Flash­back to 1966. The Bea­t­les hold a press con­fer­ence in LA, on the eve of their very last live con­cert. As you’ll see, the ques­tions range from the friv­o­lous (“What do you think of Amer­i­can wom­en’s legs?”) to the more seri­ous (“Do you real­ly think you’re more pop­u­lar than God?” Or, “What would hap­pen if you came to an event with­out an armored truck and with­out police?”). A brief glimpse into a day in the life of a Bea­t­le. Part 1 is above. Part 2 is here. And Part 3, here.

It was 40 years ago today — August 15 to August 18, 1969.

One month you’re the gov­er­nor of Illi­nois; the next you’re indict­ed and kicked out of office for try­ing to sell Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s Sen­ate seat; and sev­er­al months lat­er, you wind up imi­tat­ing Elvis at block par­ties. Oh how the mighty have fall­en. The mon­ey moment comes 50 sec­onds in. Have a good week­end. Back to seri­ous stuff next week.

Les Paul, the gui­tar mas­ter and inven­tor, passed away today at the age of 94. The clip above shows Paul at 90, just a few years ago, liv­ing a still vig­or­ous life. He’ll be missed.

In hon­or of the 40th anniver­sary of the Wood­stock Fes­ti­val, we have Jimi Hen­drix play­ing the U.S. nation­al anthem. It’s not your usu­al anthem. Nope, this is the anthem played dis­so­nant­ly in a new counter-cul­ture style, the anthem turned into a blis­ter­ing com­men­tary on the Viet­nam War. No doubt, con­ser­v­a­tives and the silent major­i­ty did­n’t like it. But, like it or not, it remains one of the mem­o­rable rock state­ments of the 60s. For more Hen­drix at Wood­stock, check out here, here, and here.

Oliv­er Sacks, the famous neu­rol­o­gist and author of Musi­cophil­ia, a study that looks at the human brain and music, speaks in Harpers about the land­scape alter­ing iPod:

As Daniel Lev­itin has point­ed out, pas­sive lis­ten­ing has large­ly replaced active music-mak­ing. Now that we can lis­ten to any­thing we like on our iPods, we have less moti­va­tion to go to con­certs or church­es or syn­a­gogues, less occa­sion to sing togeth­er. This is unfor­tu­nate, because music-mak­ing engages much more of our brains than sim­ply lis­ten­ing. Part­ly for this rea­son, to cel­e­brate my 75th birth­day last year, I start­ed tak­ing piano lessons (after a gap of more than six­ty years). I still have my iPod (it con­tains the com­plete works of Bach), but I also need to make music.

via The Dai­ly Dish