Unguarded Moments: John Lennon in the Studio
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/unguarded-moments-john-lennon-in-the-studio/
By ALLAN KOZINN
December 8, 2010
In February, 1972, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Elephant's Memory a
downtown band with good connections in the antiwar movement set up
at the Record Plant to begin recording the overtly political "Some
Time in New York City" album. The sessions lasted just over a month:
Lennon's idea, at that time, was that recordings should be a form of
journalism that once he had an idea, he should pop into the studio,
record it quickly and with few production flourishes, and get it out.
It was also a fraught time for the Lennons. The FBI had been
following them for months, and had informed the Nixon administration
that they had been participating in antiwar demonstrations, were
spending time with radicals like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and
were planning (however vaguely) a tour with an antiwar message. About
a week before the sessions began, the government began proceedings to
try to have Lennon deported, on the pretext of a 1968 drug conviction
in England.
Just before the sessions began, Mike Jahn then a pop music reviewer
for The New York Times (and the first to hold that position), now a
novelist and blogger wrangled an invitation to attend one of the
early sessions. (He believes the date was Feb. 22.)
"One of the Elephant's Memory guys the drummer, I think called
and said that Lennon was doing his first recording work in this
country and did I want to drop in," Mr. Jahn said in an email. "I had
reviewed one of their shows and we shared antiwar politics . I was
more political than most of the counterculture reporters of the time,
and probably knew a lot of the same people. I presume from what he
said that the sessions had already begun. Although there was a lot of
getting-acquainted going on in that studio. It just may be that this
was the first day. No tracks were laid down while I was there (an
hour or two)."
At the studio, Mr. Jahn interviewed Lennon for a short column that
did not appear in the paper but was syndicated by Times Special
Features. He also shot a roll of film. One picture ran with his
column; another was published in the rock magazine Creem. The rest
have never been seen, until now. They show Lennon talking with
members of Elephant's Memory, and several shots catch him rehearsing,
with the group's bassist, Gary Van Seyoc, just behind him.
After Mr. Jahn's column was published, Lennon thought better about
having granted the interview and allowing the photographs. He was in
the United States, after all, on a visitor's visa, and was not
legally allowed to work as the photos clearly show him doing.
"Lennon freaked out and accused me of playing into the hands of the
C.I.A.," Mr. Jahn said. His own theory, though is that Lennon was
upset with him because "after talking to him and taking pictures I
went back to the control room and flirted shamelessly with Yoko. I
was smitten with her. What do you expect, she was a New York artist.
My crowd. She was also very cute and absolutely magnetic. I had the
same reaction to her that John did."
Mr. Jahn is currently working on a memoir. We offer the photos as a
commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Lennon's murder outside the
Dakota, on Dec. 8, 1980.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_jahn/sets/72157624854167095
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