Can you talk about the role of I guess, playing the part of an entertainer, how that fit into the Beatles.

The Beatles were now... were the Beatles first and entertainers later, but I think the Beatles were musicians...

These were natural show-offs I think and I think maybe not George, not natural show-off, but certainly there was a healthy desire to entertain and see and be seen and I don't think that... I mean they became consummate entertainers. That's what they did and they made people feel terrific and the Byrds in their way, as we were talking about, the Byrds also made people good, but it was in spite of their own reluctance to sort of be up there and doing things together. They always looked as if they'd got some kind of inner tension and indeed I think they had, but they were entertainers in spite of themselves and the Beatles were entertainers because of themselves to be a little big glib and the Beatles more or less went along with what was required of them. All right to the end with the uniforms and they played Shea Stadium in those famous brown tunic jackets and then I think the second year, the concerts nobody remembers, also sold out at Shea Stadium and they had to come in striped suits, if I get into minute and suits to the end really and the Byrds however, who were put in black suits at the very beginning so they could be Beatlish in '65, had them off. I think they were out of suits within two or three weeks. I didn't decide to lose them... lose their trousers, so back into jeans and Crosby wearing his cape. So they were freer to experiment and also they were... they were southern Californians, which is as you know, is much more laid back than even than Liverpool, which is pretty laid back in it's way and so there you are.

Was there a gradual growth in the perception of themselves as artists, in a way the Byrds getting up there without their uniforms to say they were not entertainers, but artists.

I think that what the... what the Byrds were saying was we are free people and we will do what we want. Crosby was always... David Crosby was always awkward and probably still is in the nicest possible way and he was very much the slightly more than McGuinn perhaps the Beatle officianado. McGuinn in his more thoughtful way was hooked on them too. His Rickenbacker, 12 string, as seen in a "Hard Day's Night".

When did the Beatles start to perceive themselves, it seems like in '63 and '64, they are really putting on as entertainers. That's the role they were trying to reach and then it seems by '66, they're after a different role.

Well by '66, they had done all that entertaining and they were as good as they were ever going to get. Nobody could have become any better Beatles than they were and this is... they could do it just like that and this is what we do and here we are again and never disappointing I think. I never heard anyone and this is not to say it didn't happen, but I don't think people were disappointed after a Beatle concert though they were very short, unbelievably short thinking about it now. Half an hour, the most. Some concerts today should be half an hour and … of any interest, I might go to some, but the thought of some of these two and a half hours, and an encore, which is going to be twice as long as a Beatle concert. So anyway we're saying by '66 there was not much else to do against the wall of screaming because there was still no, I don't think they had monitors until the end. Don't think so, telling them how they sounded. So that wall of scream was probably too much by then added to all the hassles of touring and escape routes from the grounds and the huge dressing rooms and the... where are we? Wait a minute. We've got to get out of here or as they say today, I'm out of here.

Was there a buzz around the release of "Eight Miles High"? Did the Byrds think they had a hit on their hands? It feels like a new direction for them. Was that the case at the time?

It's, oh, tell you what, I was working in the … now I don't know. That's a toughie. "Eight Miles High", I can't remember exactly when "Eight Miles High" came out, but it must have been after the flight to London, which is what it was about and the touching down was Heathrow. I was on that flight with them and I was... I remember being amazed that you... that you flew at eight miles high so I had to work it out. I knew how many feet it was but I didn't know how... so I worked it out and I believed them when they said it was not a drug song, that they were associated with psychedelia and on that stuff so I think it was banned substantially and as to was it going to be a hit, I mean the... the main thing was then that every Byrd record was important but I don't know whether they thought in terms of number ones and that was not really where they were at. They did enjoy doing well, but they didn't talk along those lines.

Did it seem like a new direction?

Well it was a very dense... it was a very dense … piece of work. It was a very good yes. Everything they did seemed like a new direction, but that was the thing about McGuinn. McGuinn was a dire... a man who was zooming. He... he saw everything in images of take-offs and airports and planes and jets and machines and he'll be very on-line now, I'm sure. I haven't seen him for a few years, but he loves to make women do that house in Florida. So and of course there was... I mean there was an exotic little band because they were... Hillman was terribly musical and Clark could... could fill very nicely at the back. This is after Gene went and I liked Gene very much. I didn't like him leaving. And then Crosby and McGuinn were quite obviously two men who were fond of each other, but couldn't get along and that was good for them too. That was very... created tension. Everything they did was new and all their albums... I don't know the latest of their work, but all their albums were interesting.

How serious was it for their record to get included on the Gavin report? What was the ...

Well, like a lot of things, a lot of the concerts on the … for the Beatles I used to get the backwash of things rather than and these things were happening and you know, you only knew that something was going on or was going wrong when you got the phone calls and it would be important to the management and to the record company to be on the Gavin Report, but I don't know that they would have been terribly into Gavin Reports. They were into having Porches and doing well and so on. I can't really answer that.

Do you think it hurt the record sales?

Oh it definitely hurt their record sales and to a certain extent, because radio was quite a conventional medium than and maybe still... maybe still is on mainstream radio, I think it would never... it would never quite be the same again. They'd be kind of flakey was a word that wasn't used then, but that's probably the same they were seen.

Did you end up having to spend a lot of time fending off drug … and can you think of any specific example?

Yes well I was always during... I was a man of permanent indignation. I was always... I was so keen on the Byrds and the Beatles, I couldn't bear criticism or anyone questioning their motives. So I would go to …to... I tried far too hard to convince people who were not about to be convinced and tried to take on American radio and the American media then with some kind of English … about look at this way and this way and here they are and at the same time, you know, I didn't mind if it was about drugs. This was the thing. I mean, I... it would have been a good thing to me if it had been, if it didn't have a double meaning or... so I was exasperated, frequently exasperated having to explain the Byrds to these monsters.

When "Eight Miles High" was out, where were the Byrds and were they sailing close to the wind with the records references to highness?

When "Eight Miles High" was released it would be going... it would have gone out in the normal course of events as something they had real, they must have been very pleased. I can't exactly remember, but they would be very pleased with their work because it was an intact piece of pop work. Had they been anxious about

it, and I don't know if the were, they would not have cared because they were full of daring and they didn't really. I mean they were not … people. This was the nature of the counterculture I mean they were not sort of, they were paranoid about being busted. But they were not ah, they were not a fighting share of the establishment anymore. So, to hell with it, you had to go and see. It can't have escaped them, that the word "high" was in there. It was in the title exactly, yeah. And I, as I've said, anyway, thought it was about dope... a bit of a flop for me that it wasn't at all... a bit of a let down. But they are, it enabled me when I was told that it wasn't to answer with truth that no it isn't.

In the mid-sixties, was one of the attractions of Indian music that it appeared to have a psychedelic quality?

Yes, well, the feeling about the sitar, we're talking about really, the sitar and __, was that this all fit in the mood of the times. It was ah, from another place. From a simpler pace, a more honest place, a place where they kept deeper traditions and greater meanings. And it was not pleasing to Robby, that his music was thought to have any sort of drug connotations and certainly he was never involved in that, and ah, the music was what it was. From long ago and greatly refined by masters. But that didn't stop people saying this fits perfectly with what we are, well we must have this in Monterey because this is where its at man and ah, that Robby was at Monterey was terribly important, very good, and, he appealed for perfect conditions, no smoking of anything. He had his incense there and ah.. So while he was able to play and be pure and, and ah, legitimately claim to be free of all that kind of connotation. The counterculture was able claim it as a bit of a part of what was generally going around, kind of thing, those odd guys that they were into. That was what they called tripping themselves, so it was fair enough.

Do you remember, at Monterey, the audience joining Robby … set? Did they respond to his requests not to smoke or …

Yes they did. Well this was a this was a, Monterey was a very responsive festival. There was extremely good behavior throughout. As the police and the highway patrol and the fire brigade found, I mean this was... because the thing about it was... it was the phrase was not known the summer of love. It was not a phrase then, but it was the perfect weekend and every set got the appropriate response whether it was Hendrix going crazy or Johnny Rivers doing what he did, Lou Rawls and … all those people. They all had the right responses because they touched bit... different bits of the audience and Ravi got a very respectful and a very, very good, I mean a terrific ovation at the end if I remember. It's in the film isn't it? Just went on and on terrific. He was the first artist to be booked with the festival at the very beginning.

So now a lot of people are out of the heads.

Prince Charles does that when he's nervous.

So you can't remember...

Well it would be the ... I.. I should think that during Ravi's concert it would a number of people that had been smoking before they went in, but I don't think there would be any dope being on and certainly no cigarettes were then quite an acceptable drug in America unlike now. Lot of intolerant people now don't approve of it. So I don't think there would be any doping or smoking in the auditorium.

Can you describe what was the ... in the … music?

Well it's a kind of...

Can you say Indian music.

Well Indian music... well Indian music was from another time and place and I think that's probably what dope was supposed to do. Take you to another time and another place and it was certainly co-opted as extremely... I mean it's still used by people... detractors of the time. I mean there is one or two T.V. commercials where they try and show people out of their heads. I forget, this one running in England is... and he was a sitar in there so it's... it's co-opted by all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons, they are. It's not for me to say how but it was and if it debases the genre, then I think it's a pity though it is too late now. I don't enjoy the question. It's difficult for me that question.

This is back in '63 and '64 when Lennon and McCartney were writing what sounded like relatively simplistic songs about "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and yet at the same time they were putting across an image, the Beatles were putting across an image of intelligence, how did that role …?

Their song... the apparently simple songs, beautiful constructions of the '63,'64 period were of course fairly subtle and were … upon by critics who had been laughed at then now since... but they were actually very, very … performed. "She Loves You" was deliberately a third party thing. This is the message from her to you and is not I love you, it's she and so these things were full of intelligence and this will always show no matter how simple. I mean, a painting by numbers will look like a painting by numbers but an apparently simple painting done by a genius will... that's the one that so... people are not foolish and people collectively somehow have a sense that they're in the company of someone who really amounts to something. In other words, they're not watch... you know, I this is the problem with comparisons, I don't imagine somebody we all love, but it was a war zone. Lets face it. But we are not mentioning him so, I'm obviously … I must say. He is a genius. That's what I don't know…

How did the Beatles differ from the teen idols that came before them if in fact they were teen idols?

Well, the... the Beatles as teen idols depends which teen idols we're comparing them with, the ones that came before which included Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly and some people to reckon with, Little Richard, not a teen idol perhaps, but a fascinating musician, but the British pop star until the Beatles had been quite and they tended to be treated very disparagingly and even Cliff Richard who survived to this day as a pop figure of some note, was not really that interesting, I think. I'm trying to say to as broad and tall and deeper …in the community. There were a lot of views on him and he was often in the papers as Cliff and he's done this and you know, he was a very, very big teen idol before the Beatles, but ' 63, and '4, '62 and '3, he was selling out huge … in England, but they had that extra... they had the cheek and impudence, which none of the others had had which I think was... that's what set them apart and they came from Liverpool, which was always different. This is an... un... undoubtedly a city with a difference. I don't know what that is either, but it's in the water and in the air and they couldn't have come from anywhere else and had they come from anywhere else, I would not have been interested for what it's worth and they wouldn't have been that interesting to me perhaps.