yoko ono/ yoko ono covers S&D

"Sisters O Sisters" - The Sultans of Ping

oo err... i can only imagine what that might sound like.

is it any good?

Err....I defer now to the Ono heads out there. I believe this is a Yoko Ono cover...am I right?

Rock - I like either Aproximately Infinite Universe or Season of Glass best, depending on the day.

I think AIU is better musically, but all that early 70s sis and bro stuff gets really tiring. SOG is a baffling album and definitely worth the money. It sometimes crosses the line of good taste (starting with the cover and becoming most cringe worthy with Sean's appearance), but despite what you might think, it's not one long dirge. There are moments of happiness and moments of anger (sometimes directed at John). This can be jarring at first, but ultimately makes it a far more interesting album, because the emotions are honest. The most amazing part is that you could listen to this album being unaware of the circumstances under which it was made, and still conclude it's one of her best set of songs.

"A Story" is also pretty good. It didn't get released when it was made in 1974, but appeared in the box set in 1992, and I think you can get it by itself now. It has early versions of some of the SOG songs, along with other good stuff.

Covers - there was an album called "Every Man has a Woman who Loves Him" which was all covers of her songs. That's where the Costello cover first appeared. As I recall, it also had a very nice Roberta Flack version of "No one can see me like you do" from Season of Glass.

"Fly" is worth mentioning, if only for the first side. "Midsummer New York" is one of her best rockers, and "Mind Train" is an uncanny trip into krautrock territory. If the album didn't take a nosedive from that point on, it would be her best....

also covered by the B-52s, Tater Totz, and They Might Be Giants (the TMBG cover apparently was the first song John & John recorded together, and they tried to imitate Rod Serling's voice for the spoken "don't worry" bits.)

In terms of the direct Lennon collaborations, I'm pretty fond of Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With the Lions, which is a straight-up experimental record, and lots of the experiments work.

POB and Fly are great! (OK, the second disc of "Fly" is a bit tough at first, but you could say the same about Tago Mago ). Most everything on Live Peace In Toronto is available elsewhere in better versions. Two Virgins is abysmally-recorded let's-drop-acid-and-pretend-to-be-children-pretending-to-be-adults stuff: fitfully amusing, although the cover art is funnier. The half-hour freakout on Life With The Lions is truly impressive in stretches (like when J & Y manage to converge on the same note) but you probably won't play it more than once a year. Never heard Some Time In New York City , can't remember what Approx. Inf. Univ. is like (wish I hadn't sold it/will probably reacquire someday) and that's all I know.

I like all her records. I even like Feeling the Space, great coked-out 70s studio cat vibe on that one.

I put it on one time while working at a record store and small child began crying within the first couple tracks.

":-)"

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000009OF.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif

(and Rising) (and all the Lennon collaboration albums)

Haven't you guys ever heard side two of Live Peace in Toronto???

Now, the big band version of Don't Worry Kyoko on the Live Jam album that comes with Sometime In NYC, on the other hand, is fan-fucking-tastic.

it was inevitable, really, wasn't it?

other than that comment, its nice to actually mention this artist and not be met with the usual wails of derision - often the people who make this sort of comment haven't listened to a great deal of her output. its wrong to judge her on just one album - particularly because her albums vary in style as much as any other artist i can think of.

i dug out 'approximately infinite universe' again last night - i'd forgotten how wonderful it was. didn't know there was a box set..

Side note: When I called Ciccolina's representatives to get her head shot, they put me on the phone with the woman herself, who spent most of the time giggling. A week or so later, an envelope from her people showed up. Not only did it included a head shot, but nine or ten glossy photos of Ciccolina in a variety of lurid poses. Easily the highlight of the project for me.

http://mysticalbeast.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_mysticalbeast_archive.html

listened to Two Virgins again last night actually. it's fun enough, though Life With The Lions is the jawdropper.

Plastic Ono Band and Fly are still so ahead.

thanks to jody I'm listening to approximately infinite universe right now for the first time and it's incredible.

since I haven't chimed in on this thread yet I'd just like to say that "What a Bastard the World Is" is one of the best songs ever written.

or Phil Spector

The Dirtbombs do a pretty good "Kiss Kiss Kiss" cover.

I posted and forgot. Thank you finefinemusic wherever you are, and take that cd out of the paper, it's incredible. Her most atmospheric record I think. Very krauty and velvety.

dontworrydontworrydontworrydontworrydontworrydontworrydontworrydontworry kyokooooooooooooo!

When I was a kid (and very much into Weird Al), I used to play the b-sides of my Mom's John Lennon singles. The Yoko sides were always so cool. "O Sanity" is just over a minute long and totally fucking awesome.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the song "Coffin Car" either. It's the one really punk music moment off the otherwise not so interested Feeling the Space.

Aside from the obvious early records, and later singles, I have great love for her 90s album Rising. It opens with a metal song co-written by Sean called "Warzone" and is followed by a bunch of weird funky pop that always hit me like a Sinead record with a singer who can't sing (even though Yoko CAN sing--she just sometimes chooses not to, right?).

I got to see her artwork at the MOMA in SF a few years back. Great show, and the YES book is a must have. I would own that over 2/3 of her albums. She's still way ahead of her time. Genius.

I love the ladder with the little sign that says "yes"

I wrote an essay for art history last year about how "cut piece" deconstructs our notion of the nude by recontextualising it in a manner that points out the most disturbing aspects of the traditional male gaze. My lecturer likes Kenneth Clarke. I didn't get a very good mark. It was supposed to be about the representation of the nude in history. Sometimes I could scream.

I posted and forgot. Thank you finefinemusic wherever you are, and take that cd out of the paper, it's incredible. Her most atmospheric record I think. Very krauty and velvety.

― I know, right?, Monday, November 26, 2007 7:14 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I posted and forgot too! I will dig the CD out of the book finally. The book was on my bookshelf and fell a few months ago, and as I watched it happen I yelled "Yoko, oh no!" to which my boyfriend cracked up. Whoops.

Having listened to Yes, I'm A Witch more recently, the Shitake Monkey remix of O'Oh is very pleasant.

Has anyone heard the new Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band - Between My Head And The Sky? I just caught Yoko and Sean on The View doing a piano ballad that was very affecting and reminiscent of the early stuff. The new Band has Sean Lennon, Cornelius, Yuka Honda, Daniel Carter(?!), and Erik Friedlander among others. The few samples I've found sound intriguing, like they might be going for a 21st Century Fly.

I fucking love this album. And I wasn't particularly a fan before so I'm not (too) biased either.

And FWIW, I interviewed her recently for Stool Pigeon: I guess the intro is a bit of a blustering review of sorts.

I guess the Yoko haters will say well she's just in the same room as a load of good musicians but then you could say that about Grace Jones on Warm Leatherette, Bobby Gillespie on XTRMNTR. But on the other hand you could say it about James Brown or Mark E Smith or any other good band leader who encourages musicians to take bigger leaps while not being particularly 'musical' in their own right.

(I know that Brown plays a mean keyboard, I just mean in comparison to most of the people he worked with.)

Brown's keyboard playing is laughable. And when I say laughable I literally mean the other musicians in his band laughed at him when he played.

That doesn't mean it wasn't occasionally shit hot though. Plus that's my point anyway, non-musician as a facilitator.

sure, I gotcha

(altho I think Yoko's skills are seriously underestimated - she is def. a fluent piano player. her singing voice is limited, but she does a lot with it. I loves her!)

Approximately Infinite Universe – yes?

Brown's keyboard playing is laughable

waht

if you haven't
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqCpvzXGTE

ringo ruling @ 0:57
lol paul @ 1:57

@ 0:44 YAH TRICK YAHHHHH!!!!

Loneliness is a great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaoSWW_ZDqY

Finally ripping my used copies of Approximately Infinite Universe and Onobox to the cloud -- and I'm loving the former immediately. I usually try to steer clear of studio cats records -- but this is a great balance of her vocalisms and songwriter-ly instincts. Anyone who doesn't believe she's a wonderful singer hasn't heard this stuff. Big thumbs up for the title track and "I Want my Love To Rest Tonight."

When I get suitably up to speed, we should do an Onobox appreciation thread.

AIU is my favorite of her records: the songs are uniformly interesting, observing the world through unexpected angles. Like the studio rock actually.

Looking Over From my Hotel Window is pretty ace as well. Her lyrics represent this odd mix of Big Social Issues and peculiar observations -- which create tensions the productions often seem designed to enhance.

Remember Love

Nice to see some love for AIU

How significant was the remixing done around the time of Onobox? I've always thought "Women Power" was way ahead of its time with its gated drum part -- but part of me wonders whether that was a retrofit.

Btw, while we're at it, here's Rolling Stone's review of AIU, written by George Zimmerm-- er, Nick Tosches:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/approximately-infinite-universe-19730315?stop_mobi=yes

Then suddenly we realized that this time

we were both drifting out in a cosmos

somewhere together, like God's two little

dandruffs floating in the universe....

Astral identity! Wow! Something else, right?

— liner notes

It is indeed a shame that the vocals on this album have been allowed to dominate the music, for the boys from Elephant's Memory have rarely sounded better. Yoko, however, in her role as lyricist, is, as they say, laughable. Her sense of poetics and metaphysics are not even up to your average garage-band standards. Jimi Hendrix himself, that prince of cornball pantology, would probably giggle in his box were he to hear the likes of:

I was looking for my head in the closet

I was sure it would be there

But to my surprise it wasn't there

And I had to look all over the world.

Is that shit or is that shit? I mean, is there any need to dissect and discuss the faults of such schticks? The beatnik poets on Perry Mason used to write better stuff, for Chrissake. What is this search for meaning anyway? Didn't that go out in '68? Can stuff like "Leave your private institution/and get down to real communication/leave your scene of destruction/and join us in revolution" still be foisted off as lyrics?

And, if there is any other single attribute of Yoko's that can even be compared to her lyrical idiocy, it is her total obnoxiousness. Can you image some little creep whining out commands to the world like: "Give up, cut out/Tune up and join us," or,

People of America

When will we stop

It is now or never

There's no time to waste.

There's no time to waste.

Or the abject, self-indulgent silliness of:

Sisters, don't blame my man too much

I know he's doing his best

I know his fear and loneliness

He can do no more no less.

What does any of this have to do with the universe? Since when does the staggering, ever-expanding universe have anything to do with some rich kid sniveling about the turmoil within her run-of-the-mill soul or crooning philosophical and political party-line corn that went out of style with last season's prime-time TV?

And it's not just me. I know a guy who's in the forefront of the avant-garde and he doesn't like it either.

Lol what a jackass

How significant was the remixing done around the time of Onobox? I've always thought "Women Power" was way ahead of its time with its gated drum part -- but part of me wonders whether that was a retrofit.

No, unfortunately that gated drum was mostly invented in the remix; it's not nearly that heavy on Feeling the Space.

used to love tosches but his tough-guy schtick seems lamer and more pathetic every time i try to reread him.

I had an 8-track of Feeling the Space and I played the hell out of it before the tape broke. Great album. Season of Glass was my 1st Ono record, and I knew from the first time I heard "Goodbye Sadness" that she was something special and all the hate poured upon her was obscuring some truly beautiful music.

Really enjoying Feeling the Space as well.

No, unfortunately that gated drum was mostly invented in the remix; it's not nearly that heavy on /Feeling the Space/.

IK: You were in the studio when some of these songs were being re-engineered for CD. Were you there for most of it, or just a few songs?

BH: Most of it. Yoko would like to stress that there was very minimal remixing. I think when people who aren't that familiar with Yoko's music listen to the discs, they're going to think that a lot of it was recorded in the late 80's or 90's - very recently. But all Yoko did was take the original multi-track recordings which have each instrument separated and just tweaked them a bit, bringing up the bass, or the keyboard, etc. She worked for months and months in the studio getting the sound right. Yoko knew exactly what she wanted to do with each song and knew what each song needed before she went in.

The sound is incredible compared to the albums. "Woman Power" is a good example. If you listen to the album, then listen to the CD, you'll really be blown away by the difference in the drums and the power of the song. It's completely changed by Yoko's minimal remix.
http://www.instantkarma.com/magarchive8b_00.html

I know a guy who's in the forefront of the avant-garde and he doesn't like it either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXstxFoayxI

Here's the original Feeling the Space mix of "Woman Power"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV8ohWIPZbw

I would not call the Onobox version a "minimal" remix; the drum sound is completely different. Happily, that grinding guitar wasn't created in the remix--it's like that in the original. Also, the song doesn't fade like in the original mix; it goes on for another 45 seconds until the end of the take.

Comparing the other remixed Feeling the Space songs--Woman of Salem, If Only, A Thousand Times Yes, Straight Talk, and She Hits Back--the changes are primarily adding reverb to the dry '70s drums and vocals (more "space" to "feel," if you will).

She lets the echoing smear at the end of "Woman of Salem" play out for another 20 seconds in the remix.

"She Hits Back" gets an extra 30 seconds between the first and second verses.

The handclaps that are the most prominent percussion on the Onobox "Straight Talk" are barely there in the original mix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jgbl-N04Dc

Agreed -- that's not minimal.

A little disappointed I suppose -- I was really struck the first time I heard it in college. But is still a great song --and the guitar riff is epic.

"Growing Pains" is lovely btw.

Pain, rather

Loneliness is a great song:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HcB8mbzi7g&sns=em

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i54pej8bkhI

let's take yoko's twee-est song and make it even mroe twee (I dig it)

I have access to a load of postcards of her Voice Piece for Soprano for Simone Morris.
Loads were printed for the Tulca Festival but they don't seem to have been labeled very well. So while they're free to take I don't think people are.

Man, “You’re the One” from Milk and Honey sure sounds like a precursor to Italo classic “The Voice of Q” (tho I suppose the former wasn’t released until two years after the latter):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHYIlp_ZIWc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn0xauJMHXI