john yoko/yoko ono

...this, the first collaboration from johnyoko outside the fabs for public consumption came out to mainly public blankness, if it weren't for the cover getting some frenzied activity from the square press this would sit alongside georges 'electronic sound' and 'wonderwall' in the great unwashed awareness of solo fab slabs...touted as avant garde by most this sits nearer to out there musique-krautrock (laden with plenty of anglo humour)...loops of homemade twangs and bangs clatter and clamour around piano's plinked and yoko invoking 'peace through art', john chatting and coughing and both of them acting out a bizarre soap opera with distorted generic lines filched from classic radio soap of the 1950s, when soaps in the U.K did reflect 'real life'...this is the future lennonos saying we're not different from other people, we just reflect life different, here they're soapers (entertainment), they have no answers but the truth and truth is the answer if enough of the population beleive in the truth being the answer...what would be a top idea to contemplate is the fact all the fabs dig experimental music, including ringo (dig the vocal on yellow sub) so to really make a grand exit the fabs could have collaborated on a huge trainwreck of spaced-out wig lifting double disk of off-the-wall electronic-taped-looped-heavy-helter-skelter rocking...georges bleeps/sitar, johns tape looped feedback/pauls orchestrated cut-ups all over thumping reverbed ringo drum and pauls phat bass (yoko would guest wail/patti would be cover star/linda would take the photos/maureen cook the lunch)...far from leaving the group scene and ethic they would invent future rocking and therefore by extension there'd be no need for computer geeks forming bands in the 21st century...anyhows this two virgins biscuit is a top groove that cats with an ear for something else will dig with good cheer...

...second long player from johnyoko and this can be divided into two distinct entities, first side a 26 minute freejazz blowout and side two, more personal type stuff and some 'home experiments'...the long piece on side one's called cambridge 69 and its yoko giving out with her primal trance screaming with john buzzing around with some guitar feedback and a couple of jazz cats honking up a storm with the saxes...it's a top groove that would look real neat on a ESP-Disk record (one sided with maybe some lennon etchings on the reverse, blurred b&w photo on the cover), up there with yokos 'mind train', though not as rock'n'roll as that track, more basement avant that probably sold a couple of copies back in the day in places like cleveland that had a nascent fervour for the developing avant rock underground (rocket from the tombs/mirrors etc)...this was probably not passed over by the destroy all monsters collective out in detroit who knew about doing things differently as this sort of racket is right on their beam...the other sides got yoko intoning for beatle john, who being a decent chap gave up his hospital bed when it was needed, some unborn heartbeats, two minutes of silence and some radio dial twiddling set to a crazy backing beat, all jolly good fun and for lennon he was puncturing the fab4 myth by stepping outside the given norms of pop stardom and coming up with the surreal, much like an aural sculpture of his book writings, with this release he was putting a 'spaniard in the works', possibly more so than with the first johnyoko, 'two virgins' which many saw as a momentary lapse of judgement hopefully not to be repeated...soundtrack to the chaotic year that was 1968 when cities and minds were burning with desire, when fresh dreams were growing in the midst of pig oppression everywhere...

...third and final johnyoko experimental LP and this one sees them calling each others name from each channel so they're shouting, whispering across the room, all set to a deep space pulsation, a universal heartbeat from the pair, very trance inducing under the right circumstances, though maybe not for everyday listening but certainly hits the spot when the grey matter needs a clean...easily fits in with such do-it-yourself bongo boogie gubbings like amon duul put out originally and other free flights of fancy such as the deads recording of' 'heavy air'...second side is mainly chatting with the press in their hotel room in amsterdam with a couple of musical interludes breaking it up...sounds real good and the talk of peace is relevant in todays muzzy 'new world order' shenanigans put about by uncle sams autocracy...dig johnyoko as they strive for a better tomorrow...

...yoko came blazing into the seventies with a couple of long players of primo trance catawauling and riff boogie (plastic ono/fly) and this one being a double gives the listener twice as much ono to really get a flipped lid with...cerebral blasting screach yodelled over intense echoed pounding urban-swamp slop...lennon's guitar noise really propels yokos avant vocalizing on the 17 minute 'mind train' which is most probably the best moment in yokos rocking years, and she's surely put down some top class screaming here and there as evidenced with the toronto live-peace bootleg...rockers like ringo/klaus voorman as well as lennon plus various delaney and bonnie sidemen are on hand to get the shows pulsebeat going and on a couple of tracks the avant stylings of joe jones tone deaf instruments bang and clang and whirl behind and around yoko as she invokes visions from the beyond...the title track, 'fly' is yoko solo (with some backwards guitar from john) for over twenty minutes of yodelling acrobatics which was originally taped for a ono film of a fly moving over a human body...a most excellent and satisfying avant stew of some immensity that even to this day, right in the here and NOW of the present moment has the power to seperate the hep weird-beards from the geeky pretenders (the great unwashed always hated her and always will)...

2 comments:

  1. Nice collection, Spaced one. Two thoughts... Live Peace In Toronto wasn't a boot. It was a legit Apple release... and check out Yono's latest (Between My Head And The Sky) for what might actually be her best work yet (though... not as esoteric/avant/noisy as this stuff). Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. there is also a boot of the toronto gig with the madness quotient seemingly higher than on the released one, maybe just rougher sound making it more 'alive'...

    ReplyDelete