I watched an interview with Laurence Juber (the guitarist in the final iteration of Wings), and here are my notes as i was watching.
This Laurence Juber interview was SO interesting. He's such a great interviewee, especially compared to some of the interviewers, who are constantly trying to get him to go "say something mean about Paul, say something mean about Paul" and even phrasing their questions provocatively. But Laurence just doesn't bite, he's unfailingly polite. Thank you, Laurence !
At 1:11:55 he gives a point of view on the whole situation when Paul was busted in Japan and spent 9 days in jail.
The issue there was ultimately that Paul had signed an affidavit declaring that he didn't smoke anymore, and that was how the justice department were talked into giving him a work permit. so, when he got busted, some of the senior officials were kind of got a little pissed off about that, because their reputations were on the line. that is why they made a bigger deal out of it with Paul than they would have done it with, you know, the reggae bands were get busted all the time, and they just take their weed away and let them do their tours.
At 1:27:00 he talks about how Carol Kaye (bass player at Pet Sounds) plays bass very similarly to Paul. I remember seeing this take somewhere in the fandom before, but, like everything in this fandom, it's been taken by entropy's cruel hands and i have absolutely no idea who said it or where. But i remember going down a Carol Kaye rabbit hole that day and learning a lot of cool stuff about her, so it was nice to be reminded of this again.
At 1:32:48 some X-gen hates The Cooler video and i immediately watched it. it's whimsy !
Laurence also talks about how George Harrison was very chatty (in '86) about his role in The Beatles, although he doesn't give any details. So we can only speculate about the level of George's bitterness π
Paul didn't talk about The Beatles very much. Once in a while he'd make references to "My old band". That was always funny. He would, if he showed up in a slightly pissy mood because Yoko had done something that kind of upset him, and then he would talk about Yoko's relationships with John and stuff like that. But he didn't talk about The Beatles very much at all. I think, in that period Wings was still very much "I can do it for myself, I don't need The Beatles to be Paul McCartney"
Caught my attention in that phrasing is that, talking about the late '70s, he says Yoko was the one who upset him, not John. I'm going to be thinking about that phrasing for a long time.
and about the tension between Paul and Yoko at the time:
Oh yeah, I think that was. I think that Paul still had some negative feelings. I think over the years they've seem to reconsile, and of course this was before John's passing.
I remember distinctly that ... they'd be in a restaurant and Yoko would be making decisions about John would eat. And I think Paul felt that she was bossing him around too much. ... There was always business stuff going on.
videos, complimenting the interview:
gamechangershow
theartofmadeline
kianamaiart
gummygunk
