August 18th 1962. Ringo Starr made his debut with The Beatles at the Horticultural Society dance in Birkenhead, England, having had a two-hour rehearsal in preparation. This was the first appearance of The Beatles as the world would come to know them.
One of the great drum riffs is on 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and the first of Lennon's sound collages in a song. (Revolver. 1965) .
Producer Geoff Emerick:
"I moved the bass drum microphone much closer to the drum than had been done before. There's an early picture of The Beatles wearing a woollen jumper with four necks. I stuffed that inside the drum to deaden the sound. Then we put the sound through Fairchild 660 valve limiters and compressors. It became the sound of Revolver and Sgt Pepper really. Drums had never been heard like that before."
The song has a vocal put through a Leslie speaker cabinet (which was normally used as a loudspeaker for a Hammond organ) and uses automatic double tracking (ADT) to double the vocal image.
Five tape loops were used in the finished version of the song. Isolating the loops reveals that they contained:
A "laughing" voice, played at double-speed (the "seagull" sound)
An orchestral chord of B flat major (from a Sibelius symphony) (0:19)
A fast electric guitar phrase in C major, reversed and played at double-speed (0:22)
Another guitar phrase with heavy tape echo, with a B flat chord provided either by guitar, organ or possibly a Mellotron Mk II (0:38)
A sitar-like descending scalar phrase played on an electric guitar, reversed and played at double-speed (0:56)
