Tag Archives: Yoko Ono

Lennon Signature Box – Unboxing

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The first of the YouTube videos showing the unboxing of the new John Lennon “Signature Box” (containing all eight re-issued and remastered studio albums, plus a double CD containing non-album singles and 13 previously unreleased studio outtakes and home recordings) have begun to appear. This is one of the best so far:

It is actually a much larger box than I had imagined. I think its a pity that the box does not contain the new “Stripped Down” version of “Double Fantasy” and that we have to go out and buy that again separately…..

John Lennon – Google Celebrates 70th Birthday

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Google have paid tribute to John Lennon’s 70th birth date with one of those fun animated headings on their main search page:Click on the image to see the animation.

YouTube has also paid tribute:

Happy birthday John.

“Stripped Down” – First Photos

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Maybe the very first images of the full packaging for “Double Fantasy – Stripped Down” have been posted on the web.

Apparently the full range of the “Gimme Some Truth” releases (including the 11 CD box set) are already available for sale in a CD shop in Brussells:

The site these come from is in French and Google Translate says something like this:

“No need to wait for the official release date (October 4th), all the new Lennon are already (and apparently have been for 1 or 2 days) at a record store in Brussels in the “old quarter”…The big box (at 145 € euros), the single CDs, compilations…and “Stripped Down” (at 19 € euros). The packaging is like those for the CD stereo Beatles remasters: soft cardboard (which shows fingerprints and the ink of which will undoubtedly be transferred onto neighboring CDs in a rack – just like the Beatles ones). The CD slid out without any protective inner sleeve.”

This was posted on September 30th. Thanks to the French Beatles forum yellowsub.net for these images.

Also, as to the sound of “Stripped Down” there’s a nice side-by-side comparison been posted by Willard on the Never Get Out of the Boat blogsite.

Lennon “Gimme Some Truth”- Universe and Campaign Trailer

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Just had an email from johnlennon.com

It reads (in part):

John Lennon ‘Universe’ Revealed + Campaign Trailer

The John Lennon ‘Universe’ is an immersive and interactive online
experience around John Lennon’s life and musical career, featuring
multimedia content, audio from the remastered solo career albums, videos
and fascinating essays in an exciting, interactive format.

Fans will be able to access ‘Universe’ with the physical and digital
versions of the following products from the 70th Birthday campaign:

– Power To The People (CD+DVD Edition)
– Gimme Some Truth
– John Lennon Signature Box
– Power To The People iTunes LP
– Double Fantasy Stripped Down iTunes LP

Watch the brand new ‘Gimme Some Truth’ campaign trailer, which walks you
through all the releases, by clicking on the image of John above.

New Lennon Film + Behind the Scenes Podcast Series

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As part of an ever-growing number of events, books and CD re-issues to mark what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, comes a new documentary film. In a couple of days (on September 25th) “LennoNYC” will make it’s premiere as part of the New York Film Festival. It will also be broadcast on PBS TV in the United States (on November 22nd), and released commercially as a DVD (on November 23).

The film, which looks to be well-researched and gets access to a number of the main players in John Lennon’s life, traces his love affair with the city of New York and how, with the city’s help, he was able to reinvent himself both artistically and in his private life. It also delves into how he worked as a composer and recording artist.

In the lead up to the television premiere the makers of the film – Susan Lacy, Series Creator and Executive Producer of the American Masters series and a producer of “LennoNYC”, and Director/Writer Michael Epstein – are making ten, hour-long, exclusive podcasts freely available. These all contain extended and largely uncut versions of the interviews that were recorded for the film with those who knew and worked with Lennon intimately during his time living in the city.

The first is with Jack Douglas, co-producer (with Lennon and Yoko Ono) of the “Double Fantasy” LP, released just prior to Lennon’s death in 1980. Its timely because he’s just been involved in preparing the special “stripped down” edition of the album which will be released the week after next.

Here is Jack Douglas from the PBS podcast talking about his work on the new stripped down version:

In the hour-long podcast interview Douglas also reveals how “Double Fantasy” was made in top secret – and surprisingly – much of it in John Lennon’s bed:

There are many other great insights and stories from Douglas. He’s particularly poignant about John’s death and its impact on him and others who knew him closely. You can download the full podcasts here, or go to the iTunes store and subscribe there. New episodes will be posted weekly every Thursday until the Thursday after the TV broadcast on November 22.  The final podcast will be a question and answer session using the best questions submitted by users via email.

The “Imagine Peace” website has extensive coverage, information and articles about the film “LennoNYC” (scroll down the page), and there’s also been a trailer for the documentary uploaded to YouTube:

“Starting Over” – New Lennon Book Coming

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Its the season for new biographical books. There’s a new Paul McCartney biog just released.

And now comes news of a new book associated with the massive John Lennon CD reissue release program that’s planned for October. The book is about the making of the “Double Fantasy” album which when reissued next month will contain the original recording remastered, plus a new “stripped down” version as well.

“Starting Over – The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy” will be published by Simon & Schuster on October 19:

Starting Over - front cover

The book is written by author, musician and columnist Ken Sharp who’s previous works include whats regarded as the definitive biography of Kiss.

To quote from the PR blurb:  “Starting Over is an oral history of the making of Double Fantasy and the definitive account of John Lennon’s last days. From early demos to sessions at New York City’s The Hit Factory, from the electrifying chemistry of the studio band to keeping the project under wraps to the album’s release and critical reception, here is fascinating, insightful commentary from all of the key players involved in its extraordinary creation: Yoko Ono, David Geffen, producer Jack Douglas, engineers, arrangers, session musicians, music journalists, and even Lennon himself via archival interviews.”

The book will feature never-before-seen photos of John and Yoko in the studio, by David M. Spindel and Roger Farrington.

Thanks to Scott Segelbaum of the “Beatle Briefs” podcast for the info on this one.

Speaking of the forthcoming reissue of  “Double Fantasy – Stripped Down”, the new cover art was revealed a couple of weeks ago:

Clearly its a pencil drawing (signed Sean Ono Lennon, 2010) based on the famous photograph used on the original LP and CD covers. It also appeared in a more closely cropped version on the 45 rpm vinyl single “(Just Like) Starting Over”:

Some Unusual Asian Beatles Items – Part Three

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Herewith Part Three in a series of posts on some unusual Beatles and Beatles-related items I was able to buy on a recent visit to Vietnam. I should say again here that all my collection of records, CD’s, books and DVDs have been, to date, the official record company releases. I don’t collect pirate or illegal Beatles material. However, I was presented with something of a dilemma in Vietnam by not knowing if these quite intricately produced items were illegal or the real thing. As they were all sealed in heat-shrink plastic and on the outside had official-looking logos, etc. it made it very difficult to tell. In the end because they were so cheap and I didn’t have ready access to the internet to do research on them I decided to buy and check out their credentials later. So far I have not found anything on the web about this next CD.

Its another one I got in Hanoi in the country’s north:

As you can see its called John Lennon “Definitive Lennon”.  It has a shiny, iridescent almost 3D cover that is very nicely done in green, white, silver and black. It really looks expensively produced. The photo above is of the printed slipcase around the over-sized plastic CD jewel case, which contains two CDs.

CD 1 is exactly the same track list as an official EMI Asia and Australia-only release called John Lennon “Peace, Love and Truth” from 2005. The release I have of that CD was printed in the Philippines (see below for info and images).

CD 2 has the same track listing as the CD re-issue of John Lennon’s “Rock’n’Roll” which came out in 2004. It has the same bonus tracks as that CD.

The Vietnam CD has the same SHM-CD logos that are on the Beatles Double Golden Collection series I posted about earlier. SHM-CD seems to be a legitimate process to improve CD technology and they have quite a few authorised releases – you can read more about it here.

Here’s the front cover image of the CD jewel case for “Definitive Lennon”:

The rear cover contains the track-listing:

When you open the jewel case there’s a booklet (with song lyrics) and two CD’s on a swinging “door”:

Here’s a close-up of the printing on CD 1:

As with the “Beatles Double Golden Collection”, the CD box is oversized. Here’s a comparison with the standard CD jewel case for “Lennon Legend”:

You can also see this by comparing the spines of the CD cases. The unofficial one is much wider:

The is what appears to be an official-looking Universal records logo on the outer slipcase, though to my knowledge John Lennon never had a record deal with Universal:

As mentioned above CD 1 from this set is copied from an official 2005 release called “Peace, Love and Truth” which came out in the Asian and Australian markets only. It contains a number of (then) newly remixed version of some classic Lennon songs including “Give Peace a Chance 2005  (featuring Voices of Asia)”, “Gimme Some Truth (Remix), “Love (Remix)”, “Hold On (Remix)”, “Give Peace a Chance 2004 Y2K+”, “Imagine (Remix)”, “Bring On the Lucie (Remix)”, “Mind Games (Remix)” and “I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier (Remix)”. There are also versions of “Real Love (Slow Version)”, “Help ME To Help Myself”, “I Don’t Want to Face It”, “Bless You”, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”, “Listen the Snow is Falling” and the standard version of “Give Peace a Chance”.  The cover of the official “Peace, Love and Truth” looks like this:

The rear cover:

The “Definitive Lennon” SHM-CD was amongst some other purchases made in Vietnam. You can see posts on those in Part One and Part Two.  Again, there has been quite a lot of thought, expense and detail put into the production of the disc and its packaging, making it difficult to categorically rule it out as a fake.

I think this is the first detailed information about this release I have seen on the Internet.

UPDATE: I just realised where this CD cover comes from. It always reminded me of something I’d seen before – and its the artwork for the cover of the 2009 charity release “Make Some Noise – The Campaign to Save Darfur”:

Make Some Noise - various artists cover John Lennon songs for the Amnesty International CD release to raise funds for troubled Darfur

If the South East Asian CD “The Definitive John Lennon” is a fake then not only are they ripping off the Lennon estate, they’ve stolen artwork probably donated to the Amnesty International cause……

See also Some Unusual Asian Beatles Items – Part One, and also Some Unusual Asian Beatles Items – Part Two

John Lennon – A “Shaved Fish” Variation

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A while back blog reader and correspondent Ned in the US sent through some photos of Beatles and Beatles-related oddities from his collection. I’ve already published a couple of posts featuring his rare “Love” CD single, and a still-sealed copy of the “Lennon” 4 CD box set with a unique printing error that he has.

Ned has also sent some shots of an unusual copy of John Lennon’s 1975 compilation CD “Shaved Fish”. Its believed this is a rare withdrawn release originally made in Japan but intended for the US market, and that it was subsequently withdrawn from sale and replaced with (the more common) locally pressed Capitol version. As you can see below there are variations in both the rear cover and interior artwork, and in the printing on the CD itself. Here’s the rear cover of the rare version:

Rear cover of the withdrawn "Shaved Fish" release

Ned writes: “The back cover art of the withdrawn “Shaved Fish” doesn’t list the producer credits on the bottom that are found on the common U.S. release.  Also notice that the label number CDP 7 46642 2 (upper right corner) is the same as the common [U.S.] one, indicating that the release was intended as the official U.S. CD.  Had this Japan-made CD been intended for the Japanese market or elsewhere it would have had a different reference number. I’ve also included a photo of both releases side-by-side.  It’s possible that the EU version of “Shaved Fish” has the same art as the withdrawn U.S. one but since I’ve never run into a European import of it I can’t confirm that”:

”]

Ned says: “The withdrawn version (pictured on top) has the words “Lennon Plastic Ono Band” at the top of the disc just under the EMI logo and the name, “Shaved Fish” at the bottom.  While the official and far more common re-release (pictured on bottom) shows the Capitol logo instead of the EMI logo while John Lennon’s full name appears without the addition of the Plastic Ono Band.  (It’s awkward to call the bottom one the “official release” since most people never knew there had even BEEN a withdrawn one).  How did I acquire this withdrawn one?  I really don’t know!  I just bought it when it came out and then it swiftly disappeared for a few years until I saw it again in it’s reincarnated state.”

Thanks again to Ned for providing these photos and info. If anyone has any further information on this Lennon release it’d be good to share it. Either post a comment using the blog “Comment” link below, or email me direct at beatlesblogger@gmail.com

I have a couple of vinyl LP versions of the “Shaved Fish” release in my own collection and Ned has inspired me to drag these out and do a Label Variations post on these – so keep an eye out for that soon. 


John Lennon – Gimme Some Truth

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To mark what would have been the 70th birthday of the late John Lennon Yoko Ono, EMI Music and the Lennon Estate are to embark on what can only be described as a huge re-issue and release program – starting on October 4, 2010.

Called the “Gimme Some Truth” campaign, it will comprise a series of Lennon albums remastered from the original mixes as well as new collections compiled for CD and digital download release. One of the new releases will be a “naked” version of the Grammy Award winning album “Double Fantasy” – made available for the first time in a newly remixed, stripped down version produced by Yoko Ono and Jack Douglas, co-producers of the original album with Lennon. The new version will come in an expanded 2 CD edition which will include with the original mix, remastered.

Eight of  the original solo albums and other recordings have also been newly digitally remastered.  These include:

• A hits compilation in two editions titled “Power To The People: The Hits”

• A 4CD set of themed discs titled “Gimme Some Truth”

• A deluxe 11CD collectors box with the remastered albums, rarities, and non-album singles, titled “The John Lennon Signature Box”

Yoko Ono said: “In this very special year, which would have seen my husband and life partner John reach the age of 70, I hope that this remastering / re-issue program will help bring his incredible music to a whole new audience. By remastering 121 tracks spanning his solo career, I hope also that those who are already familiar with John’s work will find renewed inspiration from his incredible gifts as a songwriter, musician and vocalist and from his power as a commentator on the human condition. His lyrics are as relevant today as they were when they were first written and I can think of no more apposite title for this campaign than those simple yet direct words ‘Gimme Some Truth’.”

The albums have been digitally remastered from their original mixes by Ono and a team of engineers led by Allan Rouse at EMI Music’s Abbey Road Studios in London, and by George Marino at Avatar Studios in New York. All of the remastered titles will be packaged in digisleeves with replicated original album art and booklets with photos and new liner notes by noted British music journalist Paul Du Noyer.

The albums to be reissued are:

• John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)

• Imagine (1971)

• Some Time In New York City (1972)

• Mind Games (1973)

• Walls and Bridges (1974)

• Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975)

• Double Fantasy Stripped Down (2010) / Double Fantasy (1980)

• Milk and Honey (1984)

Yoko Ono added: “Double Fantasy Stripped Down” really allows us to focus our attention on John’s amazing vocals. Technology has advanced so much that, conversely, I wanted to use new techniques to really frame these amazing songs and John’s voice as simply as possible. By stripping down some of the instrumentation the power of the songs shines through with an enhanced clarity. “Double Fantasy Stripped Down” will be complemented by the original album in the 2 CD format. It was whilst working on the new version of this album that I was hit hardest emotionally, as this was the last album John released before his passing.”

“Power To The People: The Hits” will gather 15 of Lennon’s most popular songs, and will be available as a 15-track single-disc, and as whats being called an “Experience Edition” with additional content. Both versions will be packaged in digisleeves with booklets including a new liner note essay by Du Noyer. “Gimme Some Truth” will be packaged in a slipcase with rare photos and a new liner notes essays by respected American music journalist and author, Anthony DeCurtis. It will contain 72 of Lennon’s solo recordings on four themed CDs:

• ‘Roots’ – John’s rock ‘n’ roll roots and influences

• ‘Working Class Hero’ – John’s socio-political songs

• ‘Woman’ – John’s love songs

• ‘Borrowed Time’ – John’s songs about life

The “John Lennon Signature Box” is a deluxe 11 CD and digital collection of the eight remastered albums, a disc of rare and previously unreleased recordings, and an EP of Lennon’s non-album singles. The CDs will be housed in digisleeves within a deluxe box including a collectible limited edition John Lennon art print and a hardbound book featuring rare photos, artwork, collages, poetry, and new liner notes by DeCurtis.

Check out johnlennon.com for more info, official announcements and updates as the release dates for these new John Lennon collectables draws closer.

John Lennon “Lennon” 4 CD Box Set

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It never ceases to amaze me how many variations there are out there of particular Beatles or Beatles-related items. I guess that’s part of what makes collecting interesting….

Some are big differences, and include completely revised or unique artwork or track running orders, others are small and subtle. This one, sent to me by Beatlesblog reader Ned in the United States, is a case in point. Ned writes: “One favorite Beatles-related item of mine is a still-sealed, 4 CD “Lennon” box from 1990 with a blank space on the back cover art where the song “Imagine” should be listed (the song is on the disc, however) that I bought from a woman going through a bad divorce. She only wanted US$15 for it. Even though I was very much interested I IMPLORED her to ask for more because I knew she could get it.  However, she insisted because, to her, it represented her former husband.  (Years earlier, I had regretfully sold my copy due to being laid off and needed to pay my bills. I was desperate to get a copy back in my possession after my work life returned to normal).”

Ned sent me a photo of this unusual John Lennon collectors item. Check out the space in the listing on Disc 2:

Its a strange little mistake or variation….who knows why “Imagine” was left off that particular print run? And Ned having a still-sealed copy makes it pretty collectable too. (By the way, it was Ned who sent the additional photos of the Japanese Beatles “Love” rarity from a previous post).

To compare, here’s my copy of the Lennon set:

“Imagine” is definitely still there. This 4 CD “Lennon” box set was released by Parlophone/EMI in 1990. It was compiled by Mark Lewisohn, one of the band’s insiders and a long-time writer and commentator on official Beatles releases and their history. Wikipedia has a song list for each CD. As you can see, most songs were previously released, but there are a couple of hard-to-find tracks, like the three live from Madison Square Garden with Elton John (“Whatever Gets You Through the Night”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds”) recorded 24 November, 1974.  I believe these three songs had only ever been previously released on a vinyl single in 1975.

The box set comes with a nice (if plain) 70-page booklet:

Booklet - Front

The booklet has the words to each song, a song index, small images from the album each track comes from, plus some nice photos – both black and white, and some in colour:

Booklet - inside

Each of the jewel cases has an individual image of Lennon. Here’s the one used for Disc 1:

The printing on each CD follows a similar theme, but each jewel case spine, rear artwork and the actual CD disc is a slightly different colour. For example here are discs 1 and 2:

The 4 CD set came out in 1990 and followed the 1989 single CD release “The John Lennon Collection”. In Australia at least EMI released this 4-track EP CD in a gate-fold Digipak to promote both:

As you can see, they used the rear of the cover to promote both the single disc “John Lennon Collection”, and the 4 CD box set:

So, thanks to Ned for another unusual and collectable Beatles-related item.

There is a new set of John Lennon box sets and anniversary releases on the way. Called the Gimme Some Truth  project, these remasters will mark what would have been Lennon’s 70th birthday and will be released in October, 2010.