It was 40 years ago today...

(Well, give or take a year or so...)
What am I referring to? Well, perhaps I'm jumping ahead of things... or leaping way back... what am I saying? I dunno... Let me start again...

Our Out Of Bodies Holiday page, which features some Holiday music we've sent to each other throughout the years, has inspired an old friend of ours to send us a recording of his own... Art & Design schoolmate Hector Noel sent along this nice little rendition of him playing John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)"...

 Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - Hector Noel

He wrote of it...

"...me playing Lennon - you kinda inspired it because of the Out of Bodies and High School - we were Sgt Pepper!"

With a Little Help From My Friends...

Wow! Yes, I guess we were...
...my recollections are a little sketchy about this - but as I recall, at some point Hector brought in this amazing hand-made Sgt. Pepper's outfit that his grandmother had made for him! I mean, this beautiful, thoughtful grand ma-ma had made a beautiful, authentic looking Sgt. Pepper jacket with her own hands for her Beatles-obsessed grandson - how cool is that? Anyway, he brings it in to school - knowing full well that I too was a Beatles fanatic - and together somehow this sparked a desire for us to attempt our OWN re-creation of the Sgt. Pepper album cover, with US as the fab four!

Hector as Paul McCartney

He was going to be Paul (he kind of had the baby-face thing going, and after all, it was HIS suit) and I was going to be George (the hair, I guess) and two other classmates were going to be John and Ringo - although at the time neither of them knew it yet. Now, we only had ONE suit, so we were going to take turns wearing it - and with the help of Dr Martin inks (remember, this was pre-Photoshop days!) we were going to hand color black n' white photographs accordingly. It was a BIG project (to say the least) that was going to incorporate photography and a lot of snipping, cutting and gluing - but in the end we were all going to have our own photo of the final Pepper cover for our own... it was an exciting endeavor...

Donald as George (with oh-so-fake mustache)

So Hector, who majored in Film Making, and who also was no doubt familiar with photography - took a series of photographs after one of our classes (probably photography) with and without cheesy glue-on mustaches that we hastily made for the shoot (which looked absolutely awful) - and we posed in positions that were sort of half-ass planned to be inserted with instruments we didn't own. We did have Hector's bass guitar though - and as he recently mentioned to me he also brought in a clarinet (which I don't remember at all) and he assures me that he still has the myth-busting photographs to prove it... lying somewhere underneath his house, stored in a Tupperware container. He promised he would fetch them, and when he told me this it was like hearing he had found the Holy Grail. I wrote him "don't let me wait too long - I am running around in circles!"

Let It Be...
Well, like a lot of plans back then - the Sgt Pepper cover project eventually fell apart. I don't know exactly WHY, but I think it had something to do with the guy we had planned on using as Ringo. Evidently, the guy we approached to be our Ringo was actually INSULTED that we thought he looked like Ringo! (Funny! And not to mention a little insulting to Ringo Starr, but true!) - - and I recall that he first said no, then okay (reluctantly) and then NO again - and that was it - we lost our Ringo.

The Ringo that got away.

Now John, I am drawing a blank on John. Who could've been our John? I do know that totally separate from this project I had taken some pics of Lloyd as John Lennon - but it was clearly a 1980 Double Fantasy John Lennon that we had snapped a few years after graduation.

Lloyd as John Lennon, circa 1980.

The Pepper project John - well, I can only assume that out of everyone I knew back then that had even an inkling of Lennon-esque looks - Dan actually fit the bill. I'd have to ask him. Come to think of it, yes... I think it was Dan.

We had Dan in mind for John.

...and in The End...
So there goes the story of the Sgt Pepper remake cover that never happened. This story actually belongs in Ponderings... perhaps if I get around to it, I will add it there. And just maybe Hector will get around to crawling under his house and finding that Tupperware of pictures - so that I can assure myself that it actually happened - and that it wasn't all just a fever dream I had once. And yes, you'd think that the few pics I have myself that I posted here would be proof enough - well, according to Hector almost anything can be faked... just ask him about the Twin Towers, he'll tell you. Wait, on second thought don't do that...
...please don't...

Wait a second... I thought Hector was supposed to be Paul!

to be continued...

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Merry Christmas from the Out of Bodies!

What would Christmas be without some cheesy holiday music?

Enjoy some tunes from us to you and yours!

Click HERE to go to our Christmas page!

^^^