TITLE
While My Guitar Gently Beeps
AUTHOR
Daniel Radosh
PUBLICATION
The New York Times Magazine
YEAR
2009
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Giles Martin was conjuring spirits, or perhaps summoning gods. The tools for this ritual included a pair of omnidirectional microphones, a digital mixing console and a hastily-procured set of teacups and saucers, but the magic was in the room itself. Studio Two at Abbey Road in London has changed very little since 1969, when Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison recorded together for the last time. The Steinway upright McCartney played on “Lady Madonna” still stands in one corner, its middle keys worn to the wood. Sound-absorbing quilts hang in wide stripes down the whitewashed brick walls. The view from the control room on the second level is much as it would have been for George Martin, Giles’s father, who oversaw the creation of nearly every Beatles album from this room. Giles held a slender finger to his lips, which turned up into a playful grin. He handed cups and saucers to three people nearby and mimed a sip. The others followed his lead, and a few feet away the microphones captured the small clattering sound of four people drinking tea.The odd recording session in March was one very small contribution to what Apple Corps — the company still controlled by McCartney, Starr and the widows of Lennon and Harrison — hopes will be the most deeply immersive way ever of experiencing the music and the mythology of the Beatles. The band that upended the cultural landscape of the 1960s is now hitching its legacy to the medium of a new generation: the video game.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Harmonix
GAMES MENTIONED
The Beatles: Rock Band
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Eric Brosius
Paul DeGooyer
Chris Foster
Olivia Harrison
Giles Martin
Paul McCartney
Kiri Miller
Yoko Ono
Josh Randall
Alex Rigopulos
Ringo Starr
Van Toffler