20 February 1967: John's Record

     Arriving to EMI Studios for a 7:00pm session in Studio 3 that would see The Beatles work on the circus-like sound effects for 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!', a moustachioed John Lennon stepped out of his car holding a few records from his collection. This moment was captured for posterity by fans Denise Werneck and Lynda Gilbert respectively. 

    Unfortunately, we can really only see the one record on the top of John's stack. Presumably brought along for inspiration, this album is Electronic Music, a 1965 compilation of work by various composers released on Turnabout (a budget line subsidiary of Vox Productions Inc). The composers featured on this album were Andrès Lewin-Richter (Spain), Ilhan Mimaroglu (Turkey), Tzvi Avni (Israel) and Walter Carlos (United States), all experimenting with electronic soundscapes.

    On 1 August 1965, John introduced the group's 'last number' ('Help!') during a live taping of Blackpool Night Out at the ABC Cinema: 'Next song we'd like to sing is our latest record...or our latest electronic noise, depending on whose side you're on.' This album is literally that - electronic noise. Mostly, the album consists of computer-like sound effects, which have no obvious direct influence on The Beatles and their current project: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The most interesting pieces are those by Carlos that juxtapose classical instruments (flute played by John Weiss and piano played by Phillip Ramey) with the aforementioned sci-fi sounds.