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 Everett True

Song of the day – 655: Yoko Ono

Song of the day – 655: Yoko Ono
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It’s not her greatest moment, but… damn. She has set the bar so high.

Anyway, does everything have to be a competition? It’s fun, it’s ridiculous, it’s arty, it’ll wind a bunch of meatheads up AND you can dance ridiculously to it. It’s Yoko. And Bangs alive, that’s way enough for me today.

She’s quite the inspiration here at Collapse Board, you have to understand.

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I’m well aware that this mash-up was probably intended as a parody, that there are other versions of the same footage of Yoko ‘covering’ other well-known songs. I don’t care what the intentions are, not when they result in such beauty. I don’t believe you’ll ever hear this song the same way again. There is beauty in everything, if you look deep enough. Yoko Ono ‘covers’ Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’

It’s the scream that does it: halfway between STP and Yoko Ono. No, not Stone Temple Plaigarists, you infernal dickweed. Song of the day – 651: Woolf

It’s a little bit Kleenex, a little bit Judy Nylon, a little bit Jane Bond And The Undercover Men, a little bit Yoko Ono… and a whole bunch deranged, good-time, laconic, smart, silence-bred, haunting, secretive SPECIAL music. Song of the day – 638: Inflatable Boy Clams

This is too important to overlook. I don’t care what label it’s on.

Because I’m afraid for this record, afraid it’s going to be misunderstood, afraid it’s going to be dismissed, afraid it might be loathed. I write this as someone who prefers Yoko Ono’s catalog to The Beatles’, to say nothing of her more famous (but talented in his own right — that primal scream album, oh my god) husband. And as I listen toComing Apart, I keep coming back to Ono’s Feeling The Space, the album she made during her separation from Lennon, the album where she exerted the most control, the album where she was at her angriest and most brutal.

It’s also the lowest rated album in her allmusic discography.

And as with Ono’s work, it may be impossible to separate the music from the life of the person who wrote it. Body/Head – Coming Apart (Matador)

Surely, there’s a way to discuss disembodied sexual attraction without devolving into droolsville Arizona or mindless lust. (Not that there’s anything wrong with, uh, mindless lust. Nothing at all.) And it should be possible to do it without denigrating the music: for example, this music here, which is so intriguing and divergent, and rooted in age-old tropes (particularly early Sugarcubes and Yoko Ono, the way the singers bend their voices into new shapes and forms). Song of the day – 604: Jenny Hval

The biggest take away of 2012 for me is that sooner or later everyone winds up as an old has-been. It’s coming for me, and it’s probably already gotten to you (just look at what happened to that ol’ Paul McCourtney fella). For every rise there is a fall. Every inhale is followed with an exhale. The only thing that really matters is to do what you love. And we beg you, don’t be boring. A Snore Just Like the Rest: Musical Superlatives for the Dissatisfied in 2012

Hell, ‘Shot This Time’ could almost be The Birthday Party, except it’s better than that. ‘Hot Water Burns’ could almost be Yoko Ono, except it’s… I can’t bring myself to say it. Let’s just say that Talk Normal is its own thing. Talk Normal – Sunshine (Joyful Noise)

The Flaming Lips with Yoko Ono Sometimes, the concept is enough in itself. My head is still reeling from being around the psychedelic fountain. 10 future songs of the day

Yoko Ono – five degrees of separation, right? And everything comes back to Yoko Song of the day – 490: videoing

Bitchiness is a known issue with many women. Sometimes this is a result of them getting their periods, other times it just seems to spring up spontaneously. The worst are the ones who have lots of “opinions” and won’t shut up about them. Watch out for these women, because next thing you know, they’ll start having “opinions” about how to run the band. Things to consider when adding a female to your band

It features avant-garde tape manipulations, hooks galore, keyboard drones and stabbing guitars (along with guitar drones and stabbing keyboards) cool-ass poetry from a singer who was almost as original as Yoko Ono, and probably the greatest rhythm section in the history of recorded music. Can – Tago Mago (Spoon/Mute)

La Mômo understand the importance of Yoko Ono, and they understand the dynamism of Pete And The Pirates, and they rock. Pure and simple. They rock. Song of the day – 213: La Mômo

Listen, and listen. And listen. This next song totally appreciates the humour and wit of Yoko Ono. From Athens, Georgia, I believe. Song of the day – 231: Tunabunny

Brief further research throws up the fact Merrill Garbus (the Oakland, CA musician who is tUnE-yArDs) is signed to 4AD, has an album out, five-star reviews in the sort of places that think numerical values are more important than words (The Guardian, AllMusic) and had no less an august authority than The New York Times describe her as “somewhere between Aretha Franklin and Yoko Ono”… which only goes to prove that even the most revered among us can slip up sometimes. No she isn’t. Not Even Vaguely. Song of the day – 292: tUnE-yArDs

A year ago I started to think that Lady Gaga might be on the verge of great things — a blood-soaked MTV Awards performance, two CLASSIC pop singles in ‘Paparazzi’ and ‘Bad Romance’, murderous videos with a body count of asshole men who deserved to die, and then footage surfaced of Gaga performing with Yoko Ono six months ago. REVIEWED IN WORDS Lady Gaga – Born This Way (Interscope)

Yoko An Incomplete Visual History of Short Trousers in Popular Music

I’m rarely intimidated by interviews these days. Met one musician, met a thousand. How many different ways are there to plug an amplifier into a wall, and make jokes about Michael Jackson’s latest escapades are there? You drink, they like you. You drink even more and they think you’re a fucking Rock God. Walking up to the Dakota, by Central Park, past the spot where The Cranberries immortalised John Lennon’s death in the truly terrifyingly bad song ‘I Just Shot John Lennon’ (“It was the fearful night of December 8/He was returning home from the studio late/He had perceptively known that it wouldn’t be nice/Because in 1980, he paid the price”… “With a Smith & Wesson, 38/John Lennon’s life was no longer a debate”), head swimming from jetlag and the rain, I was scared. This is Yoko. She’s no fool. She won’t be impressed by my sad Nirvana stories. She won’t care for purple nail gloss.

The security guards are firm, but friendly. They phone up to the apartment. Yoko’s not ready yet. Would Mr True mind pissing off for another 30 minutes with his backpack and sweating brow and zero questions, and sitting in a coffee shop down the road. We can mind the backpack, sir. Oh thanks. I sit in the coffee shop and my mind slips back, to being a scared teenager, my post-pubescent sensibilities not helped by my love for Yoko’s Plastic Ono Band album one jot. If only I’d liked Marc Bolan, maybe I could have fitted in, maybe even today I’d be allowed to write for Q or Uncut or someone. David from the Shop Assistants wrote a line about me in one of their songs: “Still clinging on to your bitter ideals.” I didn’t want to be that way. I’ve probably remembered it wrong. What’s the time? Damn. Better chuck that over-priced latte away. There. It goes on that fancy wall fine.

“You can go up now, Mr True.” Oh, thanks. This isn’t going to be real, is it? A conversation with Yoko Ono

When you’re on stage performing, what do you think about? “Performing. I’m just into it so much that there’s no thinking. I’m there totally.” Does it bother you what reactions you get? “When am I going to be bothered by it, before, after or when I’m doing it? Just joking. I think that there’s a point where you can’t be bothered with it or you can’t do it. How are you going to guess or imagine who’s going to think what?” Yeah, I agree but that’s interesting because it kind of comes round to motivation again. A lot of people make music to get a reaction. I guess one of the reasons to make music is communication, in which case reaction is important. “Of course reaction is important but you’re not motivated to… you think of communication but you communicate in the soul of a person. I always think that if I go on stage, I think of me as presenting this communication of gods and goddesses within you. I just communicate with that, the real spirit and the real soul within you. It’s fine if everything that is said later or at the time, what your mind is thinking, the cynicism that you have is not your real soul.” You’re something of an icon to a lot of people I know in the counter culture. It’s funny, if I’ve had the conversation about Yoko once, I’ve had it a thousand times because people know I like you. I’ll say ‘well, I like Yoko but you’re not the only other person I know that does.’ Why do you think that is? “Because there’s a very big opposition still to me, I think, in terms of the big picture. In that sense I’m an underdog and I have been an outsider. I always think of myself as an outsider and there’s a power in being an outsider, there’s wisdom that you gain by being an outsider and that you can bring into the main world, the main society. The main society always benefits from what the outsider can bring to them.” Yeah, it’s interesting because I know there’s a whole New York thing that’s totally separate to anything else. If you’re from New York, you’re from New York and people appreciate you for that. I’m here to do some research for a book on the Ramones. This guy died recently and he was very New York. I think a lot of musicians from New York respect you for the fact that you’re very New York. “I suppose New York is just a collection of people who decided to be here because of that. There’s a certain spirit that we share.” Did you consciously choose to be the outsider? “No, I didn’t. I was just true to myself and that was being an outside probably.” Yeah, probably because most people are true to what they think other people want. Most people spend their lives trying to second guess that. “It’s sad, isn’t it? I think that’s sad and a waste of time because you can never second guess that.” Of course you can’t because they don’t know what they want either. They’re doing exactly the same thing to you. It’s something I’d like to bring out in this article, your influence on musicians. When your British PR suggested this, I told him I was doing a new magazine [Careless Talk Costs Lives – Ed]… there seems to be a thread running through the bands… I’ve always felt that in rock music, because it’s such a patriarchal tradition, the women would always make the most interesting art. “I think that there’s a certain kind of productivity that is there within us.” See, I think my end is a little bit negative. I know what men are like, especially in rock music because it’s been so male for so long. “So male. That’s all I’ve done and they have been outlets. That was very important for them and the society. The kind of repression and anger they felt, they transformed it into an art form, which is better than going around and killing people. I think rock is just as angry as soldiers, maybe even more, and I think the way they chose to express it is beautiful. It’s better than going to war and killing and feeling good about it. I don’t know if they feel good about it. I think artists are people who are trying to take this tumour and they are into healing. I like that. I don’t know if I like it but it’s the only way to survive. Art is a way of survival.” Healing yourself or others? “Healing yourself and others. Healing yourself is connected with healing others. Quite often it’s not that easy to heal yourself, it’s much easier to reach out and heal others and by doing that, you heal yourself. It’s like an interesting dance.” Yeah. It’s best not to stay apart from everybody else, it’s better to interact. “Definitely. I think we are interacting anyway, even if we’re isolated. If I isolate myself, we’re still communicating.” the full transcript of the Yoko Ono interview

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