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D.M.C.‘s heartfelt tribute to John Lennon
10.09.2010
01:37 pm
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From the heart.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.09.2010
01:37 pm
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The F.B.I. is still harassing John Lennon 30 years after his death
10.07.2010
03:47 pm
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John Lennon has been dead for 30 years, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still on the case. On Wednesday morning a small pop-culture memorabilia shop in Midtown opened an 836-lot auction timed to what would have been Lennon’s 70th birthday, which is Saturday. The prized item was a set of Lennon’s fingerprints made in 1976 as part of his application for citizenship. Minimum bid: $100,000. But after an hourlong standoff involving cellphone calls, faxes and meetings with an agent in a parked car outside the East 57th Street storefront, the F.B.I. served the shop — called Gotta Have It! — with a subpoena and seized the fingerprint card, which was made at a New York police station on May 8, 1976, and bears a signature and the name John Winston Ono Lennon.

Read the full article on the New York Times website here.

Thanks Joshua JKanizzle Cunningham

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.07.2010
03:47 pm
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John Lennon double dose of goodness: Copping a feel with Andy Warhol and Ready Steady Go interview
10.07.2010
03:24 pm
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I want to hold your gland.
 
If Lennon hadn’t chosen music as his profession, he could have had a career as a comic actor. Here he is being a brilliant wiseass on Ready, Steady, Go.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.07.2010
03:24 pm
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Yoko Ono’s amazing memorial to John Lennon lights up’again this weekend
10.04.2010
11:18 am
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This morning, on Yoko Ono’s Twitter feed, I learned of this very cool art project she did in memory of John Lennon in Iceland in 2007. I’m surprised this one slipped past me before, because, admittedly, I am a Yoko freak. I own some of her art (including a “Box of Smile” from 1971), and I’ve… just always loved her and admired what she has stood for in her life and in her various artforms (and I am not alone here among the Dangerous Minds crew, either. Mr. Laner feels pretty strongly about Yoko, too). Take a look at this for a moment—it’s really spectacular—and consider sending your own prayers and wishes into the universe this coming Friday—which is the day John Lennon was born, 70 years ago—when the project “lights up” again this weekend.

Send your wish to the Tower by email: wish@IMAGINEPEACE.com or by Twitter: @IPTower

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is an outdoor work of art conceived by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon. It is situated on Viðey Island in Reykjavík, Iceland. The artwork was dedicated to John by Yoko at its unveiling on October 9th 2007, John Lennons 67th birthday.

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER symbolizes Lennons and Onos continuing campaign for world peace - which began in the sixties, was sealed by their marriage in 1969 and will continue forever.

The words IMAGINE PEACE are inscribed on the Well in 24 different languages.

IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is composed of a tall shimmering tower of light that will appear every year and be visible from October 9th (Johns birthday) until December 8th (the anniversary of his passing).

In addition, the Tower will illuminate from Winter Solstice (December 21st 28th), on New Years Eve (December 31st) and the first week of spring (March 21st -28th). It is lit from 2 hours after sunset until midnight, and until dawn on New Years Day.

On 9th October, John Lennons birthday, Yoko Ono asks the people of Iceland to join her and many others across the rest of the world in praying for peace and stability.

At 8pm, as IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is illuminated on the island of Viðey, in Reykjavik, Iceland, she asks everyone to join together and let the power of light and prayer become a collective expression of the desire for peace and harmony on our planet.


Dear Friends,

Please join me not only in remembering John on October 9th but also in spreading the message of peace. This is something that was so important to John - the fact that we could all work together for the positive good of our planet. He would have loved how we are all mobilizing ourselves in thought and in action.

It’s time for Action and the Action is PEACE!

with love,

Yoko Ono

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.04.2010
11:18 am
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Thirty-nine years of Attica: Ali & Lennon speak out
09.09.2010
03:10 pm
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September 9, 1971 saw the population of Attica State prison in western New York state rise up and seize the facility, taking 33 staff hostage. Attica was infamous at the time for both being stuffed at twice its capacity, and for the inhumane living conditions of its majority-black and Puerto Rican community. Prison officials allotted one bar of soap and roll of toilet paper per month and a bucket of water per week as a shower. Inmate mail was regularly censored, visits were highly restricted, and prisoner beatings happened constantly. Responding to news of the imminent torture of one of their fellows who’d assaulted a prison officer, a group of prisoners freed their brother and rose up after guards denied yard-time to the full population.

After four days of negotiation, Governor Nelson Rockefeller—who refused the prisoners’ requests to come to the prison and hear their grievances—blessed Correctional Services Commissioner Russell G. Oswald’s order to retake Attica by force.  This resulted in the death of nine hostages and 28 inmates in an episode that shocked the conscience of a nation wearied by war, assassination and urban unrest. It also saw the birth of modern prison reform.

The episode is chronicled in four feature film adaptations—and famously referenced in Dog Day Afternoon)—alongside numerous documentaries, the best being Cinda Firstone Fox’s recently preserved 1973 piece. That one isn’t up on YouTube, but here’s a short doc from the great grassroots media hub Deep Dish TV.
 

 
After the jump: Muhammad Ali recites and John & Yoko sing out on Attica…
 

READ ON
Posted by Ron Nachmann
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09.09.2010
03:10 pm
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John and Yoko canvas print
08.25.2010
12:06 pm
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18 x 24″ Screen Print.  Signed and Numbered Edition of 450.  $70.  Limit one per person/household.  A portion of the proceeds go to the Spirit Foundations, Inc.

John & Yoko print by Shepard Fairey. They’re available for purchase 8/26/10.

(via Nerdcore)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.25.2010
12:06 pm
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Who Is Harry Nilsson… (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?)
08.22.2010
06:44 pm
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A conversation with director John Scheinfeld about his superb documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?).

If you’re under 45-years of age, you might have little idea of who the great singer/songwriter/hellraiser Harry Nilsson was, but surely almost everyone has heard his biggest hits “Everybody’s Talkin’” (from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack), “Without You” (a Badfinger cover given its devastating emotional impact by Harry’s plaintiff three octave vocal range, later recorded by Mariah Carey) and “Coconut” which was used in dozens of movies (normally during a drinking scene) and in more than one 7UP advertising campaign.

Harry Nilsson was also responsible for co-creating the much-loved children’s TV movie, The Point, a Ringo Starr-narrated fable about a boy named Oblio, born with a round head in a land of pointy-headed people. (”Me and My Arrow” and “Are You Sleeping” are two of the best remembered songs from the project. Scratch someone in their 40s and trust me, they’ll be able to sing both from childhood memories of The Point)

Another important thing to know about Harry Nilsson is that he was the favorite American musician of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney, no small achievement, that! After Apple Corps press officer Derek Taylor heard Nilsson’s autobiographical “1941” (from his 1967 RCA debut Pandemonium Shadow Show) siting in the car waiting for his wife, he bought a box of the album and gave it away as presents, including to all four Beatles. The story goes that Lennon listened to the album for 36 straight hours before calling Nilsson in Los Angeles and telling him how much he loved his record. McCartney did the same soon after. Nilsson became a part of the Beatles inner circle, becoming close friends with both John (who would produce his 1974 Pussy Cats album) and Ringo (who was the best man at Nilsson’s second wedding).

Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?) features stellar interviewees such as Brian Wilson, Jimmy Webb, Van Dyke Parks, Yoko Ono, Paul Williams, Mickey Dolenz, Ringo Starr, The Smothers Brothers, and Pythons Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.22.2010
06:44 pm
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A working class hero is something to be: Scottish labor leader Jimmy Reid
08.19.2010
07:59 pm
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Mostly unknown on these shores, the late Jimmy Reid was a heroic Scottish union leader who came to international prominence in the early 1970s when he led the famous “work-in” of thousands of shipbuilders, in the process thwarting government efforts to close the profitable shipyards of the Upper Clyde river. The “work-in” was not a strike, the workers actually continued to do their jobs. If the shipyards were to lose their government loan, over 6000 jobs would have been lost. In a speech to the workers, Reid, a member of the Communist party, laid out the plan:

“We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity, and with maturity.”

Reid’s principled leadership was essential in gaining the support of the majority of Glasgow’s residents. A demonstration in support of the union saw 80,000 people march through the city. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were amongst those who donated to the cause of the workers, giving £5,000, which was a substantial amount of money at the time. Reid and the shipbuilders won, and the Edward Heath government backed off on cutting the shipyard’s subsidies.

Another speech, one Reid made to students as rector of Glasgow University on “rejecting the rat race,” is a legendary piece of rabble-raising oratory. The New York Times printed the speech in full and declared it to be on par with the Gettysburg Address. It’s been republished lately in several British papers (here from The Independent) on the occasion of Reid’s death on August 10th and the memorial service held for him today. I highly recommend reading it. It’s surely as relevant today as it was when he first spoke these words. Fans of great writing and speechification, take note, you’ve not heard these thoughts expressed in quite this same way ever before and these words will move you and stay with you for a long time. Seriously, considering the shape the economies of the West are in and what this shitstorm has meant for the common and uncommon man alike, I think this should be considered MANDATORY READING right about now.

I can vividly recall listening to a BBC radio broadcast in 1983, during the apocalyptic miner’s strike going in Britain at the time. I was sitting in the sunny backyard garden of a squat where I lived in the Brixton area of south London. Jimmy Reid was the main guest. It was thrilling for me, as an American, to hear someone say such… Communistic things on the radio. One of the other people who lived there, a Scot himself, made a big deal of it and bought some beers and rolled some joints, insisting that I listen with him in quiet contemplation of what the heroic Jimmy Reid had to say. I was glad I listened and you’ll be glad, too, if you click here and read the entirety of Reid’s “rat race” speech yourself.

Here is an excerpt from Jimmy Reid’s famous speech. It’s a pity it’s not on YouTube, but there is a clip of a young Reid in his fiesty prime embedded below.

To the students [of Glasgow University] I address this appeal. Reject these attitudes. Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts, and before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, “What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?”

 

 
Still irresistible, a working-class hero’s finest speech (The Independent)

Final farewell for Glasgow shipyard leader Jimmy Reid (includes video of comedian Billy Connolly’s eulogy and additional links to more reporting on Reid’s life) (BBC News)

Another winner today suggested by Paul Gallagher

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.19.2010
07:59 pm
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John Lennon reads about Brian Jones death, 1969
08.12.2010
07:54 pm
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John Lennon reading about Brian Jones death. 1969.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.12.2010
07:54 pm
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Nowhere Boy: the early life of John Lennon (with rare clip of Aunt Mimi)
06.15.2010
08:15 pm
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BackbeatThe Hours and Times.   I Wanna Hold Your Hand.  Fictionalized accounts of The Beatles constitute, by now, a genre of their own, and range in quality from the barely watchable to the dreadful (and while not a strict account per se, I utterly loathed Across The Universe).  Joining those films in October is Nowhere Boy, a chronicle of the early days of John Lennon.

While the below trailer for the bio-pic looks, well, like a trailer for a bio-pic, the film stars the reliably amazing Kristin Scott Thomas as Lennon’s Aunt Mimi (a rare, ‘81 clip of the real Mimi Smith follows at the bottom).

I’m also somewhat intrigued by Nowhere Boy‘s director, Sam Taylor-Wood.  She’s the British artist with a thing for decaying still-lives.  If you’ve never seen her A Little Death video, an ode to “the transience of biological life” featuring a rapidly decaying cobra rabbit, check it out here

After overcoming two bouts with cancer—breast and colon—Taylor-Wood is now in a relationship with Nowhere Boy‘s Lennon, actor Aaron Johnson, who’s 23 years her junior.  The couple are expecting the birth of their first child somewhere around the time Nowhere Boy opens in the U.S.

 

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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06.15.2010
08:15 pm
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Charlotte Moorman’s answering machine message tape
06.11.2010
02:51 pm
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A voyeuristic and mesmerizing tribute to key Fluxus player and muse to Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys, the experimental cellist Charlotte Moorman. Listen to personal phone messages to Moorman from the likes of John and Yoko, John Cage, Paik and others and drink in that good old-timey analog tape phone machine atmosphere.

 
A Trove of Archival Performances by Charlotte Moorman (UBUWEB)

Posted by Brad Laner
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06.11.2010
02:51 pm
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John Lennon - Mother
05.09.2010
02:17 pm
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Very powerful and sad clip made by Yoko a few years ago for this amazing tune from one of the best Beatles solo LPs. Tears.

Posted by Brad Laner
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05.09.2010
02:17 pm
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Back Off Boogaloo: Ringo Starr blows off Vatican embrace of Beatles
04.19.2010
07:43 pm
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Ringo Starr is saying “who cares” to the Vatican’s late embrace of The Beatles. Starr rolled his eyes at the Catholic Church, which praised the group and expressed forgiveness to John Lennon for his comments that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.”

“Didn’t the Vatican say we were satanic?” Starr said during an interview with CNN. “And they still forgive us?”

“I think [the Vatican] has more to talk about than The Beatles,” he added, alluding to the child sex abuse scandal that continues to plague the church.

The Vatican offered its latest peace offering to The Beatles in its recent issue of L’Osservatore Romano, its official newspaper, on Monday.

“It’s true they took drugs, lived life to excess because of their success, even said they were bigger than Jesus and put out mysterious messages that were possibly even satanic,” the newspaper said.

But, “what would pop music have been like without The Beatles?” it reasoned, describing the band’s music as “beautiful.”

The Vatican doesn’t appear to be extending the same kind of olive branch to other popular bands, such as Pink Floyd, Queen, Black Sabbath and The Eagles.

In 1996, those groups were among several - including The Beatles - that Pope Benedict XVI warned youth against listening to when he was still a cardinal, claiming their music contained “subliminal” satanic influences.

Lennon’s full quote was “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.” We suspect the late Beatle would feel the same about the Vatican’s volte-face as Starr does.
 

 
Ringo Starr tells Vatican to ‘Get Back’; dismisses effort to ‘forgive’ The Beatles (NY Daily News)
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.19.2010
07:43 pm
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Lennon’s Lost LSD Located!
04.19.2010
04:18 pm
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The Daily Telegraph in Australia reports that John Lennon’s lost LSD stash—the one he buried like psychedelic pirate treasure after the Beatles “gave up drugs” in 1967—has been located. Unfortunately, all the acid has dried up and so now you will never know what Tomorrow Never Knows.

HARDCORE fans of The Beatles legend John Lennon uncovered where in the grounds of his Surrey, southern England, home he hid his stash of LSD more than 40 years ago.

Builders digging up the lawn of his old house, Kenwood, came across the remains of a leather holdall containing several large broken glass bottles, The Sun reports.

Legend has it that Lennon buried a large quantity of the drug in his garden in 1967 when The Beatles declared they had given up drugs in favour of transcendental meditation.

But when the band returned from India, John decided he had been a bit hasty and tried to dig it up - but never found it.

Now fans are convinced these bottles contained the missing treasure - though they will never know for sure as the one bottle found intact had a cracked cork, so it was empty.

(Daily Telegraph: John Lennon enthusiasts uncover singer’s hidden LSD stash)

(The Beatles Stereo Box Set)

Posted by Jason Louv
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04.19.2010
04:18 pm
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Portrait of John Lennon
01.11.2010
11:30 pm
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It may take 10 minutes for you to see it, but it’s there. Trust me.
 
(via The World’s Best Ever)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.11.2010
11:30 pm
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