#kaiserkeller

[bbbrianjones]

IM LATE ITS NOT EVEN YOUR BIRTHDAY ANY MORE IM THE WORST!!! BUT HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU WONDERFUL WONDERFUL HUMAN LOVE U LOTS 💘💘

NO NO NO NO NONO LYDIA YOU WILL NEVER BE THE WORST !!! THANK YOU SO MUCH STILL I LOVE YOU !!!!

#ask #kaiserkeller #birthday messages #you're such a wonderful human. i wanna give you a kiss on the cheek!! #you know it was literally a crime that you and klaus were never the hottest couple in the 1960s #ugh!!! unfair!

[faeriejones]

i just glanced at your url when u reblogged the post and i thought it said ‘straightbrian’😭😭

new rolling stones discourse : brian was straight

#THANK YOU i love it #kaiserkeller #ask

[wrence]

One of the earliest told stories of the signing of The Beatles to EMI’s Parlophone Records division in May of 1962 goes like this: While Brian Epstein was having the Decca audition tapes transferred to acetate for easier distribution to labels, the songs were heard by Sid Colman, who ran EMI’s Ardmore and Beechwood Publishing division. He was interested in obtaining the publishing rights to The Beatles’ original songs. And that’s where the story seems to split into different tellings.

Brian Epstein would relate that Colman took the recordings to George Martin, who liked them very much and would be willing to give them an audition. Martin remembered it differently. He said he “wasn’t knocked out at all.” So how did The Beatles eventually get signed? In this episode we talk about the fairy tale version and the version that is closer to what really happened.

#mr rogers #malcolm gladwell #george martin #ringo starr #the beatles #emi #parlophone #ardmore & beechwood #indra #kaiserkeller #star club #roy young #horst fascher #l.g. wood #joe lockwood #sid coleman #ron richards #mersey beat #bruce channel #please please me #love me do #ps i love you #ask me why #brian epstein

[kaiserkeller]

this secretly hurt my fragile ego because i have often convinced myself that i am beatles tumblr famous

#what do you mean you do know the ever bolshy tumblr user kaiserkeller formally known as fabbeatle #???

[i-am-the-oyster]

hey! you know icke braun’s autobiography? i saw a post that you made about the book and that you and somebody were working on translating (the post is from like 2022) and i was wondering if you had a pdf or something of the translated version?

Yes! Icke Braun should get so much more attention from Beatles fans.

@packyourromanticmind has very kindly shared the full text that she and her mother translated (below the cut).

If you'd like to follow along the analysis of Icke and Paul's relationship that I've been working on with @ilovedig go here (we're hoping to continue the series soon).

Anyway, back to the translation:

Kathia heard from a friend that a great group was playing the Kaiserkeller in the Grosser Freiheit area . She kept going on at me that we should go see them play. When we talked about it in the Pigalle, people all pulled skeptical faces.. ‘That’s rock n’ roll that they’re playing, it’s absolutely below our level’.    And anyway, for us it was a dangerous area, but still, I was very intrigued. One could go and listen to them and then decide what we thought of the music, and so I went with Kathia.

It was a sort of wake up experience. This music meant, without exaggeration, a total change in my life. For the first time, I saw The Beatles, I was totally out of my comfort zone;    that was my music. From one moment to the next, Earl Alexander and the whole jazz scene was yesterday’s news. The Beatles brought much more dynamic energy and aggressiveness to the stage. I could feel myself bodily transmorph into the music. It wasn’t just the music that I found amazing, I also found the way that the boys presented themselves on stage - their choreography was amazing. Paul was left-handed and stood with John or George together who were right-handed and the microphone was in the middle. So they stood with their faces to the microphone but the public saw them from the side and it was a wonderful symmetry which fitted their music. At this time the band consisted of five people, Paul McCartney on bass guitar and song, John Lennon; rhythm guitar and song, George; lead guitarist and song, Stu Sutcliffe; bass,    and Pete Best on drums. In the shortest time possible, I became a fervent fan. I went to the Kaiserkeller several times. The atmosphere was rough there, sometimes even dangerous because most of the guests there were rockers. Rock n’ roll was their sole music and they had no patience with people next to them who weren’t Exis. The Beatles at that time had their own style. As I said, I don’t understand music a lot, but to my ears, there was everything in their music that later became their sound. Above all, it was rock n roll. They covered Chuck Berry, and of course the rock fans loved him. The music and the beer would flow freely,    the atmosphere could change quickly, and they would have start a fight. This was not allowed by the Kaiserkeller and its owner, (who was called Horst and was a former boxer).    For the rockers, it was a seal of honour to poke fun at the people who that didn’t fit in with them, especially their enemies, among them of course the Exis to which I belonged. The best thing was to ignore the poking altogether and take yourself to another corner. Luckily I always managed to keep away from the fights, without completely losing face.

After a few weeks, the Beatles went into the Top Ten on the Reeperbahn, where their concerts were mostly visited by people who allowed themselves greater musical freedom. So, visitors like Kathia and I weren’t in the minority anymore. We were at the Top Ten most evenings, where a certain trust situation between The Beatles and us developed. There were situations where I really regretted that I hadn’t learnt better English, otherwise I would have had many more chances to have contact with the boys. One morning after a long night in Top Ten, Kathia and I went to bed between 3 and 4am in the morning. We went to her house and fell into bed exhausted, where we spent the rest of the day in bed. In the evening around 8 or 9pm we made our way to Hamburg again, back to the Top Ten. On the way from Ahrensburg, we came past a large strawberry plantation. Because there were no people around, Katia said, let’s steal a few strawberries. The strawberries were small, red and sweet and after we had eaten enough, we said, let’s take some for The Beatles. Kathia went into a barn and came out with a big basket. We picked so many strawberries that the basket overflowed, and on the way to the car, most fell into the road. We put the basket behind my seat and drove off. At 10pm at the Top Ten, The Beatles were already in full swing, and the dance floor was thick with people. Between two sets, we took the strawberries to the stage. The other guests joked and called us the young strawberries. We could have invited the band for a round of beer or schnapps, like the sailors or rockers did, but the strawberries were something else. The Beatles were overjoyed like children, and Paul said ‘what a wonderful idea, you can do this again!’ (He said this in bad German, which he had learnt in school). The four boys started to eat and couldn’t stop. The interval became longer and longer because the basket was so full and took a long time to empty. The public began to protest, so John decided to start throwing strawberries at people, and then Paul and the others copied him. The public then threw back the squashed strawberries and it became a food fight…Luckily most of the strawberries had been eaten. Paul then came down from the stage and asked Kathia and myself if we had a musical wish. There was a song which we liked called ‘Till There Was You’ and Kathia whispered to me that we should choose this song. It was a love song and didn’t actually fit into the whole rock n’ roll genre that they normally played. Unfortunately Paul didn’t understand that this was Kathia’s music choice and thought for years that this was my favourite song . Every time that I went to the Top Ten or The Star and he saw me, he would play ‘Till There Was You, which was was quite embarrassing for me because it wasn’t my taste of music at all, and also because the rockers bombarded me with rude gestures and remarks.    Years later, when the boys were already famous, and I was allowed backstage, we were sitting in the Ernst Merck hall and George Harrison mentioned ‘Till There Was You. I told him that it was actually Kathia’s    music taste and not mine. So he understood,    but there is still footage from The Star Club where one can hear “And now we will play ‘till there was you’ for Icke”.

After the strawberry episode, we came to know The Beatles better. Sometimes we went with them to a bar. Down below in the port, there was an English speaking pub where you could get English food and be served by English waiters and we went there a few times to eat. It was called British Sailors Society. Pete Best was very rarely there, he usually stayed in the background. And also we didn’t see much of Stu Sutcliffe, he was already dating Astrid Kircherr and concentrating more on his studies in his art school, instead of the music. The best contact I had was with Paul,    not only because he was the only one who spoke German,    but to me he was the most likeable. I went with him a few times to the Raa-Wiese. At one point he wanted to sleep with a girl, a groupie who he met in the Top Ten. He didn’t want to meet in the little room that he shared with John, George and Pete, so there were very few other opportunities for inviting girls back . He asked me if he could take the girl back to mine. Although I didn’t have much space either, but I still said yes. So I invited both of them into my little beatle car; Paul sat next to me on the passenger seat, and he had the girl on his lap. Even though she was small and dainty, it was a very tight squeeze. In a convivial mood we drove along the river at 4am in the morning, reciting tongue twisters. It was my job to say ‘red lorry yellow lorry’ three times. It was very difficult with my bad English…it was even more difficult because I was laughing so much. Suddenly the girl shrieked as in front of us a car appeared. I could only steer the car to the right and we narrowly avoided a crash. However I turned the wheel too sharply and we turned around full circle and came to a stop in the middle of the street. We really had amazing luck that at this time of day, as there was very little traffic. The car that we nearly hit was a taxi , a tank-like black Mercedes. The driver was standing next to his car and shouting like a lunatic, and he was not far from starting a fight. I was in two minds whether to drive off or not, because the taxi driver was a bullish type and he wanted to lay into me. However I decided to walk over to him, and with great effort and honest regret, I persuaded him not to report us so we were able to continue our journey in peace, although the girl now had to sit behind us. That was the worst near fatal collision of my whole life. We had been laughing so much, I didn’t notice that we had somehow ended up on the other side of the road, and we were a hairs breath away from a head on crash. We were uninsured, without airbags or safety belts and it could have been curtains for all three of us and the lorry driver. One could imagine how much poorer the world would have been without Paul..    no Beatles! The band would not have made it without Paul. George might have become an electrician, John an artist and Ringo, well he wasn’t even in the picture.    No, I don’t want to imagine it. I later relayed the story to Thomas Struck,    a Hamburger underground filmmaker who went on to make a small film of our near accident .

It’s strange that there is a rumour in this context which has been going around since 1969, and that is that Paul McCartney apparently died in a car accident in 1966 and has since been impersonated by a double. This rumour became almost a conspiracy theory which the 74 year old Ringo Starr corroborated in an interview in 2015. The theory, he said, was that Billy Shears played the double for Paul. At first, everyone wanted to keep the story going, so that record companies, and concert venues and the public were spared the gruesome details of the reality, and because Shears played his role so perfectly and nobody noticed the exchange of personality, they left it at that. Even on stage, Shears played Paul perfectly . In fact, Ringo asserts, he was better than McCartney! I don’t know what was going on between him and Paul, but such differences to me seemed very hateful. Paul apparently, after this unveiling, very angrily retorted that it was the senile gossip of an old man.

I met Paul long after the supposed accident and I never had the feeling that I was talking to a double. On the contrary, in 1991, at the Hamburg premiere about their previous world tour, I visited him in the Hotel Atlantic. He was standing with his wife Linda and two men at reception and was just about to leave when he saw me. Spontaneously he came over to me and greeted me. Billy Shears couldn’t have reacted like this, because he didn’t know me. Ringo got his comeuppance for his angry diatribes later when a post on Twitter dated    2016 declared him dead. This rumour (and naturally it was nothing more), spread like wildfire over the whole internet. I am curious to see which rumour will be the next one to make the rounds.

Anyway back to reality. When we arrived in Rahlstedt, we had to drive through a little housing estate, and it was night when we arrived; the moon was shining brightly, and the little allotment houses looked like normal houses in miniature form. Paul laughter and said; ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, do dwarves live in them?’ No I said, these are garden houses , they belong to normal people and I live in one of these houses (I was joking). In Paul’s defence , he had had a few drinks, and his tolerance wasn’t very high.

My little room suddenly became quite tight for three people; Paul, his girlfriend, and myself. Paul thought that there was even less space here than the room the group shared above the Top Ten. Because I was feeling hospitable (and because I had a bad conscience about the accident), I gave him my bed, and proceeded to make myself comfortable on the floor. Sleep however, did not come to mind, because the girl tried repeatedly to charm Paul and to pull him into her arms. Instead, he lay with his head supported by the headboard and told us stories about how he and his friends spent their nights in Hamburg. He was talking about himself, John , George and Pete Best. Stu Sutcliffe was better off because he lived with his girlfriend Astrid Kircherr . For the first time I discovered that the four Beatles lived together in a room above the Top Ten with only a little skylight, and that was only a small improvement to the hellhole their previous boss, Bruno Koschmider had put them in when they first arrived in Hamburg. They were still with Stu at that point, so it was five of them in total.    Bruno, who owned the Bambi Kino, vacated a room for them that previously housed the film reels. It was small, unheated, had no window and in comparison to their current abode, it didn’t even have a skylight. To sleep, they had to lie on straw sacks on the floor. The only positive, Paul said, was that this room was directly behind the cinema screen and the boys were able to listen to the dialogue and music of the films that played from 4pm in the afternoon. The room was lit with one tiny bare lightbulb which hung from the ceiling, and there wasn’t even a wash basin in the room. To wash themselves, they had to go to the mens toilets in the cellar. That’s where they got know Tante Rosa, the toilet attendant. Paul was charmed by her, she washed all their sweat soaked clothes, otherwise, they would have had nothing to wear. Without Tante Rosa, they would have long ago been buried in their own dirt. He also told us of the first time they went on stage at the Indra, a strip tease joint, which was also owned by Bruno. Because it was such a bad joint, the Beatles had to share billing with the strip tease dancers. For two months they had to endure this crap, because their previous manager, Alan Williams had told them that they would be appearing in a huge nightclub, (which actually turned out to be the Kaiserkeller). Unfortunately, Derry And The Seniors were appearing there, who were of the opinion that The Beatles had nothing to offer in Hamburg, and they would bring the place into ill repute with their English rock n’ roll. However it wasn’t long before The Beatles were allowed to appear, because the Senior’s contract had expired. However, their living situation didn’t change.

Paul couldn’t stop telling these stories, and I felt very privileged and honoured that he trusted me to share so much. In the meantime, the girl had long since fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, whereas we two talked deep into the night, and our conversation didn’t find an end. Very late in the night, just as it got light outside, Paul suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence, fell asleep and began snoring louder than the girl. I tried to find myself a bearable place on the floor, but I couldn’t fall sleep for a long time because of the snoring.

I never got to know Bruno Koschmider but after Pauls stories, I’m assuming he must have been a dreadful man. Small, hunched and constantly with a miserable face.. strangely, in World War Two, apparently he performed as a clown, although he never made us laugh. This is the story that Pete Best told us anyway; that ‘he was never a clown and he never made us laugh’. In some strange way however, he had came into the money and was able to buy the Indra, the Kaiserkeller, and the Bambi-Kino cinema . His only merits was he was the first one to bring a British sound to Hamburg; he had started with Tony Sheridan, then came Derry And The Seniors, Rory Storm and The Hurricanes and finally, the Beatles. On the other hand, one could say that he misused these young people shamefully. For instance, The Beatles had to sign an agreement that for 30 marks per person, they had to play four hours a night from Monday - Friday,    and on Saturday they had to play for six hours.    Bruno even took money during their intervals.    When they moved above the Top Ten and were earning 5 marks more a day, they had to play for longer. But even so, they thought it was a move in the right direction, because they got on better with their new boss, Pete Eckhorn. Bruno threw it in their faces that they ‘deserted’ him. Then he became nasty and threw all sorts of accusations at them. First of all, because George Harrison was underage, he reported him for this. Then he reported Paul and Pete, accusing them of trying to burn down his cinema. In reality, they had only left their old boss two used condoms as a farewell present . In the end, it was only John who stayed behind in Hamburg, however he became very lonely without his friends and later returned of his own free will back to the U.K. So the story of The Beatles in Hamburg could have come to an end without much ado . But as luck would have it, they had signed a contract with Eckhorn, which means they could travel back to Germany very soon.

I once had Paul, John and George stay with me at my home in the Raawiese. My landlords weren’t home, only their 12 year old son who hung around us, and their Chinese Nightingale, who were heard singing in the background. We made a small fire in the garden and started to empty a bottle of whisky that we had bought with us. The little boy showed us a mass of twigs which were waiting to be burned, the wood was a little fresh and it was hard to light. After a short while, we had a little campfire, although the smoke got into all our eyes!    Perhaps it was the whiskey talking, or our sporting aspirations , but we decided to start jumping over the fire. After every jump we were allowed to take a slug of whiskey. Even the young boy dared to join in. When John made a misjudged jump and nearly landed in the fire and burnt his trousers, we stopped playing. He complained his only lederhosen was now kaput, although they didn’t seem damaged to me.    In the meantime, the whiskey flask was nearly empty and we were all quite drunk. It was late and the three wanted to get home to rest before their next performance. With my drunken head on, I told them I could drive them, but John wanted to borrow my beatle car instead. The fact that he had no driving license, and probably couldn’t drive anyway, didn’t matter to him. Unfortunately it mattered to me, so instead of driving my taking the car, I took them to the bus stop. It was really hard for us to walk even the few hundred meters with our wobbly legs. If we had driven there definitely would have been another accident!

When I returned to the Raawiese, the little boy came to me in great distress and told me that the nightingale was dead. ‘Which nightingale?’ I mumbled. I let myself be taken to the house where the birdcage hung. Then I saw the problem…The nightingale lay on his back with rolled up feet and he wasn’t moving. Even when I gently nudged him, I couldn’t bring him back to life. Perhaps our campfire had killed him. I actually thought to myself, when the landlords find out about this, I will be out on the street. So I told the boy that our adventures with the fire had to be kept a secret from his parents. He agreed, and we threw some water onto the campfire and moved everything away that was still lying around from the garden party. I was hoping the neighbours were away, and wouldn’t tell on us. Anyway, my fears were ungrounded, because although the landlords were sad about the death of my bird, they never asked any questions. Obviously the little boy stayed true to his word. I met him recently after a visit to the Kleingartensiedlung.    He still lived in the little old house. In the meantime, he had renovated and extended, but otherwise it looked exactly like it did in bygone days. He told me proudly that he tells our story to the people on his estate, and they fall about in surprise when he says that The Beatles once came to his house and jumped over their camp fire.

From April 3rd 1962, The Beatles played in the Star Club. Kathia and I had a sort of place of honour in the upper circle which was always reserved for us. We never paid any entrance fee and we always had a great view. Although since then, I’ve had another girlfriend - we still sat together in the same box. On the box in front of us was Astrid Kirchherr, Klaus Vormann and Jurgen Vollmer. There were the first guard of Beatles friends, and we belonged to the second. The great thing about our box was that we were allowed to use it even when other musicians appeared in the star club . In those days, these were the prominent people in the rock n’ roll scene of the time; Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis.    For all these visits, we didn’t have to pay a penny, except for Ray Charles, who we once saw in the Star Club; that cost me 20 Marks.

Next to the Star Club, there was a place called Zer Holle. This was where I often sat with The Beatles, but also with other bands, such as Gerry And The Pacemakers. There was sometimes a woman joining us called Mary Brown, who was the leader of the Beatles fan club. I was once here with Mary, Paul McCartney, Gerry and a few others. Gerry went on at me that I should become his fan too. He spoke nonstop and he kept repeating the same sentence. “Icke, you should become MY fan”. At the beginning I felt very honoured and flattered, but after a while he got on my nerves . I ordered him a beer and although he was already fairly merry, he toasted me and said, “now I’m becoming an honorary Beatles fan”. I asked Mary to show me my fan passport which she showed me immediately. I was member number 62. Until the late 60s, Mary Brown sent every member of the fan club a vinyl recording of music and best wishes from The Beatles. As an honorary member, I also had to pay very little for the beer. Once, a waiter who was new to the Star Club, asked me for 1.50 Marks and I didn’t have any change, so I gave him a 20 Mark note . He said to me, ‘when I’ve got the change i’ll come back to you’. I tried to attract his attention when he passed by my seat, but he looked at me like he didn’t recognise me. He insisted that I’d only given 1.50 and I became very stubborn and started arguing, and he threatened to throw me out. At that moment Horst Fascher walked past. I didn’t know him very well but he knew me. I told him I’d given the waiter 50 marks    but he hadn’t given me any change. One moment said Horst. The waiter was a head higher than the owner but he knew what was coming. Horst grabbed him by his arm , turned him away from me and said a word I didn’t understand . Then he waited until the the waiter opened his pocket book and gave me 48.50 as change. Normally I’m an honest person, but when I’m being swindled, the war-child in me comes through, who has learnt to insist and get tough, even if it’s at the cost of other people. I didn’t have a bad conscience because of what I had done. First, I did to him what he did to me, and second, on his evening round, he had probably done the same to the rest of his evening guests.

Horst was the eldest of three brothers. They were all small men under 1m 70, but they were feared fighters. He was the first one to have the idea to bring English rock music to Germany. In 1959 he appeared as a lightweight fighter in a match in London. That evening after the fight, he partied through Soho and landed in a club where rock n’ roll bands were playing live.    The German version of this music was also playing at the moment in the Kaiserkeller, but this was a different format. The singer was Tony Sheridan. His appearance was as strong and authentic as Bill Haley or Elvis Presley, who one only knew through Hollywood films. Horst was amazed. Back in Hamburg, he told Bruno Koschmider of his discovery. Bruno flew instantly to London and engaged Tony for his Kaiserkeller . Horst was the second string to his fiddle; he was later responsible for bringing the Beatles from the Kaiserkeller into Peter Eckhorn’s Top Ten, and then to Manfred Weissleder in the Star Club. Both his brothers were waiters in the Star Club but otherwise they didn’t really play a large role. Freddie, on the other hand, who was the youngest brother, became my protector. I was only a little player, and the impression was sometimes that people could push me around. But if I became cross with somebody and Freddie noticed, he would come between us . He was little, and his opponents were mostly bigger so he would grab them by the shirt, pull them down to his level and give them a headbutt, then there was peace.

With his brother Horst, I once had a special adventure. At Christmas of ’62 I had made The Beatles a special Christmas plate (as I had done the year before), where amongst other things I always distributed were bags of Liptons tea. That was a trademark - it was meant to be a quirky reminder of home. I also placed candles on the plates, and I wanted to bring all of this onto the stage, but Horst told me off and said, ‘you can’t do this with lit candles on stage - its much too dangerous…What were you thinking? Give them to me!’    So he dimmed the lighting in the room and took the coloured plates with the lit candles to the stage. The Beatles were already throwing tea bags and biscuits at each other, and Paul took the microphone and said, ‘Icke, you are so considerate’. Because of the teabags, they recognised the plates were my invention, even though Horst had taken them to the stage. The hardened rockers in the audience thought it was a bit feminine and misplaced that I should give such Christmas presents for them. But for me, every appearance The Beatles made was a present that was bigger than I ever could have given them back. Every time I listened to them, an intense feeling of happiness flowed through me . In them, I could forget everything around me. I never experienced such a total immersion in any other rock band who appeared at the Star Club. Perhaps there was something feminine about it , but I didn’t care.

Something feminine was at play the first time I met John. I sat with him and the rest of the band at The Star Club at the end of the night after their gig. The bar was the shape of a large oval on which one side John sat with George and a few other guests, whereas Paul and I were about five meters away on the other side. We chatted about who was our favourite author.    Naturally the guys only knew English or American authors, that was clear. Who mentioned who I’m not so sure. One said Lewis Caroll, another said Dylan Thomas. I had recently seen the play Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, otherwise I knew nothing of him. ‘And you Icke?’ Asked Paul..    ‘who is your favourite author?’. ‘Henry Miller, I find him really great’, I replied.    At the same moment, John glanced over to me. Up until then, he had been watching - with his usual slightly bored expression, Bettina the bar lady as she washed up glasses and cleared up the bar. Our conversation didn’t seem to interest him enormously. Now he looked at me directly in the eyes. Silently and without taking his eyes off me, he came around the whole length of the bar, kissed me on the mouth and walked back to his place. At first I was very surprised and didn’t know what to do about this. Then I found it slightly amusing and didn’t think any more of it . A few days later, it happened again. I met him on the walkway behind the stage and again he took my hand and kissed me. That made me actually think about the fact.. ‘Oh my God, am I gay?, because I don’t know if I can do this’. But what was really behind this, I don’t know, and never knew. Maybe the kisses were a sort of overture? Because amongst homosexuals, he was known as a Klemm-schwuler (‘camp gay’ /closet case).    I have no idea.    In any case, I saw his girlfriend Cynthia, who visited him in 1961 and who he married a year later. Quite apart from that, he was often seen in the company of girls a lot.

On the 10th April, 1962, the fifth Beatle, Stu Sutcliffe died of a brain tumour. It was the same day that his band colleagues, (apart from George), landed at Hamburg airport a few days later to appear at the Star Club. I had very little contact with Stuart, because he left the band a year before I knew them to concentrate on his studies at the art school. Amongst his friends, his death was a huge shock. Especially hard hit was John, who was at art school in Liverpool with him and was close friends. For days he ran around like a corpse through the city, until he found himself again.

In the first half of Nov 1962, when The Beatles appeared at the Star Club again, the drummer was Ringo Starr and not Pete Best. I couldn’t get used to it at first. Even though I had very little personal contact with Pete, I felt that an important part of the brilliant ensemble had been lost. After a while, I became used to Ringo and strangely, the music became somehow rounder, and in any case, not as loud as before. Perhaps I’m just imagining it, as I’ve said, I’m not the greatest music expert. My impression was that Pete always drummed like a madman, whereas Ringo fitted in with the music. What Paul had said to me was that it was Brian Epstein who replaced Pete. It was already then very obvious the enormous influence this man had on the group. From the beginning of November, he monitored their performances and they appeared in a new, specially made outfits which they had overlooked so far in their Hamburg performances. Now they were in preppy clothes. And accordingly, they behaved themselves on stage. No more mucking around and no insults. It was only when Epstein left Hamburg on Nov 10th, they were able to go back to their old style of performance. Already on the Sunday evening, just a few hours after they had taken their manager to the airport, they were wearing their old leather rags and dancing on the stage as normal. John as usual, offended the whole audience by insulting them.

The Beatles last performances at the Star was Dec 18 -31st, 1962 . On New Years day, they were due to go back to England. I took Paul in my little beatle car to the airport, where he met with the others. Then the announcement came that the flight to London was delayed by four hours. Wonderful I thought, I have more time to hang out with them. It was in these last hours that I could talk to them all on the same level; because what happened in the next few months in England, at the crazy speed it developed, none of us, the Beatles or the fans could have imagined. The next time I saw them, they were absolute world stars and they lived in a different world. That time in the airport bar we were still thinking that in a few months, they would be appearing at the Star Club again . They were in good spirits, and not just because of the previous night where we had celebrated all night, and drunk a lot of alcohol.    It was more because they were heading off on small tour in Scotland, which was due to take place the next day beginning in Keith. But most importantly, they were beginning a tour with Helen Shapiro, where they would appear as one of the six warm up acts. Helen was 16 years old, so a few years younger than The Beatles, but much more famous and much more savvy than the boys. Musically they didn’t think much of her, but her fame was hard to discredit. It was going to be their first professional tour. Us Hamburger fans followed their journey via newspapers and the radio, how they were celebrated by the public, and soon Helen Shapiro was displaced. This tour lasted a month from February to March 1963, and catapulted The Beatles into the heavies of rock music. Together with Tommy Roe and Chris Montez-Tournee, they had broken through. Brigitte Janner, who was my girlfriend at the time, kept me up to date with how famous the band were becoming and the welcome they received whenever they appeared .

It was three and a half years later that I saw them again. A teen magazine called Bravo had organised a lightening tour through Germany with them, and three weeks before had started creating an advertising frenzy . Even the people from Der Bild and Bravo stood outside my house and wanted to interview me. I said they could interview me if they could get me into the Beatles press conference . They didn’t want to do that, perhaps they couldn’t do it. In any case I didn’t give them an interview. The next day in Der Bild newspaper, there was a big article entitled ‘Icke And The Beatles’. There was a photo of me with wide open eyes, which somebody had shot the moment I had opened my door for them. It was not exactly a good image of me and I would have stopped the publication of it had I known. Also in this article, there were loads of made up stories . These stories started circulating at my work which made me uncomfortable, not least because my colleagues were gossiping about me. After all, I was head of the department, and I didn’t want to be compromised.    There were newspaper articles in Der Bild and Bravo about me in Reinhold & Mahla (my workplace) which was uncomfortable for me, because it meant my colleagues had ratted on me.

The tour was booked from the 24th - 26th June; three days in three cities. Through the press photographer, Peter Bruchmann, I found out the Beatles would be arriving at 5 30 am on a special train at the Ahrensburg station, so I got up at 4 in the morning not to miss this moment. As the train approached, I stood very close to the edge of the platform. A mass of journalists, fans and other commuters also stood on the platform. It was terribly noisy and nobody could understand a word anyone was saying. Luckily, I found a favourable place on the platform - facing the wagon in which the Beatles were basically stood right outside my nose. I saw the guys standing at the window and Paul saw me too. He moved his lips as though he wanted to say something to me, and pointed to the front where they were going to disembark. Unfortunately this was about 10 meters deep with people who were all trying to see the band. I tried with all my might to push through but I was still stuck in the middle. It was just impossible to get through. The Beatles had already disembarked. They were corralled straight away by the bodyguards who had freed a walkway through the crowd. However, Paul managed to turn around, he called to me, ‘We’ll see you later!’, and then they ran at speed through the walkway, out to where the cars were standing, surrounded by journalists and fans who were waiting for them. They were taken with a police escort to the Castle Tremsbuttel, where they were staying the night.

The whole thing happened so quickly that on the way home, I thought it had been a dream. On the way back in the car, I asked myself, what did Paul mean when he called out to me? How should I approach him, how was it going to work that we would see each other when the instructions had been so vague. The two concerts were scheduled for 3pm - 4.45pm and then 7pm - 8 45 pm. In between both concerts there were press conferences being held, to which unfortunately I wasn’t invited. I managed to get a ticket for the second concert, but I still hung around for three hours with the other fans in the hall. Suddenly on the loudspeaker I heard my name. ‘Icke Braun is asked to come to the desk’. I thought to myself, what do I need to come to the desk for? but I went anyway. A man was standing there who I had met before - he was from the newspaper, Der Bild. He told me that Paul McCartney wanted to speak to me, then turned around and went into the conference room and I followed him. Already outside I could hear John Lennon’s voice and as the door opened, I saw him joking with the journalists. As everyone was only speaking English, I didn’t understand much of it. The Beatles were sitting on a podium together with a man I didn’t know. Later I discovered that that was Neil Aspinall who was the personal assistant to the Beatles. George saw me and waved me to his side. I went a bit nearer to the stage but kept my distance. Why should I stand around on the stage looking stupid when I had nothing to say? So I stayed where I was and waited until the end of the conference until I said hello to the guys. A few journalists then left the room but most stayed. When the Beatles came down from the stage, George asked me ‘how are you and what are you doing with yourself’? I said, ‘yes I’m good, I’m now married!’, John heard that and called, “Where’s your wife, let’s see your wife!” and Neil said to me; the Beatles wishes must be obeyed! So I called Evelyn and told her the Beatles wanted to meet her. She was able to come straight away because we had talked about something like this happening. We withdrew into a little room, and suddenly I saw that there was Kathia and Bettina from the the Star Club. I must have overlooked them amongst all the chaos. When Evelyn appeared, she was the first to be introduced to the Beatles. Everything revolved around her and as they were all speaking in English, I stood by looking stupid, so I took the chance to go to the toilet. in order to do that, I had to go through the hustle of journalists who were waiting to grab one of the Beatles. When I came back from the toilet, they were begging me to take them back into the conference room. One said, if you take me with you, I will give you 1000 Marks.    When I got back to the Beatles, I asked if I could bring a few people in to meet them, but John and the others were emphatic; no way, we want this to be just us. Bettina took a few photos out of her bag, which showed the Beatles in the Top Ten and    the Star Club. The boys were delighted and told her that they would like to have the photos. I told them that the photographer who took them was standing outside the door. ‘Fetch him in, fetch him!’ said John excitedly. The photographer was called Peter Bruchmann, and was absolutely delighted to be the only journalist to be allowed into the conference room. It was he who had given me the tip that the band would be alighting off the train at Ahrensburg . I knew him from the time when the Beatles played at the Top Ten. At that point he hadn’t heard anything about them, and I had to persuade him to come and see them and take a few photos. These became the most famous photos he had ever taken.

A few years ago, we spoke and he told me that his career never got better than these early days. Sadly in 2014 he died. The last photo that he ever took of The Beatles in Germany, he took at the Ernst-Merck-Halle concert venue. The other people in the picture were Bettina, Kathia, Evelyn and i. Unfortunately he couldn’t supply photos from their Hamburg time to the boys at this moment, but he promised them he would send them on if they gave him a forwarding address, however, in the general melee this conversation sadly got forgotten.

All together we stayed for two hours and told each other what we had been up to in our lives. Amongst other things, I asked if they and The Rolling Stones were enemies like the German press insisted. They said that was total nonsense; they were very friendly with them. Then we went into the dining room where we ate fillet steak with lots of onions. Ringo pushed the onions fussily to the side of his plate, and said ‘the whole world knows that I don’t eat onions apart from Hamburg evidently’. During the second concert, we sat int the first row in reserved places, so I could have said myself 20 Mark fee! The Beatles only played half an hour because they wanted to introduce some Hamburg band which included The Rattles. A few of these bands ended up being a bit disappointed because they were just pushed to the side and their music was hardly listened to. Unfortunately, I as an audience member, could understand because everyone had came to see the Beatles, not the Hamburg side acts. Paul told me before the band went onstage that we would see him afterwards, however they disappeared from the stage straight away; while the public was still clapping and calling for more, they were already in their cars. That was the only way to take them from their fans in safety. This was the only contact that my wife Evelyn had with the Beatles.

I myself had two more opportunities to meet Paul McCartney. The first time was in Scotland in 1988. I had long been married to Uta and she was pregnant with our first child. The car we had brought along was a Renault, a fairly long car, where we were transporting a canoe which wouldn’t fold, so it didn’t look very elegant. We had came to a town called Campbelltown, to meet our friend Mary who we had worked with at Amnesty international in Jagerberg . Mary remembered visiting us and seeing a picture of Paul, and told us that her mother had worked for him, at his estate which was not far from here. I said to Uta; ‘come on, let’s go and drive to see him’. But she did not want to go, so therefore I drove there alone. On the way, I had a rethink about what I was actually doing. The estate was guaranteed to be a tourist attraction for journalists and fans, so Paul would likely always have bodyguards on duty. If I were to arrive in my completely filthy Renault with a monster of a canoe on the roof, I wouldn’t stand a chance to get past the bodyguards. They would think that a lousy jerk was coming, who has no reason to be here. That I was once a friend of the famous Paul McCartney, they simply wouldn’t believe. The estate was quite a way away, but I stopped the car and really thought this through - should I carry on with this adventure, or would it be best to simply turn around and just go home. The humiliation that I could be turned around and sent away… I would never get over . For a while I fought with this, backward and forward, then I turned the car around and drove back at a snails pace.

So the last opportunity where I met Paul was in 1991 at the world premiere of Get Back, directed by Richard Lester. After the press conference, I met him and his wife Linda in a room at the back of the cinema. In the room with me was Astrid Kircherr, Ulf Kruger and Achim Reichel and his wife, who had won a place at this this meeting in a competition. During our chat, I mentioned my adventure in Scotland. Even though it was embarrassing to talk about this in front of people, I told Paul that I had planned to visit him, and that I was fearful of the consequences, didn’t trust my courage enough and therefore turned around. He said, “Oh for Gods sake Icke, that’s such a shame. It    would have been wonderful if you had actually visited me”. It sounded like he really meant it. I’m still angry at myself over this, sometimes I’m too much of a doofus for this world.

#bonithica ask #packyourromanticmind #thanks again! #icke braun #paul and icke #tillthereweretangents

[eppysboys]

Do you have any Beatles blogs recommendations ? <3

In alphabetical order:

@aquarianshift

@big-barn-bed

@beatleswings

@blondecasino

@dailyhowl

@dateinthelife

@drivenalphabitchpaulmccartney

@dovetailjoints

@elvispresley

@floatupstream

@frodolives

@get-back-homeward

@javelinbk

@jeremy-hillary-boob

@kaiserkeller

@lennons

@midchelle

@monkberries

@mrepstein

@ncwhereman

@pauls1967moustache

@pennielane

@pacingo

@pleasantlyinsincere

@reflectismo

@underthecitysky

@scurator

@sword-swallower-pin

@thecoleopterawithana

@thedissenters

@thestarsarecool

@underthecitysky

@zilabee (Lucky last!)

If I've forgotten anyone that knows I love them, I will cry.

#asks

[get-back-homeward]

Davidwache Police Station | Painting by Klaus Voormann Prior to being deported, Paul McCartney spends a night in the Davidwache police station.

In the meantime, the final four could start playing [at the Top Ten club] now, and move themselves into the bunk-bed accommodation at the top of the building.c Tony Sheridan was already here, possibly others too, and the Beatles were welcome to shoehorn themselves in. It was neither the Ritz nor the pits. John was the first to move. Then Paul and Pete went back to the Bambi to grab their gear.

The place was in near darkness, as usual. They had to strike a match to see their way about … and then they decided to leave Koschmider a little gift. Pete had a few “spunk bags,” and he and Paul had the idea to hang them on nails in the wall in the long concrete passageway and set light to them. “The place was dank and dark,” says Pete. “They spluttered, they stank, and OK, maybe they singed a tiny bit of tapestry on the wall. It caused nothing but a little smoke and a few scorch marks and then they went out.”41 It was the ultimate fuck you, Bruno, or so they thought.

They got to play one night in the Top Ten, and it seems to have been a good one, pulling business away from the Kaiserkeller, but it was just this one night. Having been shafted once by Eckhorn, when he’d prized away the Jets and Tony Sheridan from the Kaiserkeller, Koschmider wasn’t going to sit back and let it happen again. He might also have guessed the Beatles would make some grand gesture for his “benefit”—they could even have hinted of it—because an inspection was made of the Bambi’s rooms very quickly. When the stinkende qualmende Piedeltüten were found, he decided to form the view it was an attempt to burn down his cinema, and informed the police.

The chronology of events over the next twenty-four hours is rife with confusion and contradiction, but may have gone something like this. Paul was picked up by the police while walking along the Reeperbahn, taken by car to the Davidwache police station (two hundred meters from the Top Ten) and locked in a cell. Pete and John were also arrested. Koschmider didn’t know which of them was responsible for the “attempted arson,” so the Polizei rounded them all up. As Stuart wrote in a letter back to Liverpool a few days later:

I am living in the lap of luxury and contentment. Better than the cell I spent a night in last week. I was innocent this time though accused of arson—that is, setting fire to the Kino (cinema) where we sleep. I arrive at the club and am informed that the whole of Hamburg Police are looking for me. The rest of the band are already locked up, so smiling and very brave on the arm of Astrid, I proceed to give myself up. At this time I’m not aware of the charge. All my belongings, including spectacles, are taken away and I’m led to a cell where without food or drink I sat for six hours on a very wooden bench, the door shut very tight. I fall asleep at two in the morning. I signed a confession written in Deutsch that I knew nothing about a fire, and they let me go.42

John was also allowed to go. It was now clear who’d done the dirty deed, and for them the ordeal continued; Paul would always remember the little one-way peephole in the door of their detention room, through which he sensed they were watched. It seems he and Pete were then allowed to leave, but a few hours later—early the following morning—they were dragged out of their Top Ten bunk beds and interviewed a second time. Pete suggests they were taken to Hamburg’s main prison at Fühlsbuttel, Paul remembers it being “the Rathaus … it doesn’t mean rat house, it just felt like one.” They were interviewed by an official of the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal CID), one Herr Gerkins, and it was definitely inadvisable to snigger. Instead, they requested permission to contact the British Embassy, like people did in the films, and were refused; then they were taken for a car ride. “We tried our best to persuade him it was nothing,” Paul says, “and he said, ‘OK fine, well you go with these men.’ And that was the last we knew of it. We just headed out with these couple of coppers. And we were getting a bit ‘Oh dear, this could be the concentration camps’—you never know. It hadn’t been that long [since the war].”43

Criminal charges were not pressed, but Koschmider, inevitably, had the last laugh. It wasn’t a camp to which Paul and Pete were being taken, but the airport—and in handcuffs, according to Stuart. They were being deported, and banned from reentering Germany unless they lodged an appeal within a month. Auf Wiedersehen, Piedels! Handed their passports at the gate, they were put on the London plane, set to fly for the first time in their lives. It then got even tastier for Koschmider because Eckhorn was billed for at least part of the cost of the plane tickets. Bruno must have been rubbing his hands with joy.

—Tune In, Ch. 17 (Oct 1–Dec 31, 1960)

Sources: 41 Author interview, March 7, 1985. Pete says (Beatle!, p72) there were four rubbers and always speaks of them in plural, Paul speaks of one. 42 December 12, 1960, sent to Ken Horton. This letter provides the only suggestion that John was arrested in the roundup; he’s not mentioned in other accounts. 43 Interview by Paul Gambaccini, Rolling Stone, June 12, 1979. Rathaus means “city hall.” Instead of the main prison at Fühlsbuttel, it’s more likely Paul and Pete were taken to the remand prison near St. Pauli called Untersuchungsgefängnis (easier done than said).

#seeing the hq version of this painting and noticing the detail on pauls face #the dramaaaaaa #hamburg era #1960 #december 1960 #technically nov 30 is the fire #reading tune in #november 1960 #the image of paul and pete asking to speak to their embassy like in the movies sends me lmao #this whole episode is so amazing i cannot believe every biopic has just passed up on it #its got everything you want dumb dirty boys who get a big head the second they move up but not before they move out #an entire night in german prison cell and then questioned by some bigshot who has them shaking in their boots #john's first night in a prison cell over something he didn't even do #paul never ever admitting he did anything wrong bc individual sense of justice since age two #meanwhile poor george is being deported #stu's spectacles are taken away---wait he wore glasses?! #letters #top ten club #bundeskrinalamt (federal CID) i believe would be akin to being interviewed by the FBI in the US

[elvispresley]

@boshemians tagged me to spell out my username as a playlist! thank you ❤️

e : eternal flame by the bangles

l : lucy in the sky with diamonds by the beatles

v : video games by lana del rey

i : i guess that’s why they call it the blues by elton john

s : suspicious minds by elvis presley

p : poison by alice cooper

r : rebel yell by billy idol

e : everybody wants to rule the world by tears for fears

s : somewhere only we know by keane

l : life is a highway by tom cochrane

e : every rose has its thorn by poison

y : yer blues by the beatles/dirty mac (both are good)

i tag @allegedlyfranzferdinand @lennons @kaiserkeller @thedissenters @idontwanttospoiltheparty @perfectopposite @ncwhereman :))

#this was fun but it was hard to choose just one song for some letters fjfkekkf #tag game #music game #🫶

[harrisonarchive]

The Beatles rehearsing at the Cavern on August 22, 1962. Photos by Bill Connell and Les Chadwick.

“[At the Kaiserkeller in Hamburg, 1960] We started hanging out with [Rory Storm and the Hurricanes]. I think we’d met Ringo once before, in England. I know we all had the same impression about him: ‘You’d better be careful of him, he looks like trouble.’ […] Out of all the amateur bands in Liverpool, they were the most professional. So when they came to Hamburg Allan Williams told us: ‘You’d better pull your socks up because Rory Storm and the Hurriances are coming in, and you know how good they are. They’re going to knock you for six.’ They would do the show and Ringo was the cocky one at the back; and with the way he looked, with that gray streak in his hair and half a gray eyebrow and a big nose, he looked a real tough guy. But it probably only took half an hour to realize it was actually… Ringo!" - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology (2000)

“[E]very time Ringo sat in, it seemed like ‘this is it.’ Eventually we realized, ‘We should get Ringo in the band full time.’ I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea. I remember going to his house. He wasn’t in so I sat and had some tea with his mother and I said, ‘We’d like Ringo to be in our band.’ She said, ‘Well, he’s in Butlins holiday camp with Rory at the moment, but when he rings me I’ll get him to phone you,’ and I gave her our number.” - George Harrison, ibid

“Historically it may look like we did something nasty to Pete, and it may have been that we could have done it better. But the thing was, as history also shows, Ringo was the member of the band, it’s just that he didn’t enter the film until that particular scene, you know?” - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology documentary (1995)

“It was almost like we were waiting to get going. And we couldn’t go until all The Beatles were in the frame.” - George Harrison, 1990s interview for the Anthology, included in Living In The Material World (2011) (x)

#The Beatles #George Harrison #quote #quotes by George #Ringo Starr #George and Ringo #Paul McCartney #John Lennon #George and Paul #george and john #1960s #1962 #60 years of John Paul George and Ringo #The Beatles Anthology #The Cavern Club #Pete Best #that solo pic of George looks like he's rather pleased with himself for 'stirring things up' :) #fits queue like a glove

[ceofjohnlennon]

Notes written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison for their german recording company, 1961. ㅡ From the book "The Beatles Lyrics" by Hunter Davies.

TRANSCRIPT:

JOHN LENNON'S NOTE:

"Born 9th 1940 (age 20).

Educated Quarry Bank Grammer then Liverpool College of Art (thrown out). Went to Scotland.

Touring with a british singer.

Went to Hamburg (1960) for 4 months with the group. Returned again 1961 to Top Ten Club.

Started the a group about 4 years ago (skiffle). Paul joined then George. Had one or two drummers, Peter joined 2 days before our 1st visit to Hamburg with half a drum kit ㅡ we only had little amplifiers but bought better one in Hamburg.

Instruments played guitar (piano?), guitar bass. Written a couple of songs with Paul.

Ambition. to be rich.

John W. Lennon (leader)."

PAUL MCCARTNEY'S NOTE:

"PAUL MCCARTNEY

Born 18.6.1942, Liverpool.

Educated. Liverpool Institute Grammar School. Left 1960 to tour Scotland, then came to Hamburg them back to Liverpool, and then "Top Ten" Club Hamburg, returning to Liverpool at the end of time.

Been in the group (former a skiffle group ㅡ "The Quarrymen" ㅡ) for around 4 years, but, with "The Beatles" for almost 2 years.

Instruments: guitar, piano, guitar bass.

Hobby ㅡ past time: music, etc...

Songs written: with john (LENNON) ㅡ around 70 songs."

GEORGE HARRISON'S NOTE:

"NAME George Harrison

Born in Liverpool ㅡ England ㅡ 25/02/43

Educated Art Liverpool Institute High School ㅡ then worked as electrician for 3 months ㅡ but finished the work to tour Scotland playing rock + roll. August 1960 came to Hamburg to play at Kaiserkeller. Returned to Liverpool December as I was only 17 years old and the police said I was not allowed to work.

April 1961 returned to Hamburg to play at Top Ten Club Reeperbahn."

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #60s #early beatles #my:read #the beatles lyrics #I TRIES MY BEST BUT JOHN'S HAND WRITTEN IS SO BAD #1961

[quinnallerton]

Hello, here are some Beatles asks for you to enjoy thinking over:

♡ ♡ ♡

Do you remember the first song by The Beatles that you heard? How did it make you feel?

2. What is your favourite moment in any of the Beatles films?

3. If I could offer you the use of a time machine, would you see The Beatles perform in Hamburg in 1962, or on the rooftop in 1969?

Ooooh. These are good ones- you go next @the-paper-apricot

1. Love Me Do- my dad had a cassette of the ‘red album’ that was released in the 70s. I remember making a rude remark on a road trip about my dad’s ‘old music’. Amazing how these boys consume my mind on a daily basis since I was 12 years old.

2. I recall getting that butterfly feeling in my belly watching John sing “I Should Have Known Better” to Pattie Boyd and the other school girls in AHDN. From that point on, I was a John girl.

3. Hamburg. No comparison. -The real rock n’ roll, the sweat, the sex, the leather, the art, the fighting. Oof, I’d do anything to be a bar fly at the Kaiserkeller watching these feral boys scream into the microphone night after night on pills and beer. It’s probably the thirsty cougar in me, but I’d absolutely let them all hit it.

#the beatles #you’re too nice #paper apricot #anons are welcome #beatles asks

[ludmilachaibemachado]

Pattie in 1971 photographed by Robin Garb🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Credit: tumblr kaiserkeller🌟

Via @pattie.boyd.post on Instagram🌸

#60s icons #girlsofthesixties #60s models #pattie boyd #1971

[beatleskinkmeme]

Sweaty, black-sequinned Rockshow-era Paul steps through a looking-glass and time travels to the Kaiserkeller. After some tender chat with his younger self, he pleads with ingénue Paul to toss him off. Consoling mutual pleasure follows.

Happy, contented vibes. :)

.

#prompts #time travel au #paul/paul #hamburg

[muzaktomyears]

Bruno treated us to what for him was a smile. “You boys will make the Indra into another Kaiserkeller,” he said. “No one comes to this place,” he admitted, stating the obvious. “But you’ll make it go when you make show.”

‘Make show’… that was the phrase we were going to have to learn to live with for a long time. Bruno, in his halting English, pronounced it ‘mack show’, which didn’t strike us as being all that amusing as we stood there like sacks of potatoes with our suitcases in hand.

“Where are we staying?” someone asked, trying to change the subject. By this time, we were all anxious to seek some escape in a comfortable night’s sleep in a cosy hotel bed. Misconception number two. Bruno led the way farther along to the wrong end of the street – to a dismal cinema called the Bambi Kino which showed third-rate Westerns and the occasional sex movie. We followed him round a corner to the rear of this drab flea-pit where he opened a door which gave on to nothing but pitch darkness. We trooped through and peering through the blackness made out a light some yards along what turned out to be a gloomy corridor. It came from a solitary light which attracted us towards it like moths; we began to run, leaving Bruno behind.

The light was coming from a room. Lennon got there first, heading the stampede, closely followed by Stu Sutcliffe, who was always somehow near John. George was just behind them and Paul and I were the last in the queue. It wasn’t a pretty sight that greeted us; a scruffy, barren room containing two single beds and an ancient couch.

“What the fucking hell?” Lennon exploded.

“Fuck me!” the rest of us said, almost in unison.

John and Stu commandeered a bed each. George staked his claim on the couch. It was the old story of first come, first served. Paul and I looked at each other, wondering what the floor felt like.

Bruno had caught up with us and tried to charm us with his smile. “But there are two more bedrooms,” he boasted; Paul and I immediately thought that possibly we were the lucky ones after all at the back of the line. A room each, we thought.

We saw them in the flickering glow of matches because these two rooms couldn’t muster a solitary bulb between them. They were two dungeons, which is how we referred to them from that moment. They measured about 5ft by 6ft and most of that was taken up by a single bed on which we dumped our cases.

“You could just about swing a cat in here,” Paul observed drily – “providing it’s got no tail!” We mouthed enough obscenities to paper a wall, but Bruno either didn’t understand or pretended not to. “Only temporary,” he kept saying, “only temporary.”

Paul sat down on his bed in the darkness and I heard the well-worn springs groan pitifully. I knew how they felt. So to bed on our first night in Hamburg, filled with disgust. The big stars from Liverpool… The Beatles!

Even in the daytime, we found, there was no light. Our billet was an extension built onto the rear of the cinema – right next to the toilets! We had to wash and shave in cold water in the cinema urinals – where sometimes the patrons of the Bambi Kino would surprise us and stand and stare at the haggard, black and white apparitions. Lennon, George and Stu were living in comparative luxury in their drab three-bed room some 25 yards along a corridor. Bruno’s ‘only temporary’ promise never did come true. We were doomed to the dungeons, which became home, stacked with guitar and drum cases and a collection of old laundry.

Paul and I never knew if it was night or day. We wrote letters home sitting on our beds with pocket torches strapped around our heads like miners’ lamps. Day after day we all complained to Bruno about the dingy squalor in which we were living. We pointed out that we were, after all, lads from decent middle-class backgrounds whose parents had scrimped and worked to try to give us a good education. What had we done to end up in Germany being treated like a bunch of dossers or winos ready to kip down anywhere for a night? Daily we were given the same smarmy smile and promises, promises. Bruno had once been a clown, we were told, but he certainly didn’t make us laugh.

Beatle! The Pete Best Story, Pete Best and Patrick Doncaster (1985)

#writing letters home with torches strapped to their heads😭 #pete best #the beatles #hamburg

[cellarfulofnose]

There's A Place

The biggest band in the world is stuck rehearsing in the smallest closet. And the dustiest.

"And the venue, it was so small, there was nowhere for us to rehearse except for a hall closet. The place was poorly insulated, you know, so they'd be able to hear us if we were anywhere else. Terrible place. I don't know why on earth we ever agreed to play there. But it was a job, you know, and we were young. We didn't ask any questions, just, 'Get in the car now,' 'Oh, okay,' 'All right, we're here,' and we'd play, wherever it was. We hardly knew half the time. We were in a hall closet-- I'm sure it was more than that, it was like a little storage room, full of boxes and stacks of papers. You'd have been hard pressed to fit a bed in there, width wise. But we piled in there, the four of us, Ringo against the far wall, me and John facing each other, and George over by the door. He almost had to stand sideways to fit his guitar; I mean, it was really small. And of course it hadn't been touched in probably twenty years, so there was all this dust and mildew in the air and over everything. Just disgusting. You couldn't breathe. And Ringo's hitting the boxes, you know, keeping time, and we're like 'You'd better stop that!' He was raising so much dust, and we've got the door closed, we're thinking, 'It's an hour to showtime, we're gonna die in here!' So we got out of there. Sod the rehearsal, we thought. We tried to tough it out, but at some point, you know, you can't get a breath to sing because you're sneezing so much. So we just gave up. I don't think it affected our playing too much. We were still sneezing by the time we got up on stage, but they were screaming too loud to hear us anyway." --Paul McCartney for Rolling Stone, 1985

It's not ideal, of course, Brian had said, but I'm afraid it's all we could come up with for right now. Paul had grumbled, along with the rest, but without any heart in it. It wasn't Brian's fault. And they had done more with less, in the past.

It wasn't until they actually shuffled inside that they saw the state of the place. Or, rather, smelled it. Their room at the Kaiserkeller had smelled like the devil's wastebasket, sex and sweat and a puddle of sick with its own ecosystem. That was ripe; this was stale. Musty, dry, and dead. It wasn't nearly as bad as in Hamburg, but the decrepit papery smell made Paul's nose wrinkle as soon as it hit him. He felt his throat tighten, trying to save him from breathing in too much. He hoped it wouldn't weaken his voice. Some tea would loosen him up.

"This place has seen better days," Richie said, and coughed. His mouth was pulling down at the corners, his nostrils lifting, an accidental grimace in lieu of scrunching up his whole face. His body, like Paul's, trying in vain to keep the dusty air out.

John, on the other hand, wasn't even trying not to scowl. His nose crinkled in naked disgust as he looked around. "Bloody hell." He swiped a hand across the nearest box's top. His fingers came away feathered with snowy gray powder. "Cozy, innit?" he said, and blew a tight puff of air to clean them. Or else to make a birthday wish.

Paul choked. He was right in the line of fire. With dust-stung eyes, he blindly swatted an arm back and forth to clear the air. "Watch it," he sputtered.

George shut the door behind them. For a moment, the room was plunged into blackness, until he pulled the switch to light the single bare bulb mounted on the ceiling. Flurries of dust motes danced, wind-borne, past the lemon light. He lifted a hand from his guitar to shield a cough with his upper sleeve.

It was cramped. There was barely room for George to stand facing them with the wingspan of his guitar. John and Paul were knee to knee, sitting on boxes against parallel walls, while Richie stacked a few empty ones for a drum kit.

The last place they sat to play like this was Forthlin Road, Paul realized; cross-legged on his bed, hitting the wall and each other with nearly every bounce. And they'd done all right there. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

George and John coughed at the same time, rattling Paul back to the present, and he took a deep breath. "Should we--" he began, cut short when the breath snagged in his chest, dry, barbed, tangling into a cough. "Should we do Rock and Roll Music?" he quickly amended, blinking away the tears that suddenly burned his eyes. He didn't care for how his voice went all thin and brittle from it, but luckily, this was John's song. His voice had a moment to rest.

John's hands moved into place on the strings. Paul copied him and glanced at Richie, preparing to nod and count them in.

"--'chhhw!"

Three pairs of eyes turned to George. He looked up, bleary with the whippish, pistol-silencer sneeze that'd just thrown his head forward.

"Ready?" George sniffed, looking eager to move on, if a bit hazy.

"Are you ready?" Paul said. He was trying to be considerate, but it came out derisive, and George bristled. Richie threw him a Bless y', which seemed to settle him enough for Paul to count them in.

"Just let me hear some of that rock and roll music," John crowed, "Any old way you choose it..." He coughed in the vague direction of his shoulder on the rest section, but it didn't clear the rasp from his voice. It was a real rock 'n' roll scratch, like Paul hadn't heard since he recorded Twist and Shout with laryngitis. He swelled with pride and affection as he played along. Trust John to turn the dust of neglect into violin rosin, something to sweeten the strings, even if it seemed to pull the water right out of their lungs and fill their heads with sand.

...God, but it was really dusty, Paul had to admit. Some of the uppermost boxes had splotches of mould dotting the sides, and a few were lined in cobwebs. They had to have been the first people to set foot in here in, what, twenty years? Fifty? The puff of dust that John had blown in his face was still stinging, making his eyes and the inside of his nose feel hot and dry. When he swallowed, his tonsils felt scratched and his throat swollen. It burned to inhale.

John was clearly feeling the same or worse. He looked distracted, and when he reached the end of the verse, he coughed right through the turnaround, harsh and impatient, into his shoulder. Richie coughed too, as if in sympathy, then George and Paul caught it like a bug, and now they were only sort of playing. God's sake. They hadn't coughed this much when they'd smoked with Dylan.

"Whew," Richie said softly, his eyebrows raised in surprise, but his eyelids heavy.

John couldn't even get his eyes open. "Hang on," he croaked, throwing an elbow across his face for a particularly bad cough.

Something in Paul's stomach clenched. "Good?" he said.

Eyes still closed, John cleared his throat. It sounded angry. "C'n we do one of yours?" he asked with a dragging sniff.

"Yeah," Paul said automatically, moving his fingers into position for Long Tall Sally. He didn't see John like this often, conceding right away, and wasn't sure he liked it. Usually John was full of fight in disagreeable circumstances, or at least he had something to say about it.

Paul's eyes darted to George, as if for reassurance, but George wasn't even looking. He was cringing, eyes shut, mouth open, panting slightly. Maybe it was his throat, or maybe there was another sneeze toying with him, the poor kid.

"Ready, Long Tall Sally?" Paul ventured.

George gave his hair a good, hard shake and seemed to come out the other side of it. Half-lidded but still standing. "Go on," he said, but there was a flatness to it. A nasal sound blunted where it should be round.

"Right." He cast a last look at John. "One, two, three--

"I'm gonna tell Aunt Mary 'bout Uncle John He claims he has the misery but he's havin' a lot of fun, oh baby..."

They couldn't keep from grinning, Paul noticed. The sight of him shouting like Little Richard in a space criminally too small for four people and three acoustic guitars got to them. As they played, the energy crackled high as ever. It almost seemed to smooth the dust out of the air and out of their lungs for the moment.

"Yeah, baby... woo! Baby..."

Paul's throat cracked when he reached for the high note, so he blushingly opted down and pressed on. Richie's timekeeping didn't falter for a second. Paul watched him beat the living hell out of his boxes, stacked in place of drums.

Every slap of his jeweled hands knocked a little burst of dust loose, like a carpet beater.

The second he saw it, Paul's breath failed. "Havin' me s-some fun-- khh-hh'kh! Ah, god." He could hardly get a proper drink of air. It was like his body refused to let him inhale, tightening in defense. His throat even stuck when he swallowed.

"D'you want to stop?" George asked. It was thoughtful, Paul wanted to believe, not just George's way of getting him back for questioning him earlier.

"No." Paul shook his head and cleared his throat. Who needed to breathe? He'd scream it out, scratch out every last particle of dust with a nice wailing screech. "Keep going." He clenched his jaw.

"Well, I saw Uncle John with bald-head Sally He saw Aunt Mary comin' and he ducked back in the alley, oh baby..."

John's expression suddenly dropped. With his eyes shut tight, he reared his head back, then pitched forward, his strumming hand clamped around his nose.

"... -hdt--!"

His shoulders jerked with the recoil of a forcefully repressed sneeze. He'd almost hit Paul's knees, bending over his guitar like that. Paul's stomach swooped, unsure whether to acknowledge it. He kept playing.

"...aHdt--!!"

John rocked forward with a second sneeze, just as tightly contained. Miserable, wrenching-- Paul could see how his face twisted into a pained snarl-- but next to silent. He rose back to his full height and groaned softly, a short, fluey "ugh." His pointed nose was an unhealthy pink, and his cheeks matched.

Paul couldn't keep playing. "Bless you."

"Bit dusty in here, you think?" said Richie, falsely innocent, and that set them all to laughing.

"hht-chshhw!"

For some reason, laughter provoked George to sneeze again, which Paul thought was a bit silly. He was literally the furthest from Richie's flying percussive dust.

Of course John was sympathetic. "All right there, son?" Snrff.

"Oh, sure," Richie said flatly. "We'll be lucky not to come out of here with black lung."

"Well, look how much you're kicking up," Paul said, suddenly defensive-- of who or what, he wasn't sure. "Look, hit that box."

Richie thumped his palm against the middle box, and all four of them groaned when it bloomed a gray billow of dust into the air.

"Ah, bloody hell."

"Jesus."

"How come you're not sneezing?" George asked; accused, more like. "You're sat at..." He waved at Richie's setup. "...bloody Ground Zero." Unspoken was the tacit understanding that with a nose like that, he ought to blow the door off its hinges.

Richie raised his chin, playing haughty. "Takes more than a bit of grime to disturb Old Faithful," he said, tapping the side of his nose. Then he coughed loudly, probably only half on purpose.

Paul hoped they wouldn't ask him the same question. There was a needling prickle in his sinuses now, creeping its way back with every breath, but it seemed to wax and wane. It'd burn and fade, spike and settle. It wasn't enough to bother him too bad. Not yet. If they could get off the subject and back to music, he'd be fine. To get a head start in that direction, he lifted his bass and held it at the ready, hoping John and George might follow suit.

No such luck. "What about you, Paulie?" John prodded.

"Yeah, what's your excuse?" Richie added, and Paul felt betrayed. With friends like these...

Paul shrugged, filling the silence with the first riff he could think of. He knew he had to answer, too, so he put on a narrow frown. "I don't believe in indulging the pleasures of the flesh," he said in his best 'taking the piss out of posh Londoners' voice, hoping that would be enough to get them to drop it. And maybe-- just to throw a thought out there-- rehearse.

George and Richie snickered, but John shook his head and breathed out a faint scoff of a laugh. "Ah, we'll make a believer of you," he said as a smile spread across his face. His eyes were falling shut, his head beginning to tilt back, a slight breathlessness thinning his voice. When his nostrils started to widen, narrow and widen, Paul realized what was coming.

"Pretty soon," John panted, getting ready to sneeze, "you'll be... you'llbe... yh-h! h'Dt--!!" He pinched it off, cruel as before, and just the sound of it made Paul's eyes water. There was no way it could feel good.

"hah'dt...!"

And again. Tossing John's hair, throwing a shudder through his frame. Paul's nose twinged painfully at the sight. He couldn't bring himself to offer John so much as a Bless you, in case raising his voice sent a vibration through his sinuses.

"How do you do that, John?" George said, something like awe in his voice.

"Do what?" John said thickly. He pulled at his nose, pinched and wiped, giving an awful snorting snuffle.

"Hold it in like that. I feel like my head's going to explode."

"Hold your nose." John demonstrated. "Hold your breath. Try it."

"I don't want to. It looks painful."

Paul did his best to tune them out. He ran through the fingering of Long Tall Sally beginning to end, refusing to think about what it must feel like to John. To feel relief so close, to feel the wave crest and then stop it from crashing on the rocks. To fight a reflex. Paul forced himself to think about something else. Anything.

"Better than spraying snot all over," John retorted.

"I didn't spray anything," George said, ruffled.

Paul thought about dust. Fine, particulate clouds drifting on a breath of air, hanging in a fog before his eyes. Years and decades' worth of it flooding his head and chest any time he breathed in. Tickling his small nose.

Oh, God. He scrubbed at it with his knuckles, quick back and forth.

"Oi," whispered Richie, making Paul turn around. He nodded down, frowning curiously, and flashed an OK sign: You all right?

Paul dropped his hand. "Yeah." That was a lie. He was hardly breathing at this point. His face grew hot at the idea of Richie wondering if there was something wrong with him-- was he that obvious? But the fact that he cared to ask softened it a bit. He broke eye contact and rubbed his nose again. The itch eased but didn't go away.

"Here." John gathered another handful of dust. "Try it, go on." He pointed his open palm at George and inhaled, preparing to blow it on him.

"I'll maim you." George threw out a hand in defense and took a step back. "Don't. I swear."

Paul let his guard down to laugh, and that was the end of him. A fresh, buzzing tickle attacked his nose. It was worse than before. He gasped without meaning to, a soft little hiccup, and he felt his lungs start to fill.

That, of course, was when Richie finally tossed his hat in the ring.

"hhrRUH'SHhiuhh!"

Paul's breath stuttered. As though Richie had scared it away, the urgent promise of a sneeze retreated, leaving him with a pounding, stuffy head. And a maddening itch.

John and George cheered, earning a spell of coughing for their efforts. Richie bowed with a flourish of his hand and tended to his nose with a pocket handkerchief.

"There's a good lad," said John.

"C'mon, Paul, what you waiting for?" George chided. "G'on and sneeze, it feels a little better, really," he added, more seriously.

"What, on command?" Paul said, and wanted to cringe at how stuffed-up he sounded. Odh comba'd?

"No, I'll help. Here y'are." John pointed his handful of dust straight at Paul's face.

Paul's chest seized in fear. The thought of John blowing dust into his face again, at point-blank range this time, caused the itch to rear with a violent vengeance. He winced and pressed a finger to the underside of his nose, just to stem the pain, but there was no stopping it. It tore out of him, even as he tried to dampen it.

"kngxt-chh!"

"God bless ye, lad," John squawked, affecting an Irish brogue, just as George scoffed and said, "Ooh, batten down the hatches."

"Fuck off." Besides being a tosser, Paul decided, George was a liar as well. It didn't feel better to sneeze; not even a little bit. All it did was fill his head with sawdusty pressure and the blinding urge to do it again and again, as many times as it took to purge every single speck of dust right out of him. But while the desire was there, the reflex wasn't. Relief remained a distant dream. He sniffled, and that made everything worse. Fucking Christ, how long was it to showtime? They hadn't even gotten through one song.

John, seeming to read his thoughts, kicked Paul's foot. "Long Tall Sally?" He held his guitar ready.

Before Paul could respond, George said, "Wait." He blinked hard, his lip curling to bare his dagger eyeteeth. He was fighting, or maybe trying to bring on, a building sneeze. One hand hovered awkwardly, as if he couldn't decide whether to cover his face or warn the rest of them away. He looked so stupidly itchy it made Paul sniffle again. Couldn't he get on with it?

"Keep it in," John said, conspiratorial. "Try it." He pinched his nose, as if to say, Like this.

George copied the motion just in time to catch a sharp, rushing "hp'tsschhssew!"

Despite John's instructions, he certainly hadn't succeeded in holding it back. In fact, it sounded like he'd made a bit of a mess. Good, Paul thought. Now they could pile on George and leave him alone.

On cue, Richie tsked. John aimed for a more subtle, "The fuck was that?" which he paid for with a short bout of coughing.

"I think what they're trying to say is Bless you, George," Paul said virtuously. He could have batted his eyelashes. Only George would know it was a dig.

Sure enough, George's eyes flashed at him, lethal, from under his thick black brows. "Let's just get on with it," he said wetly.

"I think I'll sit this one out," Richie said, lifting his hands away from the drum-boxes.

Paul pressed his fist under his nose. The feeling that he might sneeze had begun creeping, feathering its way back into the passages of his sinuses. Every breath teased it a little more, but coyly. Just flirting. Delivering nothing. Apart from gallons of dust and probably enough mould to make him sick. They had to get through this. It was the only way out.

He realized the others were laughing at what Richie had said. "Good," he managed. "Fine." He wasn't going to sneeze, he resolved as he picked up his guitar. And if, if he did, he could stifle it down to nothing. Almost nothing. Better than George, anyway. Hell. Better than John. It wasn't that hard.

John caught his eye, looking for the count-in, but his eyes suddenly flew open in alarm, focusing just over Paul's shoulder. "Fuckin'ell," he spat, a spasm of terror.

Paul whipped around and immediately yelped. On the wall behind him sat the biggest spider he'd ever seen, splayed angrily inches from his face. The architect of the cobwebs, most likely, come to see the source of all the racket. Paul leapt into the air and staggered backward with his guitar still on. He tripped over John, who had also sprung to his feet, and the two of them crashed into a stack of boxes. Somewhere among the cacophony of guitars, boxes, and bodies falling was the booming THUD of Richie's shoe hitting the wall to rain swift death upon the spider.

A rockslide of toppled boxes separated George from where John and Paul lay on the ground amidst the clutter. Richie stood over them, panting, holding his shoe.

The quantity of dust that now floated through the air, dislodged by the fall, was unspeakable. Obscene. It quickly filled the small space like the aftermath of an explosion. Most of it right up their noses.

Paul threw off his guitar and clapped both hands over his mouth and nose. He didn't even have time to swear before a fit of sneezes took him over. They emptied his lungs, but he couldn't stop them coming out in short, tight bursts. "ah-nkxtschhu! --eh'khtsch! -kttch!" Finally, he managed to gulp in a huge, wheezing breath that promised many, many more.

In the moment's pause, he felt John convulse under him as he, too, sneezed over and over. At first, he valiantly held them in, but they soon got away from him. It was just too much.

We're going to die in here, Paul thought. And he sneezed.

"huH'TSCHew!"

"j'Ehshh!" John echoed him.

We're going to bloody suffocate under a blanket of dust. And miss our show.

"George--" someone gasped in between sneezes, probably Richie, "th' door..."

Paul heard the sound of a door handle rattling, and light hit his eyelids. In a half-blind haze, they all scrambled out of the closet and into the hallway, an eight-legged coughing, sneezing mess.

A woman's voice yelped in surprise. Her high heels clop-clopped down the corridor away from them. God, the fucking state of them. Paul was on all fours on the floor, feeling tears spill over his eyelashes. But he really couldn't stop.

"hH'TCHOO! huH'Tchhoo!"

Someone pulled him off his hands and knees, helped him to his feet, led him a few steps away. Without looking, he knew it was John. Paul yanked his collar up over his nose-- it was starting to drip. John didn't need to see that.

When Paul opened his eyes, they were in the lav. George and Richie leaned against the wall, blowing their noses on wads of loo paper.

"Here," said John.

Paul muffled a rather productive sneeze into his collar and opened his eyes. John was holding a fistful of crumpled paper to his nose, and offering another pile to Paul.

He snatched it with a barely audible Thanks and spun around to clear out his head into it. With the first heavy exhale, the pressure thinned and then lifted, leaving him dizzy with relief. He groaned indulgently and blew again, hard, pressing his left and right nostril by turns. It made him so lightheaded he thought he was going to fall over. He didn't care. It was over.

Well, not quite over. They were all still twitching with the occasional soft sneeze, but compared to earlier, this was nothing.

When Paul turned back to face the others, swiping gingerly at his nose, John turned on the cold tap and nodded him over. "Wash some of it off," he said.

John was a right sight, Paul thought. Weepy eyes, bright red nose, dusty streaks across his black suit where he'd knocked against the boxes. Paul would take the mick out of him later. He cupped his hands to fill them with cool water and splashed his face. The shock made him gasp and shiver, but he kept rinsing until his face no longer felt hot and swollen. It was a sweet balm. So help him God, he was never going to offer to dust Jane's flat again as long as he lived. He patted his face dry with a paper towel.

"Better?" Richie asked.

Paul's eyes darted down. "Yeah." He gave a small smile, but it was more uncomfortable than happy. He didn't see the need to raise such a fuss. He wasn't anyone's kid brother. Still, he tried to ignore the fact that it'd seemed to hit him the hardest of the group.

"What the devil do you think you're playing at?"

They all turned to the door. It was Brian, slightly out of breath with sweat gathering at his hairline and a few curls out of place, like he'd gotten there in a hurry.

He didn't look happy.

"Your rehearsal space was shit," said John. His voice was a little stuffy, but the meaning came through quite clearly.

Brian stormed in to stand directly in front of John. "I had complaints from three different departments. Do you think this venue was easy to secure? I leave you alone for..." His gaze shifted over to Paul, and his head swiveled in an almost comical double take. "What happened to you?" he asked, his tone suddenly fraught with worry.

"'M fine," Paul quickly said. He wasn't remotely prepared for Brian to prod shaking fingers along his throat, as though feeling his pulse.

Paul's heart began to race. "What-- what are you doing?" Brian looked like he'd seen a corpse.

"He's all broken-out," George said matter-of-factly, gesturing at Paul's neck. They had gathered around him in a half-circle next to Brian.

Paul's heart jumped into his throat. "Where?" he demanded, but Brian merely asked, "Does your throat feel tight? Or can you breathe all right?"

"Um..." Paul swallowed and drew a breath in, let it out. Combined with nerves, it made his head spin. "No, it's, 's fine, um, what's going on?"

Brian turned him by the shoulders to face the mirror.

Paul's stomach turned over. He looked terrible. His puffy eyes and tender-red nose were bad enough, but more alarming still were the bright pink splotches that colored his neck, from his collar to his jaw.

"You have a bit of a rash," said Brian.

Paul stared at his reflection in disbelief and confused fear, brushing his fingertips over his neck. It felt smooth, even though it looked like welts; angry and mottled, febrile. As he did so, he realized there were patches on his hands, too. What was happening to him?

John squinted at the mirror. "Is it bad?"

Just then, Paul felt a stray sneeze trying to work its way to the surface. Painfully aware that everyone was examining his reflection, he pushed a knuckle against the side of his nose, hoping to at least slow it down. It didn't work.

"I don't think so," Brian said, "as long as it doesn't hurt, Paul, and you can breathe."

In answer, Paul gave an unsatisfying "hh'TsCHew!" against his curled fist. It was clean, at least, thank fuck. But now they were all staring at him with twice as much mixed pity and disgust.

"Is it an allergic reaction?" Brian asked, giving Paul's neck a final, probing touch.

"I don't think--" Paul began. "I mean, I've never..."

"That's probably what it is, you know," Richie said sensibly, taking a step back. "All the dust." Blessedly, the others melted away from Paul's side, as if on Richie's signal.

"Yeah, that little closet was dead grotty," said George, sounding personally wronged. "We're lucky to have got out with our lives."

Brian sighed and rubbed his brow. "Well. I'm very sorry about that. Truly. It was the best I could do."

John wasn't impressed. "How much is the insurance policy he's got out on us, d'you think?"

Brian ignored him and turned to leave. "I'm going to find you an antihistamine," he told Paul. "Is it possible for you all to just..." He made a futile gesture with his splayed hand. "...stay put for a moment?"

As soon as Brian shut the door, John gave Paul a shove and hissed, "Fucker."

"Ow!" On pure muscle memory, Paul shoved him back. "The fuck was that for?"

"You knocked over the boxes."

"Because I tripped over you!"

"No, it was your fault," George said lazily, making them both turn. He was addressing Richie. "Knocking all the dust out of those boxes."

Richie pointed out that George had shut them up inside in the first place, and Paul and John took sides. They were still bickering when Brian returned with a little white pill for Paul, which John pretended was an upper and tried to steal. By the time Paul swallowed it, it was nearly showtime.

It almost went off without a hitch.

Transcript: PAUL: Um...the next song...the next song we'd like to do, is one...which was, originally recorded by...a person who's a very good favorite of ours, Little Richard...This-- (sneezes) This song's called Long Tall Sally.

[kaiserkeller]

i don’t remember ever seeing a date for when klaus went to the kaiserkeller for the first time, but according to el país newspaper, it was 16 october 1960

#but they also said ‘his native hamburg’ which is very incorrect #he’s a berlin boy!!