SOME TIME IN NEW YORK CITY

SOME TIME IN NEW YORK CITY

JOHN & YOKO/PLASTIC ONO BAND WITH ELEPHANT’S MEMORY AND INVISIBLE STRINGS

Side 1 ‘Woman Is The Nigger Of The World’, ‘Sisters, O Sisters’, ‘Attica State’, ‘Born In A Prison’, ‘New York City’.

Side 2 ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘The Luck Of The Irish’, ‘John Sinclair’, ‘Angela’, ‘We’re All Water’.

Live Jam: John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band

Side 3: ‘Cold Turkey’, ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko’.

Side 4: ‘Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)’, ‘Jamrag’, ‘Scumbag’, ‘Aü’.

UK release September 15 1972; LP Apple PCSP 716; 8-track cartridge Apple 8X-PCSP 716; chart high No.11.

US release June 12 1972; LP Apple SVBB 3392; 8-track cartridge Apple 8XW 3393 and 8XW 3394; chart high No.48.

 ‘Attica State’ (Lennon, Ono)

Yoko Ono (vocals), John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘Born In A Prison’ (Ono)

Yoko Ono (vocals), John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), John La Bosca (piano), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘New York City’ (Lennon)

John Lennon (guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ (Lennon, Ono)

John Lennon (guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘The Luck Of The Irish’ (Lennon, Ono)

John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Stan Bronstein (flute), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘John Sinclair’ (Lennon)

John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘Angela’ (Lennon, Ono)

John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘We’re All Water’ (Ono)

Yoko Ono (vocals), John Lennon (guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Adam Ippolito (piano, organ), Richard Frank Jr. (drums, percussion), Jim Keltner (drums).

 ‘Cold Turkey’ (Lennon)

John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Yoko Ono (vocals, bag), George Harrison (guitar), Eric Clapton (guitar), Klaus Voormann (bass), Billy Preston (organ), Delaney Bramlett (guitar), Bonnie Bramlett (percussion), Bobby Keys (saxophone), Jim Price (trumpet), Andy White (drums), Jim Gordon (drums), Keith Moon (drums), Nicky Hopkins (piano overdub).

 ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko’ (Yoko Ono)

Yoko Ono (vocals, bag), John Lennon (guitar), rest as ‘Cold Turkey’.

 ‘Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)’ (Ward)

John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Yoko Ono (vocals), Frank Zappa (vocals, guitar), Mark Volman (vocals), Howard Kaylan (vocals), Ian Underwood (woodwind, keyboard, vocals), Aynsley Dunbar (drums), Jim Pons (bass, vocals), Bob Harris (keyboard, vocals), Don Preston (Minimoog).

 ‘Jamrag’ (Lennon, Ono)

Personnel as ‘Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)’.

 ‘Scumbag’ (Lennon, Ono, Zappa)

Personnel as ‘Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)’.

 ‘Aü’ (Lennon, Ono)

Personnel as ‘Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)’.

All recorded at The Record Plant East, New York City, NY, USA and produced by John & Yoko and Phil Spector, except: ‘Cold Turkey’ and ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko’ recorded live at Lyceum Ballroom, London, England and produced by John & Yoko; ‘Well’, ‘Jamrag’, ‘Scumbag’ and ‘Aü’ recorded live at Filmore East, New York City, NY, USA and produced by John & Yoko and Phil Spector.

SOME TIME IN NEW YORK CITY

If you want to know what John Lennon and Yoko Ono were doing and thinking in late 1971/’72, listen to Some Time In New York City. Although they were based in England for most of ’71, they were frequent visitors to New York City. They were there in June that year, attempting to gain custody of Ono’s daughter Kyoko. During that trip, they joined Frank Zappa on stage on June 6, and they issued the joint performance on Some Time In New York City. They returned again in July to record overdubs for Imagine. During that visit, Lennon and Ono made contact with political activist Jerry Rubin, before returning to England on July 14 to continue work on Imagine and promote Ono’s book, Grapefruit. And on August 31, in another attempt to obtain custody of Kyoko, they returned to New York City; this time to stay.

Besides moving to America to continue their quest to regain custody of Yoko’s daughter, Lennon told Ray Coleman he wanted to live there because: “It’s the Rome of today, a bit like a together Liverpool. I always like to be where the action is. In olden times I’d like to have lived in Rome or Paris or the East. The 1970s are going to be America’s.”

The 1960s had certainly belong to Britain. The Beatles had seen to that. Although the 1970s had barely started, it was obvious that Britain was changing and not for the better. Lennon had grown dissatisfied with the offhand way the British press treated the work that he and Ono did and thought, mistakenly as it happened, that America would embrace him with open arms. “It’s Yoko’s old stamping ground,” he explained, “and she felt the country would be more receptive to what we were up to.” Ironically, America, or more precisely the Nixon led American government, was far from welcoming.

Lennon’s desire to play an active role in what was already an ebbing counterculture brought him into conflict with the authorities in ways that would never have happened had he remained in Britain.

By the time he moved to New York City, he had already committed himself to political activism. He’d spoken of ‘British socialism’, supported the Oz Three, namechecked the Yippies in ‘Give Peace A Chance’, attacked the Nixon government in ‘Give Me Some Truth’, and issued ‘Power To The People’ and ‘Imagine’, both powerful political statements. The ‘radical’ views that Lennon put so much effort into promulgating were tolerated in Britain, but proved too much for Nixon’s paranoid administration.

The Nixon administration attempted to deport Lennon by using his criminal record as their main objection to his US residency. In reality, the US government considered Lennon – who was freely associating with members of the radical New Left – a potential threat to political stability. A memo in official government files stated that “radical New Left leaders plan to use Mr Lennon as a drawing card to promote the success of rock festivals, to obtain funds for a ‘dump Nixon’ campaign”.

Senator Strom Thurmond suggested to Attorney General John Mitchell that if rapid action were taken against Lennon they would avoid “many headaches”. The FBI began tapping Lennon’s telephone, attending his concerts, and studying his lyrics in an attempt to gather enough evidence to deport him. However, the US authorities could not deport him for his beliefs, no matter how ‘radical’ they were. Instead, it was suggested that he “be arrested, if at all possible, on a possession of narcotics charge”. Lennon’s US visa expired on February 29 1972, an extension was granted that led to an appeal against deportation, and so began his long struggle to remain in the USA.

If the American authorities didn’t welcomed the Lennons with open arms, the counterculture did. David Peel, a fervent campaigner for the legalisation of cannabis, made a big impression on Lennon, who loved his irreverent songs and unique brand of street politics. Lennon was so infatuated with Peel that they shared a stage and band at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally. They appeared together again when the Lennons recorded a TV appearance for The David Frost Show on December 16. Lennon went on to name-check Peel in New York City, produce Peel’s third album, The Pope Smokes Dope, and invite him to take part in the ‘Give Peace A Chance’ encore at Lennon’s One To One concert.

More important, but more damaging for Lennon, was his association with Jerry Rubin. Rubin had spent much of his adult life harassing the Establishment. He was instrumental in organising sophisticated, theatrical and media-orientated protests against the Vietnam War. Along with Abbie Hoffman, Rubin founded the Youth International Party, the ‘Yippies’, who were vehemently anti-Establishment and trouble bound.

The apotheosis of Yippie activity took place in Chicago in 1968, when they organised a massive rally, the Festival Of Life, in opposition to the National Democratic Convention, also being held there. The Festival Of Life was intended to give those opposed to the Establishment a voice. A Yippie announcement proclaimed that the event would “be a contrast in lifestyles. Ours will be an affirmation of life; theirs is d-e-a-t-h”. Thanks to heavy-handed policing, the festival turned violent, and when Rubin and several others, including the singer and fellow Yippie activist Phil Ochs, attempted to nominate a pig for President, Rubin was arrested. He was prosecuted for conspiracy and intent to encourage a riot.

The trial of the Chicago Seven became one of the most infamous in American legal history. The Establishment were out to destroy the counterculture and would have done so had it not been for the high-handed attitude taken by Judge Julius Hoffman, who caused outrage with his treatment of Bobby Seale, an American civil rights activist, co-founder, chairman, and national organiser of the Black Panther Party, whom he ordered gagged and bound. Although Hoffman found them guilty, the Chicago Seven had their convictions overturned by the Supreme Court, who found that the Judge had used unscrupulous tactics in handling the case.

The experience left Rubin depressed and disillusioned with the interventionist style of politics he’d helped to spearhead. But salvation, came in the form of a song from the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album. When Rubin heard ‘Working Class Hero’ it turned his life around. On discovering that the Lennons were in New York, all it took was a phone call to secure a meeting with them. Rubin arranged to meet them at Washington Square Park, from where they moved to Abbie Hoffman’s apartment to discuss business. Both parties hit it off immediately, and Rubin was made the Lennons’ ‘political advisor’ and a member of their ad hoc band.

It’s no surprise that Rubin and Hoffman felt an affinity with Lennon. Lennon informed them that he planned to tour America with a political travelling circus and give the money generated to good causes. “We want to go around from town to town, doing a concert every other night for a month, at least,” said Lennon. The funds he hoped to raise with his tour would be used for “disruptive activities”. The final concert was due to take place in San Diego, California, and coincide with the Republican National Congress. It would be Chicago all over again, with Lennon in the lead. What self-respecting activist wouldn’t be impressed by such a generous patron?

The Lennon-Rubin partnership was made in heaven. Lennon’s desire to be recognised as a bona fide political activist was complete and Rubin acquired a readymade spokesman whom he could manipulate for his own political gain. There was, however, one small problem. The Lennons could not obtain work permits, which limited their plans to tour and promote their work and political views. But Rubin had a cunning plan. Where no payment was made to the artist, work permits were not required. The Lennons were only too pleased to give their services for free, particularly when it was in the name of radicalism.

The first charity event they attended was the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, a star-studded event held at the Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sinclair had managed the MC5 and was minister of information for the White Panther Party, whose war cry was ‘Everything free for everybody!’ At the time, Sinclair was serving a ten-year prison sentence for selling a couple of joints to some undercover cops. The concert was part of a Yippie-led campaign to free him.

The audience waited hours to see Lennon and anticipation was running high. But when Lennon and Ono eventually ambled onto the stage in the early hours of the morning of December 11, their four-song performance was a heroic anticlimax. New York’s Village Voice expressed an opinion that many in the crowd must have shared: “The audience was slightly stunned. John and Yoko had performed for 15 minutes, urged political activism and support for John Sinclair, and split. … It was depressing.”

His appearance at the Sinclair rally hadn’t impressed, but Lennon had filmed and recorded the event and planned to issue his four-song performance as an EP. However, as Sinclair was released from prison early, plans to issue the record were scrapped. Two songs from the show, ‘The Luck Of The Irish’ and ‘John Sinclair’, were later issued on the John Lennon Anthology.

Lennon and Ono’s next appearance was at the Apollo Theatre on December 17. The Attica State Benefit was intended to raise money for the families of prisoners who had been killed during the riot at the Attica Correctional Facility. Lennon appeared with a stripped-down acoustic band, performing two songs, ‘Attica State’ and ‘Imagine’, both recorded and issued later on the John Lennon Anthology. The rough and ready Sinclair and Attica State live recordings are of historical interest and not comparable to the studio versions – while they are of interest to the completist, the casual listener may find them wanting.

Lennon’s ad hoc group were adequate enough for the kind of low-key hit-and-run performances he gave in late ’71, but if he wanted to record and tour, which is what he was planning to do, something more professional was required. Once again, Rubin provided the solution by suggesting that Lennon check out a group of hairy rockers. Although Rubin played a part in bringing the two parties together, Rick Frank, drummer with the band, recalled that Lennon first heard Elephant’s Memory on the radio, when they played a live show for a Long Island radio station, WLIR. Lennon liked what he heard and invited Frank to audition for him. Frank: “He had me play on material that had no drum tracks recorded. … I walked into the Record Plant and I saw an engineer we had worked with, so I connected with him right away. I was never a Beatles fan, so the awe-struck aspect of it … it was there, but it was not like I had some fanatical desire to meet John Lennon, or his lovely wife. But I connected with Lennon and he asked me to put drums on these songs.” Lennon made his mind up there and then to offer Frank and his bandmates the gig and a subsequently contract with Apple records. Rehearsals began almost immediately. Within weeks Lennon had dropped the acoustic folk style and adopted a harder edge with Elephant’s Memory.

Stan Bronstein and Rick Frank had formed Elephant’s Memory in 1967, developing an outrageous stage routine along the lines of The Who and The Move’s loud, destructive performances. The group’s first album was issued in 1969 and included two songs that later featured on the soundtrack of Midnight Cowboy, but their next record marked a change in direction. Influenced by Detroit-area bands such as MC5 and The Stooges, the Elephants were now producing in-your-face rock. Their second album also revealed a radical political bent. Take It To The Streets saw the band engage in Yippie sloganeering.

Danny Adler, who played guitar with the band for a while in the early ’70s, recalled that they were “laying the revolution stuff on with a shovel”. Their songs were, he continued, “very standard hippie/Yippie anthems and sloganeering, expensively produced, blindingly loud, and ridiculously extravagant,” which is exactly what Lennon wanted. Lennon made only one change to the band: he added a second drummer. Jim Keltner, who had played on Imagine, was drafted in to add extra weight to the rhythm section.

Despite the fact that they were backed by big money, Elephant’s Memory were committed to overthrowing the very system that supported them. They were, then, the perfect complement to Lennon’s own mixed-up political programme. The band was also under FBI surveillance, which gave it real street credibility but did little to help Lennon and his plan to stay in America. Re-christened Plastic Ono Elephant’s Memory Band, their first job was to back the Lennons during their week-long residency on The Mike Douglas Show. Their performance of ‘Imagine’ was later issued on a CD that accompanied the Lennon Legend book.

The Lennons’ appearance on the Douglas show was part of a concerted campaign to establish themselves as serious artists and political activists. Besides promoting Ono’s art, they premiered clips from the Imagine film and performed material destined for their soon-to-be-released Some Time In New York City album. They made their political views known by inviting various activists onto the show, giving them unprecedented primetime exposure on American television. Naturally, Rubin was interviewed to explain himself. He also performed with Plastic Ono Elephant’s Memory Band, as did actress and film director Barbara Loden.

Now that Lennon had a new band, recording began in earnest. Studio time was booked at the Record Plant East, with Phil Spector co-producing. Sessions began in February and continued into March. The album was completed on March 20, the Lennons’ third wedding anniversary. However, two weeks before that, their visas expired. They were both granted extensions, but on March 6 their visas were suddenly cancelled. Lennon and Ono had officially outstayed their welcome.

When it was released, Some Time In New York City was universally slammed. Stephen Holden’s review for Rolling Stone summed up critical reaction to the album. “Throughout their artistic careers, separately and together, the Lennons have been committed avant-gardists. Such commitment takes guts. It takes even more guts when you’ve made it so big that you don’t need to take chances to stay on top: the Lennons should be commended for their daring. What is deplorable, however, is the egotistical laziness (and the sycophantic milieu in which it thrives) that allows artists of such proven stature, who claim to identify with the ‘working class hero’, to think they can patronise all whom they would call sisters and brothers.”

British critics were equally perturbed by what they saw as Lennon’s patronising tone. Tony Tyler’s review for the Melody Maker criticised Lennon for the way he presented his songs, as well as the songs themselves. Although Tyler praised the musicianship, he singled out the lyrics, describing them as “Insulting, Arrogant, Rigid, Dogmatic … in short, the effect achieved was the opposite of the effect desired (I hope)”.

Perhaps one reason Some Time In New York City fails to satisfy is because it features just two songs written by Lennon. Everything else was either co-written with Ono or an Ono solo composition. Ono’s earlier avant-garde work had forced Lennon to explore new forms of self-expression. But as she moved closer to the mainstream, her music became more influenced by his. Their relationship was changing, and it wouldn’t be long before they separated.

Both Lennon and Ono were work was at its best when it remained unresolved, ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations. For all its apparent opaqueness, Two Virgins was more radical and potentially life-changing than all the sloganeering on Some Time In New York City. When Lennon asked the world to “imagine”, anything was possible. By simply repeating hackneyed slogans, he limited the number of possibilities to those prescribed by a handful of left-wing political activists, thereby alienating anyone who didn’t share his view. Furthermore, as politically correct as Lennon’s songs were, they only addressed those who shared or were convinced by his view. The songs on Some Time In New York City did little to make people think or persuade anyone to change their position.

Critical reaction to the album hit Lennon hard. Perhaps he never fully recovered from it. From now on he would always doubt the quality of his work. None of the albums he recorded in the wake of New York City captured the brilliance of his first two solo records. That’s not to say that they were artistic failures, it’s just that the magic sparkle that permeated Plastic Ono Band and Imagine had disappeared.

Some Time In New York City data

The album was issued in America by Apple on June 12 1972. Released as a two-record set in a gatefold jacket, it included printed inner sleeves, a postcard, and a petition. Initial pressings have a hand-etched message in the dead wax: “John and Yoko forever, peace on earth and good will to men 72” and carry ‘merging heads’ labels.

The LP was reissued by Capitol records in the late 1970s with purple labels with a large Capitol logo. This variant of the album was issued with both records placed in the rear pocket of the gatefold cover, the front pocket being glued shut.

British pressings were similar to those issued in the USA, but did not include the petition. Like the previous two singles, the British release of Some Time In New York City was held up because of the Lennons’ dispute with Northern Songs. Despite the fact that the British release date was delayed by three months, it made a better impression on the charts there than it had in America.

The album was issued as a double 8-track in Britain (8X-PCSP) and the USA (8XW 3393/94), with both cartridges fitting into a card sleeve.

Some Time In New York City was issued as a two-CD set in Britain and America on August 10 1987 (CDS 7 46782 8). The album was remixed, remastered, and reissued in November 2005 as a single CD (0946 3 40976 2 8) with several of the ‘Live Jam’ cuts and the studio versions of ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’ and ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’.