Rare Early Beatles Demo Tape Found Collecting Dust in Vancouver Record Store

A lost Beatles demo tape turned up in Vancouver. It sounds like a revolution

The tape was an unlabelled reel-to-reel believed to contain the original – or at least a master-generation copy – of The Beatles’ famous 1962 Decca audition

Rare Early Beatles Demo Tape Found Collecting Dust in Vancouver Record Store

The 15-song recording dates to the Liverpool band's failed audition for Decca Records in early 1962—months before it released its first hit

The Beatles was one of the first bands to experience world and mass fame. While other stars such as Elvis Presley and film actors and actresses had marked the pulse of fanaticism, the Liverpool band was the driving force behind a real mania. However, as a counterface, they also suffered the ban in various countries. Fab Four fans’ madness was reflected in the film A Hard Day’s Night, in the merchandising explosion and in the impossibility of con…

Neptoon Records is a small but well-stocked record store south of Vancouver, where for decades thousands of melomaniacs have come to make themselves of true world music jewels. What Rob Frith, owner of the mint green facade shop, located a few steps from Grimmet Park, did not know is that in his vast collection he had a real treasure: the tape with which the first demo of The Beatles was recorded in the offices of Decca Records, north of London.…