Monthly Archives: June 2016

John Lennon, Music et al, Today in history

Plastic Ono Some Time NYC

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Plastic Ono Some Time NYC

John Lennon
Released June 12, 1972
“New York City” live @ Madison Square Garden Que pasa, New York?
Plastic Ono Some Time NYC

Life after the Beatles

The last Beatle album, Let It Be, was  already more than two years old. Each of the individual Beatles had been active since the breakup. Elvis met President Nixon and asked for a badge to be a drug czar. The FBI was investigating Lennon to back up a plan to deport him.

Life for John Lennon and Yoko Ono had become political. It is no surprise that Some Time in New York City happened.

Ironically, Lennon pursued this political avenue at the same time that traditional political singers such as Joan Baez and Judy Collins had moved away. No matter.

Plastic Ono Some Time NYC

In Your Face

The album was not a subtle one and smacked us right in the face with its first track: “Woman Is Nigger of the World.” To say some stations wouldn’t play it is an understatement.  The National Organization for Women awarded Lennon and Ono a “Positive Image of Women” citation for the song’s “strong pro-feminist statement” in August 1972.

The album cover resembled a newspaper with articles reflecting the songs. I’m sure the picture of President Nixon and Chairman Mao dancing nude didn’t help get Lennon off of Nixon’s Enemies List.

Plastic Ono Some Time New York City

Plastic Ono Some Time NYC

Some Time in New York City

It was a double-album with the second disc live material. The studio tracks were the main statements. All were co-written by Lennon & Ono except where noted:

Side one
  1. “Woman Is the Nigger of the World”
  2. “Sisters, O Sisters” (Ono)
  3. “Attica State”
  4. “Born in a Prison” (Ono)
  5. “New York City” (Lennon)
Side two
  1. “Sunday Bloody Sunday”
  2. “The Luck of the Irish”
  3. “John Sinclair” (Lennon)
  4. “Angela”
  5. “We’re All Water” (Ono)

Yoko Ono’s influence, presence, and art continued to rankle some fans and critics. Even today it seems de rigueur and reflexive for many to mock and demean her at the mention of her name .

Rolling Stone magazine still held powerful sway over what fans felt. Stephen Holden’s July 20, 1972 review read in part, ““except for ‘John Sinclair’ the songs are awful. The tunes are shallow and derivative and the words little more than sloppy nursery-rhymes that patronise the issues and individuals they seek to exalt. Only a monomaniacal smugness could allow the Lennons to think that this witless doggerel wouldn’t insult the intelligence and feelings of any audience.”

Time has been kinder than Holden, but still few today think of this work as Lennon’s best. [All Music review] [Ultimate Classic Rock review]

Having said that, Lennon on a bad day is far better than nearly all of us on any day.

Plastic Ono Some Time NYC
Today in history, Vietnam

Monk Thich Quang Duc

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Monk Thich Quang Duc

7th grade daydreams

It was Tuesday 11 June 1963. I was about to finish 7th grade and envisioned 8th grade and imaginary girlfriends. That afternoon’s Bergen Evening Record would be light. My paper route done quickly enough to have time to play basketball on the side of my house with a few friends.

The sun set that evening at 8:27. I don’t remember that, of course, but it meant that I might have gone out after dinner despite it being a weekday.

President Kennedy

On June 11, 1963, John F Kennedy was President. November 22 164 days away.

I don’t know if the name Vietnam meant anything to me. Unlikely. The Gulf of Tonkin was 418 days away. That would be the day that many more Americans would learn the name Vietnam.

Little did they realize that it would be 3,100 days before the signing of the Paris Peace Accord. What would they have thought had they known?

Monk Thich Quang Duc

Civil War…religious persecution

Vietnam was in turmoil. Ho Chi Min’s northern forces faced a series of leaders in South Vietnam.

In 1961, when Malcolm Wilde Browne arrived in Vietnam, he  was Associated Press’s first permanent correspondent there. The large majority of South Vietnamese were Buddhist, but the current President, Ngo Dinh Diem, was Roman Catholic and had instituted repressive Buddhist policies.

On May 8, 1963 South Vietnamese soldiers had opened fire on a group of Buddhists who were flying the Buddhist flag–a violation of a government ban. Nine were killed. Protests followed.

Monk Thich Quang Duc

Thich Quang Duc

The evening of June 10, Browne and a few other correspondents received a message that something important would happen the next day.

On June 11 they witnessed a peaceful protest with about 350 monks marching and carrying banners demanding religious equality.

Among the monks was Thich Quang Duc, a senior leader who had helped establish many Buddhist temples.

After the march had gone a few blocks, the monks formed a circle and Thich Quang Duc took the lotus position at the center. Another monk poured gasoline over Thich Quang Duc who moments later lighted a match and self-immolated.

Before closing my eyes…

In a letter he left, Thich Quang Duc wrote: Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.

It took 15 hours over 9,000 miles of AP WirePhoto cable for Malcolm Browne’s pictures to reach the USA. [images via rarehistoricalphotos dot com]

Buddist Monk Thich Quang Duc
photos by Malcolm Browne

Media reporting

Monk Thich Quang Duc

Other Buddhist monks later did the same and inspired a few Americans to do the same in protest to the undeclared war.

I was in 7th grade and had no idea what the next 3,100 days were bringing to Americans.

Monk Thich Quang Duc
Today in history

Fantasy Fair Festival

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Fantasy Fair Festival

June 10 – 11, 1967
Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre in Marin County, California
For the benefit of the Hunter’s Point Child Care Center
The Sons of Champlin, “Freedom” Recorded Live: 8/16/1968, San Francisco, CA

Whether the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969 was the greatest festival ever held is open to debate. Perhaps.

Whether it was the most important festival ever held?

Likely.

Woodstock not the first

It certainly wasn’t the first rock festival. 

Indoor multi-day rock events began in the 50s, but it wasn’t until the late 60s that the multi-day outdoor rock festival, featuring more than just a series short sets by musicians playing their big hits, happened.

Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival

Usually the Monterey International Pop Music Festival gets the nod for being the first of the later type, but the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival occurred a week before. The line-up for the KFRC-sponsored event looks pretty good, too.

Day 1 (Saturday 10 June)

  • The Charlatans
  • Mount Rushmore
  • Rodger Collins
  • Dionne Warwick
  • The Doors
  • The Lamp of Childhood
  • Canned Heat
  • Jim Kweskin Jug Band
  • Spanky and Our Gang
  • Blackburn & Snow
  • The Sparrow
  • Every Mother’s Son
  • Kaleidoscope
  • The Chocolate Watchband
  • The Mojo Men
  • The Merry-Go-Round
  Day 2 (Sunday 11 June)

  • Sons of Champlin
  • Jefferson Airplane
  • The Byrds w/ Hugh Masekela
  • P. F. Sloan
  • Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
  • The Seeds
  • The Grass Roots
  • The Loading Zone
  • Tim Buckley
  • Every Mother’s Son
  • Steve Miller Blues Band
  • Country Joe and the Fish
  • The 5th Dimension
  • The Lamp of Childhood
  • The Mystery Trend
  • Penny Nichols
  • The Merry-Go-Round
  • New Salvation Army Band

While I will admit ignorance of many of the names themselves and of those bands whose names I do recognize that I am not familiar with any of their particular songs of their

A few are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve underlined those who would play at Woodstock.

Fantasy Fair Festival

Little documentation

Unfortunately for the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival (and like so many other festivals), no worthwhile recordings of the music or the event apparently exist. There is a silent blurry hand-held camera film of the Doors performing (whose name does not appear on the poster), but little else.

There is an interesting connection between the Fantasy Fair and Woodstock. Mel Lawrence was Fantasy’s co-producer and he became Woodstock’s operation manager.

Fantasy Fair Festival
Mel Lawrence

Charitable festival

You will also have noticed that the event was for the benefit of the Hunter’s Point Child Care Center, thus preceding George Harrison and Ravi Shankar’s Concert for Bangladesh by four years.

The Hells Angels “volunteered” to be security and with some reluctance the organizers approved their “request.” Fortunately, their presence worked out OK and without any incident. You can see some of their bikes parked in the following picture:

Fantasy Fair Magic Mountain Music Festival
Photo by Henry Diltz

Here is a link to a 2014 Rolling Stone magazine article on the event. RS interviewed many of the attendees, performers, and organizers

Drew Willis

Drew Willis via Facebook:  I still have the flyer, map, that was given out. Lists all of the performers with a layout of the surrounding attractions up there on Tam.

Fantasy Fair Festival