Complete pages of John Lennon’s 1960 work visa (part 1)
Lennon’s visa covered the following dates of when the band played in Germany: Aug.17-Oct.3/1960 (Indra Club), Oct.4-Nov.30/1960 (The Kaiserkeller), Apr.1-Jul.1/1961 (Top Ten Club) and Apr.13-May31/1962 (Star-Club).
Although these documents are of a great find, page 10 of the papers is of more interest as it includes a passport photo of John Lennon, aged 19.
The photo may have been taken in Liverpool, an “extra” from the passport photo session or it may have been taken at a coin-operated photo-booth in Hamburg in mid-August, 1960. Either way, it’s “one of a kind”.
the beatles’ most popular clubs/haunts explained in a basic guide.
BEGINNINGS: LIVERPOOL
WOOLTON VILLAGE FETE
john lennon and the quarrymen played at the woolton village fete july 6, 1957. it was on this day that john was introduced to paul mccartney by john’s friend ivan vaughan after the performance, thus sparking a friendship.
“at woolton village fete i met him. i was a fat schoolboy, and as he reached an arm on my shoulder, i realized he was drunk. we were twelve then, but in spite of his sideboards, we went on to become teenage pals.” - paul mccartney, in his own write.
CASBAH CLUB
the casbah club was another liverpool music club which operated from 1959-1962 and was owned by mona best, pete best’s mother. the beatles first performed there 32 times from 1960 to 1962, the quarrymen previously playing there 7 times from august 29 to october 10, 1959. the casbah was the first club the beatles played several weeks after their return from their first germany trip in the midst of a career depression.
THE CAVERN
the cavern club, located on 10 mathew street, was a popular music club that marked the beginnings and some of the greatest achievements of the beatles as a band. they performed at the cavern first on february 21, 1961 as john lennon, paul mccartney, george harrison, pete best and stuart sutcliffe (until 1962) until ringo starr joined the lineup. the beatles went through multiple changes during their time performing at the cavern; they started as the silver beetles to the silver beatles, and eventually the beatles.
it was here that the beatles gained recognition by the most popular magazine in liverpool at the time, bill harry’s mersey beat magazine and by brian epstein - recommended by alistair taylor - who had a background in business at the time. brian epstein would watch the beatles perform november 9, 1961, when he decides that he would like to further be involved with the beatles:
“i was immediately struck by their music, their beat, and their sense of humour on stage—and, even afterwards, when i met them, i was struck again by their personal charm. and it was there that, really, it all started.” - brian epstein
the beatles performed at the cavern in between trips to hamburg, germany from 1961-1963. in total, the beatles performed approximately 155 lunchtime performances and 125 evening performances. rock and roll was only allowed at lunchtimes. It was here that pete best was switched out for ringo starr - then not known as ringo but by ritchie - august 15, 1962.
HAMBURG
“ i might have been born in liverpool - but i grew up in hamburg.”…
INDRA CLUB
the indra club was the first club the beatles had performed at upon arrival to hamburg, germany on august 17, 1960. the indra was the last music club on the große freiheit strip and the smallest. the beatles played long hours: up to 7 hours a night. speed/preludin/prellies begun to take influence in the beatles’ lives, as they would keep the beatles energized for the viciously tiring performances. their first residency was at this club at the end of the bambi kino theatre, in a storage room:
“we were put in this pigsty. we were living in a toilet, like right next to the ladies’ toilet. we’d go to bed late and be woken up next day by the sound of the cinema show and old german fraus pissing next door.” - john lennon, the beatles anthology
“the city of hamburg was brilliant; a big lake, and then the dirty part. the reeperbahn and grosse freiheit were the best thing we’d ever seen, clubs and neon lights everywhere and lots of restaurants and entertainment. it looked really good. there were seedy things about it, obviously, including some of the conditions we had to live in when we first got there. the Indra was at the far end of grosse freiheit, off the reeperbahn, the main club zone. the whole area was full of transvestites and prostitutes and gangsters, but i couldn’t say that they were the audience. hamburg was really like our apprenticeship, learning how to play in front of people.” - george harrison, the beatles anthology
their final performance under contract was october 3, 1960. they were then moved to the larger more popular kaiserkeller.
KAISERKELLER
the very next day after the beatles moved from the indra club, they played once again october 4th to november 30, 1960. here, stuart “stu” sutcliffe became involved romantically with astrid kirchherr, a photographer. this was the final club the beatles played during their first trip to hamburg as george harrison was deported for being underage, and paul and pete were arrested and soon deported for arson (they lit a condom on fire inside the club). stu decided to stay behind with astrid and john had no other choice but to leave for england.
klaus voormann’s depiction of the kaiserkeller
TRIP 2
TOP TEN CLUB
the beatles upon arrival back to hamburg, had residency at the top ten club on its second level and performed here from april 1 to july 31, 1961. this time around, they had undergone changes that molded their image from then on - they got their signature beatle hairstyle. in total, they played for 503 hours.
STAR-CLUB
their second hamburg (pt. 2) haunt was the star-club - right on the reeperbahn - across the street from the kaiserkeller. they played here april 13th to may 31, 1962 and again on november 1st to 14th and december 18 to 31, 1962.
“we came back to play the star-club, a big place and fantastic because it had a great sound system. this time we had a hotel. i remember it was quite a long walk from the club, at the top of the reeperbahn going back towards the city. we were there for a couple of months.” - george harrison
Top Ten Club Hamburg-Altona 136, Reeperbahn Germany
1st June
Dear Bob,
It’s just as well we have parents who attend the ‘rock’ shows at Liverpool, otherwise would never get to finding out what is going on at home! I know you are very fond of the sarcasm, so that is why [obscured*] ‘Wonderland by night’, approached us and said, saying “are you English,” to which we replied, replying, “only if you pay us 10 marks each!” We didn’t see him again! Another man came up and spoke, speaking, “I am Bert Kaempfert, play some original tunes please.” We then played some original tunes [♫♩♬?𝄞] Afterwards he said, “Those tunes were original, come to this address tomorrow, [giving us a card] and speak to Mr. Somebody or Other.” A few days later another man came to see us and said, saying “You can have a contract with ‘Polydor’ record company if you come and sign the contract on Monday.” So now Bob, you know the story how the BEATLES got a contract to make records [applause]. Bert Kaempfert is our producer or A&R man, and he has yet to decide what we are to do. He particularly liked one of our home-made instrumentals, which I think he intends us to record first, but we don’t know if it will be coupled with a vocal, or another able to get them at ‘Nems’. Who knows! Apart from that, nothing worth mentioning has happened, so I will close for now. Give all fans of ours, our regards, and we hope to be home the first week in July, if nothing else crops up. Also regards to:- Vick - Sam - Ray McFall - Brian Kelly - Rory + The Hurry-canes - Gerry + The Pacemakers - Big 3 - Dominoes - Seniors - Cliff Roberts - and that very special friend of MINE “HIS LORD JUSTICE FARON”. Hoping you are fighting fit, - try and write soon, all the best from George [Harrison] Beatle No. 3. [Excuse everything as I am very illiterate!]
This is a letter from George sent to Cavern DJ, Bob Wooler, dated the 1st June 1961. The letter was found in a lock up after Bob Wooler died and was some of the memorabilia bought by The Cavern Club. This replica is from the new Cavern 60th anniversary book which was sent to me (a little early!) by a good friend of mine who works for The Cavern. Quite out of the blue and quite aptly it arrived last Wednesday, the 29th November, a rough day every year for all George and Beatles fans - but it cheered me up a little bit to read the words of 18 year old George and how he describes himself as “Beatle No. 3″ - just another reason to love him oh so much.
* I couldn’t read this bit from the photos. I will check the original and edit later. EDIT: Still can’t read it. I think there’s a line in between which is illegible. EDIT2: The song mentioned is. ‘Wonderland by Night’ as that was Bert Kaempfert’s big hit - it knocked a Elvis single off the top spot in the US.
Please excuse the photos too, I will scan it properly when I have time later!
Pics of George at The Top Ten - Jurgen Vollmer, c. April 1961.
“I miss working with John because that was something very special and you know it’s very difficult to replicate that. In fact it’s almost impossible because we met each other as teenagers and went through a lot of life together: hitchhiking to Paris and holidays and working together and being in Hamburg together with The Beatles. So we were very intimate, we knew each other intimately as only teenage friends can.“
[Paul, A Conversation With Paul McCartney, [x] 10th June, 2016]
The Beatles at the Star Club, Hamburg, April - May, 1962.
Art by tragic former Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe (1940-1962). Image 3 is a self-portrait.
Sutcliffe left the band after their time in Hamburg to study art at the University of Fine Arts there, and became engaged to German photographer, Astrid Kirchherr, whom the group had met at the local Kaiserkeller club in 1960. A promising student, who studied under future pop artist Eduardo Paolozzi, Sutcliffe started to complain about headaches and acute sensitivity to light and died of an aneurysm on April 10, 1962, aged 21, never knowing how crazy famous his friends were about to become.
Before (a)social media, the web used to be social. Each and every Web 2.0 site used to offer its info pebbles also as an RSS feed. RSS (really simple syndication) is a standardized XML format (extensible markup language) that an RSS reader app can import and display. Some of this information infrastructure has survived and can be revived by the web app RSS Enterprise on this page.
The primary use case is Mastodon. But as it turns out, RSS feeds provided by BlueSky, tumblr, WordPress, SpeakerDeck, Pinterest, and Wordpress can also be displayed here. For Mastodon in specific, there are a few special features:
You can click Mastodon tags to load the tag’s content with RSS Enterprise. Try #SciFiEtiquette or #trendytoots
Discover more insights at the tag #RSSEnterprise itself.
You can click a Mastodon user to display her feed. Try @mprove or @chronohh
You can drag any RSS feed URL from any web page to the cover above and drop it into the river. This does also work for Mastodon users and hash tags, as well as for blogspot, pinterest, substack, and tumblr. Of course, you can always fiddle around with the address parameters in the URL.
(The menu command Edit > Paste of an RSS address is also possible, but less exciting.)
