#163 Crossing The Streams Gets Back (Bonus Ep30) – Great TV binge watching suggestions!

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin.

Jeff Dwoskin 0:31

Jeff Dwoskin hosts of crossing the streams and of course, your beloved host of classic conversations coming to you on this wonderful Thursday with a bonus episode with segments pulled from my live show crossing the streams that we do every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern Time Live on the youtube facebook twitter follow along comment along what is crossing the streams while we answer the universal question what should I be streaming next? You need something to binge you have come to the right place. We cover all things new and old, really old, very obscure 85 hours waiting for you on our YouTube channel link in the story notes. In this episode we're getting musical on my last interview show on classic conversations the same week that this is released. Bruce Farber was the guest he wrote a book called I buried Paul which dives into his love of music and the Beatles Beatles tribute bands. So for this episode we're getting back to we're getting back to Episode 51 Howard Rosner did an amazing review of The Beatles get back you'll hear a lot of the crossing the streams hosts chiming in during the GET BACK review we were all really excited about this one and then we're diving back even further episode 34 With music box Woodstock 99 also led by rods it's a full on rods episode all music based you're gonna love it let's get things started with get back take it away Ross The Beatles yet back

Howard Rosner 2:01

so first of all before I begin just I don't want to provide a seminar

Sal Demilio 2:05

because you're breaking up waking up give us a spoiler.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:10

So while browsing is figuring out technical difficulty might get back together Jeff cuz I friggin love this. So get back is

Howard Rosner 2:23

back this movie is so I got the spoiler was shortly after the footage was filmed from this movie, The Beatles broke up. So I'm sorry for that spoiler 52 years ago, get over this movie for those who haven't watched it or are and you did mention it briefly but also just mentioned it because I know I believe she's tuned in upstairs, my wife. I'm a big Beatles fan. My wife is an enormous Beatles fan. And I proposed to my wife just over three years ago in the childhood bedroom of John Lennon, why private Beatles tour in Liverpool, which was one of the most fascinating things we've ever done, aside from the fact that we got engaged yet so. So we watch this. Okay, so the backstory for those who haven't seen it of what this is. So it's 1969. The Beatles are right toward the end, they've struggled, their manager Brian Epstein had passed away. They have struggled creatively and personality wise, they've decided not to play live shows anymore, and focus just on their music. And what they the decision they made was they were going to film them creating the music for their next album. And as part of filming that they were going to film it for a TV show that would basically be a documentary leading to a live performance of the new music catch if it is because of scheduling. Ringo Starr is going to be in a musical they have three weeks to create the album and film everything three weeks, they start out recording in a place called Twickenham, which was the soundstage where they were going to rehearse for the musical, which is a huge space, they have nothing really there a blank slate but they they start immediately just writing songs. So the end result of this. So But real quick, they begin kind of day by day by day going through music, and I'll have a I have a bunch of notes here that I wanted to share on it after I believe the third or fourth day because of some issues. George Harrison says, well see around the clubs, lads, I'm out of here basically saying I'm done. I'm out of the band. And they actually show his journal that he wrote in that day saying left the Beatles went home so Now they're filming this, they don't know if they're gonna have George back, they end up talking Georgia and coming back, they switch locations to their brand new Apple Studios, which is a much better location for them, as it turns out goes on a little longer than three weeks. As it turns out, the end result is touring these film sessions over three, three and a half weeks, they basically create the entirety of the Let It Be album and two thirds of Abbey Road, which for me being a big music fan. I personally believe Abbey Road is the single greatest piece of music ever put onto an album. It's a perfect album without any question. The way they go about writing music is, is fascinating. So again, just these are my notes that I kind of made that I just wanted to talk about. It's almost eight hours, which Yeah, it's

Howard Rosner 5:53

Peter Jackson. It's going to be extra long. You know, that's the case. The number one thing though, is the renovation or however you call it of the footage that they did for this movie. I swear to me and Jeff, Jen, I know you watched it, parts of it looked like it was shot on an iPhone. It's so realistic, you're like, that looks like they're it's a stage show outs like on the other side of my living room. It's remarkably clear. And it's it's amazing. That was the first thing technically it's it's an incredible documentary. You really see watching this, you can tell okay, this, the Beatles were at an end, there was clearly an endpoint. And I thought it was fascinating that you know, the the narrative for 52 years or 50 years has been Yoko, it was all because of yoga. And yoga was a factor of certainly, but there were significant other factors. You can see, George is absolutely done. He says at one point, he's like, Paul, you know, just tell me what to play. I'll play it where I won't play whatever you want. I don't care. I'll go home. It's okay. He's clearly done and wants to do his own thing. Ringo is just like, whatever. Just don't sit here and play drums. I'm in the background. John is with Yoko. She's my wife looked at me and said, What if I came to your job and said two feet away from you? The entire time? Because she's never more than five feet. It was, like, awkward. It's really uncomfortable. I

Jeff Dwoskin 7:29

mean, oh, no. Was every girlfriend ever had an open mic?

Howard Rosner 7:35

Yeah, yeah, I could imagine that. So, so that, you see that, but but again, they're clearly at the end. And you know, Paul is real serious about the business.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:45

Hey, my apologies. We got to take a quick break. And we're back. Ross is about to dive into George Harrison.

Howard Rosner 7:52

George is upset because they had been really getting screwed on record contracts with EMI and not making the money they deserve. So there's that. The other thing another thing that amazed me was their level of musical genius. Like, you know, we know their musical genius. They created genres of styles of music that are copied by everybody to this day, but the ability they had to right? I mean, there's just sitting there on one of the days while they're taking a break, and you just it's just about two minutes of Paul strumming his guitar and mumbling he's mumbling and it becomes get back, like in two minutes, just strumming his guitar, mumbling move them wherever and then it like, that's, like, Oh my God. GEORGE comes in, in first thing in the morning after one night. And he's like, I was watching the science fiction show last night and that one part they were it was like an Austrian Viennese Waltz. And I wrote this song. And it's, I mean, mine, which is one of my favorite Beatles songs, like hidden gem non hit Beatles songs. He just came to him because he was watching a science fiction movie that had a Viennese Waltz. And he wrote, I mean,

Jeff Dwoskin 9:03

like, it's insane. Like, Hey, I was watching TV, and I just I wrote this. Yeah.

Jennifer Fishkind 9:09

You guys are are all Howard Stern fans. I know. Jeff. Jeff. Er, we've talked about Howard Stern a lot. But yeah, I mean, when he has, you know, Paul on there, and he he dissects the songs and loves how he creates the songs, I find it fascinating. And this was actually like taking it a step further, because you're watching the conversations they're having, and I've only I just started last night, but just to see how the music is composed, as they're actually happening. It's not even just a story and you're not relying on Paul's memory of how it happened was super fascinating.

Howard Rosner 9:43

And I'll send you guys an article. I was gonna talk about this before the show, but I came across a web page that has all 123 This is why I watched the documentary a second time because it's got a list of all 123 songs, including the improvs that they play during the course of the movie, not all Beatle songs. Obviously it's a bunch of covers that they do just for fun just amongst the songs like that they were just noodling on at some point. Like in the first two minutes of the song or the documentary, John is playing a song, called on the road to Marrakech, which became jealous guy sent one of his best solo songs. Bob years later, Paul is noodling on the piano at one point and don't know words. It's another day, which was one of his best solo songs. He's got, he's doing another song, George, he's gonna get that one called all things Bus Pass, which became the name of his first solo album, and one of the sub tracks on this album, there's another one where I didn't I had no clue it didn't know, I didn't notice it until I read this article. And we went rewatched it, he's playing the piano part for a song, I think it was called song of love. And the piano part is essentially the opening of maybe I'm amazed. I'm like, what, and I had to go back and watch that. And like, I didn't even notice that the amount of music that came out of this, I mean, again, let it be, and Abbey Road came out of this. The other thing that I found amazing was the quote unquote, fifth Beatle, the only other musician to be credited on a Beatles album was Billy Preston, who they were so struggling and so stuck, and they had piano parts and songs, and they invited Billy to come and sit in with them. And within five minutes of being there, the whole room lit up with his piano playing. And what it added to the music it was, it was just like lifting a weight off their shoulders creatively was such a huge help. That was amazing. And then the other thing that came out of it for me was, even with all the issues with the band, even though it was near the end, even though I mean John and Yoko were pretty much on heroin at this point in time. And even with everything going on the the most pure thing to me in this movie, though, was when John and Paul started playing music together, like not going back and forth. But even just some of the times they would launch into stuff together, you could see them smile, and how much a lifetime. And I said lifetime, they weren't that old. But, you know, a dozen years or so at this point in time of being best friends and playing music together at the level of genius they were, they loved it. And you could see that like when they started playing, they loved it. And then of course, as I think a lot of people may know, this documentary, they decided they would do it as a feature film. And what ended up as the live performance was they ended up doing the famous rooftop recordings at Apple studios. And the footage from that was amazing, the hidden camera in the office of the cops complaining about the noise and the interviews with a bunch of people at street level. So I cannot if you are at all interested in the Beatles, I cannot highly recommend this enough. It's eight hours about but I thought it was riveting beginning to end, just seeing four absolute creative geniuses at this level of detail in their prime. I thought it was incredible. I love that.

Sal Demilio 13:10

Do they have anything in there? Because I can't wait to watch it. Do they have anything in there about some of the things like how they got their name, The Beatles or the Apple label or anything like that, like inside scoop on anything that no,

Howard Rosner 13:23

there's some there is a nice little couple just it's really slides at the beginning that kind of lay out a quick little history of how they got to this point. But it's not the dot it's really just the footage from what became known as the GET BACK sessions, which were 19 January of 1969. So yeah, that's that's really all it is they don't go into which is also one of the fascinating things because the story of their background in Hamburg and all that stuff that's been done so many times and don't well, but this is just footage from the sessions. And it's it's great.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:01

They do just enough Soule in the beginning to fast forward you through their story to get you to the point in time of this the timeline of where this takes place. So like the first say seven minutes. Yeah, I think it's John and Paul singing is it two of us? Is that the name of the song like in the beginning where they're going back and forth? Yes, that was That was unbelievable. Yeah, George clearly East dogs the last place he wanted to be Yeah, it's eight hours but it came from like 60 hours of like, unseen footage.

Sal Demilio 14:32

So why do they wait so long to release something like my question

Jeff Dwoskin 14:36

was a movie called Let it be done years ago that I guess Ringo hates? I don't think it's that they waited I think they made that movie and then this footage hasn't been seen, right.

Howard Rosner 14:47

The project

Unknown Speaker 14:48

they said it was it was in a vault for

Jeff Dwoskin 14:50

for forever. It was just in a vault so they and then a Peter Jackson pulled it out and created this story from it. It is his version of the story from The footage so, you know, we don't know

Howard Rosner 15:02

what's the movie, but the movie was produced by I mean Paul and Ringo. And the Lennon and Yoko was involved with the production of it as well. So they were consulted on it. Definitely. I think he, I don't think I haven't seen any of them say, Wow, that's just one side of the story. I mean, it's, it's out there. I mean, it's no,

Jeff Dwoskin 15:24

no, I just mean, like, you don't know what they like. Yeah, maybe Ringo talked in the first hour and a half. It was not an add. on talking. He I like I was like, damn, Ringo can really sit in a chair. Yeah. And it's funny that you mentioned their influence. There's a classic scene in the movie yesterday, which is about a movie. It's like a fantasy movie where something happens in the world and the Beatles don't exist, and only one person remembers them. And he starts singing their songs. Yeah, I

Jennifer Fishkind 15:53

remember. When I did like that movie. I don't think it went far enough. Like they could have gotten what it was. I thought that was a great movie.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:00

Yeah, it was really fun. And but the funny joke in that is he goes to Google and they types in the band was an oasis. Is that the band? Oasis doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't exist.

Jennifer Fishkind 16:12

So typed in Harry Potter didn't exist either. Right? That

Jeff Dwoskin 16:15

was like the end and it goes boom. This is if you like this and if you like more about the music, Jan You mentioned McCartney 321. on Hulu, which is about a six hours of with Paul McCartney talking to Rick Rubin is a great documentary as well, that was really spoke

Jennifer Fishkind 16:33

out to doesn't mean you just have a book out about how he wrote like about his songs. It's how he came up with all the songs, or not all of them, but some of them, I think,

Howard Rosner 16:42

Howard? No, it is. It's just superb. It's I was surprised by you know, they did it in three feet. They release it in three consecutive days. So it was you know, basically two plus hours each day, which was great for Thanksgiving weekend, especially. But yeah, it's it's so good. And again, the quality of it as a documentary is incredible, technically,

Jeff Dwoskin 17:07

right? I think it does showcase Paul McCartney. He was the project manager. He was the one that actually he talks about creative geniuses, but it was him that kept the Beatles The Beatles are as long as they were. Yeah.

Howard Rosner 17:20

I mean, John was loving his life with Yoko and kinda and again, they don't really talk about it. But he was. He was this was his heroin phase he and Yoko and they were kind of footloose and fancy free. At that point in time. Ringo, is whatever. And George was done and ready to do his own solo stuff. So yeah, it's funny. There's one comment in there. When they're talking after George has left, and they're like, What do we do? And John actually goes, Let's get Eric Clapton. Could you imagine if George had left the Beatles and they'd replaced him with Eric Clapton is none of them would have been vaccinated? I would.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:56

That's for sure. Well, that's, that was amazing, Howard, and thank you for putting the eight hours in and work.

Howard Rosner 18:02

It worked twice. 16 hours.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:08

All right. That was an in depth get back review. I loved it. We all loved it. I hope you loved it. Let us now tweet at us at Jeff Dwoskin show. All right, let's keep the musical theme going. This next one is from episode 34 Music Box Woodstock. 99 Not to be confused with a newer Netflix, Woodstock 99 documentary. We recommend Music Box. Woodstock. 99 Take it away Roz. Well, yeah. 99 music box on HBO. Yeah, Max.

Howard Rosner 18:40

So the show is from a series called Music Box. It's created by Bill Simmons. Everybody knows the former sports guy from ESPN who was heavily involved in the creation of the ESPN 30 for 30 films and has the ringer podcast in all things sports and pop culture. My wife and I watched this this week and we absolutely loved it. It starts off talking about how Woodstock Woodstock. 69 was and I fully you know, remember watching the videos of Woodstock 69 hearing stories about it and then Woodstock 94 which was so brilliantly received and was fantastic included a bunch of acts that were there for Woodstock, 69 as well as a bunch of others kind of remember but didn't fully remember but Woodstock 99 was the absolute antithesis of everything from those first two Woodstock's. It was developed by two of the guys who are involved with the planning of the other films and everything about it was different and this it's a documentary that's it's a little bit the fire, the fire festival and kind of that so a bunch of things that were out of control in the production of Woodstock. 99. Number one, the venue itself. They talked about the irony of the venue itself. But it was held on an Air Force Base, an old Air Force Base, which, in and of itself, you can imagine Woodstock 69, especially, and then 94 That was about peace and love and anti establishment being held on an Air Force Base. Right. So that's funny, Jerry very good.

Howard Rosner 20:19

So, so that was number one. Number two, the weather. It was ridiculously hot during the entirety of the festival, and it rained overnight first night. So it created insane changes to what would be a more normal festival. First of all, just the access to drinking water. They talk a lot, which didn't seem like a big deal, but they talk a lot that buying a beer was the exact same price as buying a bottle of water for bucks. So these kids were drinking beer instead of drinking bottled water, which fueled the behavior that got worse and worse during the course of the weekend. Then the facilities themselves were so shabby put together temporary bathrooms that were all outside the main tented areas all leaked all over the place. It became sewage. But these kids were so drunk because they're drinking beer and now water amongst potentially other things. Were saying they were rolling around in the mud, but everybody that was involved said they were rolling around in crap. It wasn't mine at all. Then they had these free drinking fountains but the drinking fountains were next to the sewage. So people were showering in them because the showers were disgusting. So there there was that curity and staff essentially, they talked about the testing that they did to get these security guards permitted to work the event, which was like an hour exam and the question was like, Do you want to be a security guard? Great, you pass they got a yellow shirt at a credential and they went into the venue, they hid their credential took off their yellow shirt, wore a different yellow shirt or wear a different shirt and waded into the festival for the entire weekend. There were nowhere to be found to solve any issue, or the ones that were working the door would not allow somebody to bring their own food and beverage end, but would happily take 25 bucks, let them bring drugs, right let them bring drugs in in their backpacks. So that was crazy. But the biggest issue without question was the choice of the musical acts. You know, Woodstock 69 was the Grateful Dead and Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell and and again, some of those acts were there for Woodstock. 94 and it was other big names Woodstock. 99. But the the one band that everybody talks about that went crazy, like they came out on stage the first night giving everybody the finger second giving everybody the finger was Limp Biscuit, and they just drove the insanity of the weekend. But it was Limp Biscuit. It was corn, it was Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bush, Kid Rock, Metallica, it was a totally different crowd. And it was just, it was the opposite of the types of acts and they talk about how did they not know. And then the other part of it that was amazing was MTV was there broadcasting live. And this was the point where MTV had really begun to be the station of Britney Spears and sank Backstreet Boys. And this was not that crowd. So they were the mere presence of MTV was riling up everybody. It was just built to explode. And by the final night it did they set fires all over the place, the state police had to come in and clear the entire venue because it was on fire literally. But here's the thing that they talked a little bit about which not to go down a political rabbit hole, but just a tone rabbit hole, I guess I find myself today with the climate in our country very often saying to myself, how are they so angry? And why are they so angry? And by they I mean, upper middle class white males, right? Why are they so angry? And then you look back and say, the almost the entirety of this event, Woodstock 99, was 20 to 25 year old white males, upper middle class white males and when I look at people that I knew attended Woodstock, 69 or saw interviewed that Woodstock 69 later in life, and you see the type of people that they were giving, caring, peaceful, open minded, and then you look at the type of people that this was their formative event, Woodstock. 99 you go, okay, that's where they came from. They lived for Woodstock. 99 and they never stopped being angry. And that's what this event was about. It was crazy to see the the type of behavior for no reason by people that were just, you know, destroying things toward the end of the festival for no reason they knocked down and artists created piece wall at the venue just because just for something to do all that it was a great study on an event but to me it also became a great character study and the types of people that attended Woodstock 99 And kind of the lasting effect of it so I thought it was fantastic. The other thing that was cool was I was telling Jeff earlier they interviewed Jonathan Davis from corn who I got to spend a day with about a year and a half ago and he is one of the nicest quietest most people guys so watching him on stage in their prime to where he is 20 years later was pretty cool to see how cool you he had changed but anyways, I love this documentary. I'm very excited the other documentaries upcoming in the series there's going to be one on the last year as a DMX is life on the legacy of little jagged pill by Atlantis more set and a bunch of I think there's eight in total, but I love it. Jeff, you watch it too. I know. Yes.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:57

DMX and Alanis Morissette, both Woodstock 99. I think DMX kicked it off event. Actually, they talked a lot about DMX because he did a song to a predominantly white audience that had the N word and basically, as they said, gave them permission to say it back to him right and the uncomfortableness that it would have created for the non white people in the audience. But just to be clear, the the angst and you could kind of feel Howard's tone during it. This is a great movie. But it's also very difficult to watch at one point I had to convince my wife to keep watching it. It is literally watching a group of hundreds of 1000s of people turn into lord of the flies over a three day period. This is 72 hours, right? So yep, they one of the things that they talk a lot about is a guy who eventually died at the thing from hypothermia, because many people had hypothermia, they didn't have proper medical, he gave him paddles instead of taking his temperature because they didn't even know how to handle it and kill them. You know, many people were raped, unknown numbers of people were molested and raped. And the interesting thing that they brought up was that there was a mystique, but over Woodstock, 69 where a lot of this also happened to Woodstock. 69. But the movie that got created, everything kind of created this version of this as if all these people came together. The angst that they talked about is that it was interesting. I think it was jewel, it kind of said it was there was no reason for this event in 69. There was reasons people were galvanized around issues. There were no issues except white anger. Yeah. That was done by let up by wood. Yeah, that

Howard Rosner 27:35

was the other thing the overwhelming the treatment of women at the event, the casual sexual assault. Just you know, any woman who was passed up in the mosh pit wasn't being passed up at the mosh pit. She was being felt up by every guy that was involved in passing up a lot of security, just

Jeff Dwoskin 27:54

the security. No, it was great. Yeah. And the owners were like we're blaming MTV for the bad press. Meanwhile, the police is going down in flames. They're blaming MTV, who? At one point MTV basically told their people like Carson Daly, we can't even we can't even make sure that you're safe.

Howard Rosner 28:13

Your cheer protection. All right. Oh, sorry. That's on HBO, HBO and HBO Max.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:21

All right, great job. Howard carrying this episode. That's music box. Woodstock. 99. That was get back. Sounds like you guys got a lot of homework on your hands. So I'm gonna let you get to it up on over to your couch, find the favorite coffee spot, grab the remote cross your own streams, and we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 28:43

Thanks for listening to this special edition of crossing the streams. Visit us on YouTube for full episodes and catch us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time. Now turn this off and go watch some TV. And don't forget to tell your family yeah, I'll be busy for a while.

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