Mike Williams is also known (musically, I think) as Sage of Quay, and runs a website by that name. He puts out videos, and since I have been traveling, suffering jet lag and that sort of thing, I’ve watched a few of them. They are quite long, and in my opinion, very good. I will link to some of them at the end, but not run them here.
Generally when someone does an “open letter”, get ready for a takedown. That is not my purpose. Mike does a few common themes which cause me to avoid him, such as the idea that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a person known as Billy Shears. He and I have been around the block on that, and I am not going to rehash, as it serves no purpose. The whole of the McCartney business was covered here in my post, Sir Faul. His side, my side, and a group that first performed on Ed Sullivan in 1962, 62 years ago!
I watched a Williams video on the making of Rubber Soul, and left it thinking Mike works very hard, is very thorough, and has exposed far more than I have. In it he explains that the Beatles had just come off tour, and had a limited time to put out a new album in time for release by Christmas. They take a well deserved vacation, and by their own admission, did not write any songs during that time.
Mike then goes on, and in great detail explains what it took at that time to release an album. Just one detail … the center sticker on an album of that era had on it a complete list of the songs on both sides, their order and time. They had to make an album cover. They had to press the vinyl and distribute the completed product to record stores in time for holiday shopping.
Mike concluded that it could not have been done, that it was an impossible mission. Here’s what he concludes happened: George Martin, the Beatles producer, had, while the boys were on tour, brought in a new group of songwriters, doing more sophisticated work. Studio musicians had laid down the instrumentation, so that when the boys returned to the studio after vacation, all they had to do was learn the melodies and lay down the vocal tracks.
Mike concludes that for Rubber Soul, they did not write the music nor play the instruments. I think he suggests this to be the case for all of their albums up to the White Album, where Billy Shears, Mike says, led them to make a real album. Some evidence to that effect: On the White Album, the number of takes for some of the songs was perhaps fifty or more (watch the video for better information).
In other work, Mike has traced the origins of Yesterday and Hey Jude to Italian sources. The sounds played on piano are eerily like the pieces supposedly penned by scrambled eggs-Paul.
That’s the kind of work Mike does, and why I don’t care if we don’t see eye-to-eye on other matters. He’s taken a long road trip on this stuff, where I have only gone on a short hike. I like his work and recommend it to everyone.
In the last video I watched, the first one listed below, Mike and his host talked about John Lennon and the tragic loss of his mother and absentee father, and how it might have affected him. This is another point on which he and I disagree. I say that Lennon was to the manor born, and by a different name, perhaps John Stanley, but I do not know. I’ll put up some evidence here.
John, after his mother Julia was struck by a car and killed in 1958, was then raised by his Aunt Mimi. The problem that I have with that is is that there is only one photo of the two of them together, and it is fake. I would have no problem if no photo existed, as photos were not as common in that era as now. But to fake a photo? I doubt Aunt Mimi had a photo dark room or the skills necessary to do that sort of work.
Notice Mimi’s right arm- it bends straight down and then bends unnaturally (compare the location of the elbow bend in the right arm to that of the left) and reaches out from that point out to cover Johns upper right arm to maybe half down. The problem is that her arm, when not embracing John, must have hung down to her knee with an elbow maybe six inches below the armpit.
That’s just sloppy darkroom work. Also notice the unnatural straight line of her dress on her left side. Maybe OK, as straight lines happen in photos. To me it looks to have been extended to cover something, Perhaps another child was snuggled up on that side and had to be brushed out.
Here’s another photo of John, a day at the beach.
I really have no problem with this photo, though it has appeared to me at times that there is a pair of feet between the cousin and the young boy on the left, who I take to be John. That would explain the dangling arm from the older man, but it could also be that he is trying to avoid burning his wife with his cigarette.
People have come to me to tell me who these people are, really. I am not convinced, really. This is a family group that includes a set of twins. I was pretty excited about this photo, as I happened upon it after discovery of the McCartney twins. It just never panned out.
What I take this to be is a friend or cousin (left), grandma. and grandpa, names unknown, the mother, and her twins in the foreground. They look too much alike, are dressed too much alike, to be just cousins. I’ve done facial work on them, but with kids you just don’t know how they will turn out. I’ve had no luck finding anything in grown Lennon to support the twins idea. I gave up.
I did find an interesting photo of Lennon with Yoko and Stu Sutcliffe, excuse me, I mean Andy Warhol. Sufcliffe faked his death in 1962 to serve as a destroyer of art and beauty. It was a large project run by CIA that used people such as Picasso, Jackson Pollack, and Warhol to remove substance from art, just as various successors to the Beatles such as heavy metal, grunge and hiphop have destroyed any musical value from rock and roll. In my view.
One more Lennon photo:
Said to be Lennon, and directly behind him a “boarder” at their home, the two look familiar, as if father and son. That would make this a family photo with John, his father and mother, and a big-headed dude who does not belong, whose shading is all wrong, who was pasted in the photo to block out the other guy, John’s twin brother. My guess.
The idea of Julia and John’s heartfelt song to her, after years of photo analysis, did not sit right. Is John a set of twins? I could never nail the landing. But as I regard it now, Julia was a literary device used to move John away from hs real family and into the realm of pop superstar fiction. She had to be removed after serving her literary purpose.
His father Arthur? A lifetime actor. Nothing more. They are all about in spook world.
Mike Williams on the PtPop Podcast: Cultural Marxism and Pop Culture
Sage of Quay Replay Doubleheader: Mike Williams on the Delingpole and Truthstream Podcosts
Piece of Mindful 
Mark, good post. I heard “You won’t see me” from Rubber Soul this week on the MIT radio show Lost and Found. I was struck by how slick it was, this was not the work of an amateur racing to finish his homework. In fact they admit he ripped off the Four Tops. How Paul would find the time to study Motown’s current trends while touring, dating, writing, acting, and performing in the studio is beyond me. Below is from wacky-pedia:
The verses use the same chord sequence as the Four Tops hit “It’s the same old song” which was titled by its writers, the Holland–Dozier–Holland team, in acknowledgement that they had already used the same pattern in their composition in acknowledgment that they had already used the same pattern in their composition in “I can’t help myself”.
Rubber Soul – Wikipedia
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Love that song You Won’t see
Me, especially Anne
Murray’s
Cover of it.
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On their fan club Xmas record for 1965 they start singing “It’s The Same Old Song” then 1 of them says “That’s copyrighted…”
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I wonder if anyone else sees the Lennon nose on Robert Carlisle from The Full Monty. Miles Mathis might be the one who says that relatives usually play the part of a famous person’s biopic such as Madonna as Evita and Carlisle as John Lennon in the movie I did not like surprisingly, titled Yesterday. Carlisle now plays a fictitious Prime Minister Sutherland on the PBS shown series COBRA-Cyberware. There are other known people who have the Lennon nose but I can’t recall them right now. Just a thought.
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on I
also saw the Lennon nose on Mike McGear, Macca’s fake brother. Mentioned it to MM, he quickly dismissed it.
Mike McGear,
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I wonder why Miles Mathis would dismiss this? Also actor William Devane of Knots Landing soap opera has the same nose. But they are well known folks not we peasants who might have the same nose. Also, I was about 6-7 years old in 64-65 when a photo and story about Mike McGear appeared I forget where but even then I thought he looked nothing like Paul and I remember his hair being shorter, with a side part and lighter color. More dishwater blonde. And, “gear” is Brit slang so they could just be messing with us on the name too. McGear’s bio says he was in a successful band at the same time the Beatles were famous, performing parody songs ala Monty Python and before Weird Al.
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Found it! It was buried two days back in Spam. While I am traveling (currently in Croatia) it is difficult to stay on top,of this stuff. Please be patient.
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I would not believe a word ever written about the Beatles private lives, as the Kennedys. They are far too important to be left to chance. Absolutely everything has to have been scripted, and ever will be. With the Beatles, we are talking about a Trillion-dollar industry. And the main purpose of the Beatles was to be a Tavistock based infiltration of Western culture, a search a destroy mission. And the results have been quite successful. Almost no one I know suspects the Beatles are an MI6/CIA vanguard of bad musicians disguised as high culture (they are often compared to Beethoven and Mozart!!)
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And if you don’t believe me, read what Quincy Jones, 79 time Grammy nominee said about the Beatles:
Are the Beatles “The Worst Musicans”? Quincy Jones Thinks So (americansongwriter.com)
So Quincy, what do you really think? Jones, who spent time working with individual members of the group, once called them “No-playing motherf****ers” and “The worst musicians in the world.”
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I hope comment makes it through
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My third comment but I recently learned that the saying isn’t ’to the manor born’ but ‘to the manner born.’ That makes sense but I still like manor better.
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I’ll give the comment trap a look. Sorry for your troubles.
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Mark, I’m not a specialist in photography or art, but I agree with you that first photo is fake.
For my money, Aunt Mimi has been pasted into the scene in front of the house with young John. The lighting on her is noticeably harsher, as if the sun was shining down more powerfully on her than on her surroundings.
Also, if you look at their necks, noses and chins, the patterns of light and shadow and the depth/darkness of the shadows are quite different. I know Lennon had a big konk, but this image couldn’t have been achieved without a bit of cutting and pasting in my opinion.
Your eye for this kind of thing is more developed than mine, so I am sure you can see a few more clues than I can.
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My immediate response to the “Boarder” picture was that some one closely related to Benedict Cumberbatch is the fellow pasted in on the viewer’s left.
BC is related to the capstone level peers*, no surprise, but back in 2012 he was signed to play Brian Epstein in a biopic that never happened. A new film about Epstein was released this year featuring a cast of nobodies for the most part.
*BC is a Stanley
https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-chart.php?name=9339+james+madison&kin=74128+benedict+cumberbatch&via=21720+thomas+stanley
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Comment still not getting through
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OK.
I didn’t read this until just now; thought it might be another re-hash.
This bugged me: “…just as various successors to the Beatles such as heavy metal, grunge and hiphop have destroyed any musical value from rock and roll.”
Of course, I see the “In my view,” but “destroyed” is awful strong, and a blanket critique to boot.
No.
I don’t give a shit who wrote the Beatles music other then for factual information, and evidence to “Tavistock”. I HATE that we are so often lied to but I thoroughly enjoy a lot of the music credited to the Beatles – especially, but not only, The Long and Winding Road. It pains me that George, spiritual George LIED… straight up fucking LIED. As an aside, do you think that he wrote My Sweet Lord (All Things Must Pass)?
Back to the first quote… “heavy metal”. I have a large appreciation for music – although I have often criticized CW & Rap – simplistic SHIT, in my view. I will mention just one that I believe is considered “heavy metal”: Black Sabbath; Paranoid by album. These guys are not dummies, and they are accomplished musicians. READ the lyrics to War Pigs… shit, read the lyrics to ALL the songs on that album. LOUD and POWERFUL… ANGRY – rightfully so. Fucking Ozzie and the boys… FANTASTIC there.
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Bravo applause!! Black Sabbath, I can’t find words enough to praise them. I purchased the re-pressings of the first four albums several years ago by Warner Brothers: Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Masters of Reality, and Vol. 4. It is elemental music, not sure else how to categorize it. Extremely under-rated. Myself, a crack spectroscopist (Chemist), who deals with signal to noise and tuning instruments for maximum efficiency for a living, I will vouch that these albums were mastered by a serious musical craftsman. There is nearly zero distortion at very high volumes. The record was pressed at low gain, I believe so that serious audiophiles like myself can turn the amplifier power way up and get virtually live sound.
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I agree DSK, the first 4 Sabbath albums are absolute classics, unlike rap, grime, techno, and hip-hop crap, which are crimes against music.
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Mono Inc are a German symphony metal band, which I’ve posted by accident by the way, but shows one of modern metal’s new subgenres.
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I am the Wizard (the lyrics to Black Sabbath song), seriously:
The WizardSong by
Black Sabbath
Misty morning, clouds in the sky
Without warning, the wizard walks by
Casting his shadow, weaving his spell
Long grey cloak, tinkling bell
Never talking
Just keeps walking
Cursing his magic
Evil power disappears
Demons worry when the wizard is near
He turns tears into joy
Everyone’s happy when the wizard walks by
Never talking
Just keeps walking
Spreading his magic
Sun is shining, clouds have gone by
All the people give a happy sigh
He has passed by, giving his sign
Left all the people feeling so fine
Never talking
Just keeps walking
Spreading his magic
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My iPhone is 75% classical, supplemented by Simon and G, Glen Campbell, the Carpenters, Pink Floyd … in other words, criminally pedestrian musical taste. Take no offense.
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And if I bash on the Beatles, it is the lying about who wrote the songs, and how supposedly good they were as musicians. There is no denying that many of their songs are serious, exceptional compositions. My disdain is that they took four shrimpy shlubs with a modicum of charisma and turned them into the “Beetles”, excuse me I mean the “Beatles”- an infestation. A thought crossed my mind recently – why do nearly all rock bands go by non-sensical, stupid, random names? Could it be an intentional dumbing down of music? Why call a group after a misspelling of a nasty insect that is known for eating rot and dung?
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I’d like to hear more opinions on George Harrison. Not much is said except above that he lied. Can everyone tell me more about your take on him please? Whatever you’ve uncovered or feel. Thanks!
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In 1976 “My Sweet Lord” was at the center of a copyright infringement suit. A United States District Court found that George Harrison had “subconsciously” copied “He’s So Fine” the hit song from the early 60’s by the “Chiffons”. Plagiarism.
So they admit George did not write the music for that song. Maybe this was a ritual George had to go through for being so heavily promoted during the Beatles years? He had to take a black eye this time! Who knows?
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Something I vaguely remember reading or hearing, that Lennon or someone had warned him not to do that. As if GH knew in advance and thought he could pull it off being a Beatle.
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A bit off topic but someone was saying, maybe the Mag said it that Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, stepped out of line according to TPTB and they got put in their place. Any thoughts on P. Diddy in the same vein?
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Also off topic, who is “the Mag”? Humor me in my ignorance.
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The Mag says Ellen Degeneres is a man playing a lesbian
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NC posted an article on the political implications of MMT, a topic which Mark has written about occasionally –
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/why-is-modern-monetary-theory-so-important.html
Useful because most discussions focus on explaining MMT itself and debunking orthodox schools of economic thought. Good discussion in the comments too.
Essentially the author says that an understanding of MMT would shift power from the bankers and bond markets to “our democratic governments” (lol). So that “we” could decide where to direct money and resources, and where to withdraw them. Reinforces my sense that the promotion of MMT, though probably more accurate than conventional theories, and valuable for anyone interested in “the truth,” is also some kind of trojan horse, long term plan by social planners trying to implement ambitious techno managerialist schemes. Which may be sold under a utopian banner but likely aren’t in practice.
It’s maybe a bit of “the devil you know..” Rule by bankers and financiers may be bad, but they’re relatively old-fashioned tyrants. They’re simpletons in a way, mono-focused on their own power and accumulation. While technocrats want to micromanage everyone else, and have thorough, obsessive schemes for doing so.
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He has a YouTube channel that is current but goes way back. He’s Jamaican and appears to be about 40ish and works out a lot. He’s an FE but you don’t have to watch his videos on that. He does voice-over on his videos about the vax, poisons in our food, water etc, Hollywood, fakes, men as women, many topics. He’s easier to find on Spotify because YT keeps taking down his channel etc. On YT you can still watch his videos just to get acquainted with his thinking.
His channel is called Mag Bitter Truth.
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