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Quoted from raxo

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/carnival.htm

"Carnival of Light"
The history of the Beatles' most mysterious unreleased track

"The now famous Abbey Road studio tour in 1983 and the Anthology series that was finally realized in 1995 has allowed the public at large to hear unreleased Beatles studio material.
But there is an additional unreleased track that was given its world premiere during a two-day event -- when it could have been heard by anyone present -- and has not been heard since. It's the 1967 track, "Carnival of Light," perhaps the Beatles' most significant experiment in the avant-garde.

The track was created for "The Carnival of Light Rave," an event held at the Roundhouse Theater Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, 1967, and promoted by underground designers Binder, Edwards and Vaughan, who had been hired by Paul McCartney to decorate one of his pianos (similar to the decorated piano seen on Paul's '89 tour).

The trio invited Paul to create a track for the event. Although John's avant-garde's work with Yoko is well-known, McCartney had experimented with avant-garde music also, and it was McCartney who instigated the recording session for the track.

It was recorded on Jan. 5, 1967 during a five-hour session that also included vocal overdubs for the then-unreleased "Penny Lane."

According to descriptions of the session from Record Collector magazine and by Mark Lewisohn, the four-track recording begins with track one as basic drums and organ rhythm backing and track two as sound effects and distorted guitar.

Track three consisted of John and Paul screaming like "demented old women", according to one account, with John crying "Barcelona!" while Paul screams, "Are you alright?," with added whistling and water gargling. Track four had more sound effects, tambourine shaking and tape echo. The track ended with Paul shouting, "Can we hear it back now?"

The 13-minute, 48-second track was mixed down to mono and a copy was given to Binder, Edwards and Vaughan. It was used for this one event and hasn't been heard in public since. Those attending reportedly thought it was an excellent piece of '60s avant-garde music, but Beatles producer George Martin felt it was a waste of time.

"This is ridiculous. We've got to get our teeth into something a little more constructive," Martin told Geoff Emerick during the recording session.

They did, and in very short order. The next day, they went back to work on "Penny Lane."

UPDATE: The August '96 issue of MOJO says that Paul McCartney is considering releasing "Carnival of Light" as the sound track to an experimental film he's making using images of the Beatles. The film would be similar to one he made about the Grateful Dead using Linda's photos.

UPDATE, April 2002: The Rockingvicar.com recently put up a short interview with Paul McCartney discussing this unreleased track. We reprint it here in its entirety by kind permission of The Rocking Vicar. Unique rock'n'roll stories emailed free every week. Autosubscribe at http://www.rockingvicar.com.

Exclusive! Lost Beatle Track Unearthed!
Deep-end Beatles obsessives like myself have lost a fair amount of sleep over the years fantasing about the possible existence of Carnival Of Light, the highly legendary "lost" Fabs outtake. Although no-one has ever heard it - it remains intruigingly unbootlegged - the song merits a fairly substantial footnote in Ian Macdonald's stupendous "Revolution In The Head" and was even logged in the Abbey Road session notes as having been taped in Studio 2 on January 5 1967, smack in the middle of several attempts to nail down Penny Lane. But no Beatle, to my knowledge, has ever gone on record to offer any official insight. Until now!

I was interviewing McCartney this week in his London office - where the album collection, incidentally, includes "The Vocal Selections Of Fats Domino" and the musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" - and was at that point of the encounter where you're almost being physically dragged out of the door as there's another interviewer waiting in the wings, and I decided to pop the all-important question. And managed to solicit the following for Rocking Vicar who, I rather suspect, are the sole community of individuals on God's earth who might be genuinely interested. Here follows what may well be the first parish world exclusive!

RockingVicar: Just one last question - "Carnival Of Light," does it actually exist?

Paul McCartney: It does exist, yeah. We recorded it in about fifteen minutes. It's very avant garde - as George would say 'avant garde a clue' - and George did not like it 'cos he doesn't like avant garde music .

RV: Who wrote it?

PM: It's officially me. I instigated it. No there's no lyrics, it's avant garde music. You would class it as ... well you wouldn't class it actually, but it would come in the Stockhausen/John Cage bracket ... John Cage would be the nearest . It's very free-form. Yeah man, it's the coolest piece of music since sliced bread!

RV: This is early '67?

PM: I was asked about '67 to do it by Barry Miles - you know, who did my book Many Years From Now - and he asked me to do it for this event at The Roundhouse called Carnival Of Light, so that's how it got its title. And he asked me to write a fifteen to twenty minute piece, and I was into that kind of thing, not on record with The Beatles, but just for that. I went into the studio and said to the guys, Look we've got half an hour before the session officially starts, would you mind terribly if I did this thing?

RV: So this is with the other Beatles?

PM: With the other Beatles. This is a Beatle record. And they all just fell in with the spirit of it and I just said, Would you go on that and would you stay on that and would you be on that and we'll just take twenty minutes to do it in real time? And they all just got into it.

RV: Why don't you release it?

PM: I actually have a project I would like ... I'm involved ... One of the many things I did, I did a thing called The Grateful Dead Photo Film, using Linda's snapshots and making them move, dissolving between them and making them into a film, a short art film, which I showed at festivals and things. And I'm actually in the process - although everything else and its uncle is holding it up - but I've got a Beatles photo film on the go and I would love to use it as part of the soundtrack of that.

RV: There was a rumour it was going to come out on Anthology. What happened with that?

PM: It was up for consideration on The Anthology and George vetoed it. He didn't like it. Maybe its time hadn't come.

Update (3/16/04) Here's a very interesting email we received out of the blue. Just call it "another clue for you all." It was sent by Dudley Edwards:

To put the record straight...

I am the 'Edwards' of Binder Edwards & Vaughan who were responsible for staging 'The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave' otherwise known as the 'Carnival of Light' that you refer to.

The avant-garde track you refer to did not contain a version of 'Penny Lane' but Paul singing 'Fixing a Hole' on the piano. The tape was taken to America by one Ray Anderson (who was brought over from the States to assist us with the light show). I have no knowledge of what happened to it after that.

Paul's electronic experiments were played along with tapes from 'Unit Delta Plus' an offshoot of the BBCs Radiophonic workshop. Regards,
Dudley.

Sources: "The Beatles Recording Sessions" by Mark Lewisohn
Record Collector magazine, June '93 issue
"Paul McCartney: From Liverpool to Let It Be" by Howard A. DeWitt"

from here: http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/carnival.htm

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Carnal Of Light Poster

"Carnival of Light
Song by The Beatles
Released Unreleased
Recorded January 5, 1967
Genre Psychedelic Rock/Musique concrete/Experimental music
Length 13:48
Writer(s) Lennon/McCartney
Producer(s) George Martin

"Carnival of Light" is an unreleased experimental piece by The Beatles. It was recorded on January 5, 1967, after the vocal overdubbing sessions for Penny Lane; a single recorded during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The track was created for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, an event held at the Roundhouse Theatre on January 28 and February 4, 1967. Some people claim that it was around thirteen minutes, and Paul McCartney himself said it was around fifteen minutes (In the book The Complete Beatles Chronicle it's listed has being 13 minutes and 48 seconds).

History
The genesis of the track came in December 1966 from designer David Vaughan (part of the designer trio Binder, Edwards & Vaughan), who had recently painted a psychedelic design on a piano owned by Paul McCartney. About the same time as he delivered the piano to Paul�s Cavendish Avenue address he asked if he would contribute a musical piece for the upcoming The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave. To Vaughan�s surprise Paul agreed to make a contribution.

The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave
The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave (which is sometimes referred to as The Carnival of Light Rave) was an art festival which was organised by Binder, Edwards & Vaughan as a showcase for electronic music and light shows. It was held at the Chalk Farm Road Roundhouse Theatre and featured on the bill not only a public playing of 'Carnival of Light' but performances by Unit Delta Plus, whose members included early electronic music pioneers Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and fellow electronic artist Peter Zinovieff.

The Recording
Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn, who listened to the song in 1987 while compiling his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions says the song included:

"distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds, a distrorted lead guitar, the sound of a church organ, various effects (water gargling was one) and, perhaps most intimidating of all John (Lennon) and Paul screaming dementedly and bawling aloud random phrases like "Are you alright?" and "Barcelona!"

Another person who has had the privilege of hearing this track is the writer of the official Paul McCartney biography: Barry Miles. In his book Many Years From Now he describes the song has having �no rhythm, although a beat is sometimes established for a few bars by the percussion or a rhythmic pounding piano. There is no melody, although snatches of a tune sometimes threaten to break through.�

The basic bed track of an organ playing bass notes and drums were recorded at a slow speed giving them a deeper sound. There is also a huge amount of reverb used on the instruments and vocals of John and Paul (the only two voices on the track), who also recorded Indian war cries, whistling, close-miked gasping, genuine coughing and fragments of studio conversation. Other overdubs to the song include bursts of guitar feedback, schmaltzy cinema organ, snatches of jangling pub piano and electronic feedback with John shouting 'Electricity!' The track concludes with McCartney asking the studio engineer in an echo soaked voice "Can we hear it back now?".

Also, according to Barry Miles, musically it "...resembles "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" from Frank Zappa 's Freak Out! album, except there is no rhythm and the music...is more fragmented, abstract and serious."

Dudley Edwards (one of the organizers of The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave and friend of Paul McCartney's) also said that an early take of "Fixing a Hole" (from Sgt. Pepper's) with a piano appeared during the song. This is unlikely since recording of "Fixing a Hole" did not commence until February 9th, 5 days after the last The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, However McCartney could have played a few bars of the song on the track.

The Mix
Although Lewisohn's book says that a rough mono mix was given to Vaughan, Miles claims that the mix down �was made with full stereo separation, and is an exercise in musical layers and textures�. Whether a second mix was made after the event or Vaughan was in fact given a stereo mix which was not logged in Abbey Road�s records is unknown. Edwards has said the tape was taken to America by one Ray Anderson (who was brought over from the States to assist with the light show). The master session tapes of Carnival are still at Abbey Road Studios.

Unreleased
"Carnival of Light" has not yet appeared on any release, be it official or a bootleg recording. However, a minute-long track claimed to be an excerpt from the song containing backwards, sped up electric guitar noises has appeared on various filesharing networks.

McCartney has claimed he is working on a photo collage film of the Beatles that uses Carnival of Light in the soundtrack, but this was on an interview back in 1996 and nothing has come of it yet. He had tried to release it on Anthology 2, but George Harrison rejected it because, according to McCartney, "he didn't like avant garde music." This, according to some, explains why the instrumental backings of "Eleanor Rigby" and "Within You Without You" appear on Anthology 2 instead."

from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Of_Light

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Barry Miles
PAUL MCCARTNEY
MANY YEARS FROM NOW

CHAPTER EIGHT
SERGEANT PEPPER

"[...] Paul wrote 'Penny Lane' in the music room at Cavendish Avenue, on the piano which had recently been painted with its psychedelic rainbow by David Vaughan. In December 1966, about the same time as he delivered the piano, Vaughan asked Paul if he would contribute some music for a couple of Carnival of Light Raves that Binder, Edwards and Vaughan were promoting at the Roundhouse as part of their idea of bringing art to the community, in this case in the form of light shows, experimental music and films. David: 'I asked Paul to do it and I thought he would make more of it than he did, I thought this was a vehicle for him, if anything was. My trouble is, I expect everybody to drop everything. I forget other people have got things on.'

Amazingly, perhaps, Paul agreed to make a contribution, despite being in the middle of the recording sessions for Sgt. Pepper. So it was that on 5 January, after overdubbing a vocal on 'Penny Lane', the Beatles under Paul's direction freaked out at Abbey Road, producing an experimental tape just under fourteen minutes long. The tape has no rhythm, though a beat is sometimes established for a few bars by the percussion or a rhythmic pounding on the piano. There is no melody, though snatches of a tune sometimes threaten to break through. The Beatles make literally random sounds, although they sometimes respond to each other; for instance, a burst of organ notes answered by a rattle of percussion. The basic track was recorded slow so that some of the drums and organ were very deep and sonorous, like the bass notes of a cathedral organ. Much of it is echoed and it is often hard to tell if you are listening to a slowed-down cymbal or a tubular bell. John and Paul yell with massive amounts of reverb on their voices, there are Indian war cries, whistling, close-miked gasping, genuine coughing and fragments of studio conversation, ending with Paul asking, with echo, 'Can we hear it back now?' The tape was obviously overdubbed and has bursts of feedback guitar, schmaltzy cinema organ, snatches of jangling pub piano, some unpleasant electronic feedback and John yelling, 'Electricity.' There is a great deal of percussion throughout, again much of it overdubbed. The tape was made with full stereo separation, and is essentially an exercise in musical layers and textures. It most resembles 'The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet', the twelve-minute final track on Frank Zappa's Freak Out! album, except there is no rhythm and the music here is more fragmented, abstract and serious. The deep organ notes at the beginning of the piece set the tone as slow and contemplative.

DAVID: That organ is exactly how I used to see him. I used to picture him as a maniac from the seventeenth century: one of those brilliant composers who'd suddenly been reincarnated into this century, let loose with modern technology. A lot of people thought Paul McCartney was shallow. I didn't see him as that at all, I saw him as very very deep. He had this open fire with a big settee in front of it, there would be no lights on, and he'd be playing music at top volume. I used to sit there watching him for hours. I think that's the real him; this real deep, dark ... I thought, Who knows what he could do if they'd leave him alone for a bit? Because he could absorb a lot without encountering any mental block, he could express that Machiavellian, Euro�pean horror. [...]"

from here: http://www.wingspan.ru/bookseng/myfn/bmiles08.html

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BARRY MILES
THE BEATLES DIARY VOLUME 1: THE BEATLES YEARS

"January 5, 1967

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Paul's vocal track on 'Penny Lane' was followed by a free-form, "Freak Out", The Beatles' only combined effort at producing "a bit of random". David Vaughan, of the design team Binder, Edwards and Vaughan, had asked Paul for some music for a sound and light rave to be held at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm. Paul obliged, and at 13 minutes, 14 seconds, produced the longest Beatles track ever completed. There was no rhythm track, just heavily echoed bursts of percussion, shouts and random bits of piano and guitar. George refused to allow it onto the Anthology series of CDs in 1996."

from here: http://www.wingspan.ru/bookseng/diary/m11_1967.html

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BILL HARRY
THE PAUL MCCARTNEY ENCYCLOPEDIA

"Carnival Of Light

A sound collage lasting 13 minutes and 48 seconds that Paul composed, making him the first member of the Beatles to conduct experiments in sound.

In 1966 Paul commissioned some 'underground' designers Binder, Edwards and Vaughan to decorate his piano in a psychedelic style.

The trio organised various events at 'underground' venues and asked Paul if he would compose a piece of experimental music for a forthcoming promotion of theirs at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, London, which they were to call the 'Carnival of Light Rave'.

Paul then booked Abbey Road on 5 January 1967 for a five-hour session to record his composition, initially completing some overdubs for the 'Penny Lane' track.

Recording the session on a four-track machine were George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick. The first track had the rhythm backing of drums and organ. Track two included distorted electronic guitar sounds. Track three included the sound of a church organ and John and Paul screaming, with Paul shouting, 'Are you alright?' and John shouting out 'Barcelona!' three times. Further mixed sounds were included on track four, along with the shaking of a tambourine.

George was to tell Emerick: 'This is ridiculous. We've got to get our teeth into something a little more comfortable.'

The composition was only played on 28 January and 4 February 1967 at the Roundhouse. In 1996 Paul suggested that he might use 'Carnival of Light' as background music to an experimental film in which he would use Beatles images in a similar way to that of his film of the Grateful Dead.

George Harrison vetoed 'Carnival Of Light' from appearing on the Beatles Anthology CDs.

In 1994, in tribute to Paul's composition, a British band, Ride, named their third album Carnival Of Light."

from here: http://www.wingspan.ru/bookseng/encyclopedia/c.html

(links that, -among others-, you can find in this topic too:
http://www.dmbeatles.com/forums/b-books/m-1163368675/

)

... 13.48 or 13.14, I don't mind, but I want to listen to it (at least once)!!!