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marmalodi · 3 years

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono Interview: St. Regis Hotel, 9/5/1971

When we turned up at the St. Regis for our first interview, John and Yoko were still in bed. It was nearly afternoon and there was a flurry of activity in the adjacent rooms. May Pang was much in evidence, bustling about, her long black hair swirling around her. (This was a year or two before her affair with John.) She told us that our interview would have to be interrupted by a fitting for Yoko, which turned out to be to our advantage, because in Yoko's absence John was prepared to go back into the past and talk about Hamburg and the role of Brian Epstein.

We were served tea on a silver tray. John chain-smoked Gauloises, and the interview proceeded. It was obvious from the start that he was still angry at Paul, but when I played the tapes back later, I noticed he did not say anything negative about Paul's music. He attacked Paul for being bossy, arrogant, chauvinistic, etc, but in the next breath he would be telling us about Hamburg and about Paul having to be onstage for an hour and a half playing 'What'd I Say,' and you could hear the affection in his voice.

I have listened to these tapes many times, and I have always been struck by the contradictions within John Lennon. He tended to see the world in terms of black and white, and people were either on his good list or his hit list, and often subject to being switched from one to the other, according to which way the conversation turned. He was always outspoken, yet the charm of John's outspokenness was not only his way with words, but also that he was as critical and candid about himself as others. In the end it was this that made him endearing. He bared his soul about everything -- his insecurities, his mistakes -- and when he did so, even when he appeared ridiculous, he was a breath of fresh air in the entertainment world.

One moment I remember during the interview was when John and Yoko were leaning toward the microphone, each jostling the other to tell the story of how they met and fell in love. No one could have been in their presence for those minutes and not have been affected by it.

Neil Aspinal, the Beatles' longtime friend, said, 'The Beatles' world was an unreal world... a war zone.' It surely was. In a way I think Yoko brought John home. He found comfort, love, and understanding with her. He had a son by her and devoted himself to his child. I have no doubt he was a happier man in 1980 than he was in 1967 when he walked into that London art Gallery. - Peter McCabe (1984)

Q: "Let's talk about the Beatles' breakup, and the falling out between you and Paul. A lot of people think it had to do with the women in your lives. Is that why the Beatles split up?"

JOHN: "Not really. The split was over who would manage us -- Allen Klein or the Eastmans -- and nothing else really, although the split had been coming from Pepper onward."

Q: "Why, specifically?"

JOHN: "Paul was always upset about the White Album. He never liked it because on that one I did my music, he did his, and George did his. And first, he didn't like George having so many tracks. He wanted it to be more a group thing, which really means more Paul. So he never liked that album, and I always preferred it to all the other albums, including Pepper, because I thought the music was better. The Pepper myth is bigger, but the music on the White Album is far superior, I think."

Q: "That's your favorite, of all the Beatle albums?"

JOHN: "Yeah, because I wrote a lot of good shit on that. I like all the stuff I did on that, and the other stuff as well. I like the whole album. But if you're talking about the split, the split was over Allen and Eastman."

Q: "You didn't like Lee Eastman (Linda's father), nor John (Linda's brother), and the Eastmans didn't like Allen Klein..."

JOHN: "The Eastmans hated Allen from way back. They're from the class of family... like all classes, I suppose, they vote like Daddy does. They're the kind of kids who just think what their fathers told them."

Q: "But for a while you didn't get along with Linda."

JOHN: "We all got along well with Linda."

Q: "When did you first meet her?"

JOHN: "The first time was after that Apple press conference in America. We were going back to the airport and she was in the car with us. I didn't think she was particularly attractive. A bit too tweedy, you know. But she sat in the car and took photographs and that was it. And the next minute she's married him."

YOKO: "There was a nice quality about her. As a woman she doesn't offend you because she doesn't come on like a coquettish bird, you know? So she was alright, and we were on very good terms until Allen came into the picture. And then she said, 'Why the hell do you have to bring Allen into it?' She said very nasty things about Allen."

Q: "Yoko, you weren't with John the first time he met her?"

YOKO: "No. The first time I met her was when she came to the EMI studio. And you know, when Beatles are recording, there's very few people around, especially no women. If a young woman comes into the room, everybody just sort of looks at her. So I was there, and the first thing Linda made clear to me -- almost unnecessarily -- was the fact that she was interested in Paul, and not John, you know? She was sort of presupposing that I would be nervous. She just said, 'Oh, I'm with Paul.' Something to that effect. I think she was eager to be with me and John, in the sense that Paul and John are close, we should be close too. And couple to couple we were going to be good friends."

Q: "What was Paul's attitude to you as things progressed?"

YOKO: "Paul began complaining that I was sitting too close to them when they were recording, and that I should be in the background."

JOHN: "Paul was always gently coming up to Yoko and saying, 'Why don't you keep in the background a bit more?' I didn't know what was going on. It was going on behind my back."

Q: "So did that contribute to the split?"

JOHN: "Well, Paul rang me up. He didn't actually tell me he'd split, he said he was putting out an album. He said, 'I'm now doing what you and Yoko were doing last year. I understand what you were doing.' All that shit. So I said, 'Good luck to yer.'"

Q: "So, John. You and Paul were probably the greatest songwriting team in a generation. And you had this huge falling out. Were there always huge differences between you and Paul, or was there a time when you had a lot in common?"

JOHN: "Well, Paul always wanted the home life, you see. He liked it with daddy and the brother... and obviously missed his mother. And his dad was the whole thing. Just simple things. He wouldn't go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind me back, I found out later. He'd say to George, 'Why don't you get rid of John, he's just a lot of trouble. Cut your hair nice and wear baggy trousers,' like I was the bad influence because I was the eldest. So Paul was always like that. And I was always saying, 'Face up to your dad, tell him to fuck off. He can't hit you. You can kill him (laughs) he's an old man.' I used to say, 'Don't take that shit.' But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, 'I need a steady career.' We couldn't believe it. Once he rang up and said he'd got this job and couldn't come to the group. So I told him on the phone, 'Either come or you're out.' So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me. But it was a long trip."

Q: "So you think with Linda he's found what he wanted?"

JOHN: "I guess so. I guess so. I just don't understand. I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty. But you don't really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd married Jane because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like -- boom! She was in and that was the end of it."

Q: "So if the falling out was essentially with Paul, what made you decide not to participate in the Bangladesh concert with George?"

JOHN: "I told George about a week before it that I wouldn't be doing it. I just didn't feel like it. I just didn't want to be fucking rehearsing and doing a big show-biz trip. We were in the Virgin Islands, and I certainly wasn't going to be rehearsing in New York, then going back to the Virgin Islands, then coming back up to New York and singing. And anyway, they couldn't have got any more people in, if I'd been there or not. I got enough money off records and I don't feel like doing two shows a night."

Q: "Do you have any regrets about not doing it?"

JOHN: "Well, at first I thought, 'Oh, I wish I'd been there,' you know, with Dylan and Leon... they needed a rocker. Everybody was telling me 'You should have been there, John,' but I'm glad I didn't do it in a way because I didn't want to go on as 'The Beatles.' And with George and Ringo there it would have had that connotation of Beatles -- Now let's hear Ringo sing 'It Don't Come Easy.' That's why I left it all. I don't want to play 'My Sweet Lord.' I'd as soon go out and do exactly what I want."

Q: "John, you said you 'get enough off records,' but you used to say you weren't as rich as people thought you were. Are you rich enough finally?"

JOHN: "Well, I do have money for the first time ever, really. I do feel slightly secure about it, secure enough to say I'll go on the road for free. The reason I got rich is because I'm so insecure. I couldn't give it all away, even in my most holy, Christian, God-fearing, Hare Krishna period. I need it because I'm so insecure. Yoko doesn't need it. She always had it. I have to have it. I'm not secure enough to give it all up, because I need it to protect me from whatever I'm frightened of."

YOKO: "He's very vulnerable."

JOHN: "But now I think that Allen Klein has made me secure enough, it's his fault that I'll go out for free."

Q: "You mean tour for free?"

JOHN: "Well, I thought I can't really go on the road and take a lot more money. What am I going to do with it? I've got all the fucking bread I need. If I go broke, well, I'd go on the road for money then. But now I just couldn't face saying, 'Well, I cost a million when I sing.'"

YOKO: "It's criminal."

JOHN: "It's bullshit, because I want to sing. So I'm going out on the road because I want to this time. I want to do something political, and radicalize people, and all that jazz. I feel like going out with Yoko, and taking a really far-out show on the road, a mobile, political, rock and roll show."

YOKO: "With clowns as well."

JOHN: "You know what I was thinking -- when Paul's going out on the road, I'd like to be playing in the same town for free next door! And he's charging about a million. That would be funny."

YOKO: "Our position is -- I come from the East, he comes from the West -- a meeting of East and West, and all that. And to communicate with people is almost a responsibility. We actually are living proof of East and West getting along together. High water falls low, you know. And if our cup is full, it's going to flow. It's natural for us to give because we have a lot. If we don't give, it's criminal, in the sense that it's going against the law of nature. In order to go against the law of nature you have to use tremendous energy."

Q: "Let's talk about Allen Klein. He has a reputation as a tough wheeler-dealer in the music business. What made you decide to have him as your manager?"

JOHN: "Well, Allen's human, whereas Eastman and all them other people are automatons. And one of the early things that impressed me about Allen -- and obviously it was a kind of flattery as well -- was that he really knew which stuff I'd written. Not many people knew which was my song and which was Paul's, but he'd say, 'Well, McCartney didn't write that line, did he?' I thought, anybody who knows me this well, just by listening to records, is pretty perceptive. I'm not the easiest guy to read, although I'm fairly naive and open in some ways, and I can be conned easily. But in other ways I'm quite complicated, and it's not easy to get through all the defenses and see what I'm like. Allen knew to come to me and not to go to Paul, whereas somebody like Lew Grade or Eastman would have gone to Paul."

Q: "Did Klein hope to get Paul back into the group?"

JOHN: (laughs) "He came up with this plan. He said, "Just ring Paul and say, 'We're recording next Friday, are you coming?' So it nearly happened. Then Paul would have forfeited his right to split by joining us again. But Paul would never, never do it, for anything, and now I would never do it."

Q: "There was a lot of negative publicity about Klein. Didn't that bother you?"

JOHN: "Well, he's a businessman. He's probably cut many peoples' throats. So have I. I made it too. I mean, I can't remember anybody I literally cut, but I've certainly trod on a few feet on the way up. And I'm sure Allen did also."

Q: "How does Klein compare with Brian Epstein as a manager?"

JOHN: "Well, Brian couldn't delegate, and neither can Allen. But I understand that. When I try and delegate it never gets done properly. Like with my albums and Yoko's, each time I have to go through the same process -- Get the printing size right. I want it clear and simple. I have to go through the same jazz all the time. It's never a lesson learned."

Q: "Let's get back to something we were talking about earlier. The attitude of the other Beatles toward Yoko."

JOHN: "They don't listen to women. Women are chicks to them."

Q: "What about George?"

JOHN: "George always has a point of view about that wide (he holds his hands close together), you know? You can't tell him anything."

YOKO: "George is sophisticated, fashionwise..."

JOHN: "He's very trendy, and he has the right clothes on, and all of that."

YOKO: "But he's not sophisticated, intellectually."

JOHN: "No. He's very narrow-minded. One time in the Apple office I was saying something, and he said, 'I'm as intelligent as you, you know.' This must have been resentment. Of course he's got an inferiority complex from working with Paul and me."

Q: "John, what did you think of Yoko's work when you first saw it?"

JOHN: "Well, her gallery show was a bit of an eye-opener. I wasn't sure what it was all about. I knew there was some sort of con game going on. She calls herself a concept artist, but with the 'cept' left off, it's con artist. I saw that side of it and that was interesting. And then we met."

Q: "Was it love at first sight?"

JOHN: "Well, I always had this dream of meeting an artist woman I would fall in love with. Even from art school. And when we met and were talking I just realized that she knew everything I knew -- and more probably. And it was coming out of a woman's head. It just sort of bowled me over. It was like finding gold or something. To have exactly the same relationship with any male you'd ever had, but also you could go to bed with it, and it could stroke your head when you felt tired or sick or depressed. Could also be Mother. And if the intellect is there... well, it's just like winning the pools. So that's why when people ask me for a precis of my story, I put, 'born, lived, met Yoko.' because that's what it's been about.

"As she was talking to me I would get high, and the discussion would get to such a level that I would be going higher and higher. And when she'd leave, I'd go back into this sort of suburbia. Then I'd meet her again and my head would go off like I was on an acid trip. I'd be going over what she'd said and it was incredible, some of the ideas and the was she was saying them, And then once I got a sniff of it I was hooked. Then I couldn't leave her alone. We couldn't be apart for a minute from then on."

YOKO: "He has this nature, and I'm thankful for it. Most men are so narrow-minded. Somebody once told me, 'You don't make small talk, and that's why men hate you.' I mean, I have so many male enemies who try to stifle me. What the hell."

JOHN: "I did the same, of course. I found myself being a chauvinist pig with her. Then I started thinking, 'Well, if I said that to Paul, or asked Paul to do that, or George, or Ringo, they'd tell me to fuck off.' And then you realize -- you just have this attitude to women that is just insane! It's beyond belief , the way we're brought up to think of women. And I had to keep saying, 'Well, would I tell a guy to do that? Would I say that to a guy? Would a guy take that?' Then I started to get nervous. I thought, 'Fuck, I better treat her right or she's going to go. No friend's going to stick around for this treatment."

Q: Did you know anything about rock music, Yoko, when you first met John?"

YOKO: "I didn't know anything about rock music, or anything like it. I thought of rock songs as something a bit lower than poetry. It was like reading poetry that had a definite rhythm to it."

JOHN: "She used to say, "Why are you doing the same beat all the time?' I used to get very irritated."

Q: "What were your feelings about art and the art world at that time?"

JOHN: "Well, I went to art school and I thought that was the art world, virtually. And they're all such pretentious hypocrites. There was no artist I admired, except for maybe Dali or someone from the past. And when I read the art reviews... I couldn't understand why I wasn't being reviewed for my art, because I always felt like an artist.

"So I went to her show. I was thinking, 'Fucking artist shit. It's all bullshit.' But then there were so many good jokes in it, real good eye-openers."

YOKO: "That's another thing, most artists don't have a sense of humor."

JOHN: "And there was a sense of humor in her work, you know? It was funny. Her work really made me laugh, some of it. So that's when I got interested in art again, just through her work."

YOKO: "All the men I met, I felt they were more pretentious than me, hypocritical, narrower than me, and not genuine. And I'm talented. Because I can compose, I can paint, I can be in many fields. Most men that I met were bragging about their professionalism in one field."

JOHN: "They get one idea and flog it to death, and become famous on one idea."

YOKO: "And fucking conservative, you know? And they talk about women not having a sense of humor. I used to despise every man that I met. I was thinking, 'There's something wrong with me, because everybody hated me for it.' And then I met this man, and for the first time I got the fright of my life because here was a man who was just as genuine, maybe more genuine than me. He's very genuine. And he can do anything I can do, which is very unusual. And I got surprised. And that happened at the first meeting."

JOHN: "It took me a long time to get used to it. Any woman I could shout down. Most of my arguments used to be a question of who could shout the loudest. Normally I could win, whether I was right or wrong, especially if the argument was with a woman -- they'd just give in. But she didn't. She'd go on and on and on, until I understood it. Then I had to treat her with respect."

Q: "Yoko, did you have any idea of what the Beatles' life had been like, on tours for example?"

JOHN: "She was really shocked. I thought the art world was loose, you know? And when I started telling her about what our life was like, she couldn't believe it."

YOKO: "I came from a different generation. I mean, my friends didn't want me to know they smoked pot, you know? So I thought 'Oh, he's an artist. He's probably had two or three affairs.' Then I heard the whole story and I thought, 'My God!'"

JOHN: "She was just like this silly Eastern nun wandering about, thinking it was all spiritual."

YOKO: "He once said to me, 'Well, were you a groupie in the art world?' I said, 'What's a groupie?'"

JOHN: "So I said, 'Just tell me. I don't want to go 'round and fucking Picasso or someone comes up and says, 'Yes, I've had her.'"

YOKO: "And I really didn't know the word 'groupie.'"

JOHN: "So anyway, I'd been dying to tell her about the 'raving' on tour. I just wanted her to know what a scene it was. I thought it was silly not to say it. And of course the people with us were living like fucking emperors when we were locked in our rooms. That's why they cling so much to the past."

Q: "Talking of your entourage, do you resent it that so many people take credit for their contributions to the Beatles?"

JOHN: "Well, there was an article on George Martin in Melody Maker -- he's telling all these stories. He says, well, I showed them how to play feedback, or put tape loops together, or some arbitrary little technical thing... Where is the great talent of George Martin and Derek Taylor, and the legacy of Brian Epstein? Where is their talent?"

YOKO: "It's like my ex-husband saying that he sacrificed his talent for me, or something."

JOHN: "Well, I never had anything against George Martin. I just didn't like all the rumors that he actually was the brains behind the Beatles. I can't stand that."

Q: "Let's talk about Brian Epstein, your first manager. What did you think of him?"

JOHN: " I liked Brian. I had a very close relationship with him for years, like I have with Allen, because I'm not going to have some stranger running the scene, that's all. I was close with Brian, as close as you can get with someone who lives sort of the fag life, and you don't really know what they're doing on the side. But in the group I was closest to him. He had great qualities and was good fun.

"He was a theatrical man rather than a businessman, and with us he was a bit like that. He literally fucking cleaned us up. And there were great fights between him and me, over years and years, of me not wanting to dress up. He and Paul had some kind of collusion... to keep me straight. Because I kept spoiling the image, like the time I beat up a guy at Paul's twenty-first. I nearly killed him, because he insinuated that me and Brian had an affair in Spain. I was out of me mind.

What I think about the Beatles is that even if there had been Paul and John and two other people, we'd never have been the Beatles. It had to take that combination of Paul, John, George and Ringo to make the Beatles. There's no such thing as 'Well, John and Paul wrote all the songs, therefore they contributed more.' because if it hadn't been us we would have got songs from somewhere else. And Brian contributed as much as us in the early days, although we were the talent and he was the hustler."

Q: "So after Brian died you made 'Magical Mystery Tour.' You said Paul was acting as if he were going to take charge of everything?"

JOHN: "Well, I still felt, every now and then, that Brian would come in and say, 'It's time to record,' or 'Time to do this.' And then Paul started doing that -- 'Now we're going to make a movie,' or 'Now we're going to make a record.' And he assumed that if he didn't call us, nobody would ever make a record. Well, it's since shown that we managed quite well to make records on time. I don't have any schedule, I just think, 'Now I'll make it.' But in those days, Paul would say that now he felt like it. And suddenly I'd have to whip out 20 songs. He'd come in with about 20 good songs and say 'We're recording.' And I had to suddenly write a fucking stack of songs. Pepper was like that. Magical Mystery Tour was another. So I hastily did my bits for it and we went out on the road. And Paul did the thing for his album -- the big-timer, auditioning directors."

Q: Let's go back for a minute and talk about all the early influences on the Beatles. What would you say had the greatest effect on the group? Was it Liverpool? The Cavern? Hamburg? Did Hamburg really improve the playing?"

JOHN: "Oh, amazingly. Because before that we'd only been playing bits and pieces, but in Hamburg we had to play for hours and hours on end. Every song lasted 20 minutes and had 20 solos in it. We'd be playing eight or ten hours a night. And that's what improved the playing. Also, the Germans like heavy rock, so you have to keep rocking all the time, and that's how we got stomping. That's how it developed. That made the sound. Because we developed a sound by playing hours and hours and hours together."

Q: "You all must have found yourself playing in some unbelievably bad conditions."

JOHN: "Yeah, but it was still rather thrilling when you went onstage. A little frightening because it wasn't a dancehall, and all these people were sitting down, expecting something. And then they would tell us to 'mak show'. After the first night they said, 'You were terrible. You have to make a show -- Mak show!' So I put my guitar down and I did Gene Vincent all night. You know -- banging and lying on the floor and throwing the mic about and pretending I had a bad leg. They're all doing it now -- lying on the floor and banging the guitar and kicking things and just doing all that jazz.

"Then they moved us to another club, which was larger and where they danced. Paul would be doing 'What'd I Say' for an hour and a half. And these gangsters would come in -- the local mafia. They'd send a crate of champagne onstage... this imitation German champagne, and we had to drink it or they'd kill us. They'd say, 'Drink it and then do What'd I Say.' We'd have to do this other show, whatever time of night. If they came in at five in the morning and we'd been playing for seven hours, they'd give us a crate of champagne and we were supposed to carry on. We'd get pills off the waiters then, to keep awake. That's how all that started.

"I used to be so pissed I'd be lying on the floor behind the piano, drunk, while the rest of the group was playing. I'd just be onstage fast asleep. Some of the shows, I went on just in me underpants. I'd go on in underpants with a toilet seat 'round me neck, and all sorts of gear on. Out of me fucking mind!"

Q: When did you get into acid? Did Paul time his LSD announcement to coincide with the release of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?"

JOHN: "No. We'd had acid on Revolver. Everyone is under this illusion... even George Martin saying 'Pepper was their acid album,' but we'd had acid, including Paul, by the time Revolver was finished."

Q: "So why did he make that big announcement?"

JOHN: "Because the press had cornered him. I don't know how they found out about him taking it. But that was a year after we'd all taken it. Rubber Soul was our pot album, and Revolver was acid. I mean, we weren't all stoned making Rubber Soul because in those days we couldn't work on pot. We never recorded under acid or anything like that. It's like saying, 'Did Dylan Thomas write Under Milk Wood on beer?' What the fuck does that have to do with it? The beer is to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on him. The drugs are to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. They don't make you write better. I never wrote any better stuff because I was on acid or not on acid."

Q: "Did the fact that Sergeant Pepper inspired so many people to try LSD surprise you?"

JOHN: "Well, I never felt that Haight-Ashbury was a direct result. It always seemed to me that all sorts of things were happening at once. The acid thing in America was going on long before Pepper. Leary was going around saying, 'Take it, take it, take it.' We followed his instruction. I did it just like he said in the Book Of The Dead, and then I wrote Tomorrow Never Knows,' which is on Revolver, and which was almost the first acid song -- 'Lay down all thought, surrender to the void' -- and all that shit. Do you remember if Paul's statement on acid came out after Sergeant Pepper?"

Q: "Just as it was released."

JOHN: "I see. He always times his big announcements right on the letter, doesn't he. Like leaving the Beatles. Maybe it's instinctive. It probably is. Anyway, 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' is not about LSD. And Henry the Horse is not about smack on Sergeant Pepper, because I'd never even seen it when we made Sergeant Pepper. But those kinds of stories evolved from it -- people thought if you listened to it backwards it said 'Paul is dead.' All that shit is just gobbledygook."

Q: "Still, many who got into acid might never have followed Timothy Leary but did follow the Beatles."

JOHN: "Well, blame it on Dylan. He turned us onto pot."

Q: "Having written so much with Paul, do you think it's possible for there to be some type of settlement, outside of business?"

JOHN: "Well, there's no way for it to be settled 'outside business,' because it all gets down to who owns a bit of what. It's a house we own together, and there's no way of settling it, unless we all decide to live in it together. It has to be sold."

Q: "Have you missed writing songs with him?"

JOHN: "No I haven't. I wrote alone in the early days. We used to write separately. He used to write songs before I even started writing songs. I think he did. And we'd written separately for years. I wrote 'Help.' I wrote 'A Hard Day's Night.' He wrote 'Yesterday.' They'd been separate for years.

"In the early days we'd write together for fun, and later on for convenience to get so many numbers out for an album. But our best songs were always written alone. And things like 'A Day In The Life' was just my song and his song stuck together. I mean we used to sit down and finish off each other's songs. You know, you could have three quarters of a song finished and we'd just sit together, bring ten songs each, and finish off the tail ends, and put middle eights in ones that you couldn't be bothered fixing, because they weren't all that good anyway.

"We usually got together on songs that were less interesting. Now and then we'd write together from scratch. 'I Want To Hold Your Hand,' things like that were done like that. But we'd been working apart ever since we were working together. It was only news to the public that a lot of Lennon-McCartney songs weren't Lennon-McCartney. That was something we'd agreed on years ago."

Q: "Do you think it was a mistake in retrospect to have named everything Lennon-McCartney?"

JOHN: "No, I don't, because it worked very well and it was useful. Then it was useful, so it was quite good fun. I've nothing against it."

Q: "If you got, I don't know what the right phrase is... 'back together' now, what would be the nature of it?"

JOHN: "Well, it's like saying, if you were back in your mother's womb... I don't fucking know. What can I answer? It will never happen, so there's no use contemplating it. Even if I became friends with Paul again, I'd never write with him again. There's no point. I write with Yoko because she's in the same room with me."

YOKO: "And we're living together."

JOHN: "So it's natural. I was living with Paul then, so I wrote with him. It's whoever you're living with. He writes with Linda. He's living with her. It's just natural."

Source: Transcribed by www.beatlesinterviews.org from original magazine issue

#john: where is the great legacy of brian epstein? where is their talent?#john two minutes later: brian contributed as much as us in the early days #i've seen a lot of quotes from this interview going around on tumblr but not the whole thing #tw f slur #john lennon #yoko ono #the beatles #shanty’s posts

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rk800hunter · 6 years

Text

Dramatics (Sequel - Connor x Reader)

Summary: Jealous/Protective Connor being jealous over reader’s close friend

Pairing: Connor x Reader

A/N: This was demanded from me and I have provided xD Many of you asked for a sequel to Dramatics so here you are! I hope you all enjoyed this as you’ve enjoyed the first one. We are all suckers for protective/possessive/jealous Connor. Feedback is appreciated! I also want to thank you all for being so enthusiastic in my writing, because it makes me want to just write more for everyone~ You guys are the best ;w;

Keys: [F/N] - Friend’s name

[F/LN] - Friend’s last name

[Y/N] - Your name

[L/N] - Your last name

Tags: @captain-winter-wolf-aehs, @rosealexandersson, @alientrashbin, @honeybeelily, @dragonempress123, @randomstuff-idontwannatalkaboutit, @sygin, @dylan-o-yumm @im-a-slut-for-connors-hair-flipp, @ elaneth-elf-friend

I think I’m missing some tags. x.x I’m so sorry...

Warm in your bed, you weren’t keen on waking up for work. The sun was already leaking through your curtains and you could hear the birds chatting and singing up a storm on the nearby willow tree. You quickly switched off the buzzing of your alarm before slumping back down onto the bed.

Staring at the ceiling, you sighed as your mind was already in the works. There was so much to think about considering what had happened last night. You closed your eyes as you replayed the events, remembering every single detail. The sight of Connor’s shirtless body, android-white and gleaming as if it were shining in perspiration. His hair hanging loosely over his forehead with messed curls. The warmth of his breath by your cheek, feathering your neck. His gentle hands brushing against your other cheek, comforting and rhythmic. His hooded, coffee eyes, harsh and piercing, warning away other predators but alluring, tender and almost pleading when they met yours.

And oh. His lips. Oh my god. His soft, inviting lips. Parted slightly. Teasing. Close. Curled in a soft snarl with a tensed jaw and gritted teeth.

You inhaled sharply and bit your lip, feeling heavy churning in your stomach. It was supposed to be the feeling of butterflies but it felt more of wild flapping of disturbed pigeons. You groaned and grabbed the nearby pillow, stuffing it onto your face as you tried to get the images of Connor out of your head.

You had left Hank’s place before anyone had the chance to explain anything but not before placing a blanket on a drunk lieutenant that drooling on the couch. You had asked [F/N] if they were okay getting home on their own to which they had hesitatingly reassured you they were going to be fine. Flushed and embarrassed, you had distractedly arrived in your own home, showered in frustration and fell into restless sleep.

You finally decided that your job was the only thing that fed and housed you, flipping the blankets off and proceeded to clean the evidence of sleep. You were frying quick breakfast when your phone rang. Wiping your hands with a nearby cloth, you looked at the screen to see your caller.

Connor - RK800.

You felt your cheeks immediately burn at the sight of his name and his contact picture, regal and poised. You paced the small apartment kitchen, your heart beating faster with slight anxiety working you up. You suspected he called to apologise for his behaviour and blame it on a system malfunction, vowing that it would never happen again.

The phone was still ringing. Oh crap. You panicked and pressed the decline button. Oh my god, why did you do that? Facepalming and whispering curses to yourself, you scraped the nearly burnt breakfast into a plastic box. Putting the breakfast into your bag, you locked up and quickly boarded the bus that nearly left without you. You settled down on a seat near the window and plugged in your earphones, selecting your favourite song as the bus pulled out onto the road. You looked around and saw androids and humans sitting next to each other like there were no differences. Ever since the android revolution, relationships between androids and humans were quite estranged. However, the androids were putting on their best behaviour, ready to be accepted as equals. They no longer needed to stand in their own android compartments on buses, android parking and such. They were one of us now. You smiled as you saw an android lady talking animatedly to a small boy, revealing her android skin around her hands. It seemed like she was teaching him something. The boy’s father was beaming proudly at them both. It looked like they were such a happy family.

Imagine if you and Connor were a family. Holding hands, laughing as your child ran ahead, chasing a little ladybug. Choking, you realised what you were thinking about and turned away to face the window to watch the passing streets as the world woke up in the sunlight.

You need to get yourself together, [Y/N]. You mentally slapped yourself, it was definitely just a system malfunction. Connor was still adjusting to the new deviancy. After all, he was made to be a deviant hunter so obviously Cyberlife would take extra precautions in his programming.

The bus stopped at the small square where the bookstore was and you briskly stepped off, making your way down the path. Greeting a few other shop owners that were also just opening, you rummaged for your keys, opening the door.

The door revealed a rather large plush doll of a Saint Bernard sitting on the counter. Around its neck, was a golden chained, ivory stone necklace. You were stunned as you looked around outside to search for the culprit. No one suspicious in sight. Returning back inside, you placed your bags down and picked up the plush. It resembled a lot like Sumo. You noticed a solid paper card underneath the plush, sealed in a golden envelope that had your name in crisp, cursive black print. Probably Cyberlife Cursive typeface, you guessed. Connor...sent this? You were quite surprised because people rarely use paper anymore with the new digital age and all. He certainly had a taste for gifts and maybe by the fact that you work at one of the few standing paperback bookstores, he knew you preferred the traditional materials.

You put down the plush and carefully opened the envelope, pulling out the letter within.

[Y/N].

Hank and I would like to present these as gifts souvenirs we have collected during our investigation. As you may have guessed, the Saint Bernard stuffed doll is a representation of Sumo, chosen by Hank himself. He had immediately thought of you when he passed it by the store window. As you know, Hank doesn't like sappiness so he does not want to include himself in this letter.

You snorted out loud, smiling as you read. Classic Hank.

The necklace around Stuffed Sumo is my gift to you. Made out of pure ivory, it is actually the rare tooth of an elk. I had promised to find you a souvenir from the investigation itself so yes this is part of the pieces of evidence. Don't worry. They won't be able to detect the difference between the fake I deposited.

As I present these gifts, I would like to apologize for my behavior last night. It was definitely very uncharacteristic of me and I have done a self-diagnosis that indicates a bit of a system error. I hope [F/N] did not take offense.

Ah there it was. You had already predicted what he would say.

I hope that you would find it in your heart to look past this inconvenience.

Connor

Oh... Inconvenience? Okay sure, it was an inconvenience to your poor heart and mind that wouldn't stop freaking out but you knew that wasn't what Connor had meant. Shaking your head with a smile, you placed the Sumo plush by the window, giving it a pat on the head before setting down to work. It was so sweet of both of them. You made a vow to always treasure them both enough and to make sure they knew.

Half way through the day, you remembered to give [F/N] a call, to make sure they weren't going to run away from you. You had also wanted to catch up with them before they headed overseas again.

"It seems like I have competition," they had joked and reassured you. "Don't worry about it too much."

You had sighed with relief. "Could I make it up to you with a proper dinner out? I promise it'll be Conner-less."

Agreeing on a time and a rather expensive place, you decided to message Hank, letting him know that you were going to be missing dinner with them.

As evening settled, you waved off your last customer before putting away the last stock. You were just about to leave before something glittered by the window, reminding you of a certain tenderness. Connor's necklace. Biting your lip in a quick thought, you decided to take the necklace off of stuffed Sumo. Clasping the chain around your neck, you glanced at the reflection on the window, admiring the way the tooth glimmered against the streetlight that streamed through the glass.

You touched it lightly with your hand as you thought about Connor once more. How was it possible that a machine becoming deviant could be so impactful...? It allowed him to understand sentimentality. Evolution was a wonder.

Feeling rather embarrassed about the amount of times you thought about him, you shook your head and exited the shop, making your way to the restaurant.

The night was going really well. Excellent food and drinks along with [F/N] with so many stories to tell about their adventures and experiences in teaching at seminars and several universities. You exchanged stories by telling them about the whole deviant revolution that happened a few years back and how things were actually still so raw. You avoided the subject about work, explaining that it was obviously nothing compared to what they were doing.

You had excused yourself to go to the restroom and had just walked out when suddenly, the restaurant exploded, causing you to fly backwards into the wall. You felt your breath leave you as you fell onto the floor. You could hear screams along with things breaking and burning. What the hell happened...? Glancing around with blurred eyes, you saw that everything was in ruins and on fire. Nothing was recognizable anymore. You feel your conscious giving up on you as everything slowly turned dark.

Then...silence.

It felt like you were drifting in the void, drowsily letting go of everything. It was so quiet. It was kind of nice. Just nothing. It felt like you had been there for ages.

"[Y/N]!"

Someone was calling out to you. Probably [F/N]. You could sense desperation in their voice. You opened your eyes but squinted them close again from the white flash of pain that you felt everywhere.

You tried to get up but a sharp jab in your chest caused you to cry out as you collapsed back down. Strong hands gripped your arms, stablising you. You felt them lift you up, sweeping you into a bridal style. They were asking you something but your ears still rang of both noise and silence. Was that even possible...? You felt that you had discovered new muscles and pain in areas that you didn’t realise could feel pain. Hazily nuzzling against their chest, you moaned, trying to communicate with your savior.

They were saying something else, but you could only make out the reassuring tone with a sense of worry and anger. Closing your eyes, you let yourself be carried outside and felt your skin prickle with something damp. Oh. It was raining. The air smelt of the mixture of burnt plastic, smoke and moisture of the rain. You could hear panicked voices, sirens and just ultimate chaos. You were placed onto something soft and your savior’s hands searching you everywhere. They gently touched your face, eyes, ears, down to your neck, and suddenly...

WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! As you felt the pair of hands lift up your shirt you jolted up despite what it feels like to be a stab wound in your chest.

“HEY!” you yelled, feeling the haziness flutter away form your brain. “What are you doing?!”

The hands pushed you gently but firmly down. “Please calm down, [Y/N], you are seriously injured and I need to remove this garment so I can tend to it.”

The voice sounded extremely familiar now that you were out of the initial haze. You closed your eyes as you pleaded. Please don’t let it be Connor, please don’t let it be Connor, please don’t let it Connor... You wouldn’t know how to react if it was the detective android that was tending to your pretty exposed body.

You opened your eyes slowly to look at your caretaker.

What do you know...? Of course, it was Connor.

"Wha-" You stuttered as you looked at him up and down. Oh no... Not the collared white shirt. It was slightly singed with smudged ashes. Thank goodness it wasn't buttoned down all the way. It looked like he was having a casual night before everything happened. There was still quite a visual of his collarbone but you immediately looked right up to his eyes to stop yourself from flushing more than usual.

"Connor!" you gasped, bewildered. "What are you doing here?!"

You realised that you were in the back of an ambulance with the doors opened, allowing you to make out a crowd of people and flashing lights of authority. Conner scanned the road, searching for something before turning his gaze back to you. His eyes were filled with the same fire they held the previous the night as his jaw evidently tightens.

"Why did you not inform me of where you were?" he hissed, his voice lower and huskier than usual. You felt your chest numb, as Connor injects something there. It didn’t stop the burning traces of his hands as they brushed against your skin while he worked on stitching up the wound that sat directly below your rib.

"Hey, I told Hank I was going to be busy," you retorted defensively.

The Android took a step closer towards you, his LED flashing red as he concentrated. "But you didn't tell me," he growled slowly. "And now you are here. With [F/N].” Quite honestly, instead of intimidating you, it was turning you on a little, despite your condition. The close proximity is going to drive you nuts.

You opened your mouth, suddenly worried about [F/N] but Connor waved his hand dismissively, interrupting you. “They’re fine.”

His eyes briefly flickered to you as you looked away, relieved. Glancing back at him, you frowned. “Is it even in your programming to know how to tend to the wounded?”

Connor subtly tilted his head in his usual quirk, eyes not leaving your injury. “I have some programming,” he explained absentmindedly. “It would also be an inconvenience to me if a foreign model or person touches you.”

Your eyes widened at his additional comment, and you could feel a rise in heat.

He shook his head in frustration and continues to scold you. “Look at what happens when I am not around; you get into trouble."

You decided that you were done being bullied into submission even though you were lying there belly-bare as he towered you. "Conner, they're just my friend that I haven't seen in ever." You glared at him square in the eyes, causing him to raise an eyebrow at your sudden fire of defiance. "It’s also not often that restaurants get blown up either. I can take care of myself. I don't belong to you or anything, it's not like you own me." You tried to restrain from grimacing from the ache all over your body, feeling smug at your self-confidence.

The detective smirked, agreeing to play your game. "Well, Miss [L/N]," he cut the last thread of the stitch, letting his hand rest on the nape of your neck. Taking the chain of the ivory tooth necklace and slowly brushing against your skin, he knelt down and leaned in right next to your ear. His other hand was resting on your bare belly, thumb stroking lightly.

Your breath hitched as you felt his lips graze ever so lightly against your cheek. You could feel your heart wanting to jump right out your throat and throw itself at Connor. What the hell man. This isn't fair. You were a strong independent person and yet, your willpower and probably sense of dignity would vanish the moment Connor came into scene. To top it off, you were wounded and vulnerable in a bed so obviously he had the higher ground.

"The moment you placed this on..." he whispered, pulling back slightly, his face only inches away from yours as he glances at you with eyes glinting dangerously.

"You belong to me.”

You laid there, hot, bothered and in pain. This was absolute torture. You closed your eyes, and kept your lips thin as you stubbornly refused to look at him, knowing that he enjoyed toying with you.

You heard him move away, possibly with the biggest, cockiest smirk in history. You still kept your eyes shut, brows furrowed with embarrassment.

“I must tend to the investigation now, they need me to be on scene,” you heard Connor say.

He placed a soft hand in the middle of your chest and scanned, enjoying the sight of your elevated heartbeat on his HUD interface.

“Get better, [Y/N]. I will be expecting you.”

#detroit become human #dbh #connor #connor x reader #hank #hank anderson #dramatics #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #markus #kara #android #reader #reader inserts #protective

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mrjdwyer · 6 years

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Pilgrim, Reptile and Back Home- Clapton at his best

For all who know me, you know that aside from Prince, and Stevie Wonder, the musician I love the most is Eric Clapton. My love of his music goes way back to the day I was four and heard his “I Shot the Sheriff” version on Jamaican radio for the first time. Something about Marcy Levy and Yvonne Elliman’s background vocals that resonated with much more than The Wailer’s harmonies. For the record, before I get slammed by my fellow Jamaican Yardies, Marley’s lead vocals are superior to Eric’s laid-back approach on that tune.

But the love affair started there and kind of faded away until I was a teen and fell in love with rock and roll music after coming to the states in 1980. And Eric Clapton was one of the artists I totally fell in love with all over again.

In 1985 he released Behind the Sun, which, to me, a teenager who had barely listened to the thousands of albums that I was yet to own and memorize, it was as perfect an album that I had heard since Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” came and took me to another level of musical experience and changed my life. The same way Prince’s “Purple Rain” shook me to my core a year earlier.

What struck me about “Behind the Sun” was the incredible album cover (still one of my all time favorites, it just compelled me to listen to it) and the incredible singer that Clapton had become. To me, he is one of the most soulful singers out there that isn’t Black. Of course, his guitar work was incredible as always, but I really liked that this album sounded fresh. “Forever Man” had two fantastic solos and the album featured some great guest musicians, like Lindsey Buckingham and the always recording, Steve Lukather, guitarist to one of my all-time favorite bands ever, Toto.

That album made me a bonafide Clapton fan. I went out and over the years and got everything he ever recorded and bought albums he loved that influenced him. He got me on the quest on going back in time and finding the masters. Through him, I discovered some of the old Blues greats like John Lee Hooker, Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin’ Hopkins and a whole range of old blues artists and then contemporary ones like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, Albert Colins, Buddy Guy and many, many others.

Now most Clapton fans, love him for his guitar work and that fan base is divided into 2 camps: “The Bluesbreakers and Cream years,” and the “Derek and the Dominos and the 70s years.” Almost no one rants and raves about Clapton in the 90s and 2000s years.

Almost. But I am here to tell you that those decades are the years that Clapton really resonated with me.

If you listen to Clapton’s output- especially the 70s material now, and especially after reading his autobiography, you can actually hear the drugs and alcohol. With the exception of Derek and Dominos “Layla and Assorted Love Songs”, whenever I listen to the 70s stuff, I can actually hear the effect alcoholism was taking on his life. It is particularly apparent on Backless and Another Ticket, two incredibly lackluster albums that just sound sloppy drunk to me, from singing to playing. While I love certain tracks off them, I can’t help but feel totally underwhelmed in the event that I actually play them.

During the seventies, Clapton was trying to be a singer-songwriter and not a guitar god. He wanted to be a part of the Band and then he wanted to be a country singer, but a rock god was out of the question, as he tried to drink away the demons that were haunting him in his personal life and his professional one.

Which brings me to what I think are the three seminal Eric Clapton albums that defined him not only as the guitar god that he was finally comfortable being but also as a damn fine, soulful singer— something that he admits he was never confident with, until now.

Those three albums are: “Pilgrim,” Reptile,” and “Back Home.”

To me, if you want to know who Eric Clapton, the man, and artist is today, these three albums, sum it up with grace and class and dignity with fantastic singing and guitar work.

Pilgrim is an album, that Clapton regards in his autobiography as his favorite album. He put his heart and soul into that record. He hung all his emotions out for all to hear. And it worked. He wrote the vast majority of the album, all gems either by himself or with his collaborators like Simon Climie and Greg Phillinganes. There are only two songs by other artists, and those two songs are also masterpieces as well as the others. Bob Dylan’s “Born in Time” is just a beautiful song and is the moving “Going Down Slow.” But the real, true gems on the album are “My Father’s Eyes,” a song about his experience as a father (his son Connor died tragically in 1991) and also about him not knowing what a real father was himself, and the sad and deeply moving account of the last night Clapton spent with his son- a few hours before his tragic death, “Circus.” Both are deep and heavy songs and the rest of the album is filled with plaintive, mournful songs that are actually beautiful to listen to and feel and at the end of the album, there is hope and redemption, which is really what the blues ultimately is about; you sing the blues to rid yourself of pain and to ultimately feel better. Be sure though, Pilgrim is not a blues album. It is a brilliant pop record.

Reptile is a sleeper album. Most of the critics called it a solid album, but ultimately not a revelation. To me, it is, because once again, he wrote half of the album, and the other songs the aren’t his, are once again, premium songs by Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder and Doyle Bramhall II. And there is the fact that The Impressions are there doing background vocals on the album as is Billy Preston. To me, there are 5 standouts on the record, Ray Charles’ “Come Back Baby,” James Taylor’s “Don’t Let me Be Lonely Tonight,” (to be fair, it’s really a cover of The Isley Brothers’ cover of James Taylor’s tune), Stevie Wonder’s “I Ain’t Gonna Stand For It,” Clapton’s own “Believe in Light,” and the rocking “Superman Inside” by himself, Doyle Bramhall II and Susannah Melvoin. The rest of the songs are gorgeous as well, but these songs are just stellar. And his singing and playing are superb.

Now you’ve read me ranting and raving about these two albums which are just incredible listening experiences, but the album that means the most to me is Back Home. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe my love of this album. Released in 2005, this Clapton album, like “Pilgrim” had Eric giving his all and you can hear it in every note. The album opens with “So Tired,” a fun, uptempo number about his being a father and being constantly tired. For me, I was a father just 2 years before that and I could totally relate to the song. The song was also a love letter to his daughters and his wife and his love of the simple, domestic life. I can totally relate to that as well. It is a fun song with some exquisitely understated guitar work.

Then comes the reggae “Say What You Will.” Now some can say that Eric Clapton made reggae and international sensation since he popularized it and then in return the world fell in love with it and of course, the one and only Bob Marley. But for me, Eric’s vocals on the song always seemed just okay. This goes back to the fact that he was just a few months removed from being a heroin addict, and was gong taught into being a drunk and also, he himself was not comfortable with him being a singer, even though he had a beautiful voice. Well not anymore, “Say What You Will” is beautifully performed and sung and it is not a reggae ripoff, but a genuine reggae song with lovely, subtle horns.

The album then takes a great turn into a raucous cover of the late and great Syreeta Wright’s incredible “I’m Going Left” that she wrote with her then-husband, Stevie Wonder. His singing is confident and deeply soulful. His band is also incredible throughout the entire album. The core band features one of the greatest drummers of all time, Steve Gadd, Doyle Bramhall II on guitars, Nathan East on bass, Billy Preston on keys and Hammond organ, Chris Stainton on piano and Michelle John and Sharon White on background vocals. I don’t think Eric has ever had a better band than this one. And this is coming from me who was a huge fan of the Steve Ferrone, Greg Philinganes and Nathan East rhythm section of the Journeyman album and subsequent tour that brought you the 24 Nights live album.

After the rousing “I’m Going Left,” comes one of the greatest songs ever and Eric does a cover of it that not only does justice to the original, but also takes it to another level. Those who know me, know my love of The Spinners. And “Love Don’t Love Nobody” might be their best and one the finest songs of the 20th century. It is a marvel of emotion and song arrangement by genius producer and fellow Jamaican, Thom Bell who was instrumental along with Gamble and Huff with creating the legendary Philadelphia Sound. Clapton’s take on it features a guitar solo, complete with a backing orchestra, that’s so beautiful, that will bring you to tears. Yes, it is that good!

After that emotional ride, it’s time to relax with another great reggae number, “Revolution.” This one might even be better than “Say What You Will.” It’s a great song.

His sweet and sincere cover of “Loves Comes to Everyone” is a fitting tribute to the late, great and often lamented, George Harrison. The simplicity of the song is what makes the song so beautiful.

After “Loves Comes to Everyone” is a fun and sly number written by Doyle Bramhall II and Jeremy Stacey, “Lost & Found.“ As with most things, Doyle Bramhall, it is a funky, soulful tune with a fantastic band arrangement. The infectious rhythm gets you every time.

After that is another Doyle Bramhall Ii penned tune, “Piece of My Heart”. This time his ex-wife, )former Family keyboardist and lead vocalist, and current F Deluxe keyboardist and lead vocalist and identical twin sister of guitarist Wendy Melvoin of Wendy and Lisa fame as well as former guitarist for Prince and The Revolution), Susannah Melvoin, and Mike Elizondo. Can’t say anything except that it’s a great number, as are the next two tunes, the Vince Gill, Beverly Darnall penned “One Day” and Clapton, Simon Climie penned “One Track Mind”.

But the track that gets me every single time is the incredibly moving “Run Home to Me,” another Clapton/Climie collaboration. Let’s just say, if you’re a parent that loves being a parent, there isn’t a song that sums up the love of a parent and their child like this one. It’s a deeply personal song for Eric that happens to evoke the universal love that most parents have for their children:

“When it’s 3 o'clock in the morning, And something scared you from your breast, I will gently rock you in my arms, And lay your little head on my chest,

And when you run, from my arms, Know we’ll always find you. And when you run, out of loving, And run home to me. (Run home to me)

And the years fly by so quickly, Like a plane before my eyes, And you’ve grown up into a woman, Before I had time, had time to realize.

And then you’ll run, from my arms, And we’ll always come and find you. And when you run, out of loving, Then run home to me.

Lord when you run, run out of my arms, We will always come and find you, And when you run, out of loving, Then run home to me. (Run home to me)”

Yes, this is really it. That is love. That is exactly what my wife and I have have done for our child. And it will never stop. I always get choked up hearing this song. Every time. It just gets me in a way that very few songs have done to me. And I can list those songs on one hand.

And the closer, “Back Home” is the perfect song to close this incredible song cycle. It’s all about a road wary Clapton and his need to go home to his family, where he belongs.

Where I belong.

“I’ve been on the road too long Moving in the wrong direction I don’t know where I belong I don’t know what I will do If I can’t get back home”

Perfection.

#Eric Clapton #Clapton #Music #Reptile #Pilgrim #Back Home #Best

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thebandcampdiaries · 3 years

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Jonny Kt’s Mind Body & Soul hitting 1 million plays!

March 2021 - Jonny Kt is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. He is definitely the kind of artist who doesn’t want to get stuck in the usual genre definitions and pre-conceived notions of what it means to make a certain type of music. As a result, his style has no boundaries, and explores an incredibly diverse range. His 2019 studio single, Mind Body & Soul, feels like a great introduction to his vision, and it finally hit 1 million plays since its release! What I love about this song i that right off the bat, it feels incredibly fresh and melodic, giving the audience a deeper look into the artist’s incredibly refreshing creative approach. Jonny sings with an open heart, and his songs are passionate and intriguing, speaking to people of all walks of life. I really love the fact that the music is catchy, but it still retains a very elusive human quality to it, setting the bar higher and pushing the boundaries in terms of focus and authenticity. In addition to that, the mixing is really good. The sound of the acoustic guitar, which is a very prominent instrument in the song, happens to be very crisp, perfectly accompanying the vocals and giving the audience a truly special insight into the artist’s songwriting approach. Jonny’s vocals showcase his passion for storytelling, and at times, they even make me think of legendary songwriting icons such as the mighty Bob Dylan or Jackson Browne, only to mention a few.

Fans of artists such as Jake Bugg, Arlo Parks, and Ed Sheeran are definitely going to connect with Jonny Kt’s flow, and his ability to bring some interest and intention to his music on a deeper level.

Find out more about Jonny Kt, and do not miss out on Mind Body & Soul, which is available on the web.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7vLsL9ke2GTa3YeIaX9ClG?si=lynOW4-xQc-vi6gM5swl1g

https://jonnykt.bandcamp.com/releases

We also had the opportunity to ask the artist a few questions: keep reading to learn more!

I love how you manage to render your tracks so personal and organic. Does the melody come first, or do you focus on the beat the most?

Answer: I’m definitely more melodically driven. I find it easier to construct the beat based off the melody, but depending on the style of music I sometimes do the beat first.

Do you perform live? If so, do you feel more comfortable on a stage or within the walls of the recording studio?

Answer: I love performing live! It feels like home to me. Nothing compares to that feeling. That being said, in studio also feels like my second home. I spent a lot of years in commercial studios before making my own, and even though it’s an amazing creative space, the stage and connecting with the real audience, that’s where to heart of everything is. Live, Raw, In Person, one take.

If you could only pick one song to make a “first impression” on a new listener, which song would you pick and why?

Answer: Well currently I have one song under Jonny Kt on Spotify, but I’d choose a song called Goodbye from my catalog. It’s not out yet, but it has emphasis on “moments” and a catchiness that will keep you listening. It’s very intentional to treat the song like a journey.

What does it take to be “innovative” in music?

Answer: You have to be dangerous. In music, in content in general, people are used to so much by now. Dare to try things without judgement, make mistakes, get dirty, play around, try the crazy things that are unconventional and will keep attention as well as shock value. You never really know, but if you’re on that wave, some magic will eventually come your way. Ear candy for the listener.

Any upcoming release or tour your way?

Answer: I have been building a BIG catalog of music. Very diverse, from Rock n Roll/Hard Rock to Indie Pop/ Hip Hop influences. I can confirm a new track from my band Kill the Standards called “Where We Going”, we should be shooting the music video in the next few weeks. I also just recently released an EDM Track under a different name. I want to have enough content to be able to release for at least a year straight, without having to take a break to write. So I'll be quiet on Socials for a while, but once I come out, I'll be coming out strong, and consistent. The music is already written and is being recorded now, as well as taking care of the in and outs of the day. As for touring, I will be on the road the second I can!

We gotta wait and see how this time in history plays out a bit more here in the states.

Anywhere online where curious fans can listen to your music and find out more about you?

Answer: Definitely! You can check me out on my website “Linktr.ee/Jonny-kt which has a bunch of different links to videos and music.

I’m most active on Instagram - @Jonnykt

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kootenaygoon · 4 years

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So,

Chris was asleep in my passenger seat, wearing a leprechaun dress.

We’d connected on the last day of Kamp Festival, the pair of us haggard and semi-conscious in my fold-out chairs. Chris was monologuing about her festival experience. She told me she jumped off a cliff, she overcame her fear of heights, she was proud of herself. She told me that these grown-ups playing in the colour games had legitimately reverted to their childhood bullying ways, making things all ultra-competitive instead of fun. Of course.

“But I’ve met some amazing people here,” she said. “Like I think I’m going to remember these people for a long time.”

I could tell by how long-winded and earnest Chris was being that she was on something strong, maybe acid. She was about to crash hard, and everyone was packing up camp to leave. Becca had left for the coast with a Victoria DJ she knew, so I was all by my lonesome when it came to paying for gas. Chris offered to pay $40 for a ride home, but I didn’t accept it. I just wanted to make sure she got home safe, because she wasn’t going to be sober any time soon. I couldn’t imagine leaving her with a stranger.

Once we pulled out of the Kamp venue on to the highway, we were pretty much immediately stuck in a line-up. Chris put down the window and stuck her bare feet out into the wind. A minute or two later she’d slumped into herself, snoring gently, her head lolling slightly from side to side. I knew it wasn’t a big deal, that people did drugs like this all the time and woke up fine, that she wasn’t necessarily going to overdose in my passenger seat. My legs vibrated along with the music as I ground my teeth in concern. What if she had taken fentanyl or something? What if I arrived backed in Nelson with a corpse for a passenger?

“Hey,” I said, taking her arm. “You’re feeling okay? You’ll let me know if you need to puke or anything?”

She nodded. “I’m good. I’ve got some water here. I think I’m just going to sleep, if that’s all right. You can keep the music up, if you want. I like it when there’s music playing while I sleep. It fucks with my dreams.”

Did she she say that, I asked myself, or did I?

Aussie Chris lived with Chelsea up in Rosemont, and knew Blayne from before. She was a server at Vienna Cafe, a night club kid in her early 20s. She was biracial, half-asian, with a smattering of freckles under her eyes and shoulder-length brown mermaid hair. She was on a one-year visa and was looking to hit every music festival she could while she was in the country. When it came to partying, she was a professional. I liked her style a lot. She had a busy intellect.

As we sat idle during the ferry crossing, I reflected on the last few days. The thing with Becca had ended on a bad note. We’d never spent this many days together in a row, and she was starting to realize what a drag I was. She was also less than thrilled to hear me talk about Paisley non-stop, whining that I would never get over her or that I was still processing things.

“I don’t mean this to be patronizing, because I do think you’re awesome, but I think you should consider therapy very seriously. It seems like you’re in a dark place, and I don’t know how to help you.”

“I never said I needed help.”

She laughed. “It’s like you have this giant sign over you that reads: NEEDS HELP. In an adorable way, but it’s alarming too. That you’re living in this constant state of desperation. Honestly, I think Nelson might be bad for you.”

While I pulled off the ferry and back on to the highway, I nudged Chris to pull her legs back into the cab. We needed the windows up. I thought about my job at the Star, and how repetitive the work was becoming. We’d hit all the available topics when it came to your typical small town goings-on, but we lacked depth. The real story was all these fucking overdoses, but they seemed to be outside our reach. There was a shroud of silence over these deaths, so they didn’t end up having a public record. I wondered how much was being kept from me, what angle I’d been missing. Why all this secrecy?

I wanted to help.

The reason I named my UBC thesis manuscript “Whatever you’re on, I want some” was because I was despairing about a friend lost to heroin addiction, also named Chris. We had grown up together, gone to the same youth group and camp together, but somehow he’d ended up trapped on the Downtown Eastside, en route to becoming a derelict soul. I gave up on him. That’s what made me feel guiltiest, was that I abandoned him. At a certain point I realized it just wasn’t healthy for me to know him anymore, no matter how close we’d been as teens. Addiction had defined our relationship, had ended it, and I wanted to understand why.

“I’ve been really into the paintings you’ve been posting,” Chris said, stretching out her arms as we slalomed through the woods. Slocan Lake looked just as infinite as ever. I turned down the music. “All the self portraits.”

I nodded, pretended to be embarrassed. “Yeah, I’ve just done a few now. I was inspired by this painter John Cooper, who I interviewed for the Star. He’s this guy in his 70s with like hundreds of students in the Kootenays and he’s a fucking legend. He knows Tom Robbins,” I said.

“His colour choices are really trippy, like lots of purple and crazy bursts of the whole rainbow for mundane things. Like he’ll do a rusted out car but suddenly it’s neon green with purple highlights, you know?”

She nodded, looking out the window. “I like paintings that have psychedelic elements like that. Paintings that take you somewhere beyond natural.”

I lit a joint. “And the guy’s crazy. You can just feel it in his work, this extra electricity. When I interviewed him he kept me on the phone for like 45 minutes talking. He tells all these crazy stories about the 60s and he’s just fucking hilarious. He’s known as the Toad Road painter because he’s painted the same rock like a hundred times.”

“Hilarious.”

“Oh, and naked ladies. He paints lots of naked chicks.”

Chris had heard about my photo shoot with Blayne, and had talked to Chelsea about appearing as a model in one of my shoots. She had experience, so she would be completely comfortable in front of the camera. I’d been amassing subjects over my years in the Kootenays, shooting every kind of woman I met every way that I knew how.

I loved them all.

From there we continued to weave and dip, the RAV humming along like a space ship, as we worked our way through the joint. Chris told me about how she’d watched Joe Nillo live-paint at Kamp and how incredible it was to see him channel the festival’s energy into his canvas. She was roommates with the subject, Kylie, so she could see through all the goddess window dressing.

“It’s hard to tell whether he’s in love with her, or the painting.”

I laughed. “Why can’t it be both? He can channel his love for her into the work, even if they’re not together, right? He can remember the good things about her, the things he fell in love with. Those things don’t become irrelevant the moment you break up. There’s still meaning there.”

Chris looked at me, bemused. She knew I was talking about Paisley. “Listen, man, I’m just saying Joe’s got this way of channeling whole narratives into these images. They’re the sort of paintings you can sit down and read them like a book.”

“Like they have little details you have to look for?”

“Exactly. And that one you’ve seen isn’t his trippiest painting by far. We’ve got a bunch of his pieces still back at our house, I’ll show you. His paintings sing.”

Eventually Chris fell back asleep, as I was passing through Winlaw. From there I hurtled through South Slocan with my music back up, and back on the highway to Nelson. I thought about Joe Nillo and John Cooper, how they each embodied an approach to art that I could try to emulate. Like Joe I could produce work that was spiritually-infused, so that engaging with it feels like a religious experience. And like John I could gleefully go mad, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all while revelling in the universe’s exquisite beauty. I was sick of being just a journalist, of being constrained to reporting facts. I wanted to be a painter, an artist. I wanted to tap into the magic of the Kootenays and shoot it into my veins.

“I’m so full of love I feel like I’m going to paint the walls with my gore,” Chris said, but by then she wasn’t Chris anymore. It was the other Chris, from my childhood. He stared straight ahead from his passenger seat, angry.

“You remember that time we had a contest to see who could stay in that freezing lake longer, up my cabin. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah, I won. But you hogged the warm shower for like half an hour.”

“So who was the real winner?”

“I don’t even know what to feel about you, man. Like at least you’ve found a clean supply so I don’t need to read your headline yet.”

He laughed. “You act like you know how this is going to end, but you don’t.”

“This ends with me punching you in the head as hard as I can.”

“The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.”

I turned back in my seat, and rubbed my forehead with a knuckle. It was Bob Dylan playing, so I stuck with that for a moment. It was a song I associated with my high school drama teacher, Mr. Van Camp, who sang this drunkenly on the last night of our provincial theatre festival: People are crazy and times are strange. I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range. I used to care, but things have changed.

“If you were a character in The Wire,” I said to Chris. “You would be Wallace.”

“And what would that make you? Poot?”

I smiled and glanced over my shoulder to where Andrew Stevenson was sitting surly, his muscled arms crossed as he looked out the window. Beside him was Ryan Tapp, listening to an iPod with his sunglasses on. If things got bad, these two were always nearby to step in. I had more power than people realized, than even I realized, but I was still figuring out how to harness it properly. If my life was The Wire, I wanted to control which character I was going to be.

“Are you, kidding?” I said, reaching behind my seat to grab my grey shotgun. I felt the cold barrel in my palm as I pulled it into my lap, pointing it in Chris’ direction. I brought the barrel to his lips, and then his chest, and finally to his groin. I snickered with sinister pleasure.

“Bitch, I’m Omar.”

The Kootenay Goon

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thejacketpocket · 7 years

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Rain inside when it’s sunny out

As our species continues into not-so-slow march to extinction, here are some albums that set the mood and passed the time the best for me this past year. Bandcamp links where applicable.

15. YG- Still Brazy

This was easily the most fun album of the year and it more or less opened with a biographical song about being shot. It’s also the album that has the Fuck Donald Trump song (highly skippable after the first listen), so there’s that. I was more taken with the way his hooks and chants run wide, gleeful circles around each other and how the elastic G-funk bass made summer driving a delight.

14. Kemper Norton- Toll

Based on the 1967 crash of an oil tanker off the coast of Cornwall—the biggest oil spill in UK history—this album sounds like something dark slowly washing ashore in wave after wave. It’s put together from bits of found sounds and ambient textures that are simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive, which occasionally piece themselves together into surprisingly affecting folk music. The net effect is incredibly lonely, and at times like a Belle and Sebastian album without all of the wonderful characters; just one person in an industrial world that’s slowly turning to rust.

Bandcamp link

13. David Bowie- Blackstar

I always expect this album to be a little more unbuttoned when I hear it—and I wish that it was the case—but it’s still more layered and complex than anyone could have hoped for (and has actually made me appreciate The Next Day significantly more). It’s an affecting, first-person narration of a man taking one last look around before abandoning modern life and material possessions and slowly disappearing back into the darkness of the forest.

12. Eluvium- False Readings On

In what is surely the most fully realized work of composer Matthew Cooper, minimalist passages of strings, woodwinds, and piano are washed over by tape hiss and white noise, and angelic, operatic human voices advance and retreat, part Greek chorus and part gasp for air. Ostensibly an album inspired by themes of cognitive dissonance in modern society, it also serves as an elegy for civilization, sounding like a boat gently sailing toward the horizon, before finally falling off the edge of the world.

Bandcamp link

11. King- We Are KING

Three women reproduce the lush aesthetic of Al B. Sure!’s “Nite and Day” and slather it across an hour’s worth of brilliant songs (if something as fully realized as “Red Eye” or “Supernatural” had been on the Frank Ocean album it would have been ubiquitous), apply it to a no-budget “get in the van” career approach that’s somewhat rare in the R&B world, and fatten the album up with a down comforter’s worth of warmth and texture.

Bandcamp link

10. The Field- The Follower

The front half of this is probably the catchiest stuff Alex Willner has ever made; it’s repetition as pop, as earworms slip in and out, bobbing and sinking in the mix, and the overall compositions become so ingrained in your listening experience that you start subconsciously shifting the sounds around yourself. This is a fairly commonplace quality of such music, lifted here by the infectious nature of the two-and-three-note melodies and the spirited use of whispery vocal samples to effectively generate a ghost in the machine.

Bandcamp link

9. Conor Oberst- Ruminations

Who knows if this guy writes biographical songs or he’s just taking the piss, but this album sounds like the work of somebody who has had his ass kissed for a decade only to have everyone turn on him—which would not be far off from what actually happened to him. It’s a delightfully bitter, nihilistic, and thoroughly lonely album that also happens to contain his loosest and most immediately engaging songs in a decade. Note the fact that the kid who was once called a “next Dylan” has now made his most-Dylan sounding record yet in terms of presentation—all sparse guitar-and-harmonica kiss-offs—as a vehicle to chuckle sardonicly at the long-ago hype.

8. Miranda Lambert- The Weight of These Wings

Maybe her best album, maybe not, but certainly the best vehicle for her singing, with production stripped back just enough to make her voice sound glorious. The album maintains a consistent tone and general wit-and-wisdom vibe across a range of influences, as she tries on Nancy Sinatra's boots ("Pink Sunglasses"), Daniel Lanois' atmospherics ("Runnin' Just in Case"), or Patsy Cline's country soul ("To Learn Her"). Like most double albums, it could be condensed into a one-disc classic (leaning far heavier on material from “The Nerve” side), but it’s not like there’s any truly duff songs on it, either.

7. A Tribe Called Quest- We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service

I've just really missed the group hip-hop album, wherein a handful of MCs pass the mic back and forth—mid-song, mid-verse, mid-line, whatever—over the course of a full album, sounding like lifelong friends rather than brief business partners. There’s something idealistic about it, even if the album's MVP is not any of the MCs but the snare drum.

6. Not Waving- Animals

This is likely my most-listened album of the year, or certainly the one that fit my mindstate and routine in 2016 the best. With its highly catchy two-note melodies and impressionistic spattering of drums, it uses an industrial/punk ethos to sound broken yet alive in a particularly bracing fashion. In a broader sense, delving into Diagonal Records was probably my favorite musical anything this year as they had a lot of releases that I really dug (Powell, Nordic Mediterranean Organization, NHK yx Koyxen, Container).

Bandcamp link

5. Brandy Clark- Big Day in a Small Town

After a debut that didn’t quite do Brandy Clark’s songwriting justice, an extra sheen of production polish brings out the highlights in her compositions, confirming her as one of the best writers working—assuming this was not already confirmed—and a top-rate singer as well. Each song is a Russian nesting doll of melodies that uncork in ways that feel both surprising and inevitable, and her lyrics are flip, casually conversational, and a joy to memorize, say, and sing.

4. Julianna Barwick- Will

This fall, there was an Agnes Martin retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, which I found to be a profoundly moving exhibition. Many of Martin’s works in the show involve small, barely perceptible linework that assembles into patterns on white, cream, or oatmeal colored palettes. If you stand close to the work, you can see the artist’s hand, and get lost in her abstract forests of minimalist design. As you step back, these intricate patterns slowly fade to white, and the entire canvas become a single icy hue. This feeling of erasing yourself as a viewer is invigorating, and for me a much-needed sensation. That’s how I feel when I listen to this album, Barwick’s best since 2010’s masterful The Magic Place.

Bandcamp link

3. Cass McCombs- Mangy Love

This is an invertebrate album that squiggles into new shapes and colors every time you return it, wrapping itself in lush, Van Morrison-like arrangements or squirming away with Grateful Dead-like noodling. Perhaps the best lyricist working today, Cass’ oblique wordplay seemingly rearranges itself into new sentences with each listen, oscillating between storytelling and stream-of-consciousness, surreal and plainspoken, metaphorical and mundane. There’s an angry political heart if you want to hold up a stethoscope to the album, but you can also just settle into the instrumentation, the myriad details, and bits of wry, offbeat humor.

Bandcamp link

2. Solange- A Seat at the Table

I’m not the one to be adding more to what’s already been said about this album, but it’s the rare album to feel bigger than the sum of its parts, giving the impression of something other than an album: a totem of sorts. Discounting country music, “Mad” is probably the song I listened to the most. The second Lil Wayne verse is a heartbreaker every time, and the composition as a whole is therapeutic—a massage that bores deeper and deeper until it hits the spot that releases all of your tensions. The whole album is like that, really.

1. Danny Brown- Atrocity Exhibition

Danny Brown’s pitch-black worldview and performative anxiety felt more J.G. Ballard than Joy Division, but both fit the bill. No album sounded more like 2016 to me: manic, hyperventilating, lips curled into an inverted smile, arms flailing, running downhill toward the smoke and flames. It also cheered me up every time I listened to it.

#danny brown #solange #Cass McCombs #julianna barwick #brandy clark #the field #not waving #a tribe called quest #king #miranda lambert #conor oberst #yg #kemper norton #David Bowie #eluvium

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