"I CAN HAZ APOLOGY?"
Posted on 02/18/2010 4:49:42 PM PST by a fool in paradise
In some ways Yoko Ono is still an amateur. At “We Are Plastic Ono Band,” mixing concert and tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday night, her voice could be shaky and her stage patter giggly and unplanned. She looked genuinely surprised when the audience interrupted her and sang “Happy Birthday.” (She turns 77 on Feb. 18.) She’s also untamed. She can still let loose the bleats, wails, yips, howls and shrieks that alienated Beatles fans in the 1960s and inspired avant-rockers soon afterward.
Ms. Ono’s well-preserved air of naïveté — and the license it gives her to say things simply and primally — has been her artistic gift since the ’60s...
“We Are Plastic Ono Band” brought together, for the first time in decades, members of the informal group John Lennon assembled in 1969: Eric Clapton on guitar, Jim Keltner on drums and Klaus Voorman on bass. Guests, including Paul Simon, Bette Midler and members of Sonic Youth, also performed songs by Ms. Ono and by John Lennon.
...Singing melodies, Ms. Ono sounded high and fragile, as deliberately exposed as the lyrics. And her wordless sounds were by no means random. They were ghostly, furious, dreamy, caustic, urgent, exultant, orgasmic. Between the abstractions were tidings of peace-and-love optimism, of loss and loneliness, and of uncertainty...
The reunited Plastic Ono Band was still proudly unrehearsed, crunchy and sinewy. Mr. Clapton sent slow-blues phrases curling around Ms. Ono’s voice in the elegiac “Death of Samantha,” and the band turned the blues-rock stomp of “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)” into a full-fledged maelstrom. Naturally Ms. Ono ended the concert with “Give Peace a Chance,” the 1969 song that introduced the Plastic Ono Band, adding updated lyrics, flashing V signs and leading a singalong...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Let us know how that works out.
She is largely responsible for DESTROYING the greatest rock group in history.
I think the credit for that probably goes more to John Lennon and the nature of the business itself.
One listen to “Kiss, kiss, kiss” sealed it for me. She sucks.
If I want to listen to incoherent screaming I turn on Captain Beefheart, who does it with flair - Yoko nover appealed to me.
If she hadn’t, disco would’ve finished them off (surprisingly near the end of the 60s, some of the Beatles’ cuts with horns tred near a disco boogie).
A Beatlesque band from the 1960s went on to become THE disco kings of the 1970s (BeeGees).
The Stones dabbled in disco (at a time they were struggling to remain relevant, now they no longer care).
Without the “group” dynamic, the individual Beatles didn’t feel as pressured to meet market expectations.
Sure Paul wrote some silly love songs in the 70s. But he’d already written Helter Skelter. The Beatles also had songs like “Run For Your Life” about killing your girl if she’s caught with another man.
What’s odd is that Paul probably had some rage (not necessarily violent, but anger all the same) as he went through his recent divorce but where was the personal song about “the blues”?
So, the band members each went their separate ways. Dabbling in projects with each other (even John and Paul together) but didn’t need to remain “contemporary” (where is the electronica album or the hip hop?).
Do they still make them?
“Sings like an angry cat”
***
An angry cat sings a helluva lot better.
The first time I heard side 2 of that plastic ono band mistake on vinyl —that was it....I knew the era of beatle music was over.
They should use it at Gitmo for enhanced interrogation.
I have no idea....I remember some wags giving ono that moniker back in the day.
Good points, but Yoko still tore them apart.
The band had certainly morphed into something totally different than what they’d started with in the 1950s.
No more clubs. No more direct interaction with the audience. Eventually no public performance at all (televised or individual appearances instead).
Drug addiction complicated matters (John got on heroin).
While they had some original songs when George Martin signed them, he didn’t care for their music. He liked the “group” dynamic and the jokes and saw something marketable in that.
Within a couple of years, the songs they are writing sound like nothing they’d been singing or writing previously.
And they keep getting pushed to “take it farther”.
They aren’t trying to “reach new heights” anymore. And the remaining 2 (or 3 when it was still 3) didn’t want to tarnish what’d been put out there already by adding a “new” album of “new” studio cuts.
When they got in the game, a performer was only hot for a few years. Even Frank Sinatra had to climb back up to attention. The Rolling Stones are as surprised as anyone that they were able to run so long with it. They’ve been billing the tours since 1981 as “final”.
In some ways Yoko Ono is still an amateur. At “We Are Plastic Ono Band,” mixing concert and tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday night, her voice could be shaky and her stage patter giggly and unplanned.
Interpretation- She sounded like complete Sh*t !
wait..wasn’t yoko the lead singer in the band that sang “some one set us up. the bomb?”
This is pretentious excuse-making for a talentless and shrill harpie at its finest. I wonder if this music critic is the same person that writes the BS explanations alongside displays at the modern art museum.
The music is actually fairly interesting. I remember when “Double Fantasy” came out thinking that the Yoko stuff was lot better than the John stuff. The new album isn’t bad either, in a challenging way.
"I CAN HAZ APOLOGY?"
Leave it to the NY Slimes to consider this looney gasbag to be an “artist.”
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