This Kingston Real Estate Guy Remembers John Lennon

Copied from Rolling Stone Magazine online:

John Lennon's Final Interview
Nine-hour discussion with 'Rolling Stone' took place three days before he died

On December 5, 1980, three days before he was murdered, John Lennon sat down with Rolling Stone's Jonathan Cott for a nine-hour interview. Select excerpts from the interview ran in Rolling Stone's tribute to John Lennon the following month — but Cott never transcribed all of the tapes. For 30 years they sat in the back of his closet.

"Earlier this year I was cleaning up to find some files in the recesses of my closet when I came across two cassette tapes marked 'John Lennon, December 5th, 1980,'" Cott says. "It had been 30 years since I listened to them, and when I put them on this totally alive, uplifting voice started speaking on this magical strip of magnetic tape."

Cott's interview with John Lennon — the artist's last print interview — finally hits newsstands this Friday as the centerpiece of Rolling Stone's tribute to John Lennon on the 30th anniversary of his death. In the remarkably candid interview Lennon lashes out at fans and critics who went after him during his five-year break from music. "What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean," Lennon says. "I'm not interested in being a dead fucking hero...so forget 'em, forget 'em."

He also talked about plans for a possible return to the road. "We just might do it," he said. "But there will be no smoke bombs, no lipstick, no flashing lights. It just has to be comfy. But we could have a laugh. We're born-again rockers, and we're starting over...There's plenty of time, right? Plenty of time."

Yoko Ono also contributed an intensely personal essay to the issue about her final days with Lennon. "Just before we left the studio [minutes before he died] John looked at me," Ono writes. "I looked at him. His eyes had an intensity of a guy about to tell me something important. 'Yes,' I asked. And I will never forget how, with a deep, soft voice, as if to carve his words in my mind, he said the most beautiful things to me. 'Oh,' I said after a while, and looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed."

John Lennon: October 9, 1940- December 8, 1980 (Not nearly enough time)

Southside Shuffle 2008 - revised

Well, another very successful day in partially-sunny Port Credit, down by the lake in Mississauga! The day started with a nice lunch with my friend Brock, then off to a bar for some beers, then down to the "Shuffle", where we met up with my buddy Doug and brother-in-law Emeric to catch some of the street scene along the Lakeshore, which was as usual closed off to traffic from 3-7 p.m. Some quite decent amateurs playing very enthusiastically all along the street, incuding the Dave Murphy band, who we all enjoyed. At six-ish we were joined by my other brother-in-law Brian and watched a bit more of the street bands before he "tricked us" (except Emeric, who had to leave us for the evening at this juncture) into popping into a bar right there on the Lakeshore called "Spice" for some beers on their very nice back patio in the (finally!) sunshine. Then the four of us went over to the main stage/shopping area beside the Credit River to buy our wrist-bands for the big shows that were coming up later in the evening - great value: $20 for the two very good acts that we saw! Then we walked back east along the Lakeshore, as the street portion of the festival was winding down just at seven o'clock, to a block east of Hurontario Street to get to our dinner destination for the second year in a row: the Thai Signature Restaurant, where we just stuffed ourselves with their excellent food and Singha beer, and enjoyed again their very friendly service. Back over to the main event at the park by the river, Charlie Musslewhite and his band went on at 8:30 and did a great set, including "Church is Out", a very good tune that puts me in mind of "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits, only way cooler. The Funk brothers, shown here in my favourite Chaka Khan "What's Goin' On" Marvin Gaye song clip from the classic (well, it's a classic to me anyway!)"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" movie, went on at 10:00 p.m. and played right through to almost 11:30!! They had most of the people, young and old, in the big crowd swaying and dancing to the impossible-to-stand-still-to Motown classic hits from the Four Tops, Temptations, Smoky Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Rare Earth, Martha Reeves, etc. *Full disclosure/embarrassing personal moment: Just to sort of round out the day, I managed to keep the guys entertained even after the show by tripping over a concrete bench just beside the sidewalk in front of a bar on our walk back along the street towards home...I went down pretty fast and pretty hard, but escaped without any major damage. Brock and Brian were kind enough to reserve most of their laughter for about four minutes after the incident, for which I am quite thankful! We're all looking forward to next year's Shuffle, and are absolutely not an exclusive group, so we'd be delighted to have some more guys join us in 2009...**note for more info, click on "Charlie Musslewhite" in the above text, as well as on "Thai Signature", then on the word "here" right after the Funk Brothers, to get the Chaka Khan clip.

My Favourite Albums

Just thinking of all the great music I've bought and enjoyed over the years, and decided to put some of my very favourite albums on this blog...here they are (in no particular order and likely with some omissions) : Etta James "Greatest Hits" (best tracks; At Last and Tell Mama). Santana "Abraxas" (best tracks; Black Magic Woman and Samba Pa Ti). Stevie Ray Vaughan "In Step" (best track Riviera Sunrise). Todd Rundgren Greatest Hits (Hello It's Me and We Gotta Get you a Woman). Amy Winehouse "Back To Black" (all tracks; best album of the last decade in my opinion). The Beatles are my all-time favourite group and their best work for me is "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul", but it's really way-too-difficult to pick any bad ones! Steely Dan "Aja" album with "Peg" and "Deacon Blues" as stand-out tracks. Aja was a real sort of turning point for me musically, as it turned me on to jazz and blues in a small way, so I started to kind of "look backwards" to find other "real" jazz and blues music which has been a great source of pleasure to me since that Aja album came out in around 1976. I only then figured out that most of the rock music I was loving as a kid came directly out of the blues and jazz greats of the past. Van Morrison "Astral Weeks", "Moondance" and "Too Long in Exile" (also full of great tracks including "Moondance" itself. America "America". Beck "Guero". Radiohead "OK Computer". Miles Davis "Kind of Blue", Dave Brubeck "Time Out". John Coltrane "Love Supreme". Joni Mitchell "Court and Spark" Robbie Robertson's "Underworld" cd featuring a very haunting track called the Sound is Fading".....hmmmm....now it's getting difficult to stop! I've also been listening to lots of "World Music" by people like the "Buena Vista Social Club" from Cuba and the "Orchestra Baobab" from Senegal (Click here for Baobab live in Poland). What are your favourite albums?

New iPod Speakers, and New Music for Christmas!!

Just getting into listening to some new music on my new iPod speaker system called iHome Studio Series. It's got really great sound (50 watts per channel) coming out of a cool-looking package. Very portable for use in hotels, friends' homes, etc. A review: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/ihome-ip1-studio-series-speakers-for-ipod-iphone/
The new music is: Thea Gilmore: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=thea+gilmore&uni=1 and Angelique Kidjo: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=angelique+kidjo&uni=1, the Monsters of Folk: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=monsters+of+folk&uni=1 plus an Alicia Keys track that has a great chorus (whenever she sings the words "in New York" it just sounds fantastic): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMS5xQ_V0TQ&feature=PlayList&p=025D76AF3E47CCEC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=47

Inexpensive TV Cables, etc.

My brother-in-law uses this place to buy tv and stereo cable for way less than one would have to pay at Best Buy, etc.:

http://www.monoprice.com/home/index.asp

One HDMI cable that I recently bought at Sears for over $100 is only $10 (plus around another $10 shipping) from these guys!! (I couldn't wait to get these cables delivered as I just had to get watching my new TV, but next time...)

Both my brother-in-law and a friend/neighbour have used this site for their techy needs, and both report good quality stuff at ridiculously low prices...just goes to show how much we're getting ripped off by the big retailers on this kind of necessary accessory.

New (to me) Music

1. Peter Green (and the Splinter Group) This is the guy who co-founded Fleetwood Mac when they were still cool and bluesy, and who wrote "Black Magic Woman" which Santana made into a huge hit. Green was as good as, or maybe even better than Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix! Sweet-sounding guitar, and great, gravelly, world-weary vocals. Where has this guy been all my life? Somehow I kinda missed him...
2. Keith Jarrett "Live at Montreux". Incredible jazz piano
3. Sharon Jones and the Dap kings - "100 Days & 100 nights" New, but old-sounding soul music.
4. Josh Groban - "Noel" (yes, that very popular Christmas cd...well, it's good! Not very cool, I guess, but good)
5. Jill Scott - "The Real Thing" She still sings great poems... R&B? Soul? Rap? Jazz? Blues?
6. Angie Stone - "The Art of Love & War" Sweet, sultry R&B
7. KT Tunstall - "Drastic Fantastic" Nice pop/folk/rock chick from Scotland, I think. (Sang her big hit "Suddenly I See" at the Live Earth Concert last summer...that was also a good cd/dvd combo that I got at Costco! Two dvd's and a cd - lots of good stuff on there)
8. "Radio 1 - Established 1967" - A compilation disc from BBC One Radio, featuring newer artists covering songs from 1967 to now...very cool stuff including a cover of "It Must be Love" by Paolo Nutini, and a great version of "Cupid" by Amy Winehouse (Amy, of course, is my personal choice for all of: artist; cd; and, sadly, "train-wreck" of the year)
9. Robert Plant and Alison Kraus - "Raising Sand" (pretty sure I've already mentioned this one here somewhere recently) Happy New Year!