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Sun 26 October 2025 9:00, UK
Even though The Beatles are perhaps the most well-documented rock band to have ever existed, there are always new snippets of information that are revealed about the band on a regular basis.
However, most people would imagine that virtually all of the recordings that exist of the band have been heard by the general public, and that’s perhaps why Neptoon Records shop owner Rob Frith didn’t quite believe that the reel-to-reel cans that were brought into his Vancouver store in 2015, which were labelled ‘Beatles Early Demos’, were the real deal. Given how the band have released multiple archival Anthology records, it’s easy to assume that the band and their record label are the owners of all of their own recordings.
Frith acquired these mysterious tapes from a customer who couldn’t verify their authenticity, and as a consequence, they were labelled with question marks by the man who had brought them in, and found a new home living under the counter at the record shop for over a decade. As a knowledgeable record collector with 44 years of experience, Frith was convinced that they would be bootlegs, and consequently not of any value, but because he didn’t have any way of testing this, he wasn’t able to find out.
That is, until 2025, when he decided to book a slot in a local studio which had a reel-to-reel tape machine where he could finally test the authenticity of these tapes he’d acquired, and much to his amazement, it turned out to be an early demo of the Fab Four.
“We put the tape on, and we thought we’d be hearing record noise or whatever,” told local news reporters, “And it was like The Beatles were in the room with us.”
Featuring three original Lennon-McCartney compositions and 12 covers, including their version of Barrett Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’, things suddenly started to feel familiar to Frith, and with the help of some professionals, he managed to establish that it was the infamous Decca Records audition tape from New Year’s Day in 1962, from which the band were famously rejected.
Another previously supposed copy of the tapes had been sold at auction in 2012 after Decca relinquished possession of the iconic recording session, with it going to a Japanese buyer for a sum of £35,000, but there have been questions raised about the authenticity of this particular tape, given how there are only ten songs on it. This, on the other hand, could well have been the original, which had somehow found its way over to a record store in Canada over 60 years on.
Paul McCartney quickly caught wind of the entire situation, and rather than attempting to sell the tapes back to him, Frith decided that he would give them to McCartney so they could be with their rightful owner. Frith’s family were invited to visit McCartney in the studio, where the handover took place, and now it’s possible that we’re closer than ever to hearing the original audition tape in full for the first time.
Frith’s son, Rob, who co-manages Neptoon alongside his father, summed up the decision to part company with the tapes perfectly: “That tape would have sat in some millionaire or billionaire’s basement, never to be looked at again. What’s the point in that?”
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