ARF: Notes and Comments: FILLMORE EAST, JUNE 1971: Introduction I: Lennon/Yoko and Fillmore gig

FILLMORE EAST, JUNE 1971

Introduction I

Lennon/Yoko and Fillmore gig

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From: pvezina@vmark.com (Philippe Vezina) Yes, John and Yoko did appear with Frank and the Mothers at the same show that the Fillmore 71 album was recorded.They performed a song called 'Scumbag' which was basically all three of them screaming SCUMBAG at the top of their lungs.
The John and Yoko album "Sometime in New York City" which came out in 1972, is a 2 record set. The first album is studio cuts and the second album is live. If you can grab an original or fairly old copy like mine, you will see when you pull out the sleeve for album number 2, that it is the ZAPPA Fillmore 71 album cover. The sleeve is an exact replica of the Zappa album cover, except John Lennon scribbled all over it and wrote down other stuff instead of what Frank had wrote "obviously John wrote the correct songs from that album". Also if you open up the album jacket, you'll see a nice picture of Zappa (with guitar) and John and Yoko onstage at that Fillmore show.
From: jjr@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (jeffrey.j.rocca) Yes, John and Yoko jammed with the Mothers at the Fillmore East. But it is not captured on the _Fillmore East, June 1971_ album. Two different mixes of the jam can be heard, one on John and Yoko's _Sometime in New York City_, the other on Zappa'a _Playground Psychotics_.
And here is FZ own account of event
From: cpeq1@lucky.innet.com (Same as cpeq) This is the second of 2 Frank Zappa interviews which were transcribed from an imported CD called "The Frank Zappa Interview Picture Disk". According to my closest estimation based on the interview's context, it must have been conducted sometime in early to mid 1984.
Q: I would like to ask you 2 questions: one is... on "Sometime In New York City", the John Lennon and Yoko Ono?
Z: What about it?
Q: What was it? How did it come about and all that?
Z: The day before the show, a journalist in New York City woke me up - knocked on the door and is standing there with a tape recorder and goes: "Frank, I'd like to introduce you to John Lennon," you know, waiting for me to gasp and fall on the floor and I said "Well, ok. Come on in." And we sat around and talked, and I think the first thing he said to me was "You're not as ugly as I thought you would be." So anyway, I thought he had a pretty good sense of humor so I invited him to come down and jam with us at the Fillmore East. We had already booked in a recording truck because we were making the "Live at the Fillmore" album at the time. After they had sat in with us, an arrangement was made that we would both have access to the tapes. He wanted to release it with his mix and I had the right to release it with my mix - so that's how that one section came about. The bad part is, there's a song that I wrote called "King Kong" which we played that night, and I don't know whether it was Yoko's idea or John's idea but they changed the name of the song to "Jam Rag", gave themselves writing and publishing credit on it, stuck it on an album and never paid me. It was obviously not a jam session song - its got a melody, its got a bass line, it's obviously an organized song - little bit disappointing. I've never released my version of the mixes of that night.
Q: Do you ever intend to?
Z: One day yeah - but it would be drastically different because there were things that were edited out of their version and certain words that were being sung that were removed because of the editorial slant that they wanted to apply to the material and I have a slightly different viewpoint on it.

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