Flannery recalled the comment to continue along the lines of:
“They weren’t very reliable, let people down and used to turn up without a drummer half of the time, but now they’re back from Germany, they sound totally different”.
Those present at Joe’s apartment that rainy night in January 1961 thought little more of it as the conversation ebbed and flowed for a few hours more; however the aforementioned trip to Hamburg greatly interested Joe, and he made a mental note to check-out the Beatles at the first available opportunity. If a trip to Hamburg had produced such apparently dramatic effects on their sound, then it ought to be investigated for Lee Curtis’ sake. Why on earth had they gone to Hamburg, in any case? And what about their name? A most bizarre, yet memorable, moniker for a rock group in the early 1960s:

“I thought that they were probably students or beatniks or both with a name like that.”
Their name came up again, some weeks later:

“I was informed that they were returning to Hamburg ‘by demand’ and I was more than a little jealous. I still hadn’t learned anything concrete about this German connection and still hadn’t come across the band, first hand. My informant also told me, however, that they were tied to a cafe owner by the name of Alan Williams, and it was he who had organized the trip to Germany. I only knew Alan by reputation. He had organized the Merseyside leg of the Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent tour the previous year and ran a cafe in Slater Street called the Jacaranda”
This was “a hangout for Art School beatniks and tramps” as far as Joe was aware. However, together with his wife Beryl, Williams had also started opening the cellar of the cafe up at night for live music.

The main attraction at the Jacaranda had been a West Indian Steel Band, but I was informed, it was this band that had made the initial contact with clubs in Hamburg. They were soon followed by Derry and the Seniors (one of Liverpool’s top rock bands and another outfit in whom Williams had more than a passing interest)...curiouser and curiouser.”
As it turned out, the information Joe received early in ‘61 was both a little old and inaccurate. Alan Williams had already fallen out with his young protégés before they had returned to Liverpool at the end of 1960 and with Derry and the Seniors. So, by the time Flannery came to be discussing the group with old friend Brian Epstein, he discovered that they were conspicuously manager-less, but effectively managed by drummer Pete Best’s mother, Mona.
“I hadn’t seen Brian for a few months. As previously stated, my friend Kenny and I were, if not quite an item, certainly ‘stable’, and Brian (being Brian) had done one of his disappearing acts. In truth, I just thought that NEMS was taking up most of his time.”

NEMS had actually outgrown the furniture stores so much that Brian had opened up another store, in Whitechapel in order to cater for the growing market for audio and television sales. When Joe and Brian met in July of 1961, Joe could see that Brian was actually very restless, indeed. They organized a trip to the theatre in Manchester and Brian met Joe at Gardner Road:
“He brought with him a copy of a broadsheet that had just come out entitled Mersey Beat and he was very animated about how the paper was discussing the local scene. He was highly charged that night and was rather envious that I was not only managing a band on this thriving scene, but that I had acted on the recommendation of Jack Good (after a failed audition for Lee some months previous) to cultivate something “provincial”. I detected that evening, as we traveled to Manchester down the East Lancashire Road in his little car, that he was very, very excited. In fact, I vividly remember Brian parking in Oxford Road outside the theatre and he being so excited that he damaged both the car in front and the car behind as he pulled in to park”
On the way home that copy of Mersey Beat came up in conversation once again. Joe hadn’t seen it before, even though he was informed that it had been available since the beginning of the month. Joe claims to have been very impressed. For a broadsheet to be published in Liverpool, dealing almost exclusively with musical activity on Merseyside, seemed to indicate to him that something very important was happening. “It also became obvious to me that Brian had seen something that had galvanized his drifting life”.

The cover of that first edition of Mersey Beat mentioned the Beatles and Epstein informed Joe that he had discovered that they were without a manager (although in hindsight it can be seen that Mona Best, if not quite a manager, as such, was an important position, in this respect). Joe recalls that Brian was rather disappointed to discover that Joe had no opinion to offer on the young group. He told him that he had heard of them, but that the Detours had not shared a bill with them up until that time.

“I informed him that Lee’s circuit was still very ‘north’ Liverpool and North Wales-based, whereas, the Beatles, I had been informed, were something of a south Liverpool-based group. All I could tell him was that I had heard that they had been something of a handful, but that this was only rather third-hand news, and that their names had cropped up in conversations at Gardner Road amongst other musicians, because of their musical excellence. Brian was evidently smitten!”
By issue number two of Mersey Beat (it was bi-monthly), founder Bill Harry had written that the Beatles had secured a recording contract with Polydor Records in Germany - great copy for a local music journal. Brian rang Joe to tell him that he had ordered a large amount of copies for his two NEMS stores and that they had all sold. He stated, apparently quite categorically, that once he had a moment of spare time he would investigate this group. He had been informed by NEMS shoppers that the Beatles played at the Cavern Club, literally within two minutes walking distance from his office in Whitechapel. Joe informed him, however, that the Beatles were once again bound for Germany, and that Brian would have to wait.

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