NEWS
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YOKO IN LIVERPOOL TO UNVEIL AIRPORT STATUE OF JOHN LENNON
From Liverpool Echo - by Neil Hodgson, March 15, 2002
3/15/2002
YOKO ONO unveiled the "brilliant" statue of John Lennon that will greet visitors flying into Liverpool.
She was in the city today with Prime Minister's wife Cherie Blair for the official ceremony at the city's airport - renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport last year.
The seven foot high Lennon statue completes the first phase of the airport's expansion, which includes a £32m passenger terminal.
Cast in bronze, it was crafted by Merseyside sculptor Tom Murphy and will be positioned on the main passenger walkway to greet people entering the airport.
Speaking in the shadow of a huge electronic advertising hoarding which flashed an image of John and the slogan Give Peace a Chance, Yoko said: "I hope this will promote world peace for Liverpool and the world and lead to understanding that will give love and peace."
The Beatles' 'Yellow Submarine' To Become Cirque Du Soleil Stage Production?
The Beatles' 1968 psychedelic cartoon film Yellow Submarine might be on its way to the London stage. Representatives of surviving Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are in negotiations with internationally acclaimed performing troupe Cirque du Soleil to stage the musical production in London, according to U.K.'s Sunday Times. The Beatles' company Apple confirmed that the talks took place, although no agreement has been signed yet. The show would include acrobats, clowns, and aerial contortionists, and would feature the music of the Beatles.
The negotiation process has been slow moving due to the complexity of the Beatles' business affairs. Others involved in the talks include Yoko Ono, on John Lennon's behalf, and Michael Jackson, who co-owns many of the copyrights to the Beatles' songs.
The Beatles' involvement in the cult-classic film was limited to writing four new songs--"Yellow Submarine," "All Together Now," "Hey Bulldog," and "It's All Too Much"--and making a brief in-person appearance at the end of the film. Their voices were mimicked by actors for the animated film. The Times also noted that Beatles producer George Martin has wanted to turn the cartoon film into a stage musical for years. The film Yellow Submarine was rereleased on VHS and DVD in 1999, when a remastered CD of the soundtrack was also issued.
A representative for McCartney could neither confirm nor deny the reports about the Yellow Submarine stage production.
Sleep Tight at the Hard Days Night Hotel
Each room will feature a Beatles mural
Holidaymakers in Liverpool will soon be able to stay in a hotel dedicated to The Beatles.
Every room will be given a unique theme linked to a record or event involving the Fab Four.
The £8m four-star development will boast 120 beds and is aimed at the thousands of tourists who travel to Liverpool to visit locations linked to The Beatles.
Owners of the hotel - which will be called "The Hard Day's Night" - unveiled the plan on 24 August to coincide with the start of International Beatle Week and the Mathew Street Festival.
Up to 300,000 people are expected to attend the free events in the festival which feature performances by acts from all over the country.
Shannon was once hired by Sylvester Stallone
Steve McGriskin, the hotel's marketing director, said: "There has already been massive interest in 'The Hard Day's Night'."
The hotel, which is due to open in 2003, is in a listed building and will be linked to Mathew Street's Cavern nightclub, where John, Paul, George and Ringo began their career.
Artist Shannon, who has painted murals for MGM, Disney and Sylvester Stallone, is being hired to give each £60-a-night room a tasteful Beatles theme.
Among the possibilities are rooms dedicated to albums such as Rubber Soul or events like the Fab Four's famous performance at Shea Stadium.
Meanwhile Liverpool was gearing up to host the Mathew Street Festival - believed to be the biggest free city centre music event in the UK.
Mr McGriskin, who is also the festival director, said: "We are now in the ninth year of the event and it continues to go from strength to strength, proving the appeal of the Fab Four is as strong as ever.
"We have been overwhelmed by the number of people who have expressed an interest in performing at the festival and it promises to be a great weekend."
It is expected that 62 bands from 16 different countries will take part - including six Beatles tribute bands from Brazil.
Thousands of music fans are also expected in the city for the annual Creamfields event on August 25.
The festival, run by the nightclub Cream, will include Fatboy Slim, Gorillaz, Orbital, Chemical Brothers and Stereo MCs.
Civic leaders in Liverpool hope organising the festivals will help their bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2008.
Fifth Beatle Honored by Hall
Pauline Sutcliffe, sister of former Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, visited Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to sort out and identify artifacts for the upcoming exhibit "Stuart Sutcliffe: From the Beatles to Backbeat." The exhibit marks the first time her brother's 100 or so paintings and sketches have ever been shown in one place.
While in town, Ms. Sutcliffe took the time to discuss two primary relationships of her brother's short life (Sutcliffe died in 1962 of a brain hemorrhage): his friendship with John Lennon and his love affair with photographer Astrid Kirchherr -- both were presented in the 1994 biopic, Backbeat.
Though Sutcliffe was Lennon's art school mentor and after-hours instructor, it was Lennon who talked him into using his earnings from the sale of a painting to buy a bass guitar and join the fledgling band. It was also Lennon who lured him to Hamburg, where he embraced the sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle the Beatles discovered in that city's notorious Reeperbahn red-light district.
"My mother's whole concept of her son's death was that the worst thing that happened to him was John [bringing him] into the group," Pauline Sutcliffe said. "If he hadn't joined that group, he wouldn't have been in Germany. And he wouldn't have died."
She said she agreed with her mother on that point, saying that there is no reason a healthy young man who was never ill would suddenly be so sick the last year of his life, unless he was damaging himself by living an unhealthy lifestyle. The film implied that a bad beating Sutcliffe received after he and Lennon got into a barroom skirmish in Liverpool caused the painful attacks he suffered and his eventual hemorrhage.
After Stuart's death, Kirchherr became quite close to the Sutcliffe family. Pauline says she began calling their mother "Mummy" and "Mum" in her letters instead of "Mrs. Sutcliffe." Pauline and Sutcliffe's other sister, Joyce, were her "little sisters."
According to Pauline, Kirchherr had promised to send Stuart's belongings home to the family, but a year later, the Sutcliffes had to make a formal request for their return. Pauline, now the executor as well as the beneficiary of her brother's estate, said objects have surfaced over the years, the existence of which she was previously unaware -- specifically two letters to her mother that showed up in a Sotheby's auction house catalog along with the bass Stuart had given to Kirchherr's friend Klaus Voormann.
"My mother died thinking that the last person my brother was thinking about most when he died was [Joyce, because of] a letter he was writing to my sister," Pauline says. "And several years after my mother's death, I open the Sotheby's catalog and there are two unfinished letters to my mother. So she didn't know about them. Furthermore, they were very personal -- throw them away, but don't put them up for sale!"
Pauline agreed to let the bass be sold and to split the proceeds, on the condition that the letters be returned. (They will not be among those displayed in the exhibit.) In addition to Sutcliffe's artwork, some of Kirchherr's photographs are also being included in the Rock Hall display. "Stuart Sutcliffe: From the Beatles to Backbeat" opens May 15th and runs in conjunction with the much larger exhibit, "Lennon: His Life and Work," which has been extended at least until the end of the year.
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