Tag Archives: Yoko Ono

Headlines Du Jour ► Tuesday, February 18, 2014

As every Beatles fan knows, February 18 is the birthday of Yoko Ono, who gets the Headlines Du Jour delivered to her doorstep every morning. She says her favourite part is the Headlines Du Jour from yesteryear:

1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1865American Civil War: Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.
1885The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.
1913Pedro Lascuráin becomes President of Mexico for 45 minutes; this is the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country.
• 1930 – Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.
1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles, California.
1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

How’s that? Was it good for you too, Yoko? If so, let’s get right to today’s Headlines Du Jour.

IN LGBT NEWS:

Olympic police re-arrest former
Italian MP for wearing rainbow outfit

Watch: Lawmakers Cheer As
Ugandan President Declares ‘War
With The Homosexual Lobby’

Susan Rice Urges Ugandan President
Not To Sign Anti-Gay Law

Anne Rice Unloads on Anti-Gay Facebook Commenters

TODAY’S EXCITING EPISODE OF COPS GONE WILD:

California police use taser
on deaf man trying to communicate with them
via sign language

PRESIDENTS’ DAY LEFTOVERS:

George W. Bush: Still the worst

A new study ranks Bush near the
very bottom in history, due to delusional
wars, reckless spending and inflexibility

Happy Presidents’ Day! Meet The Five Most Overrated American Presidents


FREE THE WEED!!!

Uruguay Prez Jose Mujica To
United States: Legalize Weed

Medical Marijuana Sponsor Says
Police Are Addicted To Drug War Dollars

THE “O” IN GOP STANDS FOR OLD:

GOP Senate Candidate Calls
Mitch McConnell ‘Beltway
Turtle’ In Anti-Cornyn Ad

Greg Abbott under fire
for Ted Nugent invite

43 House Republicans Want to Sue Barack Obama For Being President

The GOP Has Screwed Itself
Out Of A Perfect Obamacare
Election Message


TEABAGGED ENOUGH ALREADY?

America’s First President
Was The Tea Party’s
Worst Nightmare


TODAY IN RAPE CULTURE:

Montana county attorney’s office to mother of 5-year-old rape victim: ‘Boys will be boys’

FOX “NEWS” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:


CNN’s Don Lemon Hits Back
at Fox’s Gregg Jarrett: ‘Mind
Your Business, Old Man’


Chris Wallace Says Climate Change Isn’t Occurring Because It Is Cold On The East Coast


MORE IN CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS:

Heatwave frequency ‘surpasses levels previously predicted for 2030’
Abbott government urged to better articulate dangers of climate
change as Climate Council highlights rising number of hot days

TODAY IN NON-RELIGION:

NC high school faces legal challenge for refusing secular club


TRUMP THE CHUMP:

Donald Trump faces
Irish wind farm battle


LIVING WITH POLLUTION IN DETROIT, ‘MERKA’S FIRST THROWAWAY CITY:

John Carlisle: Some Detroiters
living with Marathon plant
pollution find peace – at a price


VIDEO DU JOUR:

Yoko Ono backed by John Lennon, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information
Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in
today’s open thread.

John and Yoko and Frank and Flo and Eddie

John Lennon and Yoko One perform with Frank Zappa and The Mothers

Dateline June 6, 1971 – Frank Zappa and his newly formed Mothers play a notorious gig at the Fillmore East. This was the second night of a two night stand. As he had done previously, Zappa had a surprise for the audience: an encore set backing up John Lennon and Yoko Ono, just beginning their sojourn in NYC that ended so tragically.

The inner-sleeve from Lennon’s release
The minimalist cover as released by Zappa

Zappa had arranged for the night to be recorded, as he increasingly did for all live performances. He came to release the night’s performance by The Mothers as “Fillmore East – June 1971.” It was the latest chapter in the band’s “Touring can make you crazy” phase, which culminated in the movie 200 Motels. During the evening’s entertainment Flo and Eddie, alternatively playing both groupies and Pop Stars, document Vanilla Fudge having sex with a mudshark at the Edgewater Motel, meet Bwana Dik, reprise a few classic Zappa tunes, and eventually agree to sing their big hit song — WITH A  BULLET!!! — “Happy Together.”

Then Zappa sprung John and Yoko on the audience instead of the encore:


~~ Rare footage of Frank Zappa, Flo and Eddie and John and Yoko ~~

Frank Zappa turned the portion of John and Yoko’s performance over to him after the show. As was his wont, Lennon turned the tapes over to Phil Spector, who remixed the tapes and released it in 1972 as Side 4 of the “Some Time In New York City” double-record set. Frank Zappa was extremely unhappy with the results and lawsuits were threatened before it all got settled to everyone’s satisfaction. Frank Zappa tells that story:

Howard Kaylan tells the story from his point of view in his recently released autobiography Shell Shocked [reviewed here]:

If our first Fillmore show […] was wonderful, our second was transcendent. When the concert ended and the audience stood, waiting for their encore, it felt as if a herd of elephants had entered the auditorium as the world’s most famous couple walked onstage. The resulting jam was recorded by both Frank and the Fillmore and was released on two different albums. John released it as the 4th LP [sic] in his Some Times In New Your City compilation on Apple, although he took writing credit on every song, including Frank’s iconic “King Kong,” which h renamed and tried to publish. Frank’s lawyers had to sue John’s lawyers to straighten the entire thing out, and it really wasn’t all that great anyway, but at least I can say that I am among a handful of people, right alongside Paul McCartney, to ever share a writing credit with the immortal John Lennon. So there.

Zappa got the last laugh. He eventually released his own, remixed, versions of those recordings on the Playground Psychotics CD. He gave the songwriters the proper credits, but renamed one of the tunes “A Small Eternity with Yoko Ono.”

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Day In History ► John and Yoko Bed-In in Montreal ► May 26

Dateline: 1969 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their second Bed-In, this time in Montreal, Quebec. They had wanted to do it in New York City, but Lennon was still barred from entering ‘Merka. The Bahamas, which Lennon had visited during the making of “Help,” was considered too far away to bring the press. Finally they settled on Montreal. Here’s how the Canadian Broadcasting Company covered some of it:


However, not everyone was enthralled. Al Capp, the cartoonist best known for L’il Abner — Yeah, THAT AL Capp — was invited to the hotel suite for what turned out to be a very contentious debate:


On June 1st a gathering recorded Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance” in the same hotel room. Included were with Dick Gregory, Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, Toronto Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, musician Petula Clark, and members of the Canadian Radha Krishna Temple. It’s a sing-a-long:

Here are John & Yoko talking to some of those people:

On the 30th Apple Records released “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in the U.K. and 5 days later in ‘Merka, on June 4th. The only Beatles on this recording are John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, who recorded in a hurry one evening while Ringo was filming “The Magic Christian” and George was on holiday. Christ, you know it ain’t easy:

This was The Beatles last #1 U.K. single.