If there’s anything classic rock nerds lust after more than a night with Chrissie Hynde, it’s the oft-heard promise of NEW BEATLES TRACKS.

Most of them…okay, us…would gladly shell out for a box set of recordings of John Lennon slowly decomposing, as long as it had some light harpsichord and a message of universal love.

But all good things must end, and the ever-diminishing pool of unreleased, re-mastered, and pre-un-de-recorded tracks of the boys improvising into a shitty 8-track means that every “new Beatles track” is inevitably scraped from an even deeper, heretofore unexplored part of the barrel.

Tupac they ain’t.

This week’s scrapings are a few recordings of the Beatles playing at a club in Germany. The quality is dubious, and it’s reputed to be Ringo’s first performance with the band.

For those who haven’t heard about Ringo’s arduous journey towards adequacy, his first performance probably looked like an orangutan flailing at a particularly stubborn coconut.

Have we gotten to this point? Is there really an appreciable market for what is likely the third most regrettable moment of the Beatles’ existence (the second being Lennon’s assassination and the first being that bitch Heather Mills scamming Paulie out of his “Yesterday” money)?

Does it really take a lawsuit from Apple Records to keep the hordes of decrepit Beatles fans from bursting down the door in an attempt to get their grubby hands on a slice of the one decade when their opinions were relevant?

The answer to all of these questions is of course an emphatic yes. I will be the first in line to buy not only the album, but also the accompanying coffee table book detailing its creation. Hooray capitalism!

Also, hey, how was your Easter? My delicious-ham to violent-family-meltdown ratio was up this year…truly, the Lord moves in all of us.

When not blogging for Cracked, Michael harasses the estate of George Martin as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

The Mills/McCartney divorce ruling is in, and while I don’t have access to some of the more guarded court transcripts, I believe the official verdict is that Mills is an insufferable bitch.

At least that’s what I glean from this article, whose bias is made clear if only by the photo they chose to use of Mills looking like a gull shrieking for a bite of your hot dog.

She was able to wrangle more than 20 million pounds, which in American money is about nineteen billion dollars, which is so much money that I imagine her prosthetic leg will soon be replaced by a staff of crystal, jet-leg, or simply be fashioned out of thousand dollar bills.

And how did she manage that? First, by pissing off the judge, who called her “less than candid,” “unreasonable and exorbitant” and “a bitch on wheels.”

She also claimed to give 80 to 90 percent of her income to charity each year—and thus be stone cold broke—when in fact “her tax returns disclose no charitable giving at all.” Hey, she’s just like me! Except for her being a huge bitch, of course.

Mills then attempted to silence court documents that would reveal her as, you know, a bitch, called the 70,000 dollar a year childcare payment she’ll be receiving “inadequate,” and threw water on Paul McCartney’s lawyer.

Headlines like “Money Can’t Buy Her Love” were inevitable, although I imagine there are a few other Beatles covers Paul is humming to himself these days:

When not blogging for Cracked, Michael moves into the finals of the Youtube Sketchies II contest as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets! Thanks to all who voted for us!

Rock nerds everywhere were devastated today at the news that the long-rumored musical meeting between Paul “File Not Found” McCartney and Thom “the extra ‘h’ is for handsome” Yorke is not happening:

Paul McCartney was desperate to collaborate with Thom Yorke—but the Radiohead star turned him down. The former Beatle claims Yorke rejected an offer to work on an album with him—because he wants to solely concentrate on his band. McCartney says, “…I asked Thom to do a duet, but he said he couldn’t because he only felt happy working on his own and Radiohead’s material.”

… or so he says. Yorke’s refusal to cooperate with Operation Pauljuvenation could also be due to the following factors:

• McCartney’s insistence on working with archaic art form known as “songs”
• Lack of enthusiasm among target demographic for first single, “I Get By with a Little Help from My Genetically Modified Robotic Angst”
• Yorke insisted that consumers be able to download the album at a price of their own choosing, whereas McCartney preferred to release it on 8-track tape and Edison cylinder and sell it from the back of his van
• The banshee-like quality of Yorke’s anguished wailing was lost as sound waves were repeatedly absorbed by Paul’s wrinkles
• Scheduled recording date had to be scrapped after McCartney failed to show and was later discovered unconscious in a dumpster with a prosthetic leg-shaped indentation in his groin
• Fan excitement dropped sharply after it was determined that time travel technology is not yet ready to arrange a collaboration between 1968 McCartney and 1996 Yorke
• Audio testing revealed that the sound effects used on Radiohead’s last three albums could induce seizures, pacemaker failure, and incontinence in McCartney’s audience and McCartney

Although these two musical giants were unable to come to mutually agreeable terms at this time, plans are under way for a second, less publicized collaboration, between Thom Yorke’s singing garbage-man and Ringo.

… dead tired of coming up with names for albums, that is.

The former Beatle, Wing, walrus, and guy who made a one-legged woman cry told reporters recently that the title for his new CD, Memory Almost Full, was inspired by an error message on his cellphone:

“It seemed symbolic of our lives today,” the 65-year-old said Monday. “Your messages are always full. And your mind is full. And it doesn’t matter if you’re my age or 20. I think that we all need to delete stuff every so often.”

In keeping with this naming strategy, here are my predictions for Paul’s next ten albums:

• Permanent Fatal Error
• Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery
• The Number You Have Reached Has Been Disconnected or Is No Longer in Service
• Remove Label Before Placing in Microwave
• If More Than the Amount Used for Brushing is Swallowed, Contact a Poison Control Center Immediately
• Silica Gel: Do Not Eat
• Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine
• Processed in a Facility Which Handles Peanuts
• The Coffee You Are About to Enjoy is Very Hot
• Do Not Resuscitate