WHEW! What a Fest that was! This week, the gents are catching their breath. So join us in the bleachers with a cold one, as we revisit a summertime classic.

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Originally released August 13, 2022

It’s obvious that The Beatles first love was music. But their fabbest love was for the American sport of baseball, with its electrifying foul balls, nail-biting bunts, and contemplative rain delays. And that’s why this week, T.J. and Tony have each compiled a major league set of fab tunes to compete against one another in this All-Star Beatle Batting Order Midsommer Classic.

This Week in Untitled Beatles Baseball:

🥁 After a severe brow-beating from Cubs manager Lee Elia, is pinch drummer Jimmie Nicol getting sent down to the minors?

🔮 Did superstitious T.J.’s “8-Track Only” fast cause him to make a crucial Sgt. Pepper fielding error?

🐅 Should Tony "Bullethead" Mendoza have gotten ejected for trying to doctor the “Bungalow Bill”?

Plus another edition of Star’s Search!

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This week, Tony and T.J. step aside and hand their mics over to Eurotrash broadcast sensations Glücklich und Froh, recording LIVE from the Grugahalle in Essen, Mutter Deutschland. Listen along as they dig into the recently surfaced bootleg board recordings from the start of the Beatles’ 1966 world tour.

Was it sloppy? Was it rock n roll? It sure was feelin’ dank.

While they’re at it, the Zwei Zornzwerge wander off the autobahn and wonder:

🥊 Which Peter would you take in a fist fight: Brady or Gordon?

DANKE SCHÖN. UND MACH SCHAU BABY. But please von’t vhistle.

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The 2025 Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans is coming up...like a flower...next Friday, in beautiful, mobbed up Rosemont, IL. To preview the merriment and madness (#ourhouse), the UBP welcomes #1 Beatle Stan, Fab/Gear social media influencer, and friend of the program, Skylar Moody!

Plus, Producer Casey drops by to help preview the 3rd Annual UBP F**k It We'll Do It Live Taping at The Fest! And as piano hero and fascism fighter Ben Folds says, "but wait, there's more!", like...

⛳️ At which legendary Rosemont dining establishment are the UBP3 (#Cantaloop?) more likely to dine during a union-mandated Fest dinner break: Giordanos, Caddyshack, or that Hyatt bar that used to rotate but no longer does unless you've made mistakes?

📀 If you can't own a physical copy of "Beatles '64", does it even exist? Do you?

📻 Will the UBP's live Tribute to Terri Hemmert be the most memorable event in Chicago media history since Geraldo opened Al Capone's vault?

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When did the news become so awful?

That was more of a rhetorical question, but you’re 100% correct. It was 2015. So after 10 YEARS of doom-scrolling our collective souls (#shine) into a revolting, malodorous tarpit of human despair (access to misery included for a small monthly surcharge), how can the news be worth our time?

A: When it’s SUMMER BEATLE NEWS!!! That’s why this week T.J. and Tony catch up on a romantic hammock and muse freely on the latest from the Land of Fab. And as they sway to the calm breezes of the Beatleverse, it rocks them to sleep #FileUnderRock, conjuring delightful afternoon visions…

🛋️ Settling into his fireside armchair, T.J. enjoys an aperitif of Martini & Rossi while cracking into the 26-Volume Encyclopedia of Press To Play by Luca Perasi, with foreword by Danny Zuko from Grease.

🐐 At a White Hen Pantry, Tony tries a new slushie flavor: Lemon Twig, which elicits an acute case of brain freeze. Channeling Sexy Sadie, he recites a MANTRA OF THE COSMOS, and hovers above a display of various Ringo reissues from the 00s. In his trancelike state, Tony pitches/pesters the clerk about selling “Tom Green-flavored condoms”…for GOATS!

🍺 It’s last call at Ratcatcher’s Tavern. There, leaning on the edge of the bar like it’s his only friend (it is), the Angry Drunk Chicago guy launches into his latest Ted Talk:

HEY IF HE’S SO SMART HOW KUM DAT MEATHEAD ROB REINERSDORF WASN’T IN DA MOVIE ABOUT MEATBALLS?? (belch) YA KNOW... (fart) DOZ MURRAY BRUTHERSSS OWE ME BIG TIME. CUZ GHOSTBUTLERS WUZ MY IDEA...

And out of nowhere, a Vaudeville cane removes him from the frame…

Scroll up for the Untitled Beatles Summer News Extravaganza!!!

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Maybe, just maybe, "Yesterday"...And Today, was a modern-day Robin Hood (Men In Tights). Sure it stole from the rich, in this case, the U.K. "Revolver". But it also gave to the poor, in this case, American Baby Boomers, whose dreams would eventually be crushed under the weight of their own selfish interests from a life unfulfilled.

Anyhoo! The Gab 2 dissect this essential Capitol album, and butcher both facts and myths as they discuss it and more, like:

🗑 If you're a Sanford, and your son isn't in trash, are you super pissed?

🌫 When did Tony become such an expert on pricey London Town neighborhoods?

🍎 Will the deluxe reissue of Dark Horse include the rare demo of George's quite personal raga, "Goiter In His Gut"?

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Bill Miller isn’t just Texas’ fastest growing BBQ joint this side of that one suburban Manila Kenny Rogers Roasters. No, sir/ma’am! Once upon a time, Bill Miller traded in his Texas, wet-rub BBQ stained hands to prepare something better and more culturally significant than chick’n: a U.S. Beatles album!

Longtime Capitol butcher Dave Dexter was (allegedly) too busy running Nixon’s campaign to assemble a Beatles album comprised of songs left-over from the British albums “Help”, “Rubber Soul”, and ripped from the not yet released “Revolver”. So that job fell to Bill Miller, the fast-growing Texas BBQ joint. HEARD OF IT, LIB? #Freedumb

And in the process, the infamous - yet famously fun-to-spin - final U.S. capitol album of “new” material was released: Yesterday…And Today. (a.k.a. “Yesterday...And Today” for you cassette freaks! We see you! We are you!)

This week, Tony & T.J. begin a deep dish of this classic, million selling Beatles album, which was unavailable and out of print from 1992-2014. Along the way, they ask the questions that only two guys with this much weirdo time on their hands would ask, like:

🐭 (Angry Drunk Chicago Friend - he’s mad because none of youz bought a new shirt with his mug on it yet, they’re available on Tee Public or the UBP website you jagbags): How come Disney’s too woke to let me learn how to make an AI of Minnie Mouse singing “A Wank Is A Wink Your Fart Makes”?

🍔 Where’s Herb? And where’s Herb’s beef?

🍻 Do Redneck White Sox fans drink (Pabst) Blue Ribbon beer before they beat the daylights out of a defenseless, elderly first base coach?

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“Nevermind”. “Ten Summoners Tales“. “The Backbeat Soundtrack”. Sensing a theme here, fellow alt-rocker?

Perhaps more than any other record not named “The River Of Dreams", these three albums are at the very heart of the alt rock/grunge/post-chillwave scene. Going to Metro in 1994? Better bring your cassingle of “Fields Of Barley”. Because at Metro, they don’t take American Express.

And yet, of all the great grunge albums, none is grungier than the motion picture soundtrack of “Backbeat”.

Was (not was) that a little too much? Cut me some slack! The Backbeat Soundtrack really does have some of the early 90’s most notable alt rockers, tearing through a selection of early rock standards that the pilled-up, live Beatles once adored. This week, Tony & T.J. travel back to a time when the world was still mourning the painful assassination of “Cheers”, and ask about Backbeat:

Does the soundtrack hold up? Did it ever? Did Wilson Phillips hold on for one more day? Is our angry Chicago friend still upset that they closed the Phillips gas station on Wilson in 1982? AND HOW COME CHANNEL 9 STOPPED RUNNING “PHYLLIS” IN STRIP SYNDICATION ON WEEKDAY AFTERNOONS, IS CLORIS LEACHMAN’S TONED ARMS TOO WOKE FOR SKILLING? And is one full-length paragraph of questions the new format going forward for these blurbs? I mean, does anyone even read these? If so, stay tuned all holiday weekend to Appleton’s Home For F**K Rock, WFUK, 96.69 FM. Kathy and Judy will return, in oil, after these words from the Sheboygan County Correctional Center and Drive Thru.

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1994 proved to be one of the most fertile years for Beatles-inspired filmmaking. The titles of cinematic classics either directly about The Beatles (“The Secret Of Roan Inish”, “Blue Chips”) or clearly inspired by their music (“Ski School 2”, “Wesley Snipes’ Sugar Hill”) were ’94’s dominant cultural and commercial hits. (Yeah, go ahead and f off, “The Air Up There”.)

Perhaps the most notable fab film from that year was “Backbeat”, which focused primarily on Stuart Stucliffe’s brief but incredibly/debatably important tenure as a Beatle. What does the film get right? What does it get terribly, offensively wrong? How do Beatles (and cinema, damn it) EXPERTS Tony & T.J. feel the film holds up on its’ 31st anniversary? (Forgot about that milestone, huh, Calderstone/Polydor??) The Gab Two deep dish “Backbeat”, and more, including:

🤜 Before he became a brilliant artist and bassist, was Klaus Voormann an eminently punchable German street urchin?

🍻 (Angry Chicago guy:) How come the fellas who wrote the musical “Hair” didn’t make no song about R.E.M. bass player Mike Mills? And how come The Lemonheads didn’t fix that when they had the chance? And how come the White Sox ain’t got no more dollar beer nights, why don’t Steve Dahl do something?

🐓 Would there even be a Hooters without “Backbeat?” And does that make The Beatles technically responsible for Hooters? Or vice versa? Like, could there even BE a Beatles without Hooters, man? Why are you so afraid to consider all opinions?

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One of the darkest days for the UBP was in May 1990, when Vic Tayback, a.k.a. Mel on CBS’ “Alice”, left this earth; and perhaps others. Despite taking place literal decades before the UBP began, Mr. Tayback’s death caused a deep level of pain that has us forever kissing our own grits.

Flash forward to June, 2025. Another entertainment hero is gone - one arguably bigger than Mr. Tayback - who helped define American music in the 1960’s, and inspired Paul McCartney and The Beatles to reach arguably their greatest artistic heights.* (*Does not include “Now And Then”.)

Indeed, the incredibly sad passing of Brian Wilson was felt deeply by the Gab Two; longtime Beach Boys fans who, in this episode, pay tribute to one of Macca’s undying inspirations. Along the way, they also ask:

💔 F'k Mike Love, yeah?

🍸 Is it ironic that “Kokomo” tends to be the #1 Brian Wilson-penned song for people who openly voted for/support fascism?

🏄‍♂️ Did T.J. actually mean to refer to the milquetoast Beach Boys cover of “California Dreamin” from the 1986 compilation “Made In U.S.A.” when he mentioned “Rock & Roll Music”?

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John Lennon literally said it best: "All You Need Is Love: The Cirque Du Soleil Soundtrack, on CD in multiple editions, streaming with bonus tracks on iTunes, and on a making of DVD."

And in 2020, a younger, dumber, sadly Casey-less Gab Two gabbed fab and dished deep on this album!

Now, for the first time, here's the Deluxe Edition remaster, in 5.1 Dolby NR Cr02 Color.

See you next week with an all new episode!

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[Originally released September 19, 2020]

In this episode of Pizza Talk, T.J. and Tony get acrobatically off-topic trying to discuss The Beatles collaboration with Cirque du Soleil. It contains 101 local Chicago references.

We think this episode will sell a lot of tickets for the Vegas show.