The following is all possibly "fake".
How would you know?
Yoko Ono is an artist? (True/False?) Yes, I guess so.
You are what you claim to be? Well ... that's certainly part of the road to your destination. But it generally doesn't guarantee it (see the various unknowns I try to include every now and then in my post of famous people's songs [JimiHerbie]. It's a fact that some of us are better positioned for one reason or another (and some are luckier)
Is Yoko Ono a witch? The jury seems to be out on that one.
You don't need my history lesson about Yoko to guide you towards your decision. (you can get your own here). On the other hand, I was one of millions that tracked the story of John and Ono in real time (because I was born in the 50s).
Yoko was one of the primary reasons the Beatles dis-banded? (maybe). Yoko "twisted" John's mind. (love tends to do strange things to your perceptions). Etc ... etc...
Does/Did Yoko Ono bring a new (artistic) dimension to John's (read: the Beatles at that stage) perceptions? (yes). Was it (artistically) creative? (Um ... yeah) Does that mean that she should be making her own albums at this point (2019) in time? ( uh ... no. But I am clearly biased from the start.)
I think the first time I really noticed Yoko's musical influence (yes - knew, but didnt register back in the 70s), was Plastic Ono Band - the husband/wife collaboration
Other input towards our theme - (witch or not) -Yoko is somewhere in the picture(like a true witch)
I'm Losing You
Watching the Wheels Turn (again .. Yoko here or not?)
Pardon the extensive parentheses - they seemed needed to separate my wandering thoughts this time around ...
Aliens, UFOs, little green men in carbon zoot suits, come down to Earth to collect rocks, or kidnap people and probe them for info. Maybe probe our livestock, too...
What comes to my mind when the topic of aliens arises stems from the movies. I've never been much of a sci-fi reader, but I do love a good, ol' fashioned flying saucer flick. There's the old standbys, like Sigourney Weaver in her underwear and vicious little creatures pulsing out of chest cavities in a shower of gore. But, what else? What other little green men walk through the halls of my imagining? Invaders destroying everything they encounter with death rays, ala Mars Attacks!; strange, long fingered and round-eyed curiosity seekers, peeking through windows, like ET: The Extraterrestrial; or Donald Sutherland recognizing Veronica Cartwright upon exiting his pod and becoming part of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers...
And, my personal favorite, and original encounter with the wonders of R-Rated films, the spaced out aliens on their way to Earth via a blissed out Venice Beach, California, in a giant, smiley faced orb, from 1981's Heavy Metal... Heavy Metal, with its excessive cartoon gore and oversized, lampoon nudity, it's oddly-shaped plot and disconnected framing devices, devil's cabinet of bizarre characters, and overall bizarrely full blown technicolor beauty, was my first R-rated film. I saw it for the first time as one half of a double-feature on a sleep over, in a dark basement, under the snoring, un-watchful (probably snoring) noses of a friend's mom and dad (the other film was John Carpenter's The Thing).
And not to understate things, but at the first sign of cartoon boobs, zombie tail gunners, and the glowing green menace called the Loc-nar, among many, many more glorious oddities, I was pretty much hooked, for good. On comic books, nudie mags, and most of all rock n roll, and maybe heavy metal--the magazine and the sound. And, while the only real metal on the soundtrack was a cut from the Ronnie James Dio led Black Sabbath, the movie was a pulsing, stereo blast of day-glo guitar fever, a romp through the wildest kind of imaginings.
My memory of the film is tied directly to the sound: the imagery is forever tied to the music in the film that played over the scenes, a roving scoped-out freak show of atmospherics. Slashing guitars, thrumming, angry keys, phasing drums, Sammy Hagar's howling vox, Don Felder's space trip title track, a dobblering car horn from a UFO speeding past, and the strange incantations of Blue Oyster Cult's "Veterans of the Psychic Wars." But, by far the standout cut from the soundtrack is Cheap Trick's "Reach Out". The song is driven by a purely 80's inspired keyboard march, one that sounds like a bank of spaceship computers pumping out data and coordinates. It's powerpop at its finest, with soaring vocals and churning guitar, but the song is also a spaced out symphony of great early Cheap Trick, with ethereal melodies from a galactic orchestra, laying layers of sound over a staticky transmission.
Aural association is a potent force for me, and just a few seconds of a sound byte will send my imagination and my memory tumbling end over end to not only a movie, but the entire span of an era. The sounds of a song pulled from a memory come with all sorts of weight. And I love the impact, the immediate and and total sensation of nostalgia, when you hear a song from your past.
As I grow older, to continue the metaphor, I often feel alienated from my past--not the places or the people, but the emotional aspects of who I was. My sense of wonder, my curiosity, my willingness to be expansive and expanded by what I saw and heard, and the avenues of discovery I could wander so easily--this all before my psyche began to feel bent and worn down from taking on the weight of too many daily burdens. Hearing old music will especially take me back to being a less complicated, more easily awed kid, bowled over and blown away by all the oddness of the universe, rather than buried beneath the weight of it all.
I still scan the sky for UFOs, eager to catch a lift to places unknown. I signal with a flashlight, I signal with a lighter (Incubus), I dream of concerts on Mars, and I know that aliens can get Pearl Jam tickets a lot more easily than me (The Simpsons), and while I have many more alien references, I feel like I'm beating this metaphor into stardust...Sail on, space cowboys. I'll see you on the dark side of the moon...
EXTRA-CURRICULAR READING: A great write up on the soundtrack from Crave
I’m willing to bet that the first time that most of us heard the word “Budokan,” it was because of the release of Cheap Trick’s 1978 album, Cheap Trick at Budokan.” There was a slightly earlier release, Live at the Budokan by the Ian Gillan Band, so if you were a metal head or Deep Purple fan, you might have heard of that one first (John Gustafson, the bass player in the Ian Gillan Band, also played on Roxy Music’s “Both Ends Burning,” the subject of my last piece, which is a total coincidence.)
The Budokan is, according to Wikipedia, “an indoor arena located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.. . .originally built for the judo competition in the 1964 Summer Olympics, hence its name, which translates in English as Martial Arts Hall.” The Beatles were the first rock band to play there, in 1966. Also according to Wikipedia, a couple of dozen or so live albums have been recorded there, by artists including Bob Dylan, Dream Theater, Quincy Jones, Avril Lavigne, John Hiatt and Sheryl Crow.
But I think that Cheap Trick’s album is the most well-known, and it is the only one that made Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 greatest live albums of all time (#13). Like 1976’s Frampton Comes Alive (Rolling Stone’s #41), the live set helped to break an act that had not really clicked with the public into the big time.
“Surrender” is a great, anthemic song, that appears to be about teenagers discovering that their parents aren’t as “uncool” as they believe—and, in fact, may even be cooler than they are. It is sort of an illustration of that point in your life when you realize that your parents actually are people, with experiences, who might have some wisdom that is worth listening to. What you are supposed to be surrendering to is, I think, unclear, especially since the chorus is:
Surrender, Surrender, but don’t give yourself away.
Away to what?
It really doesn’t matter, does it?
"Surrender" is a song that you can listen to over and over and over, and the live version has that little edge of excitement that the best live performances add to a song.
I remember listening to this with my kids when they were young, and bouncing around and singing at the top of our lungs:
Mommy's all right Daddy's all right They just seem a little weird
Cheap Trick is a band that has been around since the 1970's and is still active today with all four long-time members. The song "Hello There" begins their second album In Color as an introduction and as a statement of purpose. The song also is a staple opener for their concerts.
In interviews, songwriter and guitarist Rick Nielsen stated that the song originated in the band's early days. As an opening act at concerts, they were not always given a proper sound check before going on, so a song where each instrument comes in in turn followed by vocals was a way for them to get a feel for how they would sound.
Short and sweet and a great introduction to a power pop classic.
So, whaddya do when your career is on the slide, your bass player quits, and you've just blown two great songs on a movie soundtrack? (A greatmovie soundtrack, but still...)
Well, you could have your iconic lead guitarist play the bass parts on the next album, hire a new guy to tour with you (but cleverly obscure his face on the album cover, hoping the casual fan doesn't notice), and press on...
Ah, what the heck. In addition to all that, replace the guitar on one of those new album tracks with a horn section, but don't let them sound like a horn section... have them follow the guide guitar track to the note, and mix it just like a guitar, too.
Yeah, that's what you do.
(Realizing that snark doesn't always translate to the internets well, let me state - for the record - that Cheap Trick is my all-time favorite rock band - not counting The Beatles, of course - and even their 'low points' are some of the best rock and roll I've ever enjoyed.)
With crunchy guitar chords and explosive drums, Cheap Trick's third album, Heaven Tonight, is the very epitome of Power Pop. It also has one of the most classic album covers of all-time, as seen above. The title song, Heaven Tonight, isn't as frenetic as the rest of the album, but it does a nice slow burn. This is Cheap Trick at their peak, serving up some pure Pop for now people.
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