Gary Wenstrup (4:36)

I've not got a lot of experience with producing YouTube content, so this will be kind of a first. But I want to do more of this stuff because it's a lot less work than actually producing an episode of the podcast, which is a ton of work. Even producing the newsletter, I spend hours producing something that somebody will read in 10 minutes. I don't know if that makes sense, but is absolutely true. And anybody watching this wants to get on the Something about The Beatles newsletter satb2010mail.com right comes out every Monday full of great links and content and commentary and all that stuff so is worth your time and if not just unsubscribe. I don't Care. But as far as YouTube video goes, the world is full of bespectacled, balding, middle aged men with their record collections behind them, sometimes wearing silly hats or where their thumbnails going, you know, making stupid faces. This is not that, you know, I've already got an audience, thank you. It'd be nice to have more. That's great. I hope this is going to be worth your time. I'm not here to be one of these YouTube influencers or whatever. I'm not that. I'm not here to flex my record collection. I don't care. Neither do you. We're here to offer informed opinions. My friend Gary Wenstrup, who has been a frequent guest on the Something about the Beatles podcast, a music lecturer and anyway, we're here to talk about the one to one John and Yoko film that we just saw on the IMAX screen the day it was released April 10th. And first of all, we can set up sort of the backdrop to this, that there are no shortage of John and Yoko documentaries, are there? John and Yoko poliza live their lives on film and tape, except where you really wanted it. I would kill for a documentary on walls and bridges. I would kill for a documentary on Plastic Ono Bed. Not the recreation they did years later, but the sessions, that would have been freaking amazing. But we got what we got. We got Imagine and a Half Mind Games. We don't have too well documented rock and roll. Oh, having that documented would have been amazing and epic.

Jerry Hammack (6:51)

I think we probably could have gotten high and buzzed just by watching Scratch and Sniff those recording sessions.

Gary Wenstrup (6:59)

Scratch and Sniff, yes, yeah, absolutely. But the period 71, 72 after 1969, 1969 is thoroughly documented for sure. And then we've got Imagine sessions in the spring of 71, thoroughly documented. You've got all the Coming to New York stuff. You've got what became the imagined film, you know, the St. Regis footage with Jack Palance and Dick Cavett and Fred Astaire, all that stuff. You've got the art films they made along the way, you got Fly if you must, everything else. Erection and smile and two virgins, all that stuff. But 72, you're starting to get a bit more meat on the bones with the certainly the one to one concert and the stuff around it. TV appearances, you've got the. The cabin, the two appearances, the one in September of 71 as well as the spring of 72. You've got the Free John Sinclair rally, you've got the week of Mike Douglas shows, another subject of a documentary recently there's no shortage of this stuff, except to my way of thinking of the stuff you really want to see. So all that said, knowing that this was coming, knowing since not long after John was killed, did I acquire on Beta tape a bootleg of the, I want to say, December 1972 in concert screening of the one to one footage. It was the TV broadcast on AM ABC obviously whittled down from the. The whole of the show. And so that was my first glimpse of the one to One show. I'd heard bits on various bootleg records then. What was it? 1986 John Lennon live in New York. Yoko puts it out as an album and a home video to no great acclaim. It sounded and looked kind of underwhelming, I think might be fair to say. Would you say that?

Jerry Hammack (9:05)

Yes, I would agree. And the one thing that struck me from the 1986 production or recording, and it doesn't come through in the film One to One, is John's not singing as much as he's shouting. And that doesn't. It's nice that that's absent from One to One.

Gary Wenstrup (9:24)

Yeah, we'll get into that. So, okay, when the bar is set kind of low, where it's a. It's a great idea on paper that he does this full length concert himself. It's not a Bangladesh where almost like an all star thing, various focal points come and go. You know, you've got Leon, you've got Billy, you've got Bob Dylan. All sharing the spotlight at various points. Now this is all John and Yoko. And one must say that for better or worse, she has her fans and she has her detractors, Lord knows. So depending on your accepting of her musicality in 1972, it's a plus or a minus. And then there's Elephant's Memory, the band backing them, backing them on the Sometime in New York City album that came out that year, backing them on their live dates, including the. The telethon they appeared at labor day weekend in 72. So they're the band at the moment. They would go on to back Yoko on her approximately Infinite Universe album. Double album came out in early 73. So that's who's around. They have been much criticized through the years. The same way Big Brother and Holding Company is behind Jazz as this mediocre band not quite up to the level of the person fronting. Right. Your mileage may vary on that. So with expectations set thusly, you get the trailer for this film and it makes it pretty clear that while the concert itself Concerts, because there was an afternoon and evening show, were going to be the focal point, the heart of the film. There's a lot going on around. They're widening the lens. Kevin McDonald, the director, definitely is taking a fresh approach to this. It's not just a concert film. In fact, I would be loathe to call it a concert film at all, because the concert is presented in segments throughout. But it's not necessarily the heart or the climax. The climax is like the finale to the concert. And by the way, anybody watching this, spoilers here will abound. We're going to give our takes on the film. If you haven't seen it yet, you don't want to know what's in it. Don't go any further. If you want to know what you're seeing before you go in, then you're welcome to this conversation. If you've already seen it, want to hear our take, welcome as well. So all this roundabout way of saying, I got the idea from the trailer that was going to be more than just the show, but I didn't really know what that was going to, what form that was going to be. Now, we've already seen documentaries about the politics of the Lennons, the US government versus John Lennon, to a lesser extent, Daytime Revolution, the Mike Douglas show doc, which is steeped in politics, and various things that haven't officially made it out yet, like the John Sinclair show and recordings of that era. So we know that upon arriving here, he's piling up with Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman and going on a particular trajectory until he isn't, which probably came down to once he got on Nixon's enemies list and they were going all out to get him out of this country, that would tend to make one pull back a bit. And that's sure enough what happened. So when you set the expectations a little on the low side and you are wowed by not only the sonic and visual presentation, but also the way the film is put together, I'm speaking for myself, you may have a different take. I can easily and comfortably recommend everybody who has any interest in this, go see it, especially if you could see it on an iMax. I'm sorry for the people around the world that it's not coming to yet. Australia, I've heard from a few people there, they're very disappointed, won't be able to see it at least until June, but it is absolutely worth it and seeing it on a big screen, if you can. So let's hear your background going into.

Jerry Hammack (13:40)

This, how you felt sure I was looking forward to it. Not super excited to see it because to your point, this period's pretty well documented and it didn't produce the best music we've got Sometime in New York City that came out in this period. It's not mentioned at all in the documentary. But my point is it was not a highlight, in my opinion, in John's solo career. So if I'm a music fan, which I am, and I know that it's kind of a valley in his.

Gary Wenstrup (14:14)

The Red Headed Stepchild.

Jerry Hammack (14:17)

Yeah, A real valley in the quality of what he's producing. This is not my favorite period. Because of that, tend to judge my favorite period by the quality of the music. So I think that set my bar kind of low. And I had also seen, as I mentioned, the one to one or Live in New York City that Yoko had put out. And I was underwhelmed by that. I'm not a music expert, but Elephant's Memory never struck me as a band with much nuance or added much color. And to my ears they're fine. They're sort of workmanlike, but I always felt they're kind of plodding in their approach. So repeating myself. But I did have low expectations. Having seen the film, I was surprised. I enjoyed it. You know, a scale of 1 to 10 is maybe a 7 for me. I thoroughly enjoyed how it was put together. I enjoyed the new elements they brought in. The taped phone conversations were a revelation. Excuse me, we've never heard those before. And as you were commenting, the concert footage is incredible. It acts as the glue or the through line throughout the documentary, which is an interesting choice. You know, perhaps we would have loved to see the whole thing from start to finish at the end or, you know, an approach like that. But in this case it's woven through the story and I think that makes the story more enjoyable. And the other thing I would say about the music is holy cow, it is loud, it's vibrant, it's bold, it's alive, it rocks. It's a terrific addition to the story.

Gary Wenstrup (16:13)

Yeah, there's not anything you said I can disagree with. I was blown away by it, in fact, which is why I recommending to people do check this out. It just sounds amazing. The first thing that pops into my head by way of contrast is within the past year having similarly gone out to the theater to see one hand clapping. Sounded good, but not one iota of effort going into cleaning up the visual presentation. It looked like somebody's VHS bootleg thrown up on the big screen. And it's something maybe with less ambition alive in the studio. Introducing his new iteration of Wings is kind of as lofty as it got. There was no fire behind it in terms of we're doing this show for a very worthy cause and we're under the thumb of the government at this moment. None of that stuff is present in Wingston. So it's really an apples to oranges comparison. But I would just say that that was in my head thinking, well, maybe this will be along those lines. But it absolutely wasn't. They went full out. What I really liked about it was the setting up, sort of seeing the world through their eyes. In terms of. You've got the quote very early on about John as this TV addict, basically. And we'd heard that before, going at least as far back as the Hunter Davies book where he talks about having the TV on all the time, maybe with the sound turned down a lot of that time. But it's like almost like this electronic babysitter for him. As somebody that I've long suspected he had ADHD that was undiagnosed, that he was so much sharper when he was on speed in the early years of the Beatles. This is me knowing what I know about adhd. So that's not any kind of character assassination or judgment. It's like, yes, this is how people with that are treated. And he bears a lot of the traits common to people with that. So the non stop visual stimulation makes absolute sense. And so to frame the film with that sort of impressionistic way of living life, because that is how we all live our lives. This, this, this, we don't live our lives linear and focused, with blinders on of what's immediately before us. We are barraged at all times with all kinds of stimulus. So that was a beautiful framing. I thought that was great. And it also helps to set the context of the times, which now, 50 plus years on, I was a young kid, but I remember that sense of dread in the world from my father watching the nightly news and the whole Nixon drip, drip, drip of Watergate, of Vietnam, all the bad actors. And you got a sense that things were not going great in the country, despite the entertainment we had, the great music and TV shows, all the stuff that was part of our entertainment culture, it was all countered by what was coming through the news. And so it was a great juxtaposition in this film. The commercials, the game shows, the light entertainment alongside the heavy, heavy stuff that was going on. So putting John back into that context made his activism and Politics and music of the time, all the more understandable. And you also get the juxtaposition where he's like the straight alongside Jerry Rubin, who looks very unwashed. Very much what you would see as a turn off visually to the establishment. And yet John is embracing the good that they stand for. But he's also was not in his period of looking disheveled and strung out on heroin and bearded and all that stuff. He looked very, very straight during that period. So I thought that was a very interesting juxtaposition. It was brilliant to put the whole nonstop quick cut to this, to this, to this. I don't mean quick cut in an MTV way where it's distracting and you can't take it all in. I thought the pacing was really good. To your point about the. The tape phone calls, we've never seen or heard those before. That was another great device. He's got the through line of the capturing flies between Dan Richter and Yoko and Mei Peng. That was a nice little bit of comic relief alongside the stuff.

Jerry Hammack (20:40)

You know what it reminded me of, Robert? It was sort of a comic relief that runs throughout One to One. It reminded me, I don't know that it was intended this way of what I felt the comic relief was during Get Back. And that's Michael Lindsey Hogg constantly asking, so where's the concert going to be? It felt like the same sort of.

Gary Wenstrup (21:01)

Feeling, the same device. Yeah, you're right.

Jerry Hammack (21:04)

Yeah, right, yeah.

Gary Wenstrup (21:04)

Like a light thing amidst the heaviness. For sure.

Jerry Hammack (21:07)

Yes. Right.

Gary Wenstrup (21:08)

So I thought that the way he constructed the film was absolutely brilliant. It's a way that drew you into the times so you understood what was informing what John Eoka were doing. I thought it was great to sort of tease out the concert rather than just lay it all on the table at once. That said, we know that it's going to be coming out as Power to the People come October this year. What would have been his 85th birthday as a remastered set. Sean is talking about both shows. What I'm really hoping for is all the performers, even Sean, but Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, Melanie.

Jerry Hammack (21:49)

I was wondering, were they filmed?

Gary Wenstrup (21:51)

I would assume they didn't just turn the cameras on for Johnny Yoko. They certainly had to have been recorded. I don't know. Yeah, but I sure hope so. It seems, you know, actually, let me think about that, that in concert footage that I got as a bootleg from the. The December 72 broadcast, it seems like they at least had one Stevie and one Roberta Flack song out. So. Yeah.

Jerry Hammack (22:14)

Oh, Great. I'd love to see that too. I agree with you.

Gary Wenstrup (22:16)

Sure. Yeah. So I like that construction wise. Now, just as with Peter Jackson and get back. Although I would argue with Peter Jackson since he was particularly editorializing throughout in things that he included and didn't include. There are conspicuous omissions in this that I wouldn't necessarily attribute as heavy a hand to tell a particular story. I don't think there's been a Johnny Nyoko documentary that exists so far, at least the mainstream one that isn't all about a particular narrative and getting them back and keeping them on their pedestals. I think that's a given. And certainly John the rock and roller, he is back on his throne in full force. When you see this performance footage. Okay. Limited to one Yoko performance, but the way they set it up I thought was pretty good. Was more context than you've ever had before about. Don't worry, Kyoko.

Jerry Hammack (23:11)

Yes, right. And to your point, John is full on rock star. I mean, he is a commanding stage presence.

Gary Wenstrup (23:20)

Absolutely does not look at all nervous. Although maybe is the gum chewing thing I always found fascinating because when you see the earliest known performing footage of The Beatles that February 62, don't see Pete Best, but you see John and Paul and George. And John is chewing gum exactly the same way there too. So I don't know if that was a eternal thing till Brian made him stop or what. But it's a nice little callback.

Jerry Hammack (23:49)

I was reading somewhere and I don't know whether I'm not a professional musician that actually musicians, singers like it because it keeps their throat lubricated.

Gary Wenstrup (23:57)

Yeah. Could very well be. There is at least one picture I've seen him on stage that night with a can of Miller.

Jerry Hammack (24:04)

Yeah. Miller highway, which. Which happens to be my brand of choice.

Gary Wenstrup (24:08)

Is that right?

Jerry Hammack (24:09)

Because of John and I. John and I. No, not because of it. I just saw it a few years ago. I'm like, all right now.

Gary Wenstrup (24:16)

Yeah, interesting.

Jerry Hammack (24:17)

So you were sort of going down the road of how John and Yoko are presented in all these documentaries and you were starting to touch on the pedestal approach. Did you have more to that thought?

Gary Wenstrup (24:30)

It's a given thing we've talked about on the show any number of times. This is not necessarily as much a critique as it is an observation that you trade access for spin. You want to get your hands on all this film and all this raw material. Oh, by the way, we've got cassettes and cassettes of phone calls that you want to turn this into something fine but implicit. If not explicit, is going to be the editorial spin in what you put out. I mean, that's been historically the case with everything and everybody. Right. So you want Ellen Klein's files. Okay, you better deliver the hagiography we're looking for here. And that's exactly what happened when that book came out.

Jerry Hammack (25:07)

Just in terms of the pedestal, one of the things I liked about the film was I felt it was very respectful of John and Yoko, but I didn't feel it was fawning and I didn't feel it put him on a pedestal. I felt it approached them pretty straight on. Were there things missing? There's the drug issues there.

Gary Wenstrup (25:31)

That's what I'm. That's what I'm getting to. Yes, necessarily, are using the concert as the focal point. And I could see where. Well, if we go down this road of his drug problems, both of the drug problems at the time. Well, maybe it's a sidebar that's going to water down the overall thing. So I could see, in terms of wanting to keep the focus where you want it, you're not going to go down that. But, yes, very conspicuously, that's what they spent the summer of 72 doing, is traveling across the country and getting the methadone treatment in San Francisco. Not a word about that. They show election night 72. Not a word about what went down that night.

Jerry Hammack (26:07)

Right. And we know that's dark and it's.

Gary Wenstrup (26:09)

Awful and it may derail the whole thing. If you want to keep the focus on them as a power couple, then that's where the wheels fall off. I kept thinking to myself, but for a few touches here and there, this is like an excellent prequel to the Lost the Love Story. Maybe there's a film that comes between that, centering on summer of 73 mind games, starting with the Watergate hearings and ending with John taking up with May and going west, something like that. Although May's film kind of starts there anyway. Big part of what's going on that doesn't get touched on. And then I thought it was curious. Again, you can make of this what you will. Maybe the wanting to keep it mean and lean and not bloat it too much. But you show Angela Davis, but you don't play the song. You talk about feminist stuff, but don't play the song. You know, it's like you have the setup, but without the punchline. I thought that was curious other than if it was made, that those choices were made for wanting to keep the film on a very sharp path.

Jerry Hammack (27:13)

You and I are on the same page about not including woman is the N word of the world. There's certainly Yoko talking a lot about feminism. And it would have been the perfect place to put it. And there's also, I think.

Gary Wenstrup (27:27)

And defend it.

Jerry Hammack (27:29)

Absolutely defend it. And I think John has always acknowledged that it's Yoko that sort of straightened him out from a feminist point of view. So not to include it. I thought that was a huge omission. The other thing I do want to mention about Yoko and feminism. She talks about it in the film, but the way she talks about it is a letdown. She talks about it as wrongs done to her.

Gary Wenstrup (27:53)

Personalizing it.

Jerry Hammack (27:55)

Personalizing it. That's exactly it. And not universalizing it. If that's a word. It's all about her and how she felt. As opposed to opening the lens a bit and then expressing how that's affected women in any walk of life or through history. So that's. Though Yoko, I think, is presented respectfully. As I reflect upon her complaints about how she was treated as a woman. The fact that she couldn't take it a step further and look outside herself, I think is a missed opportunity.

Gary Wenstrup (28:31)

Agreed. I think her story is compelling enough as it is that it warrants an honest warts and all treatment. And unfortunately, historically she has demonstrated an aversion to warts. So I think that she absolutely comes across throughout the film as the more mature, the more focused, the more sharp eyed. Whereas John has moments of being pragmatic. Like when wanting to not get involved with the implicit violence that Jerry Rubin seems to be going down that path of how that's a really bad idea and I don't want any part of that. You can count me out, but at the same time, unbelievably naive. But that's something we already knew about John. It's just making it very public. This whole freedom people thing that they latch onto for five minutes. A horrifically bad idea. I get where the heart's in the right place, seemingly. And as he would explain later that he felt he wanted to be loved by Tariq Ali and people, leftist radicals out of guilt for being a rich white guy. And there are other causes they don't take up. Like the Michael X cause that he celebrated. They tip a hand to the IRA support, but don't really go deep down that well. Which again is not a good look in terms of his funding. As some people believe that he contributed to underwriting some of the violent actions that they undertook in the 70s. I don't know whether that's true or not. We know he supported Michael X, who later on was hanged for murder. And then the whole Han ratty thing before that, that this guy was executed wrongly. Well, come to find out when they did the DNA. No, he wasn't being taken in by whoever's got the most forceful argument before him at any given time.

Jerry Hammack (30:24)

And you make a good point that Yoko is more seemingly the more realistic evaluator of the situation. What does come through in the film is John's enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. When he gets wound up and excited about something, it's hard not to get wound up and excited right along with him. And to your point, the Free the People tour, I always nearly figure it's got a twofold objective. One was to register 18 year olds to vote as they do concerts around the country. And this was the first election, 1972, between Nixon and McGovern, where 18 year olds had the right to vote. So the Nixon administration had good reason to be scared of Lenin if he's going to go around the country and register 18 year olds to vote. So that was always my understanding of free the people. And yet it was more literal than that. According to what we saw in the documentary that John's all jazzed up about raising money to free free people that are in prison across the country. I'm sure there's a lot of people that are imprisoned unjustly, but that seems misguided at best to go around releasing people from prison.

Gary Wenstrup (31:43)

There is definitely inequities in the justice system where those with money fare far better than those without. And if that was what he wanted to rectify, good on him. You've got the bankroll to do it. But you can't be this all or nothing. Every city we go, the first 500 people we're going to free. That's obviously silly and ridiculous.

Jerry Hammack (32:05)

Yeah, but that's what it looked like. Yeah, we're just going to.

Gary Wenstrup (32:07)

That's what it looked like, but it. But it fizzled before it could get anywhere close to that.

Jerry Hammack (32:11)

Yes, you're right.

Gary Wenstrup (32:12)

Nonetheless, he is absolutely going to be an existential threat to the person wanting reelection the year that they've lowered the vote to 18 year olds. Perhaps overestimating his influence. But maybe it would have been different if he in fact was touring the country doing all this stuff that had gotten said out loud that didn't actually end up happening.

Jerry Hammack (32:31)

I think you make a good point about overestimating his influence. I think he and Yoko both got overly excited that they had been successful in getting John Sinclair Freed.

Gary Wenstrup (32:44)

Even that they make it seem in the film like they did a concert two days later was freedom. I don't think the cause and effect was quite that.

Jerry Hammack (32:52)

You probably are right, but I think they interpreted it that way and I think it gave them confidence. All right, we've got the wind at our back. We've got.

Gary Wenstrup (33:02)

The film presents it that way for sure.

Jerry Hammack (33:04)

Yeah, let's use it. Let's do something with it. And I think as much as we sort of criticize or second guess John and Yoko and their political aspirations and how committed they were and how passionate they were, God bless them for trying. They jumped in headfirst and tried to make things happen. That's a good thing.

Gary Wenstrup (33:23)

That becomes problematic.

Jerry Hammack (33:25)

Follow up with that thought. What do you mean by that?

Gary Wenstrup (33:28)

Okay, just as a way of comparison and not saying. Well, not comparing or saying he's greater or better as a person, as a thing. But George, Bangladesh is not his fight. But his friend came to him with sadness in his eyes. Another part of the world that Robbie's ask was small in the beginning. Could you come out and introduce me at Madison Square Garden? I'll do a benefit show for my people. And George, inspired by John that no, we got to go big. And that's what he did. And he starts going through his Rolodex, get all of these rock stars to sign out for it. That he had access to and went on to arrest completely his career momentum with All Things Must Pass, which was this juggernaut. And sidetracked to work on the Bangladesh problem for the next year and a half. At least to me, that was a major and commendable commitment to doing right by these people he set out to do right by. That burned him utterly in the end, where he's on the hook thanks to Alan Klein for inland revenues taxes, because it hadn't been set up as a charity and there was the theft involved that Klein ultimately goes to prison for. For selling under the counter promotional copies of the Bangladesh concert record all this stuff. So George does the right thing, gets burned utterly by it. One could say the same thing of John. He starts espousing these things, wanting to do good, gets burned by it in the form of ins wanting to throw him out of the country. But in terms of commitment, once he's off contract with record label obligations. And yes, Yoko gets pregnant, carries Sean and turns him over to John to raise that same commitment is not there anymore. One can point a finger if one isn't so inclined. He's living in a luxury Dwelling amidst luxury and renouncing his activism days. When he does emerge in 1980, talking about those days and how he felt he'd been guilted into it and essentially saying it was kind of phony of him, he was doing it for the wrong reasons. And there are some people who say, well, he was planning before he was killed to go to San Francisco to support a strike of whatever it was that was going on strike there. Maybe, I guess we'll never know. But that was five years he was sitting on the sidelines, not building on the cachet he'd established. Once Nixon was gone, once that threat of deportation was gone, he didn't pick up that mantle again. And when you look at people who do commit to that stuff and never stop, it's like, okay, you know, they deserve their status as the activists that they are, maybe to lesser a claim, because they didn't pen a powerful, compelling song that still gets sung about, whether it be Imagine or Power to the People or Give peace a chance. All you need is love. Whatever.

Jerry Hammack (36:16)

Right, right. But, you know, they.

Gary Wenstrup (36:20)

It's just an observation.

Jerry Hammack (36:21)

They put skin in the game, you know, for quite a long time.

Gary Wenstrup (36:25)

Yeah. And same thing with the feminist mantle, Hong and Yoko, that I think May Peng and Cynthia Lennon at least would take exception to.

Jerry Hammack (36:33)

Yeah, yeah. No argument there. The other thing that I, sort of speaking to the activism that I thought the film showed is that John and Yoko are living, well, to your point, about being, you know, rich, famous, luxury, ability, people living like two college kids in this super small garden apartment. And they're excited about it. They're jazzed by what they're doing.

Gary Wenstrup (37:00)

That was one of my favorite parts of the film, was the recreation of that apartment. Yeah, that was cool. They kept coming back to it. Another recurrent thing. It's one thing to read about this stuff. It's another thing to actually see it. They had the one photo, I think, in there with the TV at one end of the bed and all that stuff. So you got the sense of how spot on that recreation was. And I love that every time they pan the room, at least three separate times I counted, you'd see Abbey Road there amongst.

Jerry Hammack (37:27)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Cigarettes burning in the ashtray and a copy of Abbey Road sort of strewn on the floor. But, yeah, absolutely. And that's what's wonderful about the film. It really is immersive. It gives you the feel to actually sort of paraphrase, Johnny, you are here. You really felt there in the apartment. You really felt part of the culture. Because of all the TV stuff that's being shared.

Gary Wenstrup (37:51)

I did read an interview with Kevin McDonald where he talked about he had changed the original ending and now regrets that he did. He wishes he included it. He's got footage that apparently happened during the time frame that this film was being made of that building being torn down.

Jerry Hammack (38:08)

Oh, okay. Where they lived on Bank Street.

Gary Wenstrup (38:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that place is no longer. Now. Apparently some luxury thing is going in that spot now.

Jerry Hammack (38:18)

Yeah. You know, that's interesting that he perhaps regrets that. I'm sort of glad he didn't because one of the things I picked up in the film, and I don't know whether you felt this way is how little things have changed.

Gary Wenstrup (38:34)

Oh, yeah, I think that was pretty.

Jerry Hammack (38:37)

Underscored, but I didn't feel it screamed at us. I felt it wasn't there.

Gary Wenstrup (38:44)

Bludgeon you with it. It's definitely, absolutely there. You're right. You're absolutely right.

Jerry Hammack (38:50)

So I feel like if he had shown the building coming down, it's like that closes the chapter on a period, but it doesn't. It just goes on. You know, two of the things that come through came through quite strongly is immigration law being used for political purposes. You know, Nixon was out to get Lenin and our current president is out to get, you know, everybody else. Yeah, it's something that hasn't gone away. It's still there.

Gary Wenstrup (39:21)

Right, good point.

Jerry Hammack (39:23)

And another thing that came through to me, there was a lot of footage of Nixon president at the time. And I respected that. The film included a lot of enthusiasm for Nixon. There were a lot of crowd scenes with adoring crowds for Nixon. And I felt that was an interesting juxtaposition. You've got the enthusiastic crowd for John and Yoko, one to one, sort of presented next to enthusiastic crowds to see and listen to Richard Nixon. And I think that was a remind. And as we know, Nixon wins in a landslide. It's kind of another reminder, sadly, of what we are as a nation, of who we really are. The sort of cult like status we give to politicians and the enthusiasm that's perhaps not well placed.

Gary Wenstrup (40:25)

Yeah, I think that we're at such a distance now from the events of Watergate and the Nixon administration that a lot of people who weren't there at the time don't understand. Well, if this guy was so bad, how did he get reelected so hugely? He had his fans, he had his silent majority of Americans that thought they were a. Okay, this floored me when I read this at some point that the majority, when they polled People after Kent State happened felt those kids had it coming, that the right thing happened. That's insanity to me. But it gives you a good read in the temperature of the country in those years that if you're wondering how this happened. So that was interesting. I will say this. This is something I've known for years and it was not mentioned in the film. So they did the initial concert and then they added the afternoon show, but had trouble selling tickets. Yeah, and that Johnny Yoko personally had a buy up. I forget what the number was, but $60,000 worth something. Yeah, it was five figures worth of tickets and then give them away just to not have empty seats. So maybe he wasn't quite the draw in the summer of 72. But then there's the other story of him. We know earlier in the year now that he had entertained the idea, we don't know how far it went, of bringing in Paul to do a benefit for the troubles in Ireland the beginning of 72, since they were both on the same page politically in their sympathies and that the same thing happened in August of 72. Or perhaps as a spur to sell more tickets, he reached out to Paul. Hey, I'm doing this show. Would you like to come? And it was similar to the invite he'd made earlier in February that year. And Paul turned him down, of course, not wanting to have anything with Klein and whatever else. I know Wings had just finished a tour not long before. Maybe he was just tired. But in any event, that's not mentioned in the film at all.

Jerry Hammack (42:31)

No, it's not touched on, which is a shame. One of the things about John buying up the tickets in the film is not clear. It doesn't complete pictures. It sort of leaves things. Because there's no talking head to give a voiceover to different things that are going on. So the free the one to one concert was not only a concert, but it was a picnic the day before where the mentally handicapped, I'm sure there's a better word nowadays for that.

Gary Wenstrup (43:02)

The word they used in 72.

Jerry Hammack (43:04)

Yeah, the mentally handicapped children that were at Willowbrook that this is a fundraiser for. They brought them, I'm assuming to Central park or to some park. And then they had volunteers who spent the day with those children blowing up balloons or going on roller coaster rides or eating hot dogs together, whatever. And so that's where the one to one thing comes, that there's one volunteer matched to one child and those were volunteers. And so it's quite possible that John purchased those tickets to give to the volunteers so that they could come to the concert. And that's one of the most powerful moments I don't know about for you, one of the most powerful moments in the movie is not about John and Yoko, but they show one of the volunteers, a teenage girl woman, saying goodbye to the child she had been with all the day. And the child gets on the bus to go back to Willowbrook and she starts sobbing and she walks away sobbing. And you can see her back shaking. And it's a beautiful moment of just personal connection and how little gestures can.

Gary Wenstrup (44:15)

Be so big and how this would have been exactly the right cause for John and Yoko to get involved in. It's not divisive. Everybody surely agrees these kids need a better lot in life than they've been handed. And this is horrible and indefensible. It's not a left or right thing. So it was exactly the right thing at the right time. And yeah, that is some of the most compelling footage in the whole thing showing Geraldo Rivera report of what's going on in Willowbrook. And yeah, I'm really glad it's in there. It would have been nice if they'd follow it up with a slide saying, and as a result of this, what happened? The thing that I always thought was curious is that unlike Bangladesh, why wasn't this a feature film in? 72? Why wasn't this a soundtrack element? 72. If your object is to raise money, why aren't you playing all the cards you've got? You did the shows, but the shows is just the beginning at the end.

Jerry Hammack (45:13)

Yeah.

Gary Wenstrup (45:13)

Even if Paul did that, it was an album, at least for a time, and I think might have been briefly a home video. I know it was broadcast on tv, but I would think that you're doing everything you can. All money streams you can create. And I don't know why that wasn't the case.

Jerry Hammack (45:29)

That's. That's a good point. To me, it says something about John. I never thought he had the discipline to sort of see things through, that he got excited about something and he did it, and then he's on to whatever excites him next and doesn't have the discipline to sort of be multimedia and do all those different things.

Gary Wenstrup (45:47)

And Klein is the one who's supposed to be handling things.

Jerry Hammack (45:51)

Yeah.

Gary Wenstrup (45:51)

And maybe having done such a terrible job with Bangladesh, I don't know if he was reluctant to get involved or maybe he just didn't think it was as worthy. Bangladesh undeniably had the star power of a Dylan and A Clapton. And even though you have Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack and Melanie, arguably not quite the same level, I don't know if I would want to make that argument. It's hard to argue against Stevie and Roberta, but I don't know, maybe they thought it was a tougher sell. Maybe just on the strength of it not selling out the way Bangladesh did. I don't know. Yeah. Also two shows.

Jerry Hammack (46:26)

Yeah, yeah.

Gary Wenstrup (46:27)

It's hard. It's hard to know. I'm sure somebody must out there somewhere. One of the things that I thought was great, that I'd never seen before, only ever heard about and there he dug it up, was the footage in Chicago on Irv Cups in that show.

Jerry Hammack (46:41)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Gary Wenstrup (46:43)

I'd always heard about that. I knew about that because it was on that same occasion that they visited the offices of Jet magazine and posed for pictures with Dick Gregory, trying to sort of inoculate themselves about their pending single and the use of a certain word. And it would have been nice. As the kind of person I am, I would have loved to have seen a lot more of that stuff. But I understand HD is what they use, but good to know it exists.

Jerry Hammack (47:08)

Yeah, agreed. There was another moment that I'd never seen before that I found kind of touching. And that's John sort of rehearsing Yoko on singing Luck of the Irish.

Gary Wenstrup (47:19)

Or you tell me to get out from underneath the covers. People think you're in charge. It's black and white.

Jerry Hammack (47:25)

Yeah, yeah. The part that I remember what struck out to me is him saying, okay, let's do it again, you know, and sort of rehearsing her through it. And as I don't know what you noted, but her voice is lovely. Her voice, the pitch is a little peculiar at times, but in that particular moment, her voice is lovely.

Gary Wenstrup (47:45)

It's a singles material.

Jerry Hammack (47:48)

I think Luck of the Irish had potential to be singles material. I think it's probably the most middle of the road, listenable song on Sometime in New York City.

Gary Wenstrup (47:59)

I will tell you that. One of the things I found issue with that album, me personally, is a lot of the lyric writing is so heavy handed and forced. It's kind of artless that you were so hell bent on shoehorning a message into a particular tune. It just doesn't stand with the best of political material that's out there. Galway Bay, you know, all this. The only thing I left out of that was Lucky Charm, you know, trying to evoke Ireland. It just seemed a bit of a. Something that sort of naturally flowed.

Jerry Hammack (48:38)

I understand I do think it's melodically, you know, pleasant and easy to listen to and compared to other stuff on the album. But that album is probably another discussion for another time. Let me ask you of the musical performances. Was there anything in particular that excited you or you felt that left an impression watching it?

Gary Wenstrup (49:00)

I made this observation to you at the time. Is that long familiar with the other issues that have been in public for years? Well, familiar with the stage pattern. We go back in the past just once before those come together. Comment about Mother.

Jerry Hammack (49:18)

This song is another song from one of those albums I made since I left the Rolling Stones. And a lot of people thought it was just about my parents, but it's about 99% of the parents. Parents alive or half dead. 2, 3, 4, mother.

Gary Wenstrup (49:44)

I thought those were very informative descriptions that he gave that might have benefited the film. Unless you thought they slowed the pace and you thought the music had more impact. The folk for itself. I could see that decision going either way. I just sort of missed it. I thought it was interesting that the performance of Instant Karma that he makes complete hash to the lyrics was the one they threw in the film. He's literally singing all the words out of sequence from all different verses. None of them rhyme. He's getting completely wrong.

Jerry Hammack (50:15)

We'll get it right next time.

Gary Wenstrup (50:17)

And there's a. I believe one of the performances, he got it right. I'm not mistaken. But I always found that hilarious as a kid when I was first getting into the material. And, well, if you're a fan of this stuff, you probably think more people need to hear this because it's so funny. And that informed your decision. I don't know.

Jerry Hammack (50:36)

That's interesting.

Gary Wenstrup (50:37)

I always thought that of the two performances have come together, the one that he chose was the better of the two, which I thought was very powerful. I always thought of the curious thing, and maybe some musician out there will come up with a compelling reason why he changed the key for Come Together and raised it up, making it harder and more challenging to sing rather than easier, where a lot of rockers will routinely drop the key on their songs when they're singing him live. But I thought, why is he raising the key on this? It sounds cool.

Jerry Hammack (51:10)

I didn't pick up on that. That's a great observation. And maybe that's when I saw the film back in the day. I felt he was shouting as opposed to singing because maybe he struggled. They hit the high notes.

Gary Wenstrup (51:22)

Yeah.

Jerry Hammack (51:23)

One of the songs that was conspicuous by its absence, I think was well, well, well.

Robert Rodriguez (51:28)

You know, the.

Gary Wenstrup (51:29)

That as a freestanding video, I guess, to sort of prime the pump for the coming Power to the People released in the fall. But yes, maybe he didn't really have. Other than there's a primal segment they do.

Jerry Hammack (51:42)

Yes.

Gary Wenstrup (51:42)

Then they. They pivoted to Mother from there, right?

Jerry Hammack (51:45)

Yes, right.

Gary Wenstrup (51:45)

I'm remembering it correctly. So maybe there was no compelling place to put it. But I will tell you that when they did Hound Dog, I kind of missed Yoko's interjections there.

Jerry Hammack (51:57)

When they said that you was hot.

Gary Wenstrup (52:00)

That was just a lie.

Jerry Hammack (52:02)

When they said that you was hot. Now that was just a lie.

Gary Wenstrup (52:09)

You ain't never got a lie. It ain't.

Jerry Hammack (52:11)

Old Friend of Mine.

Gary Wenstrup (52:30)

I wish they hadn't mixed them out.

Jerry Hammack (52:32)

I did not enjoy the version of Houndhawk. That to me sounds plotting and heavy handed and just. It misses. It didn't work for me. Maybe it was Yoko I was missing. I have no idea what I was missing. Maybe, but I didn't.

Gary Wenstrup (52:46)

That one has really grown on me through the years. I remember the first time I heard it thinking, well, Elvis has nothing to worry about. But I've grown more fond of that through the years for whatever reason. And I actually am not being facetious here. I did miss Yoko's part in that in a way that I don't with Memphis and Chuck Berry. So there's that. I thought it was jarring and this would be a minor criticism. I didn't care for the use of number nine dramatheon.

Jerry Hammack (53:10)

Yeah, you and I both looked at each other like, where'd that come from? It's just, it's. It's another different story. It's a different story. I couldn't agree with you more. But the good news is once they sort of fade that out, bring on the Lucy Freed the People much starts much better, much more powerful. And it was a nice mix. And that's exactly how you want to send people out of the theater with that sort of, you know, rock push sort of thing. I totally agree with you. It was number nine. Dream was Misplaced for me.

Gary Wenstrup (53:43)

And I was thinking about it later, thinking, what could they have used in its place? I was thinking, since it was only a partial song anyway, they could have dropped in Hold On John there to the verse, Hold On World, something like that. They could have done that, but they didn't.

Jerry Hammack (53:57)

Absolutely. For me, the most powerful musical performance was Mother. I thought that song, John seemed particularly emotional and it felt heartfelt, his performance of it.

Gary Wenstrup (54:10)

Yeah, it was very good. I will tell you that. One thing I was very pleased to see in the film, when we're talking about musical performances, is that back in the day, if you were one of the people that picked up Shaved Fish. I remember when I bought that record being very disappointed that the opening Give Piece A Chance fades out after like one minute and then pivots into Cold Turkey, like, God damn, I wanted to sign an album. Why'd you do that? And then you see it's sort of bookended. But wait, the end of it. That sort of cross fade out of Happy Christmas is not. The single is from the one to one show with no explanation. There's no line or notes telling you what it is, as you would expect now. And not only is it not the single, it's not even John Lennon, it's Stevie Wonder singing that part. And there he threw it on the screen. There's the visual that goes with that. So everybody who bought Shay fish back in 75, there's your visual, there's your explanation.

Jerry Hammack (55:08)

And I thought that was a curious twist in the concert. I think you've worked up the crowd and they're probably anxious to sing Give Peace A Chance. But because it's a reworked version, there's no singing that. It's just Stevie kind of wailing over, I think, a pretty interesting backbeat. But there's no. You can't sing along with that.

Gary Wenstrup (55:31)

Well, nobody knows the verses anyway. At least of all John. Like when he did it at Toronto, you know, he's thrown under Teddy Roosevelt, you know, he's just like, just vamping it completely. But what I thought was kind of interesting is that I can't remember when it was. That record came out like 7-4-69, the plastic ono Band, Give Piece A Chance single. And John had had his car accident and couldn't be there for the launch party. And so they had Ringo there in his. But at some point, I want to say later in the year, I remember reading about this long time ago in Longest Cocktail Party, that band comes to Apple and gets signed with Errol Brown. And either they don't have a name or they don't like the name. And Mavis Smith in the Apple office goes, what about Hot Chocolate Band? And that's what they become is Hot Chocolate. Their debut single is a cover of Give Piece A Chance. They're regified.

Jerry Hammack (56:26)

All we are saying.

Gary Wenstrup (56:31)

Is give me such a. All we are saying is give me such a. So fast forward two, three years, whatever it is. For the one to one show, John is in effect doing a cover of A cover of his song. He's doing that sort of regified version of Give a piece a Chance, which I thought was kind of neat.

Jerry Hammack (57:12)

That's a great back. I didn't know that. So that's an interesting backstory.

Gary Wenstrup (57:15)

You know the band Hot Chocolate. Right.

Jerry Hammack (57:17)

It rings a bell. Is it. I feel like a sold disco. Is it a soul disco thing?

Gary Wenstrup (57:22)

That's her Navarro. Yeah. The one hit they had that stuck with me was that song Emma, Emma, Emmaline, gonna write your name I on the silver screen. Yeah. But they had a bigger hit, Everyone's a winner, which I didn't care for.

Jerry Hammack (57:44)

But that one rings a Bell. That rings a bell.

Gary Wenstrup (57:46)

That was a bigger hit.

Jerry Hammack (57:47)

There's one other thing I learned in the film. There's probably a lot of things I learned that I'm not thinking of at the moment. And that is, had you ever heard that Yoko developed a stutter because of the back?

Gary Wenstrup (58:00)

But I never did.

Jerry Hammack (58:01)

I never. I had never heard that before as a result of the backlash for all the negative feedback she got when she steals John and the racism involved. That was news to me.

Gary Wenstrup (58:15)

Yeah. Again, you know, we live in an age where people either exalt her and I think there's a bit of projection going on of making her represent who you want her to represent, reality or not. And the people that knee jerk reactionary despise her, either because they think she broke up the Beatles, or she's got this personality that's sort of perceived as abrasive. I could see where people would think that she doesn't know her place or whatever. If you critique Yoko, you're automatically branded as racist or misogynistic. You know, I would turn it around, say if you are a racist or you're a misogynist, you're probably not gonna be a fan of Yoko. But if you critique Yoko, that doesn't make you either that's simple minded any more than criticizing Alan Klein makes you anti Semitic.

Jerry Hammack (59:06)

Right.

Gary Wenstrup (59:06)

Bit simple minded. But as far as the abuse she got, it's pretty horrific. And I would say that one of the things of value that you got with the Wedding album, because it certainly on the vinyl, or at least the one side of it that's not channeling Stan Freeberg, the sort of audio document. What is a little bit more interesting is that book of press clippings where you get to see in full force the amount of abuse they got. And that was even, I think, before Esquire ran that piece, John Renan's exclusive gloopy. Oh, boy, you gotta be kidding. Yeah, I think that was in 1970, but yeah, they've had to live that down, I'm sure. But if she's saying she got a.

Jerry Hammack (59:50)

Stutter, I believe was that heavy handed, the abuse that she took? Yeah.

Gary Wenstrup (59:56)

Any final thoughts?

Jerry Hammack (59:58)

No, I feel like we've covered it pretty well. We haven't talked about Allen Ginsburg. He's kind of a running another running sort of joke in the film.

Gary Wenstrup (60:10)

I could have done without the. The full bore toilet paper bit.

Jerry Hammack (60:14)

I know, I mean, just whack.

Gary Wenstrup (60:18)

But context, I guess you had to be there. And if you weren't, this is what you missed.

Jerry Hammack (60:22)

Yeah, I guess. And actually perhaps it was good. So another Allen Ginsberg sort of gag moment is he's trying to reflect upon Nixon being, I think, renominated at leading the Republican ticket. And he's trying to explain it to a reporter while also meditating at the same time and saying om. And Walter Cronkite ends up parroting that and his reaction is an om as well.

Gary Wenstrup (60:50)

I've never seen that. That was a nice bit of comic relief.

Jerry Hammack (60:53)

Yeah. I mean, Walter Cronkite with a sense of humor is not something we've had an opportunity to see before.

Gary Wenstrup (61:00)

No, that was great. Yeah, I was glad personally. Not because I was cheering it on per se, but the footage of the shooting of George Wallace I thought was a good touch to bring home to people the stuff they were doing they did at their own risk. If you were visible, if you were an activist, if you were espousing something loudly that might or might not have been popular, you're going to draw some heat. It's a whole other discussion of what was really behind the shooting of George Wallace. Who the hell knows? I've not looked into it that hard. I'm not necessarily thinking what we were told is all there is to know because who benefits? Well, Nixon benefited, but that's a whole other subject nonetheless. I remember when that happened again. I was of an age, my father was a consumer of the evening news and also we subscribed to Life magazine. I remember that being on the COVID and the whole spread about that. So, yeah, that was the thing that again, I don't know how many people walking around today even remember who George Wallace was.

Jerry Hammack (62:06)

Anything else that you feel that we didn't touch on?

Gary Wenstrup (62:10)

No, I think we've talked about omissions and things we would have done differently, but there's plenty to praise here. I hope it gets seen by as many people who have the slightest bit of interest because the thing about films like this, there's been any number of, like I said, johnnyoko documentaries that basically sledgehammer home the message they want out there without any real critique or balance to them. This is not that I think that this has got some balance to it and it really provides a context in a way that few films do. I was very grateful for that.

Jerry Hammack (62:44)

Agreed.

Gary Wenstrup (62:45)

So, folks, check out the Something about the Beatles podcast to hear more of Jerry and I doing our discussions, our Olympiad series and possibly.

Jerry Hammack (62:53)

And I. Gary, you did, you did. I understand Jerry, he's your co author and I totally respect that. But author of what? Your book, ribbons of Rust, Volume 1.

Gary Wenstrup (63:09)

The book that just came out.

Jerry Hammack (63:10)

You're right, the book that just came out. So that's recording career context. That's why he's on your mind, is he ought to be. It's a great book and a lot of work went into that book.

Gary Wenstrup (63:21)

Thank you, Gary. We'll be hearing from you soon, won't we? Right? Is it too soon?

Jerry Hammack (63:31)

I think so.

Gary Wenstrup (63:33)

All right, but watch the space, folks.

Jerry Hammack (63:35)

Yeah, yeah, we're getting there.

Gary Wenstrup (64:38)

Something about the Beatles created and hosted by Robert Rodriguez, executive producer Rick Wayne, title song performed by the Corgis. Something about the Beatles is an evergreen podcast.

Lawrence Lanahan (65:02)

Magical Mystery Camp is an in person, four day event in upstate New York. The guests this year, Steve Forbert, Joan Osborne, a frequent collaborator with Jack and Peter Asher. Everybody knows as one half of Peter and Gordon. Those are your headlining guests and you've got other luminaries there as well, including yours truly and Jerry Hammock. Magical Mystery Camp.com for all the information and all the guests and the accommodations.

Gary Wenstrup (65:32)

So it's Catskills, right?

Lawrence Lanahan (65:33)

So you have mountains, you got a lake, so there's swimming. You can hang out when you're not engaged in beetle activities and easily make it part of a road trip. And then visit Bethel or Woodstock or New York City. A beautiful location immersed in art and music and cool people. Check out the site and again, it is magical mystery camp.com this is the Week, Tuesday, June 24th through the 27th. The week before July 4th.

Robert Rodriguez (66:02)

This is Lawrence Lanahan, journalist, musician and host of Rearranged, an Osiris media podcast about music arranging. Once a song is written, arrangers make musical decisions that shape how we end up hearing the song. We're not just talking about adding orchestral accompaniment like horns and strings, or doing a cover version of a song arrangement. Can be putting happy music over dark lyrics, using samples, recording all acoustic, even tiny decisions like putting an electronic loop into an acoustic song to draw your attention to an important turn of phrase. It's all arranging. Rearranged Episodes are documentary essays where I use arrangements to answer some big questions like what is a song and what can a song become? And how can. How can the sound of a song change the meaning you take from it? Listening this way has changed my relationship with music. Tune into rearranged, and maybe it'll happen for you, too. Learn more@rerangedpodcast.com Osiris.

Gary Wenstrup (67:14)

Hey, what's up, you guys?

Jerry Hammack (67:15)

This is Reid Mathis. I made a podcast called the Gifts of Improvising. The Gifts of Improvising that's coming out on Osiris. We talked to all your favorite improvisers.

Gary Wenstrup (67:24)

Natalie Crestman, Marco Benevento, Tom Hamilton, Aaron.

Jerry Hammack (67:27)

Magner, Holly Bowling, Bill Kreutzman, and Jay Lane. So what are you doing a podcast? Yeah, doing a podcast.

Gary Wenstrup (67:34)

So don't fear if you hear a foreign sound to your ear.

Jerry Hammack (67:43)

We need the gifts of improvising.

Gary Wenstrup (67:48)

Improvising.