For roughly a decade, a reel-to-reel tape labeled “Beatles Early Demos” sat behind the cash register at Neptoon Records, a beloved independent record shop in Vancouver that Rob Frith has owned since 1981, Antique Reader reported. He assumed it was a bootleg. He never played it.
In March 2025, Frith brought the tape to the studio of his friend Larry Hennessey, who had the equipment to play it. When the tape started rolling, they both stopped what they were doing. The sound was clean, present, and immediate, not the murky quality of a copied bootleg but something far closer to the source. What they were hearing was a master-generation recording of the Beatles’ failed audition for Decca Records, taped on January 1, 1962, eight months before Ringo Starr even joined the band. “It was like the Beatles were in the room with us,” Frith said.
Decca had famously passed on signing the group that day, with executives reportedly telling their manager that guitar bands were on their way out. The 15-song tape (including early Lennon-McCartney originals like “Like Dreamers Do” and “Love Of The Loved”) had been considered lost in master form for decades. Bootleg copies had circulated since the late 1970s, but nothing with this clarity.
The Beatles wave to fans after arriving at Kennedy Airport February 7, 1964. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
When Frith posted a clip online, the reaction was immediate and international. A representative for Paul McCartney reached out. On September 18, Frith traveled to Los Angeles with his wife Vicki and their two sons, including Ben, who helps manage the store. McCartney invited them to lunch and to a rehearsal with his band. He greeted Frith’s wife by name. “I thought I saw her soul exit her body right about then,” Ben said.
Frith handed over the tape. McCartney signed albums and photographs in return, including black-and-white prints from the Beatles’ early years. For context on what Frith walked away from: a single reel of the same Decca audition tape, from the estate of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, sold at Sotheby’s in 2019 for £62,500 (roughly $81,000). Frith had been offered the chance to auction his. He declined.
“I told Paul, ‘You changed my life as far as music,’” Frith said. “‘Basically, that’s why I have a record store, because of the influence from you guys.’”
His son Ben had put it plainly before the meeting happened: “That tape would have sat in some millionaire or billionaire’s basement never to be looked at again.”
Frith came home with signed memorabilia, photographs from the visit, and what he described as “certainly the best 24 hours I can remember.” He also came home without the tape, which is exactly what he wanted.
“I got paid because I got to meet Paul McCartney,” he said. “So that was good enough for me.”
This article originally appeared earlier this year.
