The Drug That Helped Turn the Beatles into the World's Greatest Band
By Dan McQuade
Aug. 14 2014
The Beatles left Liverpool for Hamburg in August of 1960. By the end of the 39 weeks they played there on four trips from 1960 to December 1962, Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn estimates, the band played about 1,110 hours. On one trip to Germany, the band played 415 hours in 14 weeks.
That's a dream job for a bunch of teenagers. But it was still hard: The early Beatles' shows were raucous, and they didn't like to repeat themselves on stage. Lewisohn's new book -- Tune In, an engaging, detailed narrative of the Beatles from before birth to the eve of their big break in 1963 -- offers revelations as to what helped the band with this exhaustive work schedule: prellies, an upper that has since been removed from the market.
Officially known as phenmetrazine and sold under the name Predulin, the drug was popular in Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Prellies were especially easy to obtain in Hamburg's red light district, St. Pauli. Sold as a diet pill, prellies became the drug of choice for the Beatles and other bands looking to stay sharp and awake. Tony Sheridan -- whose "My Bonnie" features the Beatles as a backing band, the group's first recording -- helped introduce the Beatles to the drug in 1961, during their second trip to Hamburg. "Here's something to keep you awake," he reportedly told the group.
Old speed freaks wax nostalgic about prellies like they do every drug that's no longer around. It's "said by many old, old, incredibly old school speed freaks that phenmetrazine was a far superior drug to benzedrine or dexedrine," writes a user on drug discussion forum Bluelight (I cleaned up his spelling). A drug that metabolizes into phenmetrazine, phendimetrazine, is still available on the market. As Schedule III drug, it can be prescribed in the United States -- but it rarely is. As you can tell by the lack of a clever slang nickname for phendimetrazine, it's not very popular on the recreational market.
Continued http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music...the_beatles_into_the_worlds_greatest_band.php
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Thank god we worry more about content then cumbersome rules sometimes
.. Maybee Mr Mcquade would be good enough to edit in the posters handle.
I enjoyed the article.
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas A. Edison
By Dan McQuade
Aug. 14 2014
The Beatles left Liverpool for Hamburg in August of 1960. By the end of the 39 weeks they played there on four trips from 1960 to December 1962, Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn estimates, the band played about 1,110 hours. On one trip to Germany, the band played 415 hours in 14 weeks.
That's a dream job for a bunch of teenagers. But it was still hard: The early Beatles' shows were raucous, and they didn't like to repeat themselves on stage. Lewisohn's new book -- Tune In, an engaging, detailed narrative of the Beatles from before birth to the eve of their big break in 1963 -- offers revelations as to what helped the band with this exhaustive work schedule: prellies, an upper that has since been removed from the market.
Officially known as phenmetrazine and sold under the name Predulin, the drug was popular in Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Prellies were especially easy to obtain in Hamburg's red light district, St. Pauli. Sold as a diet pill, prellies became the drug of choice for the Beatles and other bands looking to stay sharp and awake. Tony Sheridan -- whose "My Bonnie" features the Beatles as a backing band, the group's first recording -- helped introduce the Beatles to the drug in 1961, during their second trip to Hamburg. "Here's something to keep you awake," he reportedly told the group.
Old speed freaks wax nostalgic about prellies like they do every drug that's no longer around. It's "said by many old, old, incredibly old school speed freaks that phenmetrazine was a far superior drug to benzedrine or dexedrine," writes a user on drug discussion forum Bluelight (I cleaned up his spelling). A drug that metabolizes into phenmetrazine, phendimetrazine, is still available on the market. As Schedule III drug, it can be prescribed in the United States -- but it rarely is. As you can tell by the lack of a clever slang nickname for phendimetrazine, it's not very popular on the recreational market.
Continued http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music...the_beatles_into_the_worlds_greatest_band.php
......................................................................................................................................................................
Thank god we worry more about content then cumbersome rules sometimes
.. Maybee Mr Mcquade would be good enough to edit in the posters handle. I enjoyed the article.
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas A. Edison
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