CLUB SANDWICH 72

            Do you ever connect with computer networks such as Internet? There's a brilliant McCartney/Beatles fan forum on there.
            from Lynn Schneider, San Carlos, CA, USA; Chris Fisher, Altoona, PA, USA

            No, I'm completely computer-less. I haven't a chip in my head...or on my shoulder.
            I've never got into computers, not even for music. In fact, I hate recording music with them. In the time that it can take an operator to load my bass guitar recording into the computer - as happened, for example, with 'Motor Of Love' - I could have played the thing 50 times. And as I'm a "performer" that's no good. I can't stand the waiting around.

            Over the last 30-plus years of your career is there one piece of criticism that really sticks out in your mind?
            from Christopher Clark, Nottingham, England

            Yes, too many pieces, actually, although I have to say that the most hurtful stuff came from John. It was like a mate betraying me. But I don't hold any grudges.
            There's been a lot of stuff in the newspapers. I remember one piece that was so bad that Linda wrote to the journalist and asked him how he could have written such cruel off-the-cuff comments. He wrote back saying "I never thought you'd read that..."
            The saving grace in at all, though, is that not one of the great artists, painters, ever got a good review in his lifetime. Van Gogh never sold a picture during his life, not even to his brother who was an art dealer. Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring was booed off the stage. Mozart was criticised - "too many notes". And these are the greats, whether you like it or not.
            So I take a philosophical attitude and, ultimately, conclude that, in a way, criticism suggests that I'm better than "they" think!

            The book about the Beatles' recording sessions says that you recorded a demo of a song called 'Etcetera' during the "White Album" era. Whatever happened to it?
            from John Bezzini, East Hartford, CT, USA

            I offered it to Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger, who were looking for a song for Marianne to record, but it wasn't what she wanted. I think she was looking for an 'Eleanor Rigby' and instead I offered her an 'Etcetera'. I've got a lot of those silly little songs - they can't all work out well, and sometimes when people ask me for one I'll pull out one of those.

            Would you have bothered to pick up the bass if it hadn't been for the departure from the Beatles of Stuart Sutcliffe? And do you think that all these years of playing the bass has hindered your development as a guitarist?
            from Fred Young, London, Ontario, Canada

            I doubt I would have picked up the bass if Stuart hadn't left. We always considered it "the fat guy's instrument", the instrument played by the man standing at the back, and I liked the idea of being more at the front.
            I certainly didn't start playing the bass by choice; in fact, when the guitar that I first took to Hamburg - a Rosetti Lucky 7 - broke, I played the piano. It was only when Stuart left that I got lumbered with the bass. Any of those stories about me ousting Stuart to get the bass position in the Beatles are completely false. Even though Stuart and I did argue from time to time, because I felt that he was holding the group back, musically - I, of course, was very ambitious, very young and very keen that the Beatles should not to unnoticed - it was never that bad and we always ended up being good friends.
            I suppose that if I had been playing the guitar all the time, instead of the bass, I'd be a better lead guitar player now, but off duty, as it were, I play guitar anyway - I don't sit around playing bass because it's not as good an accompaniment as a guitar. And I always use a guitar, or a piano, when I'm writing, not the bass.
            But as you've only got one life (or have you?) I'm quite happy to have played bass. And, in a funny way, I suppose I've played lead guitar through the bass, in that I've become very melodic with it.

            Do you have any contact with Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys)?
            from Ian Craig, Nottingham, England

            No, but I am a great admirer of his work.

            Every major artist these days is putting out beautifully produced and designed boxed set retrospectives of their career, using original masters, greatest hits, unreleased recordings and other rarities, and packing a booklet with loads of information and photos. Have you considered doing this? (You should consider CD-ROM too. The scope is awesome.)
            from Stuart Black, Cranford, NJ, USA; Barry Hyams, Yeovil, England; Stephen Kershaw, Solihull, England

            For the Beatles there'll be the Anthology, but for me, solo, I haven't considered it yet. And we do know about CD-ROM but still the answer is: not yet.