When the Beatles broke up in 1970, they left behind a treasure-trove of archives in the vaults of EMI records, many of which have yet to see the light of day. There are also countless hours of live recordings and movie footage from Let It Be, which is still locked away, despite a few false rumors to the contrary from time to time.

Late last year, rock journalist Richie Unterberger returned from an Indiana Jones-like exploration of those archives, and described their contents in book titled, The Unreleased Beatles. It was originally published by Backbeat Books, and is currently distributed by Hal Leonard, and available from Amazon.com.

Richie spoke with us recently in a 21-minute long, 19.3 MB podcast, which you can download here, or via our Apple iTunes page. Note that in both cases, no iPod is required; virtually any computer with a broadband connection and a soundcard can play an MP3 file.

And speaking of playing, since I somehow lost Paul and Ringo's phone numbers, that's me playing the guitars, bass and keys, along with some Acid Loops for the drums and synths, on the intro and outro music. I think I knocked out some fairly bitchin' (for me at least) lead licks on my Telecaster on the fade out, if I do say so myself.

Update: Also at Blogcritics, and Pajamas Media.