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"When
molecules rise, they converge" Yoko Ono about the album
in the liner notes: "The making of the album served as a purging of my anger,
pain and fear. I hope it will for you, too."
"Family
affair"
No matter how loud the crowd screams, Yoko Ono
can scream louder. It's a Wednesday night at a sweltering sliver of a club called
the Knitting Factory, in New York. Onstage, Ono, 62, is part per- formance artist,
part rock-and-roller. To her right stands Sean Ono Lennon, 20, her guitarist,
keyboardist and son, his hair waterfalling down his back. Lennon leads a hard-charging
trio called IMA, at one point trading otherworldly warbles with his mother. The
crowd cheers, shouting song titles from the days when Ono performed with a Lennon
named John. The show's a success, though before this tour began, Sean had no idea
how he and his mother would go over. "I thought people might walk out,"
he says. "We're not trying to conform to any pop standard. We're just doing
the Yoko thing. It's totally, full-on Yoko." For 30
years, Ono's music has been an acquired taste that's famously difficult to acquire.
The album she's recorded with IMA, "Rising," is replete with screeches,
growls and heavy breathing. You hate it already, right? Not so fast. Thanks to
the guys in the band--on tourTimo Ellis plays bass and Russell Simins plays drums--it's
also a surprisingly dextrous rock album, alternately fierce and moving. For Ono,
"Rising" is something of a comeback. It's the first album she's made
in 11 years--years largely spent running the Lennon estate. (Where was John's
"Sgt. Pepper" outfit before you loaned it to the Hall of Fame? "It
was here." In a closet? "Yes." You weren't worried about moths?
"It was well taken care of.") For her son, "Rising" is a step
into the public eye: "I've always been kind of scared of playing music. It's
impossible for anyone to listen to me objectively--it's impossible for me, sometimes.
I watched [half-brother Julian] go through hell, and it instilled a lot of fear
in me." For both mother and son, "Rising" is also a labor of love.
It's the ballad of Sean and Yoko. (--) The "Rising"
tour--which winds up with shows in L.A., San Francisco and Seattle this week--may
also be Ono's gentle way of nudging Lennon into the world. She has had a few misgivings.
"When people say to Sean, 'How could you do this with your mother?,' I feel
a little pang. Does he feel embarrassed? Is this intimidating for him?I didn't
want to mess up his debut." She certainly hasn't. "I feel like I won
an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii," Lennon says, beaming. "You know
what I mean? 'Go on tour with Yoko Ono! Play sold-out shows to loving audiences!'
I'm so proud to be playing this music. Russell and I were joking: 'We're bringing
Yoko to the people!' And it's true. I'm just so psyched to bring Yoko to the people."
"The making
of the album served as a purging of my angst, pain and fear," writes Yoko
Ono in a sleeve note to her first new album in a decade. "I hope it will
for you, too." The angst, pain and fear she cites come both from her childhood
in war-torn Japan and such current-day scourges as AIDS. Ono returns to primal
screaming on some tracks to express those feelings, and the album's music, played
by IMA, a trio featuring her son Sean Ono Lennon, matches her fury with hard rock
and funk worthy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In the '80s, Ono turned to pop-rock
without achieving a commercial breakthrough. Here, she returns to the abrasive
style of her '70s work, which has turned out to be more influential on a generation
of alternative rockers."
Is
it any wonder that Yoko Ono is "a bit scared" about touring again? The
woman has been thoroughly pummeled by the media, ever since she became John Lennon's
girlfriend and compatriot in the Plastic Ono Band. Surely there should be some
statute of limitations on Ono-bashing. "I wasn't sure if I could do this
tour," said Ono from her New York home, prior to resuming her first tour
in a decade. She's performing with the backup band IMA, featuring son Sean, now
a student at Columbia University. "I was a bit scared to come out, because
I remember how it was with the `Starpeace' tour 10 years ago," said Ono.
"I remember a full-house show in Berlin and the next morning in the paper
was a photo of me standing on stage and there was nobody in the audience. It said,
`Yoko looking for the audience.' And I'm thinking, `Why did they take that photo?'
At it turns out, it was a sound-check photo. That's really something, isn't it?
So I thought, `Are they going to do that to me again?"' Luckily, Ono has
received better treatment this time. "Every show so far, we've gotten a good
reception," she said. "So far, so good."
Ono
credits Sean for getting her back on the road. They released a well-reviewed disc
last fall, "Rising," which had some tender, spoken-word ballads about
staying positive in a mad world, but also some punky tracks with wailing, out-there
vocal improvisations harking back to the Plastic Ono Band. The disc showed why
Ono has been dubbed a punk icon. It deserved the support of a tour, especially
since it didn't get much airplay from radio stations that, typically, didn't know
what to do with her music. "Sean and the band really wanted me to go out
on tour," said Ono, now 63. "They said `Let's go,' and I said, `Well,
OK,' but it turned out to be very OK. And of course I'm a macho mother. I didn't
want to say, `No, Mommy is scared.' I didn't want to back out." Hence, Ono
is on her first-ever club tour. "It's been great. When you're in a small
space, you communicate better. I remember once seeing Chekhov's `Cherry Orchard'
in a small New York theater. When the play was going on, it felt like I was in
the same room. It was an incredibly powerful feeling. And that's how I feel when
I'm doing this show." To be honest, Ono never planned
to be on tour. "These are just happenings," she said with a chuckle.
"It's not like I said in 1995 that I was going to have a record out, and
then in 1996 that I was going to tour. It didn't come out that way. It happened
in a very coincidental way, which is nice, because I think coincidences are better
than planning."
Ono's show includes a couple of older songs, but is mostly
drawn from the "Rising" album. The latter was originally inspired by
the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, where Ono had lived as a young
child. There's a song, "I'm Dying," with the tormented cry of "no,
no, no ... help me," which has also become a centerpiece of the shows. "It
was impulse stuff," Ono said of the song. "I told the musicians what
riffs to play ... Then I would just come up with the first words or sentences
that came to mind, without censoring it. .... And I found myself saying `I'm dying'
in my mind. I thought, `I don't want to say this because of all the logical reasons
for why you don't want to say it.' But I kind of dared to say it and that's how
it happened. "Still, I thought, `I'm not going to put
out this track because I don't want the whole world to think that I'm dying.'
But as if he read my mind, Sean came to me and said, `You have to put this one
on the record, Mommy, because we're all dying every day.' That's the kind of role
that Sean plays. Sean is not just a musician, not just a bandleader. He is somebody
who gives me encouragement on an uncanny level. We didn't have to discuss it very
much. He knew what I was thinking."
The most powerful song on the album,
though, may be the title track "Rising." Ono's vocal whoops and cries
are reminiscent of what you might hear at a rebirthing session. The song is about
learning to rise above anger. "Listen to your heart ... There is no limitation.
Have courage, have rage, we're all together," she talk-sings in vintage Ono
form. The song was meant as advice to the guitar-playing
Sean, who was late to the studio when it was made. "I'm very strict about
musicians coming on time," said Ono. "I try to tell Sean how precious
studio time is. But that day he came a bit late. He looked like he had a rough
night, you know ... In the song I was just kind of speaking to him in a way to
shake him up."
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Yoko
Ono & IMA. Capitol Records promotional image |
