Martin he's useless. We've got to change this drummer." Martin, for his part, said, "[Best] couldn't play drums very well. I mean he couldn't keep time too well. And I was aware that the band weren't tight. They needed that sort of binding force that a good drummer should give them. So I said to [Beatles manager] Brian [Epstein] I'll get another drummer for the recording session." Still, Martin claimed to be surprised to learn that Best had been fired from stage shows, hearing the news from Mona via telephone. He said: According to biographer Bob Spitz, "All Pete could do was play Fours", a style of drumming that uses kick drum notes on every quarter note to hold down the beat. Spitz's book also contains an account by engineer Ron Richards of his failed attempts to teach Best somewhat more complicated beats for different songs. Despite this evidence, Best said he did not believe this was the "real reason" and that it "never held up water." In 1968, authorised Beatles biographer Hunter Davies opined that the firing of Best was "one of the few murky incidents in the Beatles' history. There was something sneaky about the way it was done." Over twenty years later, Mark Lewisohn concluded that "Despite his alleged shortcomings, it was still shabby treatment for Pete... The Beatles had had two years in which to dismiss him but hadn't done so, and now – as they were beginning to reap the rewards for their long, hard slog, with money rolling in and an EMI contract secured – he was out. It was the most underhanded, unfortunate and unforgivable chapter in the Beatles' rise to monumental power." Band chemistry Epstein claimed in his autobiography that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought that Best was "too conventional to be a Beatle" and added that "though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul". It has been documented, in Cynthia Lennon's book John and elsewhere, that while Lennon, McCartney and Harrison usually spent their offstage time together in Hamburg and Liverpool, writing songs or socialising, Best generally went off alone. This left Best on the outside, as he was not privy to many of the group's experiences, references, and in-jokes. A German photographer, Astrid Kirchherr, asked if they would not mind letting her take photographs of them in a photo session, which impressed them, as