New York City (John Lennon, Yoko Ono) (LP 1049 - 1050)

John & Yoko/ Plastic Ono Band with Elephant's Memory  Sometime In New York City (Vinyl and CD, Apple Records, 1974) ****  

John Lennon with Frank Zappa  The Fillmore Tapes (CD, Master of Orange, Bootleg) ****  

Genre: Pop, rock, Apple Records

Places I remember: DJ Records (for the vinyl); Real Groovy Records (CD) for the 2010 double CD version.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: New York City

Gear costume: Well (baby please don't go)

Active compensatory factors: After Imagine I was really keen for more Lennon and so the vinyl version was bought on release in 1972. Dad brought it home for me from Otahuhu's DJ Records.

I had Zappa's Fillmore East live album from 1971 so I was familiar with him and the art work which SINYC takes as a source material for the second (live) album in this package.

I genuinely loved this record in 1972. I pored over the artwork and I loved many of the songs on the studio set: John Sinclair; The Luck Of The Irish; We're All Water; Woman is the Nigger Of The World; and New York City were often on my teenage turntable.

Then there's the live stuff - a relentlessly intense Cold Turkey is amazing and I loved the Zappa side. John and Yoko just slot right into the Zappa universe.

The second of these albums, The Fillmore Tapes, is for collectors only I suspect. It's a bootleg and features three different versions of the Fillmore tapes. First up is a non edited version direct from the mixing board (it sounds terrible), then Zappa's mix and finally Lennon's original mix (from SINYC).

The Zappa mix is also available on his album Playground Psychotics. I like his version as it pushes the music more to the fore (it would though wouldn't it), but overall the Lennon mix is better.

BTW The Wikipedia entry for this collaboration effort between Lennon and Ono is fantastic.

Where do they all belong? On to some Mind Games next in the Lennon countdown.