Legendary British rock/pop band The Beatles’ rejected audition tape is up for auction this week. The antique and precious tape is expected to fetch between £18,000 – £ 20,000.
The tape which is up for auction contains audio collected by the band’s record label Decca. Reports say that it is the only master tape and that the sound quality is significantly higher than other bootlegs of the sessions that were played with Decca.
Ted Owen from the Fame Bureau talked to reporters about how rare the tape is. Fame Bureau is an auction house which specializes in pop culture items. Owen said, “The most important thing about this is the quality. There are bootlegs out there, horrible bootlegs — some are at the wrong speed, others are crackily and taken from a cassette off an acetate (disc).”
The tape has been labelled as ‘The Silver Beatles’, which was the band’s original name and features Pete Best on drums before he was replaced by Ringo Starr. The tape auction also includes a black-and-white picture of the band and the track list is hand written. The picture was supposed to be used for the record sleeve originally. The band was reportedly rejected by Dick Rowe who was Decca’s senior A&R representative.
