. The top 40 radio in those days, that's how you heard music. And the Beatles, year after year after year, month after month, they knew releases I could hear. I feel fine. I remember hearing that. She's a woman to get to ride. All those songs. And even as a pre-team, there was something like the energy behind it. It was just incredible. It was an amazing time to be alive. Because you remember, and you do too, Eric, it was non-stop. There was always a Beatles record in the top 10. There was one coming out. There was one just wrapping up. It seemed like it was every six months, certainly there was like five albums in 1964 in the capital release. And so it was really an amazing time. But I remember as a kid, my father never had a radio in the car, but everything changed when he bought a Dodge Coronet and it had a radio. And it was like, my God, we have a radio and you're right. We would listen to the radio all the time and the Beatles were always on and you were either listening to the number one Beatles song, getting ready for the next record to come out. It was non-stop. But do you guys remember one thing that's lost to time? And I'll call this the big chill effect. When this movie, The Big Chill, came out in the 80s, they made it seem like, oh yeah, when you listen to the radio in the 60s, it was Motown, Motown, Beatles, Motown, Motown. It wasn't that way at all. We were doing Strangers on the Night and then it would be Paperback Writer and then it would be Love is Blue or something, some instrumental. So I kind of missed that part of the 60s and it was always great, I think, to hear the Beatles in the context of what they came to kill. They just blew everybody else away but if you go back and you actually put them in the context, the records are even more impressive. And one of the things is, we were kids in the 60s and now flash forward to 2020 and the 2000s and it's safe to say that there are people, kids our age, who are our age back then are now Beatles fans because of their grandparents, their grandparents and so forth. And I guess there are other things, other phenomena you could say that about but I think the Beatles is one that's very much alive and very prominent still. And in your work, do you come across that a lot? I mean that has to be one of the more rewarding things to see young people and young kids who were born yesterday. It is amazing. My show is Breakfast with the Beatles on the radio and I have a nine year old listener who sent me an email the other day with a request and he wanted to hear All Together Now, which makes sense for a nine year old, and Temporary Secretary, Paul McCartney. And I'm like, look at this discerning nine year old. So I played it on the show last week and I said, this goes out to Peter. He's nine years old. He requested these for his birthday. The kid in him wants to hear All Together Now. The adult in him wants to hear Temporary Secretary. But that has a weird rhythm to it, Temporary Secretary. It does. It's a very strange song. That's a quirky little tune. I run into it. I speak at high schools, especially in Swamp Scot where I live, and I speak to a media class there. And it always knocks me out when these kids will say, oh yeah, I grew up singing. And they'll know little facts about certain songs. Sometimes they'll come to me and say, after I've given a speech or whatever class, they go, oh, I didn't know that song was also a Beatles song, because I know that song. And that's where my grandmother's house and my dad's house. So it does seem to be unlike, I think a lot of kids have appreciation for Elvis or Buddy Holly. But it's different. It's a little bit more alive than that seems to be very, very couched in the past. Whereas the Beatles thing, a lot of them, they gain entry through Yellow Submarine. The whole Elvis thing seems to be fading away. It's been a long time. It's been a long time, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And there was a fallow period. People forget. I spent a lot of time in the past. Looking at old news film or whatever. I found this thing, I might even show it at our show at the Regents, where I was on Channel 5 to speak on behalf of Strawberry's Records where I was working on the 20th anniversary of the first Beatles record, which was Love Me Do. So this is October 1982. And there was a little tiny... It was starting to build again. In the mid-70s, the Capitol re-released. They came out with the rock and roll music and they started re-releasing albums. And that's kind of where it started to build back up again. But I think there was a period, in the very early 70s, where it was quiet. Before 74. I'd say between 70 and 74, the Beatles thing was kind of fading away a little bit. But boy, did it come back from 74. From the 10th anniversary onward push, with no looking back really. Yeah. Well, it's great, because, you know, just like I say, there's a new generation, but also the excitement of bringing together Beatles fans, whether it's at conventions that you're aware of or through your radio show or in some kind of an event, a live presentation like we're doing at the Regents. I often say what we do at the Regents is fantastic, because we bring together these different communities of people whether it's an ethnic community or a cultural community, or just people who are enthusiastic about one thing or another. And it really creates a special vibe and energy. So we're excited to have you guys. Well, it's great to be back to the region because these theaters are important to people. Eric and I I'll tell you, and I know what he's going to say. I remember with such, you know, in my heart such love for the first theater I saw Hard Days Night In. You know, it was the Coolidge Theater in Watertown. It doesn't exist. It became a jack-in-the-box. And I recently found a picture of it in 1964 this old theater. And I know you, where did you see Hard Days Night? I saw Hard Days Night And Help as a double feature at the Oriental in Matta Pan. So when kids come to our show at the region, they're going to remember the region for a long time because these venues, especially yours, the region, there's such a unique venue and there's not many of them around anymore. And so, you know, a hundred-year-old plus theater, and for us to be on stage. Because Eric was saying to me, you know, the fact that vaudeville performers were on this stage is so important that we're on it. It's so meaningful. It's funny what you mentioned it and not to get too sidetracked, but a few months ago we had the 40th anniversary of the screening of the Who film. The kids are all right. And you don't know how many people came who were at the region theater 40 years before and so up there. And of course that ended with the kids like ripping up their seats and causing a riot. They destroyed the theater? Wow. So in true Who fashion. Anyway, but it's yeah, those are certainly memories that we all have. I saw help at the Fresh Pond Drive-in. Okay. You know where all the electrical things are on the parkway there? Yeah. That used to be the Fresh Pond Drive-in. That's where I saw help. Roughly where the Apple Cinemas are now. Yeah, right across the street. And I saw let it be at the Apple Cinema. That's crazy. So, in 1970. Tell us, give us a taste or a tease of the type of things that you're going to be presenting at the region on February 8. That's a great aspect of going to a theater to see this. One of the coolest things about what we're showing is you cannot see this stuff anywhere. You can go get help. You can go get Hard Days Night. But the pieces that Chachi and I present come from my work. A lot of finding things and uncovering lost films which is what I did for Ron Howard in eight days a week. But that process is always going on. I was just called Chachi the other day. I found a film. The Cavern Club. I'm so excited. So that's an ongoing process for me. The kinds of things you're going to see this particular show because it's on February 8, we would like to kind of ease people back into that time 55 years ago. And so you're going to see some stuff that the Beatles actually end Central Park on February 8, 1964. But you're going to see some of their arrival. One of the things I put together that's unless you come to see my show you won't see it. Their very first press conference at JFK Airport was historically significant for the Beatles because it was such a success which it wasn't planned to be that it changed what they did in every new city. Every new city from that moment on they did a press conference because in the words of their press agent at the time the marvelous experience at JFK proved that the Beatles were just as interesting when they were speaking about their press as they were on stage. So we're going to see that's never been seen in its correct order bits and pieces of it the way people chop up things for news today. We show it in its natural form so you can actually see how this cynical press that are ready to really skewer these English kids they're like eating out of their hands within five minutes. So it's kind of an interesting piece the subtitle of the show is The Beatles in the USA so you're going to see some stuff across the Beatles experience in America some really rare footage from San Francisco in 65 you're going to see a song She's a Woman from Shea Stadium which was never in the original film and it's been reconstructed from people's home movies and some news footage and some outtakes so there's all kinds of surprises there's also going to be the Beatles very last show in San Francisco in 1966 as well as Chachi will tell you about another part about our Boston thing. Yes well Boston was important you know that when they played Suffolk Down they were going to come back for another show for Eric but they never did and so Eric's an amazing film archivist and I've known him for a long time he is a historian and his collection of films is beyond anyone's belief when you see the stuff he has and so we're going to dig into Suffolk Downs and the mayhem that surrounded that show and the Kennedy family were there lots of very prominent people were there Brad Delp was there Johnny A was there so there's going to be a lot of footage from that Yes a lot of footage from that and a lot of witnesses who I've interviewed over the years my favorite being the great John Lubinsky well there was a great comedian that I ended up working for for like a day in England his name was Kenny Everett and at this time he was a DJ on a pirate ship off the coast of England but the Beatles loved him he did a morning drive show so they invited him to come on their final tour as like a roving reporter for Radio London which was the ship that he worked on so Kenny would just walk around the show with a tape recorder looking for a story and he was a natural comedian so his stories are funny he sees this guy lurking around the stage and he goes up to him and he says who are you? John Lubinsky says I'm John Lubinsky from Walden Mass well what are you doing here John? well I'm going to jump up on stage and meet the Beatles he says well you better do it quick because this is the last song that we're doing Long Tall Sally John just broke into a run jumped up on the stage he hugged John, he hugged Paul so meanwhile Kenny is calling the play by play he's grabbing John now they've got him and they threw him headlong off the stage well believe it or not we have two camera angles of that and the play by play so you'll actually get to live a little of that and as a bonus John Lubinsky came out from Las Vegas the summer and the two of us went to Suffolk Downs and he took me through his stages of this is where I broke into the show and this is where I jumped up on the stage so you see a little bit of John Lubinsky today as well wonderful you mentioned Brad Delp and I have to say in the context of the region theater and our history we had quite a history with Brad Delp for those tuning in was of course the lead singer of Boston but his real real passion was the Beatles and his group Beatles Juice they performed many many times at the region and just an amazing singer where he would do the George Harrison vocals, John Lennon vocals Paul McCoy, it didn't matter but it sounds as if his you know like going off in his head like moment seeing the Beatles at Suffolk Downs well you'll hear a little bit of Brad funny you would mention that because a very strange story about that is that I threw a couple of friends I called up Brad before he died and I explained what I was doing and the only reason I knew Brad had any connection besides Beatles Juice was of this article I read in Boston Phoenix it was beautiful in depth it was all about his adventure at Suffolk Downs so I said wow I gotta get hold of this guy so I talked to him and he said yeah yeah I'm a little busy we set a date for two weeks from then he died in between so I figured okay that's it so here's where fate intervenes I'm at my bank of all things I'm sure people laughing in the audience goes to a bank and I was talking to the teller who knew me and everybody in the town knows I'm doing this movie so she goes well we have to go to the bank manager to sort this out and as we're walking in the manager's office she says by the way how's that Beatles movie I said it's still going this is the movie about Suffolk Downs I've been making for years and years the bank manager says I love the Beatles what's all this about a Beatles movie so I had to explain it to him and as I get through this he says did you ever talk to Brad Delt because you know my wife interviewed him for the Boston Phoenix and wait a minute is your wife so and so and turns out she still had her tapes and she let me have them so you will hear a little bit of Brad and what you'll also hear which is tons of fun Brad was in a high school band called the Monks not the Monkees and not the Monks from Germany but the Monks and one of the band members came down and so you will hear a little bit of Brad in high school singing paperback writer it was teaching and it's funny you mentioned about the different vocals because apparently according to this band member he'd teach the basses how to do it the right way he'd get guitars how to play it so he really even at that age was just consumed with it so we're pretty excited to be at the Regents again this is our second time we were there in October and we're coming back with here there and everywhere the Beatles in the USA two hours of unseen films we're going to tell stories and involve the audience a bit a lot of people like to ask questions and give away Beatles vinyl so it's going to be a lot of fun we love coming back to the region and they have the best popcorn they have the best popcorn you can have a beer you're in this historic place but you can have a beer you can have the popcorn you mill around you will meet other Beatles people it's always just it's so much history in that building I'm thrilled to watch the original Barry and the Remains who opened for the Beatles at Suffolk Downs on your very stage you know God it's got to be 10-12 years ago now actually I think it was 2005 or 2003 well we had them a couple times but this was that day like a night at the surf I think it was what it was fantastic and Arnie Ginsburg came down to emcee it it was I mean just amazing well we love to do the multimedia stuff because we have the big screen and we have the stage and events like yours are the perfect ones for us and our audience so we're going to welcome you back with open arms this time and hopefully many times in the future we can't wait because we were just there for Denny Lane that was a lot of fun we love Leland and what he brings to Arlington and to the theater it's just you know you're a great man it's a unique experience I'd say anybody who's watching this it really is you'll never see this stuff on YouTube trust me some things you might have seen bits and pieces on YouTube but not like this is all out of private collection and where Chachi and I are working on a film together so we're kind of using this as testing pieces like what do people like do they like this do they like that better so it's it's test marketing for us and it's a unique kind of one-off experience if you like the Beatles at all I guarantee you it'll raise a smile is this I tell you he surprises me with the stuff he brings I can't wait I can't I can't wait until then so we'll we'll be patient and we'll see did you ever see the Beatles? I never did did you ever see Jimi Hendrix? oh no so you should be making a Hendrix movie tell that story tell the story how your brother didn't take you to see Jimi Hendrix yeah that was 50 years ago Fillmore East in New York City have you spoken to him since? yeah no worries I did see Bob Marley and the Wailers at the Rainbow Theater in London in 1977 you know Eric worked at the BBC I did when I was a we led we could go on for a long time so maybe we could make a new show we would love to do that but thanks for coming you guys came from the far reaches of Metropolitan Boston so thanks for coming Arlington's Showplace of Entertainment such a dear friend it is Showplace of Entertainment cool