One to One: John & Yoko
Plus: unpublished material from my interview with Wayne Kramer
The other day, I went to see the new-ish documentary One to One: John & Yoko, at the HOME art center in Manchester. I thought it was so great. The film, I mean. I actually got lost several times navigating the labyrinthian cinema/cafe/art gallery, which I guess has replaced the Cornerhouse. You see, the Cornerhouse was not financially solvent, so they had to build an entirely new building to house an independent movie theater. I had a feeling that the Engels statue I’d seen a few years back was located somewhere in or around the development (it is), which they’ve named Tony Wilson place. I was unable to locate the statue, but I did eventually find my theater, after asking someone working at one of the three bar/cafes I counted. Now that I think about it, I feel like naming your flashy new arts and leisure complex after a local counterculture guy, and also having a statue of a famous Communist near it for some reason, is the most New Labour/Cultural Capitalism/British thing of all time.
The film covers the period between 1971 and 1972, when the couple first moved to New York City. They landed in Greenwich Village, making fast friends with Jerry Rubin, David Peel, and AJ Weberman, of the Youth International Party. It was the peak of Lennon’s flirtation with Marxism, although his revolutionary tactics, like lying in bed all day with his girlfriend, seemed distinctly anti-materialist. In spite, or perhaps because of this, the music from this period is great.
I can see how the couple’s first two albums, which were widely panned, were an extension of Ono’s Grapefruit era conceptual work, which I also love. Listen to this album of harsh noise. Imagine it sounds like something else.
The film also covers the the 1971 John Sinclair Freedom Rally, at which Lennon and Ono famously performed. In 2018, I interviewed the aging Sinclair for a piece that later appeared in VICE. I met Sinclair at the Psychedelic Healing Shack in Detroit, after being greeted by Dr. Bob’s latest transient girlfriend. Though still a dedicated weed smoker, and self-described Communist, I was disappointed to find that Sinclair’s political views aligned most closely with what some (not me) would now describe as a lib-tard. He was extremely dismissive of Bernie Sanders and was still supporting Hillary Clinton for some reason, after she had already lost.
In working on the piece for VICE, I also interviewed the late Wayne Kramer, who’s band the MC5 was managed by Sinclair. At the time, I felt I could sense how much he disliked me through the phone, and was unable to use any material from the interview, or reach him for a follow up. At one point, I asked him if he had many political disagreements with his long time friend, Ted Nugent. “What do you think,” he asked me.
Kramer was almost apologetic about his radical past. Here’s what he said to me:
“Some of it, at our best, at our most patriotic and revolutionary ideas… I’m not sure they were so revolutionary. All we were talking about were our rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. All we were doing was participating in the democratic process. Democracy is participatory. If you don’t like the way the government is doing something, you’re required to say something about it. You’re required to take some action, and that's what we were doing. So in a lot of ways the things that we fought for - civil rights, the end of the war in Vietnam, more sane drug policies, the end of police violence, the beginning of the environmental movement, health, education - these are all rock solid issues, these are the fundamental building blocks of civilization and they’ll carry on. There was also a lot that we said and did that was completely whacko. Like the idea of embracing violence as a viable strategy. Of course that was a terrible mistake. We were not very conscious of women’s rights and had a kind of chauvenistic [attitude] about our relationships with the women in our lives and that wasn’t very cool either. We did some good and we also messed some things up. Human 101.”
On a similar note, the climax of One to One comes after Lennon and Ono fall out with Rubin and the Yippies over their endorsement of political violence, in the lead up to the 1972 Republican National Convention, which Plastic Ono Band were set to perform at as part of their “Free The People” tour.
[SPOILER] The day is saved, however, when the couple plan another benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, raising $1.5m for developmentally disabled children at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island. It’s really rather moving and there is some great footage from the show I can’t find anywhere else.
And with that, I’ll end on an Ono-esque note. Think of a better conclusion to this blog post. Write one yourself.