Watching Old Beatles movie....

[CCADP]

Hey; I'm 35; so I was 10 in 1980 ten years after the beatles broke up when I got really into them; had all kinds of Lennon / Beatles posters all over my room etc...

Much More Music on TV here in Canada one of the music channels is playing Hard Days Night which came out in 1964 and was re-released in the theatres in 1982 when I was 12...

Gemini on this list (my best friend) will remember that we and another good friend of ours who you won't see here because she hasn't yet come over to our side on this issue - (hey Tonya; she is one of the pro death penalty evangelicals you referred to!!!!..used to go to see it in 82 on rerelease every weekend til we had seen it 12 times in the theatre and could LITERALLY recite the whole movie....

anyway its funny what u remember - before each single line spoken - I still hear it in my head - STILL remember the whole movie!!!

Funny - there's been a lot in my head since 1982....

Hey; while we're on the topic if any one has any old Beatles stuff taking up space; now u know a happy recipient....

Lyrics from a little known 1972 John Lennon song :

"free all prisoners jail the judges
free all prisoners everywhere
all they want is truth and justice
all they need is love and care"

a little further than I'd go; John ! But at least he was on the right track....

Note; for those who didn't know John wrote a song called Attica State after the prison uprising that caused several prisoners to be shot by guards :

The whole lyrics follow :

"What a waste of human power
What a waste of human lives
Shoot the prisoners in the towers
Forty-three poor widowed wives
Attica State, Attica State, we're all mates with Attica State
Media blames it on the prisoners
But the prisoners did not kill
"Rockefeller pulled the trigger"
That is what the people feel
Attica State, Attica State, we're all mates with Attica State
Free the prisoners, jail the judges
Free all prisoners everywhere
All they want is truth and justice
All they need is love and care
Attica State, Attica State, we're all mates with Attica State
They all live in suffocation
Let's not watch them die in sorrow
Now's the time for revolution
Give them all a chance to grow
Attica State, Attica State, we're all mates with Attica State
Come together join the movement
Take a stand for human rights
Fear and hatred clouds our judgement
Free us all from endless night
Attica State, Attica State, we're all mates with Attica State"

Also in the 70s he and Yoko campaigned for James Hanratty in the UK whom they believed to have been wrongfully convicted of murder.

Its ironic that after John was murdered in 1980; his killer Mark David Chapman was sent to Attica State....

Knowing what John was all about; I don't think that would have changed his opinion!

Now that I think of it - thats a FANTASTIC quote for this whole movement! -

"Come together join the movement
Take a stand for human rights
Fear and hatred clouds our judgement
Free us all from endless night" - John Lennon

thats so good I am going to make a thread on this.

[CCADP]

Roger Bunn; who is also on this list; emailed this to me today for posting.....(he tried to post it but it was over 10,000 characters so it wouldn't work so i am posting it for him now....read "FAMOUS PEOPLE" thread under introduce yourself for Roger's Bio and how he knew John Lennon; David Bowie ; etc....'

Here he tells us some of his personal; funny; and OUTRAGEOUS stories about these guys and the times :

FROM OUR MESSAGE BOARD MEMBER ROGER BUNN :

Not sure if you want all this personal stuff, but if not, too late. It's here, and already written - so please just tell me if you don't want any more, or if its too off subject or too anti establishment and I won't send any more. But herein, one is getting a little more than only JL, almost an
education on the 60s in swinging London.
....
Update - I hung out with Julian and his mom o\/er the last few years on the beautiful island of Mallora, but a personable young man with all that
inherited ..... I'd lo\/e to see him take on the "political profile" of his dad, that which his mom says - Did not exist in reality, but Jules does not ha\/e to do anything,he's well taken are of already, so to speak.. But back in the 60s..


Intro

Life is a circus"? At least the international music

industry seems to be, to me.

"Life is a circus".

Composed 1966 by Roger Bunn, sung and recorded by

David Bowie, circa 1968ish.

A week ago, on the 17th of September 2003, for the first

ever time, down the phone, I heard David Bowie singing my song

"Life is a circus". David's enthused biographer had been in touch

saying." You were there, you met David, it's your song." and

requesting the background to how David Bowie came to learn

and record my song. .

There was I, contemplating the purchase of a mansion in the

country, a Rolls Royce, even to joining David in tax exile

maybe? But then the news broke, "But Life is a Circus is

already released, as a bootleg."

Cancel that search for a larger residence that suits my

industrial ego, forget the Rolls, the tax exile in Switzerland,

remember the burgeoning debts of a life spent under the unpoliced

obligarchy of the music industry publishing and recording cartel.

It's already out there, so many give away copies of this major tape

floating around during the early stages of David's career, people have

had it for free for the last 10 long Bowie filled years? So forget any

thoughts that David Bowie would ever release this most worthy of songs

on some kind ofanthology album?

Well, fingers crossed, maybe not.

Setting the scene the previous year to Bowie in "The Grove"

[CCADP]

This was the autumn of 1967, and "The Grove", the Portobello area of west
London.

While I had hitched to Afghanistan and back. Via the owners, (Greg or Craig)
of the 1st macrobiotic restaurant in the UK, where the wild haired artist
and folk singer from East Aurora, Diana Smith and I had first met. It seems
that a politically inclined John Lennon had paid £27,000 for a batch of
Sandos acid to "turn on" the tea urns of the House of Commons. And bad news
greeted me back in Ladbrooke Grove, in that outside our tiny flat in
Cambridge Gardens, one of the brothers, having picked up the acid, then
dropped by to take tea with my absent lady. But finding no one at home and
on his way out to his little Morris van wherein the Lennon acid had been
carelessly stashed. More by chance than design, the local fuzz had arrested
him. And had created a scenario wherein the possibility that this secret had
come out, and wherein the "powers that be" could never have contained a
scandal of such Beatle-like proportion.

Think of the implications, the most self-important tea urns in the world
attacked by a bunch of Beatle inspired acid freaks? Thus, it is ironic that
although the legend remains that John Lennon was overtly "political". To
those who really knew John, also knew that he "only spoke his mind". And
thus, in my mind, this incident remains a mystery and a primary reason why
the FBI and the covert agencies might have kept so close to John until he
was assassinated. Because, £27,000 of the best Sandos lysergic acid bound
for the Palace of Westminster water system was accidentally apprehended in
my west London front garden.

I eventually delivered my body into the London Hospital for Tropical
Diseases. I didn't stay long. In fact, I got out there as fast as I could
before Christmas 1967 and before a pregnant Diana had given away all of the
hash, and just enabling us to make enough money to put a down payment on a
bigger and less conspicuous place to live. We moved into the top floor at
72, Oxford Gardens, where due to her kind nature, Diana Smith is now a
homeopathic doctor living up in the mountains of North Carolina. She had
befriended an ageing infirm lady, living all on her own in this enormous
town house.

Through producer Denny Cordell, I got to know a producer called Tony
Visconti, whose arm I nearly broke trying to obtain his special interest in
some music that was not as commercial as Marc Bolan who he was bringing into
the limelight of a cult success. Joe Cocker and the Grease Band were
recording for the same label under Denny Cordell so that label had some
serious credibility. But Tony wasn't into soul, nor did I have the quality
of musicianship around me to handle that quality of work. No Chris Stainton
to impress even Leon Russell with his keyboard technique, nor had I a Neil
Hubbard, nor an Alan Spenner with the simple lines of a bass that knows
exactly what is best for the occasion.

[CCADP]

I learned a lot from Britain's top vocal group arranger Don Riddell, of the
"Polka Dots", and Diana Smith and I had formed a close harmony vocal group
with two Americans. Gail ? who had worked with Country Joe and the Fish, and
Mike ? And we had developed intricate material based upon poet John Mackie,
and my own lyrics. The main work being "Supergirl Kali" that was far ahead
of what was being accepted by the market, the ballard "Jason's Ennui", and
my own "Life is a Circus" written, along with "3 White Horses" some 2 years
earlier in Bristol and probably the most easy to listen to track that Djinn
would record over at Tony Visconti's place.

By this time, the top floor of 72 was too full of residents, including our
year old son Gabriel, and I was on edge. Things were not going well, and I
felt that Visconti had no imagination for this work. I would come back at
dawn from a gig with some pick-up unit, to be met at the gate by some lower
floor resident popping a free tab of acid in my gratefully open mouth for
breakfast, And while our search for the commercial would soon break the band
well and truly up, into this somewhat surrealistically pillowed situation
walked a hitherto unknown, and innocent David Bowie.

When "LIfe is a Circus" was written, the release of "Blonde on Blonde" had
seen me as a resident double bassist in Clifton, Bristol. And so I went away
from "the Grove" for a while in the hope that, through Tony's influence,
David Bowie would come into Djinn and take over my role as lead voice. But
instead, after my few days of "retirement to the country", and after a
single hot summer afternoon Djinn audition on the top floor at 72 Oxford
Gardens, David would not be asked to return. And sadly, I would miss him
singing my songs.

Diana Smith describes the afternoon she talked / sung with "Buddhist" David
Bowie --- insert interview ------ Diana --

I returned to find this confusing state of affairs and took poet John Mackie
with me when I decided to - as he had been messed around by 2 members of the
band - apologise to David. John and I drove to his place, and found him
living in a tiny room with a ballerina draped around his neck. It took me 20
years to remember that I'd jammed with Jimi Hendrix, but I remember that
during that evening, David, John and I never talked about music nor about
who was in the charts. Instead we talked about Lindsey Kemp and Kurt Weil '
Lotte Lenya, to whom David would later relate in far greater artistic
detail, and with far greater success, than anyone else in the music
industry.

Dmi | Cmaj | Dmi | Cmaj | B flat maj | Amaj | B flat maj | Amaj A7 | Dmi |
Dmi || repeat

[CCADP]

Life is a Circus, It's not a fair

Life is a hard road,when you're not there, at the fair.

Friends come to see me, to see the show.

When will they realise, the circus must go, to the fair.

Poppa talks to me, don't try your arm.

Get's deep inside you, does you real harm, crowds don't care.

A typical chord sequence? The musicologists among us might spot something
between bars 5 and 9 that could also relate to a longer-term David Bowie?

It was a few days later, when returned from the preview of Tommy Weaber's
"Jimi Hendrix Live" movie, and having sat down with the Mike to roll an
urgently needed spliff. Through the gate, up the path, and the three flights
of dark stairs to the top floor, walked the fuzz. Oh hell. An erstwhile drug
squad had been watching the whole street and was in the process of raiding
blues man Grahm Bond at 52, two "Beats" with their Irish wolfhounds at 62,
and Djinn at 72. How Grahm got away with it I have no idea, but apart from
Mike and I, their dragnet was empty.

As they threw us in the back of the wagon, Diana Smith brought me out a
cake, which I was not allowed to accept. And for the first time, I was taken
to Ladbrooke Grove police station, where I suggested to the Old Bill that I
would plead guilty if they let the other guy go. As an American tourist,
during the 60s, this minuscule bust would get him thrown out of the UK. And,
seeking an easy life, and rejecting the offer from some snake to "find" a
lump of something nasty in my pocket. They agreed to my offer and let Mike
(and the theoretical future of Djinn) flee like a ferret down a pant leg.
The police made sure the form was signed, sealed and dated, and as I had
neglected to mention it, asked me, when was my birthday? "Today" I told
them, and they first froze and then freaked. A week later after three Oxford
Gardens houses had been raided and with only one guy busted on his birthday
with a fingernail size piece of hash? The police were both embarrassed and
angry, but they knew as I knew, that once the form had been signed, it's too
fking late chaps. The judge hit the roof. And after the judge spent a good
ten long minutes flaying these doyen of uniformed legality, the fine imposed
with an apology from the bench and was an absolute privilege, even back in
the 60s, so to pay.

I must have thought, "How lucky DB wasn't connected to this band." The band
members were at each other's throats, Diana, who had mentioned that David
was "Into Buddhism", was becoming involved in all sorts of inner band
politics and I could feel our family relationship crumbling around me. Gail
and Mike, who had felt David to be some sort of Visconti competition, were
soon enthused about bringing a friend in on lead vocal. But chemical
paranoia or not, I'd had enough, when Mike and his new friend started to
talk rough and throw a few punches in my general direction, Djinn spilt
forever.

[CCADP]

I first met Mishi through Diana's friend Caleb Ashburton-Dunning, the
Beatles astrologer, and manager of the Apple shop. Wherein, after Djinn had
split, and while James Taylor recorded his demos in the basement, I was on
the top floor recording "Life is a Circus". Caleb had since left Apple in
disgrace, reason being he told John Lennon to drop Yoko and return to
Cynthia. Unfortunately, for Caleb Ashburton-Dunning, he was also in the
process of going acid-ape.

Eventually I sold the name (Djinn) and enter Ned Balen, a London based, drug
free, tabla player whom I had met in Kabul, and with him the Soft Machine's
Lyn Dobson. The Soft's horn man on excellent sitar was part of "Enjin 1" - A
three-piece indo-jazz formation that would be the first-ever live
performance at the Camden Roundhouse as a music venue. "Life is a Circus"
was included - The recording of which with same line up - acoustic - sitar -
tabla - voice - Ned and Lyn, will be on the re-release of PoM.

Diana and I moved to north London, where a telegram arrived asking me to go
back to Holland and record "Piece of Mind". Diana headed back to the US to
introduce Gabriel to his maternal grandparents, and Pym Boogerman's
beautiful house in Bergen was where I spent the next few months putting down
the basic tracks of a solo album.

Producer Frans Peters, would then get NV Phonogram to add arranger, the
excellent Ruud Bos, and the Dutch national orchestra, the Metropole, on top
of that which had been developed from out of the Beatles Apple Shop studio
in Baker Street, and at 72 Oxford Gardens, with Mackie and Djinn.

"Piece of Mind" had the very best rhythm section in the nation. Jan
Hollestelle bass, Dick Venick flute, Kees Kraneberg drums and Hans Jansen
who would later become the keyboardist for Holland's "Exception", on piano.
Working with Kees was wonderful, the way he looked at me when I asked him to
give up his sticks and play "Road to the Sun" on his kit, but only with his
hands? You should have seen his eyes pop. But it worked.

(Note - on this session we decided that Life is a Circus was just "another
ballard" - and I gave preference to Mackie scripted ballards rather than my
own - thus Circus was never on this album - The long life of Circus now
seems full of such "oversights".)

After a few weeks I had to move out of the big house and in with a girl who
was working the Crazy Horse in Paris. Diana had been held up at British
Immigration and although I was in Holland and waiting for her I had to
threaten them with legal action before they would allow her and my British
born son back into the country. Eventually they joined me and lived through
the violent coastal storms of Bergen-on-Zee and Egmont-on-Zee for the winter
but then patience, time and money ran out and I received a message that my
grandfather had died. So we packed our bags and said our goodbyes to Holland
and all the delays in production, and Diana Smith and I went up to Scotland.

[CCADP]

The Sam-y-ling Mahayana Buddhist monastry, situated in the impressive
Eskdalemuir Valley close to Lockerby over which Pan Am 103 would later
explode, was where Trumpa Rimpoche (Trumpa Abbot) had settled after Fran
from the Beatles had met with HH the Dalai Lama. Trumpa spoke English, so he
had been chosen to found the first Mahayana monastery in Britain. Sam-Y-Ling
was and is a great place for students of life and Mahayana meditation. Then
it was in its earliest development wherein a slow moving Trumpa would
experiment with acid, and Diana would be surprised when many years later in
New York, the first thing Trumpa would ask her was how I was keeping. There
is now a huge Tibetan temple at Sam-y-ling. And if Diana Smith is to be
believed, David Bowie may have visited Sam-Y-Ling himself, Tommy Weaber's
ex, actress Charlotte Rampling once ran into him there?

A few months after our trip up north, Diana, Gabriel and I split up. And
because the release of the album had been delayed by a strike of musicians
in Holland I also had to accept any work offered to me. Don Ridell / Chris
McGregor - who lead the exiled S African jazz group with whom I'd played
double bass - drummer Laurie Allen asked me if I was still interested in
playing electric bass for poet Pete Brown, lyricist for both Jack Bruce's
solo career and the Cream. Pete had recently broken up with tenor sax /
actor George Kahn, guitarist Chris Spedding, bassist Butch Potter, drummer
Rob Tait, the "Battered Ornaments" and was forming PIBLOKTO. A new band,
progessive rock, a new genre, a new life?

I had known Pete from during his beat poet days. "The Politician"? "White
Room"? "I Feel Free"? Pete Brown wrote just about every lyric Cream
recorded. But he wrote other material, some of which was of little use to
neither Jack, Ginger nor Eric. And taking over a few arrangements from John
McLoaghlan, this was to be the basis of my work with PIBLOKTO. While waiting
for my own release, suddenly I had a worthwhile gig? And late one afternoon
I knew something had to be done about me, my head, but what? I just had to
accept that life was not going to be the same and that maybe the guilt I was
feeling would wear off some day. Two months later, not only did I really
miss having Gabriel around the place but also he was sick. The two of them
had moved into a dark basement flat where Diana was beginning to bring
together a new life without having to return to the USA and for which I was,
for a while, "eternally" grateful. And I will always rememberJack's
neighborly kindness in making sure that he had enough cough medicine. Under
such circumstances, "Life is a Circus" hit a rock, only occasionally
re-surfacing if I would be stuck for a ballard on a long solo performance.
At least, until the 17th September 2003, that is what I thought.

Until the UK signed up to the Common Market Agreement in 1972, as no Dutch,
German, French products were allowed on the American shelves. We Brits had a
few last months in which to trade exclusively with the USA. And as I watched
it all unfold from Holland, amateur musician and Conservative Prime
Minister, now Lord Edward Heath would sell all the English speaking featured
artists and the UK recording industry's decision making processes to the
Dutch, the Germans and the French.

"Neat" said Madonna, some years down the line.


END OF ROGER BUNNS STORY

and then he added this :

interesting - Maybe someone should rerecord it. - bring it uptodate - you
got musicians to do it?

I dont know the song at all.. Pop music doth not interest me that I look for
it - but seems a great lyric for the prison - end death sentence -
campaigners, tho I would not deem to let e\/eryone out of prison, there are
so many dodgy types around... Some of them not called Bush - ;-)

Chapman went to Attica? Yes Ironic
---- Roger Bunn

[moghirl]

A friend of mine lives in Allerton in Liverpool, a few minutes walk from the houses that Paul and John were raised in. I see the Magical Mystery Tour bus a lot, saw it the other day again Did you do that tour when you were here in 91? Anyway, my friend and i work 4 hours a week voluntary in one of Oxfams shops in Aigbuth Road, near where Ringo and George lived. If and when i find any old Beatles stuff, books or LP's i'll get them and send them on to you, OK. My sister and i met Linda, Paul and family when we were on holiday on the Mull of Kintyre and walked up 'the long and winding road ' to their cottage ...........

[CCADP]

WOW!!!!
REALLY ? COOL!

Thanks sooo much Mo!!! I'd be soo excited. I did take the tour when in Liverpool and have a pic of me in front of Strawberry Fields.... and I saw John's and Paul's house
I would also love love love an XL (I like them to be long) tshirt of Liverpool cause when I was there I never got one - was running out of mney and room in my backpack there at the end...I will buy it if u see one and pick it up for me!

but not if its any trouble - but if u happen to see one; I'll reimburse fr the cost and sending it
Can u see the Beatles Fan in me showing?
Oh; and the John Lennon quote in my tagline...
;D ;D ;D

[CCADP]

What year did u meet Paul and Linda?

[moghirl]

Yes, i can get you a T- shirt, what sort of logo would you like ? Do you want a brand new one or one for free from the shop i volunteer in, it's no problem either way. It was 1974, I was 16, my sister Rose was 14, we were with 4 other friends up in Campbeltown. Must try and dig out a photo, their cottage was painted bright red, yellow, green ... They were so friendly, considering we were on their property. Linda sat and chatted with us girls for about half an hour, oh memories

[CCADP]

Wow! Nice to hear she was kind and down to earth
I like her; she was quite the activist in her own right!
Old or new shirt; hey; I don't care I like Oxfam and stuff like that; u can find some great things there. Actually I wonder if I was at your store? In Liverpool I bought a blue mini dress and a Paddington mirror at an Oxfam shop but I don't remember where it was in the city.

Logo; oh; I don't mind! I just like something to remember Liverpool

thanks !

[moghirl]

Yes, Linda Mc was a great activist i'm really proud to have met her, will look out for a T-shirt for you, consider it done